Bosses snoop on networking sites

Social networking Web sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and blogs, are emerging as the most commonly used tools by recruiters to conduct background checks and gain a sense of a job-seeker's character, says Canada.com.

They achieved popularity among young people to keep in touch with friends and to share personal memories and information about themselves. For recruiters, the sites are being used for quite different purposes.

What started out as a simple practice of using search engines such as Google to find out about a potential candidate has now expanded to include a range of social networking sites. "It's a lot more common than I think the prospective employees realise," says Lynne Perry-Reid, a Calgary recruiter and co-founder of Corporate Connections.

Google may be ready to make a big splash in a government auction for valuable wireless airwaves, if certain conditions are met, reports Business Week.

The Internet search company said it will bid at least $4.6 billion if the Federal Communications Commission mandates that any winners lease a certain portion of the airwaves to other companies seeking to offer high-speed Internet and other services.

Such a provision, Google argues, will give consumers, who traditionally get high-speed Internet access via cable or telephone lines, a third option for service.

Microsoft is calling on the global industry and civil liberty groups to develop a common set of privacy standards for data collection, use and protection in the proliferating field of online search and advertising, says The Guardian.

Responding to pressure from regulators and consumer demand, Microsoft also announced it will make search query data anonymous after 18 months by removing cookie IDs, the entire IP address and other identifiers from search terms.

Its new moves, which it claims will minimise the effect on privacy of the data it collects, include a commitment to store Live Search (its main search service) terms separately from account information such as the user's name, e-mail address or phone number.

A typo in an official Microsoft e-mail is being blamed for rumours of an imminent Windows Vista service pack, reports PC World.

Earlier this week, Microsoft 's Windows Driver Kit (WDK) team sent an e-mail to beta testers that said a new build of the WDK was being released to them to coincide "with the recent OS beta release for Vista SP1 Preview", hinting that SP1 beta is soon to be sent to testers. Others speculated that Microsoft might release the SP1 beta on Thursday, to coincide with its fiscal 2007 fourth quarter and year-end financial results.

However, the WDK team has since revealed that it meant to refer to Windows Server 2008, not Window Vista, in the original e-mail.