Facebook corporate development manager Michael Brown (pictured left in happier days) recently and abruptly left Facebook, and the company then hired a senior Google employee to replace him. It was a curious departure and the chatter around Silicon Valley was that there was a lot more to the story. And in fact there is. Via a scandal that could have far reaching consequences by bringing even more SEC scrutiny onto rampant secondary trading in non-public startups like Facebook and Twitter. Brown, multiple sources have confirmed, purchased Facebook stock on secondary markets (like those occurring weekly on SecondMarket) immediately before the announcement of the Goldman Sachs investment that valued the company at $50 billion earlier this year. Effectively, he engaged in insider trading, say sources, by purchasing stock that he knew would soon increase sharply in value based on insider information unknown to the seller. 
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/a6OwmZvAQ4o/
Android users have been able to post Latitude check-ins via the Google Maps app for some time. Now, Google has brought the same functionality to its 
GameSalad, 
We've all thought it, but never dared think it could be true: what if Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL actively monitor our instant messenger chats? What if mentions of 'bomb' and 'underage' are tracked and sent to law enforcement agencies? What if chat providers don't agree with the things we say, or the links we share, and filter or censor the content of our transmitted messages?
