European authorities are threatening to curb the way Facebook uses member information to target advertising.

Despite any hard data to back it up, The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal makes a convincing case that the holidays have become a time for millions of older Americans to update their personal computing technology. To clarify, it’s not moms, dads, grandmas, or grandpas who are updating anything, but their children and grandchildren, who, home for the holidays, are shocked to find their loved ones still using, say, Internet Explorer 6! Madrigal also has some good advice all you well-intentioned holiday visitors. Say, if dad doesn’t want anyone fooling with his machine, just tell him he won’t be able to watch …

Showing that no market is immune to the West’s dept issues, Alibaba.com just posted its slowest growth in nearly two years. As Reuters reports, China's largest e-commerce firm -- which links Chinese businesses looking to sell their goods to overseas buyers -- recorded an uninspired 11.9% rise in net profit for the third quarter, “with the company raising concerns due to a weak trade outlook stemming from debt woes in Europe and the United States.” Analysts attributed the quarterly results, which missed analyst forecasts, to a weak macroeconomic climate that led to a slower pace of customer additions. Also, Alibaba …

Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue for the third quarter ended September 30 -- up 28% from the same period last year. Yet despite the strong performance -- as AllThingsD first reported in September -- the travel search engine has at least temporarily put IPO. Net income for the third quarter was $12.7 million -- up 44% from the same quarter in 2010, in which net income was $8.7 million, TechCrunch reports. Also of note, in the nine months ended September 30, 2011, Kayak processed 679 million user queries for travel information, which is up 45% over the nine months …

Despite middling reviews, analysts believe that Amazon’s Kindle Fire will quickly take marketshare from iPad-maker Apple. Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, for one, estimates that Amazon will sell 12 million Fires in 2012, thus wresting a 15% share of the tablet market from Apple. That’s “enough to claim a decent chunk of the tablet market,” according to AllThingsD. What’s more, If Mahaney’s right, “the Fire will end up generating about $3.2 billion in revenue, or about 5 percent of Amazon’s total,” AllThingsD adds. “The path is clear,” says Mahaney. “With an aggressive pricing strategy, an unmatched content cross-sell opportunity, a market-smart …

This holiday season -- in the interest of greater consumer insights -- two U.S. malls plan on tracking shoppers' every move by monitoring their cell phone signals. “While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones,” reports CNNMoney.com. “The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks?” it explains. “How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?” As for privacy concerns, management for each mall -- one in …

A full 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are currently logged in to Facebook, according to new analysis of some 456 million visits to over a dozen ecommerce sites by social tech provider Sociable Labs. “Ecommerce sites should consider how they can personalize their sites using Facebook data,” suggests TechCrunch. “Using Facebook social plugins [sic] and Connect integrations, sites can leverage Facebook data to show visitors what friends bought or shared, what products relate to their Likes, and which friends they might want to invite.” On the news, a Facebook spokesperson noted that 88% of Internet Retailer Top 200 retail sites …

In a first-of-its-kind deal, Apple and Big Fish Games have entered into a partnership by which the game publisher will offer its titles by subscription over the iPad. Per the deal, Seattle-based Big Fish becomes the first game publisher ever to offer iPad owners access to dozens of titles for $6.99 a month. “Until now, games have only been available one at a time, requiring users to download individual applications,” Bloomberg writes. But, “When Apple introduced its subscription feature earlier this year, Paul Thelen, the founder of Big Fish, saw it as an opportunity to offer an ‘all-you-can-eat’ service.” As …

Make way for another recommendation engine, as a team of former Google engineers just launched Stamped. Specializing in “experiences” -- rather than products or mundane services -- the iPhone app is designed to turn social services like Facebook and Twitter into fun and useful sources of experience recommendations. “With luck, the makers hope, Stamped will eliminate the last minute group text messages and chain emails searching for the best places to eat, movies to watch, or the best art galleries,” writes VentureBeat. Already a step ahead of the game, the idea and its creators were strong enough to attract backing …

After a brutal 2011, couldn’t Netflix end the year on a nice note? Unfortunately not, as the DVD-by-mail-cum-streaming-media company now says it plans to loose money throughout 2012. “Yes, that's the latest news that Netflix tucked into the prospectus for the stock portion of its stock and convertible bond offerings,” according to Business Insider’s Henry Blodget. What stock offering? Well, despite its stock plummeting from $300 to about $75 in five months, the battered company needs to raise $400 million to fund its content strategy, according to Blodget. Regarding next year’s projected loss, Netflix writes: “We expect that consolidated quarterly …