Facebook on Tuesday issued an abrupt about-face when it quickly reverted to its prior Terms of Service amid widespread complaints from users, media outlets and privacy groups. The social networking leader introduced a number of changes to the language of the Terms on Feb. 4, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg--in a kind of apology--described on Tuesday as "overly formal and protective." The main issue with the new Terms was the section saying that Facebook owns your personal data indefinitely, even after you delete your own account. Another issue was Facebook claiming to own the licensing rights to content on sites that …

Just how sticky is Facebook? Consider: the average Google News reader spends 13 minutes per month searching for news; the average New York Times reader logs 10 minutes per month on its site; Facebook, meanwhile, retains users for an astounding 169 minutes per month, according to comScore. As the social networking giant's 24-year-old CEO explains, Facebook's "stickiness" factor was all part of his original plan to build an online version of the relationships we have in real life. Nowadays, Mark Zuckerberg's plan has changed somewhat. Facebook is now 175 million users strong, making it the sixth largest country in …

An economic crisis may be at hand, but today's tech giants are still sitting on a pile of cash, notes BoomTown's Kara Swisher. Cisco leads the pack with $29.5 billion, followed by Apple, $25.6 billion, Microsoft, $20.7 billion, Google, $15.9 billion, Intel, $11.8 billion, Oracle, $10.6 billion, HP, $10.2 billion, and Yahoo, $3.5 billion. That's quite a list, and collectively, quite a pile of cash. Swisher notes that each of these companies typically generates nice cash flow each quarter--even in a downturn--and that Google and Apple have absolutely no debt, while the others have little to speak of. Tech companies …

SoundExchange, a government-operated entity that collects royalties for musicians and recording companies, on Tuesday agreed to a 16% reduction in 2009 and 2010 for fees collected from radio stations that also play music online. The agreement between SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters is a huge win for the NAB's members, who worried that the hefty rates set by the federal Copyright Royalty Board two years ago would essentially force them to shut down. The NAB's members include radio giants CBS Corp. and Clear Channel Communications. Stations that are not NAB members--like the popular online music service Pandora--also have …

Barclay's analyst Doug Anmuth thinks Google is planning to scrap its $900 million search monetization deal with News Corp.'s MySpace. "Good riddance," says Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget. "Google has had a devil of a time making the deal work economically, and there's no need to throw good money after bad." In fact, Anmuth says that Google is now so dominant in search, that there's little incentive for the company to pay for any more distribution deals. Meanwhile, Microsoft "seems determined to buy share at any cost," having recently scooped up significant deals with Dell and Verizon. Therefore, says Blodget, …

Internet telephony company Skype has secured a landmark deal with mobile handset maker Nokia to preload Skype software onto some of its new smartphones, beginning in the third quarter of this year. Skype's technology allows consumers to make cheap long-distance calls over the Web to land lines or cell phones; calls to other Skype users are completely free. The eBay company has been slowly moving into the mobile phone arena with deals with operators like Hutchison Whampoa's 3. "We believe that mobile is incredibly important to our future," Skype Chief Executive Josh Silverman told Reuters at the Mobile World Congress, …

The most high-profile anti-piracy case in years is now underway in Sweden, with the four founding members of The Pirate Bay standing trial for aiding and abetting copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay, which has more than 22 million active users, is a massive file-sharing directory that does not physically host any materials, but acts as more of a search engine for millions of "torrents," or small files that act as pointers allowing people to download media files. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is leading the case against The Pirate Bay, arguing that the site promotes illegal file-sharing and …