Facing the first true threats of censorship from the Western world, Facebook and Twitter appear ready for a fight. "The major social networks are expected to offer no concessions when they meet the home secretary, Theresa May, at a Home Office summit on Thursday," the Guardian reports. In the wake of riots and looting across England, government ministers have called for a ban on social networks during times of civil unrest. Prime Minister David Cameron has also asked that suspected rioters be banned from social networks. The home secretary is expected to explore what measures the major social …

Betting big on word-of-mouth marketing, Ticketmaster this week is launching enhanced Facebook connectivity. The company hopes to "reduce the estimated 40% of live event tickets that go unsold," Fast Company reports. Using an interactive seat map, fans can now choose their exact seats instead of relying on Ticketmaster to determine the "best available" options. "Now you can have an even more customized ticket search," Fast Company explains. "By connecting to Facebook while you browse for seats, you can see where your friends have purchased tickets. The friends who have tagged their seats, that is." Positioning itself as a …

Debuting a few months back, it's now safe to say that the latest version of Yahoo Mail was a hit. According to Yahoo, the service just surpassed 100 million monthly active users. What accounts for the success? Well, new features include integrated notifications and messages from Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and other email providers within a single interface, i.e., it got very open and very social. As TechCrunch notes, Yahoo also made the mail client speedier, more customizable with 50 themes, and improved its search function. Within the new Yahoo Mail, users can also use IM clients from Yahoo, Facebook, …

Microsoft's MSN this week announced a partnership with Chinese social-networking site Renren. The goal? "To cooperate in areas of instant messaging and social networking," according to Reuters. The strategy? "The two companies will cooperate on providing universal log-in access to both platforms and cross sharing of photos and status updates," Reuters writes. The specifics? The agreement will see a significant level of integration between the two platforms. Said Renren's chief operating officer Liu Jian in a statement: "Renren's alliance with MSN network is in the spirit of a win-win situation." Seeking success where others (i.e., Google) have found …

Do we really need another restaurant-discovery app for the iPhone? Forkly -- a new restaurant-discovery app the iPhone -- thinks so, and ReadWriteWeb agrees. Not only does Forkly recommend restaurants, it also suggests specific dishes based on a user's individual taste. "Built by former leaders of location-based social network Brightkite, Forkly has been talked about in the tech press for almost a year but it just launched quietly tonight," ReadWriteWeb explains. "It looks a lot like FoodSpotting, but with more and better social hooks: influencer scores, embeddable widgets for food bloggers and a prominent news feed of food …

Office managers should encourage employee Web browsing! That's right, according to a new study, surfing the Web actually refreshes tired workers and increases their productivity, compared to other distractions like personal calls, texts or emails. "Browsing the Internet serves an important restorative function," the authors of the study tell The Wall Street Journal. "Personal emailing, by contrast, was particularly distracting for workers. "The study, "Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement," by Don J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G Lim of the National University of Singapore, was presented last week at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management. …

Bandwidth hogs like Netflix need to pay their fair share of the costs associated with building and maintaining our telecommunications infrastructure. So argue John Sununu and Harold Ford Jr. -- former U.S. Senator and congressman, respectively -- in MercuryNews.com. "Broadband networks are delivering more than just the latest sitcom episodes and hottest movies," they contend. "It hardly seems fair to make users of these services pay more in order to subsidize Netflix's costs of delivering their videos online."This call for a fairer pricing model and a more realistic long-term investment strategy has bipartisan support." Netflix, as …

What can corporations expect from the White House's forthcoming approach to Internet consumer protection? "Privacy law without regulation," reports CNet, citing comments this week from administration aid. "Businesses that are engaged in responsible privacy practices today ought not to face any additional burdens," said Danny Weitzner, associate administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, on assignment to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. "You can have stronger privacy law, clearer rules, clearer principles established in law, without the costs and downsides of a traditional regulatory structure," Weitzner explained at a Technology Policy …

Miramax on Monday debuted what some are calling the largest-scale Facebook streaming movie venture to date. The Miramax eXperience, so-called, already features 20 titles for rent in the U.S. and 10 each in UK and Turkey, paidContent reports. Films rented through eXperience can be watched on iPads through a browser-based player, as well as on Google TV. Facebook users can rent the films for 30 Facebook credits, the equivalent of $3. Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal have already experimented with Facebook. Yet, "Unlike single-movie ... or single-franchise ... apps, for Miramax CEO Mike Lang, this is about Miramax as the …

After years of rancor over copyright issues, Google is ready to make nice with TV broadcasters. This Friday, chairman Eric Schmidt is expected to address an audience of industry executives in Edinburgh. The message: "Google needs you," reports the Guardian, citing sources. "Schmidt is expected to tell delegates that Google wants to help the industry realise [sic] a bright future," the Guardian writes. "That is a striking change from the company's uncompromising stance in the past, when it was fighting legal actions from broadcasters and film studios over alleged copyright infringement." Why? Simply put, Google knows it needs the support …