The technology industry has been abuzz in the past week with drama, controversy and some long-awaited announcements. Here’s latest important tech news blurbs you should know about before you leave for winter break.

Facebook robs privacy yet again

Facebook added an extension to its system that allowed third-party shopping Web sites access to whether you are a Facebook member, and, if you are, it sends updates of your purchases to your Facebook feed. Arguably garnering as much ire as Facebook’s initial implementation of the news feed itself, users complained about the update, citing privacy concerns.

One Facebook member was quoted in The Washington Post as having his holiday plans ruined when his wife saw the jewelry that he purchased for her appear in his news feed – and read that he had bought it on sale at Overstock.com.

Facebook issued a pseudo apology allowing users more control over the feature, but it has not allowed users to completely opt out of the service. Users wishing to opt out must disable individual Web sites, and critics claim that the option is very difficult to find.

To stop the service, go to Facebook.com and click on ‘privacy,’ then click on ‘external Web sites’ and ‘edit settings.’ You can remove Web sites that have already sent information to your profile or feed, but there is no option to pre-emptively stop a Web site from sending information.

GameSpot fires editor, allegedly under pressure from advertisers

Popular gaming news Web site GameSpot fired editor Jeff Gerstmann after a particularly scathing review of the game ‘Kane & Lynch: Dead Men,’ whose publisher, Eidos, had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in advertising on GameSpot.com.

Web comic and industry news Web site Penny Arcade broke the story with a darkly humorous comic strip. While GameSpot won’t confirm that it fired Gerstmann solely because of advertiser pressure (why would they?), GameSpot’s John Larson said that Gerstmann was fired for the tone of his review, rather than the actual rating he gave the game.

Nonetheless, anonymous editors from GameSpot were cited in stories across numerous newsblogs and gaming Web sites verifying that Gerstmann’s firing is exactly as it appears to be – he was let go because advertisers threatened to pull money. Fellow gaming site Destructoid.com has temporarily redone its front with some not-so-subtle jabs at the alleged journalistic travesty at GameSpot. The site Destructoid.com now redirects to ‘Cashwh0re.com’ and has fake banner ads railing on Eidos, CNET (GameSpot’s parent company) and Larson (who is believed to have a hand in the firing).

Digg.com gets a picture section

Popular social news site Digg.com is finally receiving its long-anticipated pictures section and image compatibility upgrades. Kevin Rose, Digg founder, broke the news only hours before this story printed. By the time you read this, the features will have been implemented, but as of my writing this, they are not available. The Digg Blog (blog.digg.com) reports the following functionality:

-Sorting and duplicate image detection

-Image crawler: will present image thumbnails with a story – regardless of whether the story is in the pictures section or not

-Section updates – the ability to upload any type of media story to any section and cross search that as well (i.e., if you want only sports videos, you can only enable videos in the sports section, rather than navigating to the videos section and then searching sports)

-Section updates, part 2: New sections include lifestyle and offbeat news as its own division

Speculation put to rest: Google bids for wireless broadcast spectrum

Google officially put in a bid for a part of the wireless spectrum on which to broadcast in the past week. While Google is characteristically close-lipped on the subject, rumor has it that it will somehow work in conjunction with the Google Phone (though the ‘gPhone’ itself is only a rumor), and/or the Google mobile operating system (which Google is actually working on). Of course, the rumor mill is also churning out such far-flung ideas as Google using the spectrum to provide free, possibly ad-supported wireless internet across the nation.

AJ Chavar is 5 foot 6, but he used to be 5 foot 2. Email him at editor@dailyorange.com.

Published on December 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm