Social networks: world and power

With always/often talk of Facebook, but this is not the only one on the web. Others in non English languages are actually attracting more customers, in China obviously, but also Brazil, Russia, Netherlands etc...
"Ces réseaux sociaux qui résistent à Facebook Sonico.com au Brésil" (JDN, 2 June 2009)
I wonder if their business models are better than those of Facebook. Note though that the Russian internet business man just 'bought' Facebook ...

"Judge 'Friends' Lawyer During Case, Influenced By Defendant's Website" (TechDirt 2 June 2009) or how a judge disqualified himself by contacting one party's lawyer with the new technologies during the trial!!! One wonders about the judge's sense of duty.

On collection of data/communication of data to the public:

Self-explanatory
"If You Rob A Bank, Perhaps You Shouldn't Brag About It On MySpace" (TechDirt 2 June 2009)

Not criminal as such, but interesting about the degree of non privacy (to be expected really):
"Analyzing Labor Data Via Facebook Status" (TechDirt, 2 June 2009) or how the words hired/fired on posting were used to analyse the trend in financial crisis management....