internet

Facebook has a lot going for it lately.

There has been a 508 percent increase in the number of new malicious Web links discovered in the first half of 2009, according to IBM's X-Force 2009 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report. The report found an increase in the presence of malicious content on trusted sites, including search engines, blogs, bulletin boards, personal websites, online magazines and mainstream news sites.

  Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed consumer fraud lawsuits against three suppliers and an affiliate marketer of acai berry products charging the companies lure customers with free online trial offers via aggressive Internet marketing tactics and then charge their credit cards prematurely.

Advance Internet, which runs news and information websites in alliance with more than 30 newspapers has entered into an agreement with Microsoft that will allow its sales staff to sell ads on the Microsoft Media Network on the local level. Under the agreement Advance Internet's sales force will offer behavioral targeting and audience extension capabilities to its local advertisers on the Microsoft Media Network.

The European Union said Tuesday it will invest $25 million into research that will underpin the next generation of 4G mobile networks. The EU says the funding will go towards research on Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced technology, that will offer mobile Internet speeds up to a hundred times faster than current 3G networks. The funding will be released on January 1, 2010.

More than half (56%) of Europeans are now regular Internet users compared to one third in 2004, according to a new report from the European Commission. Half of households and more than 80 percent of businesses now have a broadband connection. The most active Internet users are those between the ages of 16 to 24 with 73 percent of them regularly using advanced services to create and share online content, twice the EU population average (35%).

The majority (92%) of advertisers are using Internet advertising in their media campaigns followed by print advertising at 88 percent, according to a new LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll.

More than half (56%) of Americans have accessed the Internet using wireless mobile devices such as smartphones and laptops, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The most popular way people go online via wireless is with a laptop as 39 percent of Internet users have done this.