Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Dieting
Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve a particular objective. In many cases the goal is weight loss, but some athletes aspire to gain weight (usually in the form of muscle) and diets can also be used to maintain a stable body weight.
There are several kinds of diets:
Weight-loss diets restrict the intake of specific foods, or food in general, to reduce body weight. What works to reduce body weight for one person will not necessarily work for another, due to metabolic differences and lifestyle factors. Also, for a variety of reasons, most people find it very difficult to maintain significant weight loss over time. There is some thought that losing weight quickly may actually make it more difficult to maintain the loss over time. It is also possible that cutting calorie intake too low slows or prevents weight loss. The National Institutes of Health notes that the commonly recommended program of reduced caloric intake along with increased physical activity has a failure rate of 98%.
Many professional athletes impose weight-gain diets on themselves. American football players may try to "bulk up" through weight-gain diets in order to gain an advantage on the field with a higher mass.
Many people in the acting industry may choose to lose or gain weight depending on the role they're given.
[edit] History of targeted dieting
See Luigi Cornaro for a 16th century treatise on dieting. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, physicians and patients regulated their food carefully, in order to prevent disease.[citation needed] In the 19th century, as the scientific classification of foods took shape, doctors and scientists began experimenting with targeted diets.
William Banting is one of the first people known to have successfully lost weight by developing a targeted diet, circa 1863, by targeting carbohydrates. The low carbohydrate diet, sometimes marketed today as the Atkins Diet, remains popular today.
[edit] Thermoregulation
According to the principles of thermoregulation, humans are endotherms. We expend energy to maintain our blood temperature at body temperature, which is about 37 °C (98.6 °F). This is accomplished by metabolism and blood circulation, by shivering to stay warm, and by sweating to stay cool.[1]
In addition to thermoregulation, humans expend energy keeping the vital organs (especially the lungs, heart and brain) functioning. Except when sleeping, our skeletal muscles are working, typically to maintain upright posture. The average work done just to stay alive is the basal metabolic rate, which (for humans) is about 1 watt per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body mass. Thus, an average man of 75 kilograms (165 lbs) who just rests (or only walks a few steps) burns about 75 watts (continuously), or about 6,500 kilojoules (1,440 Calories) per day or 1 Calorie each minute.
[edit] Physical exercise
Physical exercise is an important complement to dieting in securing weight loss. Aerobic exercise is also an important part of maintaining normal good health, especially the muscular strength of the heart. To be useful, aerobic exercise requires maintaining a target heart rate of above 50 percent of one's maximum heart rate for 30 minutes, at least 3 times a week. Brisk walking can accomplish this.
The ability of a few hours a week of exercise to contribute to weight loss can be somewhat overestimated. To illustrate, consider a 100-kilogram (220 lbs) man who wants to lose 10 kilograms (22 lbs) and assume that he eats just enough to maintain his weight (at rest), so that weight loss can only come from exercise. Those 10 (22 lbs) kilograms converted to work are equivalent to about 350 megajoules. (We use an approximation of the standard 37 kilojoules or 9 Calories per gram of fat.) Now assume that his chosen exercise is stairclimbing and that he is 20 percent efficient at converting chemical energy into mechanical work (this is within measured ranges). To lose the weight, he must ascend 70 kilometers. A man of normal fitness (like him) will be tired after 500 meters of climbing (about 150 flights of stairs), so he needs to exercise every day for 140 days (to reach his target). However, exercise (both aerobic and anaerobic) would increase the Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) for some time after the workout. This ensures more calorific loss than otherwise estimated.
The minimum safe dietary energy intake (without medical supervision) is 75 percent of that needed to maintain basal metabolism. For our hypothetical 100-kilogram man, that minimum is about 5,700 kilojoules (1,300 calories) per day. By combining daily aerobic exercise with a weight-loss diet, he would be able to lose 10 kilograms in half the time (70 days). Of course, the described regime is more rigorous than would be desirable or advisable for many persons. Therefore, under an effective but more manageable weight-loss program, losing 10 kilograms (about 20 pounds) may take as long as 6 months.
There are also some easy ways for people to exercise, such as walking rather than driving, climbing stairs instead of taking elevators, doing more housework with fewer power tools, or parking their cars farther and walking to school or the office.
[edit] Fat loss versus muscle loss
It is important to understand the difference between weight loss and fat loss. Weight loss typically involves the loss of fat, water and muscle. A dieter can lose weight without losing much fat. Ideally, overweight people should seek to lose fat and preserve muscle, since muscle burns more calories than fat. Generally, the more muscle mass one has, the higher one's metabolism is, resulting in more calories being burned, even at rest. Since muscles are more dense than fat, muscle loss results in little loss of physical bulk compared with fat loss. To determine whether weight loss is due to fat, various methods of measuring body fat percentage have been developed.
Muscle loss during weight loss can be restricted by regularly lifting weights (or doing push-ups and other strength-oriented calisthenics) and by maintaining sufficient protein intake. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Dietary Reference Intake for protein is "0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for adults."
Those on low-carbohydrate diets, and those doing particularly strenuous exercise, may wish to increase their protein intake which is necessary. However, there may be risks involved. According to the American Heart Association, excessive protein intake may cause liver and kidney problems and may be a risk factor for heart disease.[2] There is no conclusive evidence that moderately high protein diets in healthy individuals are dangerous, however. It has only been shown that these diets are dangerous in individuals who already have kidney and liver problems.
[edit] Energy obtained from food
The energy humans get from food is limited by the efficiency of digestion and the efficiency of utilization. The efficiency of digestion is largely dependent on the type of food being eaten. Poorly chewed seeds are poorly digested. Refined sugars and fats are absorbed almost completely. Despite the claims of certain popular diets, chewing and digesting does not use a substantial amount of the energy offered by any food (that anyone would want to eat). Even celery, known for being low in caloric value, contains enough sugars (including sucrose, glucose and galactose) to easily compensate for the cost of (energy invested in) chewing it. (See Food & Nutrition Information Center.)
The efficiency of energy utilization by skeletal muscles is around 20 percent. That is, of the chemical energy used, 20 percent does work and 80 percent creates heat.
[edit] Proper nutrition
Humans require essential nutrients from six broad classes: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. Essential amino acids (protein) are required for cell, especially muscle, construction. Essential fatty acids are required for brain and cell wall construction. Vitamins and minerals are essential for many functions.
Any diet that fails to meet minimum nutritional requirements can threaten general health (and physical fitness in particular). If a person is not well enough to be active, weight loss and good quality of life will be unlikely.
The National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization publish guidelines for dietary intakes of all known essential nutrients.
Sometimes dieters will ingest excessive amounts of vitamin and mineral supplements. While this is usually harmless, some nutrients are dangerous. Men (and women who don't menstruate) need to be wary of iron poisoning. Retinol (oil-soluble vitamin A) is toxic in large doses. As a general rule, most people can get the nutrition they need from foods (there are specific exceptions; vegans often need to supplement vitamin B-12). In any event, a multivitamin taken once a day will suffice for the majority of the population.
A sensible weight-loss diet is a normal balanced diet; it just comes with smaller portions and perhaps some substitutions (e.g. low-fat milk, or less salad dressing). Extreme diets may lead to malnutrition, and are less likely to be effective at long-term weight loss in any event.
[edit] How the body gets rid of fat
All body processes require energy to run properly. When the body is expending more energy than it is taking in (e.g. when exercising), body cells rely on internally stored energy sources, like complex carbohydrates and fats, for energy. The first source the body turns to is glycogen, which is a complex carbohydrate created by the body. When that source is nearly depleted, the body begins lipolysis, the metabolism of fat for energy. In this process, fats, obtained from fat cells, are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, which can be used to make energy. The primary by-products of metabolism are carbon dioxide and water; carbon dioxide is expelled through the respiratory system.
Fats are also secreted by the sebaceous glands (in the skin).
[edit] Psychological aspects of weight-loss dieting
Diets affect the "energy in" component of the energy balance by limiting or altering the distribution of foods. Techniques that affect the appetite can limit energy intake by affecting the desire to overeat.
Consumption of low-energy, fiber-rich foods, such as non-starchy vegetables, is effective in obtaining satiation (the feeling of "fullness"). Exercise is also useful in controlling appetite as is drinking water and sleeping. (Extreme physical fatigue, such as experienced by soldiers and mountain climbers, can make eating a difficult chore.)
The use of drugs to control appetite is also common. Stimulants are often taken as a means to suppress (normal, healthy) hunger by people who are dieting. Ephedrine (through facilitating the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline) stimulates the alpha(1)-adrenoreceptor subtype, which is known to induce hypophagia (appetite suppression). L-Phenylalanine, an amino acid found in whey protein powders also has the ability to suppress appetite by increasing the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) which sends a satiety signal to the brain.
[edit] Weight loss groups
There exist both profit-oriented and non-profit weight loss organizations who assist people in their weight loss efforts. An example of the former is Weight Watchers ; examples of the latter include Overeaters Anonymous, as well as a multitude of non-branded support groups run by local churches, hospitals, and like-minded individuals.
These organizations' customs and practices differ widely. Some groups are modelled on twelve-step programs, while others are quite informal. Some groups advocate certain prepared foods or special menus, while others train dieters to make healthy choices from restaurant menus and while grocery-shopping and cooking.
Most groups leverage the power of group meetings to provide counseling, emotional support, problem-solving, and useful information.
[edit] Popular weight-loss diets
Popular diets (sometimes pejoratively called "fad diets") usually derive their popularity from the personalities of their proponents. These proponents include "diet gurus" and celebrity converts. "Diet books" are the primary means of communicating the specifics of popular diets.
Most popular diets experience short-lived popularity, partly because new diet books are continuously being published.
Judging the effectiveness (and nutritional merit) of popular diets can be especially difficult. Diet proponents often locate medical professionals to back up their work. Some diets are so controversial that they divide the medical community.
Many popular diets advocate the combination of a specific technique (such as eliminating a certain food, or eating only certain combinations of foods) with reduced caloric intake, with the goal being to accelerate weight loss. Others ignore traditional science altogether.
[edit] Low-fat diets
Low-fat diets were popular during the 1980s and 1990s, encouraging people to eat foods low in fat (or without fat altogether) and instead eat foods high in carbohydrates. For instance, these diets told people to eat less fat junk food or sweet snacks, instead, you can choose low-calorie, and high-fiber foods like fruits and vegetables. These will help people feel full longer, and make any diet plan more effective. Also, plan your meals and buy the food you need so that you will not be tempted to turn to fast food when you are hungry.
The general public came to believe, partly due to information from low-fat diet proponents, that carbohydrates were "energy food" and that only fat made people fat. This led to high consumption of low-fat foods rich in refined carbohydrates (notably corn syrup), which led some people to gain more weight.
Some low-fat diets were healthier, focusing on consumption of whole grains, vegetables and lean meats. (See Pritikin diet.) But even these diets did not recognize the importance of essential fatty acids. Some low-fat foods were actually more harmful than the non-low-fat foods, since all fat was removed, both "good" and "bad."
[edit] Atkins (low-carbohydrate diet)
The Atkins Diet is a very popular diet. Dr. Robert Atkins' concept, somewhat exaggerated by the media, that a person can lose weight while eating significant quantities of fat and protein but strictly reducing carbohydrates, has captured the public's imagination. The success of those who tried the diet varied depending on the degree they adhered to the long term stages of the diet structure. The Atkins diet was originally designed for diabetes patients who wanted to manage their insulin levels more effectively. The diet was also embraced by those seeking a diet that allows eating to satiation.
Atkins discourages refined carbohydrate intake and encourages protein intake, especially in the form of meat. The diet encourages the consumption of fruits and non-starchy vegetables for the provision of fiber and nutrients; it takes a somewhat neutral stand on fat intake.
Many people experience rapid initial weight loss on Atkins, some of which is due to depletion of glycogen stores in the liver. Loss of glycogen is associated with loss of water weight, since the body stores up to four pounds of water for each pound of glycogen.
Low carbohydrate diets have been shown to reduce the fasting levels of triglycerides. Elevated triglycerides are a demonstrated risk factor for heart disease. Low-fat diets also reduce fasting levels of triglycerides.
A low-carbohydrate diet may not be suitable as a long-term weight-maintenance diet. The products of fat metabolism and protein metabolism include ketones which can be harmful.
Successful weight-loss diets generally cause acidosis; symptoms range from mild fatigue to severe joint pain. Acidosis can be controlled by drinking water in large amounts and taking antacid supplements or eating vegetables grown in alkaline soil.
Human metabolism is enormously complicated. Diets whose effectiveness is not based on the simple balance of energy must be evaluated experimentally. The premise that protein is less fattening than carbohydrates is unproven, although the specific dynamic action of protein is 30%, while the corresponding figures for carbohydrate and fat are 6% and 4% respectively. ""One hundred kilocalories of protein produces an extra 30 kcal of heat, while similar amounts of carbohydrate and fat raise the metabolic rate by 6 and 4 kcal, respectively" "Essential Human Anatomy and Physiology" Barbara R. Landau, 1976
[edit] Natural diets
Since the advent of controversial diets such as Atkins, various diets that stress the eating habits of "natural humans" have been developed. The Paleolithic Diet imitates the way people ate during the Stone Age. These eating plans include basically natural foods (those not processed by humans). Whereas the Paleolithic Diet excludes milk and grain-foods, The Evolution Diet excludes human-made ingredients such as partially hydrogenated oils but allows some processed foods such as whole-grain crackers and dairy products. Anthropologists who focus their research on human evolution, however, are quick to point out that the diet of Paleolithic peoples was most likely opportunistic. That is, these early humans would most likely eat whatever edible foods were available at any given moment in that particular area (e.g. vegetables, termites, meat) and not restrict their intake of any food. Until recent human history, starvation has been a far greater threat than over-consumption.
Vegetarian diet
There is a growing body of evidence that vegetarian diets can prevent obesity and lower disease risks.
According to the American Dietetic Association, "Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."
Vegetarians on average weigh 10 percent less than non-vegetarians. And in a year-long study comparing Dean Ornish's vegetarian diet to Weight Watchers, The Zone Diet, and The Atkins Diet, subjects on The Atkins Diet achieved the most weight loss (on average). Strict vegetarian diets like veganism may result in certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies if attention isn't paid to nutrition.
Weight Watchers
Main article: Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers has two programs. The program offers a wide variety and foods. Each food has a point value. They encourage a well rounded diet, low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables. The core plan focuses more on portion control and natural foods. According to Weight Watchers, the act of keeping track of what one eats is very helpful in reducing overeating or eating for reasons other than hunger.
Very low calorie diet
The very low calorie diet (VLCD) is a prescribed diet for obese patients. Daily intake consists of three milkshake-like formula drinks (made with powder concentrate and water), which supply about 2000 kilojoules (500 Calories) and all necessary vitamins and minerals.
There are numerous risks to this diet. A patient who drinks more formula than allowed can get too much iron and selenium. Constipation is a problem: extra water and (fibre) laxatives may be required. Immune response may be compromised. VLCDs often result in the formation of gallstones.
VLCD should only be used for dieting when a patient's body mass index exceeds 30. The diet requires regular consultation between patient and doctor.
VLCD can be very successful when used over a six to twelve week period. As with all starvation diets, metabolism will fall. A sensible diet-and-exercise plan must follow cessation of VLCD, or weight will be gained back.
Dangers of weight loss dieting
Strange or extreme diets can be very dangerous, and they are often ineffective. If one seeks the sensible and popular ideal of being lean and athletic, then starvation diets are counterproductive.
Diet pills
There are many diet pills for sale, some which are associated with comprehensive dietary programs. Many such pills, including many of those containing vitamins and minerals, are not effective for losing weight.
Some drugs enable short-term weight loss, usually with unpleasant and potentially dangerous side effects. The drugs include herbal products available at health food stores, as well as over-the-counter and prescribed medications provided by doctors and pharmacists.
Typically these drugs fall into two classes: diuretics to induce water-weight loss and stimulants (such as ephedrine, and more recently synephrine, due to the former's ban as a weight loss supplement by the FDA, although ephedrine is still available as an asthma medication) to increase metabolic rate and reduce appetite. Both classes of drugs can cause kidney and liver damage, and stimulants can cause sudden heart attacks, addiction, and both ephedrine and synephrine have been proven to cause ischemic stroke. [dubious — see talk page]
In June 2006, the European Union approved the sale of the diet drug rimonabant, marketed under the trade name Acomplia. This new class of diet pills shows some promise in assisting physician-prescribed diets.
Yo-yo dieting
Yo-yo dieting is defined by alternating periods of feast and famine that the dieter deliberately undertakes. It is a particularly ineffective method of sustaining weight loss.
The human body responds to starvation by decreasing metabolism. When food is again available, it is stored immediately as fat. This survival mechanism, while a useful response to genuine food scarcity, leaves the yo-yo dieter feeling lethargic and fatigued.
Metabolism can be restored to a higher level with exercise and a sensible weight-loss diet. This diet is defined by the minimum safe daily caloric intake of 75 percent of the basal metabolic rate or 4200 kilojoules (1000 Calories), whichever is greater. (Those eating less should do so only under medical supervision. Parents and guardians should consult medical professionals before placing their children on any type of diet.)
Once an ideal weight is attained, a weight-maintenance diet is essential. This requires limiting excess caloric intake and making small changes in caloric intake in response to physical observations of one's weight and appearance.
There are several kinds of diets:
Weight-loss diets restrict the intake of specific foods, or food in general, to reduce body weight. What works to reduce body weight for one person will not necessarily work for another, due to metabolic differences and lifestyle factors. Also, for a variety of reasons, most people find it very difficult to maintain significant weight loss over time. There is some thought that losing weight quickly may actually make it more difficult to maintain the loss over time. It is also possible that cutting calorie intake too low slows or prevents weight loss. The National Institutes of Health notes that the commonly recommended program of reduced caloric intake along with increased physical activity has a failure rate of 98%.
Many professional athletes impose weight-gain diets on themselves. American football players may try to "bulk up" through weight-gain diets in order to gain an advantage on the field with a higher mass.
Many people in the acting industry may choose to lose or gain weight depending on the role they're given.
[edit] History of targeted dieting
See Luigi Cornaro for a 16th century treatise on dieting. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, physicians and patients regulated their food carefully, in order to prevent disease.[citation needed] In the 19th century, as the scientific classification of foods took shape, doctors and scientists began experimenting with targeted diets.
William Banting is one of the first people known to have successfully lost weight by developing a targeted diet, circa 1863, by targeting carbohydrates. The low carbohydrate diet, sometimes marketed today as the Atkins Diet, remains popular today.
[edit] Thermoregulation
According to the principles of thermoregulation, humans are endotherms. We expend energy to maintain our blood temperature at body temperature, which is about 37 °C (98.6 °F). This is accomplished by metabolism and blood circulation, by shivering to stay warm, and by sweating to stay cool.[1]
In addition to thermoregulation, humans expend energy keeping the vital organs (especially the lungs, heart and brain) functioning. Except when sleeping, our skeletal muscles are working, typically to maintain upright posture. The average work done just to stay alive is the basal metabolic rate, which (for humans) is about 1 watt per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body mass. Thus, an average man of 75 kilograms (165 lbs) who just rests (or only walks a few steps) burns about 75 watts (continuously), or about 6,500 kilojoules (1,440 Calories) per day or 1 Calorie each minute.
[edit] Physical exercise
Physical exercise is an important complement to dieting in securing weight loss. Aerobic exercise is also an important part of maintaining normal good health, especially the muscular strength of the heart. To be useful, aerobic exercise requires maintaining a target heart rate of above 50 percent of one's maximum heart rate for 30 minutes, at least 3 times a week. Brisk walking can accomplish this.
The ability of a few hours a week of exercise to contribute to weight loss can be somewhat overestimated. To illustrate, consider a 100-kilogram (220 lbs) man who wants to lose 10 kilograms (22 lbs) and assume that he eats just enough to maintain his weight (at rest), so that weight loss can only come from exercise. Those 10 (22 lbs) kilograms converted to work are equivalent to about 350 megajoules. (We use an approximation of the standard 37 kilojoules or 9 Calories per gram of fat.) Now assume that his chosen exercise is stairclimbing and that he is 20 percent efficient at converting chemical energy into mechanical work (this is within measured ranges). To lose the weight, he must ascend 70 kilometers. A man of normal fitness (like him) will be tired after 500 meters of climbing (about 150 flights of stairs), so he needs to exercise every day for 140 days (to reach his target). However, exercise (both aerobic and anaerobic) would increase the Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) for some time after the workout. This ensures more calorific loss than otherwise estimated.
The minimum safe dietary energy intake (without medical supervision) is 75 percent of that needed to maintain basal metabolism. For our hypothetical 100-kilogram man, that minimum is about 5,700 kilojoules (1,300 calories) per day. By combining daily aerobic exercise with a weight-loss diet, he would be able to lose 10 kilograms in half the time (70 days). Of course, the described regime is more rigorous than would be desirable or advisable for many persons. Therefore, under an effective but more manageable weight-loss program, losing 10 kilograms (about 20 pounds) may take as long as 6 months.
There are also some easy ways for people to exercise, such as walking rather than driving, climbing stairs instead of taking elevators, doing more housework with fewer power tools, or parking their cars farther and walking to school or the office.
[edit] Fat loss versus muscle loss
It is important to understand the difference between weight loss and fat loss. Weight loss typically involves the loss of fat, water and muscle. A dieter can lose weight without losing much fat. Ideally, overweight people should seek to lose fat and preserve muscle, since muscle burns more calories than fat. Generally, the more muscle mass one has, the higher one's metabolism is, resulting in more calories being burned, even at rest. Since muscles are more dense than fat, muscle loss results in little loss of physical bulk compared with fat loss. To determine whether weight loss is due to fat, various methods of measuring body fat percentage have been developed.
Muscle loss during weight loss can be restricted by regularly lifting weights (or doing push-ups and other strength-oriented calisthenics) and by maintaining sufficient protein intake. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Dietary Reference Intake for protein is "0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for adults."
Those on low-carbohydrate diets, and those doing particularly strenuous exercise, may wish to increase their protein intake which is necessary. However, there may be risks involved. According to the American Heart Association, excessive protein intake may cause liver and kidney problems and may be a risk factor for heart disease.[2] There is no conclusive evidence that moderately high protein diets in healthy individuals are dangerous, however. It has only been shown that these diets are dangerous in individuals who already have kidney and liver problems.
[edit] Energy obtained from food
The energy humans get from food is limited by the efficiency of digestion and the efficiency of utilization. The efficiency of digestion is largely dependent on the type of food being eaten. Poorly chewed seeds are poorly digested. Refined sugars and fats are absorbed almost completely. Despite the claims of certain popular diets, chewing and digesting does not use a substantial amount of the energy offered by any food (that anyone would want to eat). Even celery, known for being low in caloric value, contains enough sugars (including sucrose, glucose and galactose) to easily compensate for the cost of (energy invested in) chewing it. (See Food & Nutrition Information Center.)
The efficiency of energy utilization by skeletal muscles is around 20 percent. That is, of the chemical energy used, 20 percent does work and 80 percent creates heat.
[edit] Proper nutrition
Humans require essential nutrients from six broad classes: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. Essential amino acids (protein) are required for cell, especially muscle, construction. Essential fatty acids are required for brain and cell wall construction. Vitamins and minerals are essential for many functions.
Any diet that fails to meet minimum nutritional requirements can threaten general health (and physical fitness in particular). If a person is not well enough to be active, weight loss and good quality of life will be unlikely.
The National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization publish guidelines for dietary intakes of all known essential nutrients.
Sometimes dieters will ingest excessive amounts of vitamin and mineral supplements. While this is usually harmless, some nutrients are dangerous. Men (and women who don't menstruate) need to be wary of iron poisoning. Retinol (oil-soluble vitamin A) is toxic in large doses. As a general rule, most people can get the nutrition they need from foods (there are specific exceptions; vegans often need to supplement vitamin B-12). In any event, a multivitamin taken once a day will suffice for the majority of the population.
A sensible weight-loss diet is a normal balanced diet; it just comes with smaller portions and perhaps some substitutions (e.g. low-fat milk, or less salad dressing). Extreme diets may lead to malnutrition, and are less likely to be effective at long-term weight loss in any event.
[edit] How the body gets rid of fat
All body processes require energy to run properly. When the body is expending more energy than it is taking in (e.g. when exercising), body cells rely on internally stored energy sources, like complex carbohydrates and fats, for energy. The first source the body turns to is glycogen, which is a complex carbohydrate created by the body. When that source is nearly depleted, the body begins lipolysis, the metabolism of fat for energy. In this process, fats, obtained from fat cells, are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, which can be used to make energy. The primary by-products of metabolism are carbon dioxide and water; carbon dioxide is expelled through the respiratory system.
Fats are also secreted by the sebaceous glands (in the skin).
[edit] Psychological aspects of weight-loss dieting
Diets affect the "energy in" component of the energy balance by limiting or altering the distribution of foods. Techniques that affect the appetite can limit energy intake by affecting the desire to overeat.
Consumption of low-energy, fiber-rich foods, such as non-starchy vegetables, is effective in obtaining satiation (the feeling of "fullness"). Exercise is also useful in controlling appetite as is drinking water and sleeping. (Extreme physical fatigue, such as experienced by soldiers and mountain climbers, can make eating a difficult chore.)
The use of drugs to control appetite is also common. Stimulants are often taken as a means to suppress (normal, healthy) hunger by people who are dieting. Ephedrine (through facilitating the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline) stimulates the alpha(1)-adrenoreceptor subtype, which is known to induce hypophagia (appetite suppression). L-Phenylalanine, an amino acid found in whey protein powders also has the ability to suppress appetite by increasing the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) which sends a satiety signal to the brain.
[edit] Weight loss groups
There exist both profit-oriented and non-profit weight loss organizations who assist people in their weight loss efforts. An example of the former is Weight Watchers ; examples of the latter include Overeaters Anonymous, as well as a multitude of non-branded support groups run by local churches, hospitals, and like-minded individuals.
These organizations' customs and practices differ widely. Some groups are modelled on twelve-step programs, while others are quite informal. Some groups advocate certain prepared foods or special menus, while others train dieters to make healthy choices from restaurant menus and while grocery-shopping and cooking.
Most groups leverage the power of group meetings to provide counseling, emotional support, problem-solving, and useful information.
[edit] Popular weight-loss diets
Popular diets (sometimes pejoratively called "fad diets") usually derive their popularity from the personalities of their proponents. These proponents include "diet gurus" and celebrity converts. "Diet books" are the primary means of communicating the specifics of popular diets.
Most popular diets experience short-lived popularity, partly because new diet books are continuously being published.
Judging the effectiveness (and nutritional merit) of popular diets can be especially difficult. Diet proponents often locate medical professionals to back up their work. Some diets are so controversial that they divide the medical community.
Many popular diets advocate the combination of a specific technique (such as eliminating a certain food, or eating only certain combinations of foods) with reduced caloric intake, with the goal being to accelerate weight loss. Others ignore traditional science altogether.
[edit] Low-fat diets
Low-fat diets were popular during the 1980s and 1990s, encouraging people to eat foods low in fat (or without fat altogether) and instead eat foods high in carbohydrates. For instance, these diets told people to eat less fat junk food or sweet snacks, instead, you can choose low-calorie, and high-fiber foods like fruits and vegetables. These will help people feel full longer, and make any diet plan more effective. Also, plan your meals and buy the food you need so that you will not be tempted to turn to fast food when you are hungry.
The general public came to believe, partly due to information from low-fat diet proponents, that carbohydrates were "energy food" and that only fat made people fat. This led to high consumption of low-fat foods rich in refined carbohydrates (notably corn syrup), which led some people to gain more weight.
Some low-fat diets were healthier, focusing on consumption of whole grains, vegetables and lean meats. (See Pritikin diet.) But even these diets did not recognize the importance of essential fatty acids. Some low-fat foods were actually more harmful than the non-low-fat foods, since all fat was removed, both "good" and "bad."
[edit] Atkins (low-carbohydrate diet)
The Atkins Diet is a very popular diet. Dr. Robert Atkins' concept, somewhat exaggerated by the media, that a person can lose weight while eating significant quantities of fat and protein but strictly reducing carbohydrates, has captured the public's imagination. The success of those who tried the diet varied depending on the degree they adhered to the long term stages of the diet structure. The Atkins diet was originally designed for diabetes patients who wanted to manage their insulin levels more effectively. The diet was also embraced by those seeking a diet that allows eating to satiation.
Atkins discourages refined carbohydrate intake and encourages protein intake, especially in the form of meat. The diet encourages the consumption of fruits and non-starchy vegetables for the provision of fiber and nutrients; it takes a somewhat neutral stand on fat intake.
Many people experience rapid initial weight loss on Atkins, some of which is due to depletion of glycogen stores in the liver. Loss of glycogen is associated with loss of water weight, since the body stores up to four pounds of water for each pound of glycogen.
Low carbohydrate diets have been shown to reduce the fasting levels of triglycerides. Elevated triglycerides are a demonstrated risk factor for heart disease. Low-fat diets also reduce fasting levels of triglycerides.
A low-carbohydrate diet may not be suitable as a long-term weight-maintenance diet. The products of fat metabolism and protein metabolism include ketones which can be harmful.
Successful weight-loss diets generally cause acidosis; symptoms range from mild fatigue to severe joint pain. Acidosis can be controlled by drinking water in large amounts and taking antacid supplements or eating vegetables grown in alkaline soil.
Human metabolism is enormously complicated. Diets whose effectiveness is not based on the simple balance of energy must be evaluated experimentally. The premise that protein is less fattening than carbohydrates is unproven, although the specific dynamic action of protein is 30%, while the corresponding figures for carbohydrate and fat are 6% and 4% respectively. ""One hundred kilocalories of protein produces an extra 30 kcal of heat, while similar amounts of carbohydrate and fat raise the metabolic rate by 6 and 4 kcal, respectively" "Essential Human Anatomy and Physiology" Barbara R. Landau, 1976
[edit] Natural diets
Since the advent of controversial diets such as Atkins, various diets that stress the eating habits of "natural humans" have been developed. The Paleolithic Diet imitates the way people ate during the Stone Age. These eating plans include basically natural foods (those not processed by humans). Whereas the Paleolithic Diet excludes milk and grain-foods, The Evolution Diet excludes human-made ingredients such as partially hydrogenated oils but allows some processed foods such as whole-grain crackers and dairy products. Anthropologists who focus their research on human evolution, however, are quick to point out that the diet of Paleolithic peoples was most likely opportunistic. That is, these early humans would most likely eat whatever edible foods were available at any given moment in that particular area (e.g. vegetables, termites, meat) and not restrict their intake of any food. Until recent human history, starvation has been a far greater threat than over-consumption.
Vegetarian diet
There is a growing body of evidence that vegetarian diets can prevent obesity and lower disease risks.
According to the American Dietetic Association, "Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."
Vegetarians on average weigh 10 percent less than non-vegetarians. And in a year-long study comparing Dean Ornish's vegetarian diet to Weight Watchers, The Zone Diet, and The Atkins Diet, subjects on The Atkins Diet achieved the most weight loss (on average). Strict vegetarian diets like veganism may result in certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies if attention isn't paid to nutrition.
Weight Watchers
Main article: Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers has two programs. The program offers a wide variety and foods. Each food has a point value. They encourage a well rounded diet, low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables. The core plan focuses more on portion control and natural foods. According to Weight Watchers, the act of keeping track of what one eats is very helpful in reducing overeating or eating for reasons other than hunger.
Very low calorie diet
The very low calorie diet (VLCD) is a prescribed diet for obese patients. Daily intake consists of three milkshake-like formula drinks (made with powder concentrate and water), which supply about 2000 kilojoules (500 Calories) and all necessary vitamins and minerals.
There are numerous risks to this diet. A patient who drinks more formula than allowed can get too much iron and selenium. Constipation is a problem: extra water and (fibre) laxatives may be required. Immune response may be compromised. VLCDs often result in the formation of gallstones.
VLCD should only be used for dieting when a patient's body mass index exceeds 30. The diet requires regular consultation between patient and doctor.
VLCD can be very successful when used over a six to twelve week period. As with all starvation diets, metabolism will fall. A sensible diet-and-exercise plan must follow cessation of VLCD, or weight will be gained back.
Dangers of weight loss dieting
Strange or extreme diets can be very dangerous, and they are often ineffective. If one seeks the sensible and popular ideal of being lean and athletic, then starvation diets are counterproductive.
Diet pills
There are many diet pills for sale, some which are associated with comprehensive dietary programs. Many such pills, including many of those containing vitamins and minerals, are not effective for losing weight.
Some drugs enable short-term weight loss, usually with unpleasant and potentially dangerous side effects. The drugs include herbal products available at health food stores, as well as over-the-counter and prescribed medications provided by doctors and pharmacists.
Typically these drugs fall into two classes: diuretics to induce water-weight loss and stimulants (such as ephedrine, and more recently synephrine, due to the former's ban as a weight loss supplement by the FDA, although ephedrine is still available as an asthma medication) to increase metabolic rate and reduce appetite. Both classes of drugs can cause kidney and liver damage, and stimulants can cause sudden heart attacks, addiction, and both ephedrine and synephrine have been proven to cause ischemic stroke. [dubious — see talk page]
In June 2006, the European Union approved the sale of the diet drug rimonabant, marketed under the trade name Acomplia. This new class of diet pills shows some promise in assisting physician-prescribed diets.
Yo-yo dieting
Yo-yo dieting is defined by alternating periods of feast and famine that the dieter deliberately undertakes. It is a particularly ineffective method of sustaining weight loss.
The human body responds to starvation by decreasing metabolism. When food is again available, it is stored immediately as fat. This survival mechanism, while a useful response to genuine food scarcity, leaves the yo-yo dieter feeling lethargic and fatigued.
Metabolism can be restored to a higher level with exercise and a sensible weight-loss diet. This diet is defined by the minimum safe daily caloric intake of 75 percent of the basal metabolic rate or 4200 kilojoules (1000 Calories), whichever is greater. (Those eating less should do so only under medical supervision. Parents and guardians should consult medical professionals before placing their children on any type of diet.)
Once an ideal weight is attained, a weight-maintenance diet is essential. This requires limiting excess caloric intake and making small changes in caloric intake in response to physical observations of one's weight and appearance.
Weight Loss
Weight loss, in the context of medicine or health, is a reduction of the total body weight, which can mean loss of fluid, muscle, bone mass, or fat.
The loss of weight associated with a chronic illness is referred to as cachexia. Unexpected, unintentional weight loss is a common symptom of illness and should be evaluated by a healthcare professional.
Poor management of Type 1 diabetes mellitus (IDDM) can be a cause of significant weight loss. Lack of insulin triggers the release of fatty acids into blood from adipose tissue, as well as the release of protein from muscle tissue. This causes a reduction in both lean tissue and fatty tissue mass. Also of interest is to consider the weight loss as a product of the energy imbalance, because much biochemical energy is lost in the urine due to the excretion of glucose (glycosuria) and ketone bodies.
Medications, lack of fluid intake, or illnesses such as diabetes can trigger fluid loss.
Infections such as HIV may alter metabolism, leading to weight loss.[1]
Hormonal disruptions, such as an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) , may also exhibit as weight loss.[2]
Intentional weight loss
Weight loss may refer to the loss of total body mass in an effort to improve fitness, health, or appearance.
Therapeutic weight loss, in individuals who are overweight, can decrease the likelihood of developing diseases such as diabetes [3]. Overweight and obese individuals face a greater risk of health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and osteoarthritis [4]. For healthy weight loss, a physician should be consulted to develop a weight loss plan that is tailored to the individual.
Weight loss occurs when an individual is in a state of negative energy balance. When the human body is spending more energy in work and heat than it is gaining from food or other nutritional supplements, it will catabolise stored reserves of fat or muscle.
It is not uncommon for people who are already at a medically healthy weight to intentionally lose weight. In some cases it is with the goal of improving athletic performance or to meet weight classifications in a sport. In other cases, the goal is to attain a more attractively shaped body. Being underweight is associated with health risks. Health problems can include fighting off infection, osteoporosis, decreased muscle strength, trouble regulating body temperature and even increased risk of death.
Therapeutic weight loss techniques
The least intrusive weight loss methods, and those most often recommended by physicians, are adjustments to eating patterns and increased physical exercise. Usually, health professionals will recommend that their overweight patients combine a reduction of the caloric content of the diet, with an increase in physical activity. However, as reported by the National Institute of Health (NIH), such treatment programs have a historic failure rate of 98%.
Other methods of losing weight include use of drugs and supplements that decrease appetite, block fat absorption, or reduce stomach volume. Surgery is another method. Bariatric surgery artificially reduces the size of the stomach, limiting the intake of food energy. Some of these treatments may have serious side-effects.
Weight loss industry
There is a huge market for products which promise to make weight loss easier, quicker, cheaper, more reliable, or less painful. These include books, CDs, and other materials, fitness centers, personal coaches, weight loss groups and food products and supplements. Americans spend an estimated $30 billion a year on all types of diet programs and products, including diet foods and drinks.[
The loss of weight associated with a chronic illness is referred to as cachexia. Unexpected, unintentional weight loss is a common symptom of illness and should be evaluated by a healthcare professional.
Poor management of Type 1 diabetes mellitus (IDDM) can be a cause of significant weight loss. Lack of insulin triggers the release of fatty acids into blood from adipose tissue, as well as the release of protein from muscle tissue. This causes a reduction in both lean tissue and fatty tissue mass. Also of interest is to consider the weight loss as a product of the energy imbalance, because much biochemical energy is lost in the urine due to the excretion of glucose (glycosuria) and ketone bodies.
Medications, lack of fluid intake, or illnesses such as diabetes can trigger fluid loss.
Infections such as HIV may alter metabolism, leading to weight loss.[1]
Hormonal disruptions, such as an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) , may also exhibit as weight loss.[2]
Intentional weight loss
Weight loss may refer to the loss of total body mass in an effort to improve fitness, health, or appearance.
Therapeutic weight loss, in individuals who are overweight, can decrease the likelihood of developing diseases such as diabetes [3]. Overweight and obese individuals face a greater risk of health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and osteoarthritis [4]. For healthy weight loss, a physician should be consulted to develop a weight loss plan that is tailored to the individual.
Weight loss occurs when an individual is in a state of negative energy balance. When the human body is spending more energy in work and heat than it is gaining from food or other nutritional supplements, it will catabolise stored reserves of fat or muscle.
It is not uncommon for people who are already at a medically healthy weight to intentionally lose weight. In some cases it is with the goal of improving athletic performance or to meet weight classifications in a sport. In other cases, the goal is to attain a more attractively shaped body. Being underweight is associated with health risks. Health problems can include fighting off infection, osteoporosis, decreased muscle strength, trouble regulating body temperature and even increased risk of death.
Therapeutic weight loss techniques
The least intrusive weight loss methods, and those most often recommended by physicians, are adjustments to eating patterns and increased physical exercise. Usually, health professionals will recommend that their overweight patients combine a reduction of the caloric content of the diet, with an increase in physical activity. However, as reported by the National Institute of Health (NIH), such treatment programs have a historic failure rate of 98%.
Other methods of losing weight include use of drugs and supplements that decrease appetite, block fat absorption, or reduce stomach volume. Surgery is another method. Bariatric surgery artificially reduces the size of the stomach, limiting the intake of food energy. Some of these treatments may have serious side-effects.
Weight loss industry
There is a huge market for products which promise to make weight loss easier, quicker, cheaper, more reliable, or less painful. These include books, CDs, and other materials, fitness centers, personal coaches, weight loss groups and food products and supplements. Americans spend an estimated $30 billion a year on all types of diet programs and products, including diet foods and drinks.[
Shared Web Hosting Service
A shared web hosting service or virtual hosting service is a form of web hosting service where more than one instance of the same web server is hosted on a single physical server. This is generally the most economical option for hosting as many people share the overall cost of server maintenance.
The hosting service must include system administration since it is shared by many users; this is a benefit for users who do not want to deal with it, but a hindrance to power users who want more control. In general shared hosting will be inappropriate for users who require extensive software development outside what the hosting provider supports.
Shared hosting typically uses a web-based control panel system, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, InterWorx, Helm, H-sphere, Ensim, Sphera or one of many other control panel products. Control panels and web interfaces have been causing some controversy lately as Web.com claims that it holds patent rights to the hosting technology with its 19 patents. Hostopia, a large wholesale host, recently purchased a license to use that technology from web.com for 10% of retail revenues.[1] Web.com recently sued Godaddy as well for similar patent infringement.[2]
In shared hosting, the provider is generally responsible for management of servers, installation of server software, security updates, Technical support and other aspects of the service. The majority of servers are based on the Linux operating system, but some providers offer Microsoft Windows-based or FreeBSD-based solutions. For example, the Plesk and Ensim control panels are both available for two operating systems, Linux and Windows. Versions for either OS have very similar interfaces and functionality, with the exception of OS-specific differences (for example, ASP.NET or Microsoft SQL Server support under Windows).
There are thousands of shared hosting providers in the United States alone. They range from mom-and-pop shops and small design firms to multi-million-dollar providers with hundreds of thousands of customers. A large portion of the shared web hosting market is driven through Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) or Affiliate programs.
Shared web hosting can also be done privately by sharing the cost of running a server in a colocation centre; this is called cooperative hosting.
[edit] Implementation
Shared web hosting can be accomplished in two ways: name-based and IP-based, although some control panels allow a mix of name-based and IP-based on the one server.
[edit] Name-based
In name-based virtual hosting, also called shared IP hosting, the virtual hosts serve multiple hostnames on a single machine with a single IP address.
When a web browser requests a resource from a web server using HTTP/1.1 it includes the requested hostname as part of the request. The server uses this information to determine which web site to show the user.
[edit] IP-based
In IP-based virtual hosting, also called dedicated IP hosting, each virtual host has a different IP address. The web server is configured with multiple physical network interfaces, or virtual network interfaces on the same physical interface. The web server software uses the IP address the client connects to in order to determine which web site to show the user. The primary reason for a site to use a dedicated IP is to be able to use its own SSL certificate rather than a shared certificate.
[edit] Disadvantages
Name-based virtual hosts have some disadvantages:
They will not work with browsers that do not send the hostname as part of requests. This is true for older HTTP/1.0 browsers that have not retrofitted the host field feature from the HTTP/1.1 protocol. (The "Host" header that distinguishes between various DNS names sharing a single IP address was optional in HTTP/1.0; it is mandatory in HTTP/1.1, issued in 1999 as RFC 2616.)
They do not properly support secure websites (HTTPS). All name-based virtual hosts using the same IP address must share the same digital certificate. This is because the SSL/TLS handshake takes place before the hostname is sent to the server. Thus the server doesn't know which encryption key to use when the connection is made. An extension to the TLS protocol, part of RFC 3546 - Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions, specifies a way for the client to provide the requested host name as part of the handshake, but it is not yet widely implemented.
If the Domain Name System is malfunctioning, it is harder to use a name-based virtually-hosted website. Ordinarily, in this case, the user could fall back to using the IP address to contact the system, as in http://127.0.0.1/ (invalid IP for example only). However, the web browser doesn't know what hostname to send to the server, but a name-based virtual host requires it
The hosting service must include system administration since it is shared by many users; this is a benefit for users who do not want to deal with it, but a hindrance to power users who want more control. In general shared hosting will be inappropriate for users who require extensive software development outside what the hosting provider supports.
Shared hosting typically uses a web-based control panel system, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, InterWorx, Helm, H-sphere, Ensim, Sphera or one of many other control panel products. Control panels and web interfaces have been causing some controversy lately as Web.com claims that it holds patent rights to the hosting technology with its 19 patents. Hostopia, a large wholesale host, recently purchased a license to use that technology from web.com for 10% of retail revenues.[1] Web.com recently sued Godaddy as well for similar patent infringement.[2]
In shared hosting, the provider is generally responsible for management of servers, installation of server software, security updates, Technical support and other aspects of the service. The majority of servers are based on the Linux operating system, but some providers offer Microsoft Windows-based or FreeBSD-based solutions. For example, the Plesk and Ensim control panels are both available for two operating systems, Linux and Windows. Versions for either OS have very similar interfaces and functionality, with the exception of OS-specific differences (for example, ASP.NET or Microsoft SQL Server support under Windows).
There are thousands of shared hosting providers in the United States alone. They range from mom-and-pop shops and small design firms to multi-million-dollar providers with hundreds of thousands of customers. A large portion of the shared web hosting market is driven through Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) or Affiliate programs.
Shared web hosting can also be done privately by sharing the cost of running a server in a colocation centre; this is called cooperative hosting.
[edit] Implementation
Shared web hosting can be accomplished in two ways: name-based and IP-based, although some control panels allow a mix of name-based and IP-based on the one server.
[edit] Name-based
In name-based virtual hosting, also called shared IP hosting, the virtual hosts serve multiple hostnames on a single machine with a single IP address.
When a web browser requests a resource from a web server using HTTP/1.1 it includes the requested hostname as part of the request. The server uses this information to determine which web site to show the user.
[edit] IP-based
In IP-based virtual hosting, also called dedicated IP hosting, each virtual host has a different IP address. The web server is configured with multiple physical network interfaces, or virtual network interfaces on the same physical interface. The web server software uses the IP address the client connects to in order to determine which web site to show the user. The primary reason for a site to use a dedicated IP is to be able to use its own SSL certificate rather than a shared certificate.
[edit] Disadvantages
Name-based virtual hosts have some disadvantages:
They will not work with browsers that do not send the hostname as part of requests. This is true for older HTTP/1.0 browsers that have not retrofitted the host field feature from the HTTP/1.1 protocol. (The "Host" header that distinguishes between various DNS names sharing a single IP address was optional in HTTP/1.0; it is mandatory in HTTP/1.1, issued in 1999 as RFC 2616.)
They do not properly support secure websites (HTTPS). All name-based virtual hosts using the same IP address must share the same digital certificate. This is because the SSL/TLS handshake takes place before the hostname is sent to the server. Thus the server doesn't know which encryption key to use when the connection is made. An extension to the TLS protocol, part of RFC 3546 - Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions, specifies a way for the client to provide the requested host name as part of the handshake, but it is not yet widely implemented.
If the Domain Name System is malfunctioning, it is harder to use a name-based virtually-hosted website. Ordinarily, in this case, the user could fall back to using the IP address to contact the system, as in http://127.0.0.1/ (invalid IP for example only). However, the web browser doesn't know what hostname to send to the server, but a name-based virtual host requires it
Mortgage
A mortgage is a method of using property (real or personal) as security for the payment of a debt.
The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. dead pledge) refers to the legal device used for this purpose, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage, the mortgage loan.
In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.
In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Participants and variant terminology
Legal systems tend to share certain concepts but vary in the terminology and jargon used.
In general terms the main participants in a mortgage are:
[edit] Creditor
The creditor has legal rights to the debt or other obligation secured by the mortgage. That debt is often the obligation to repay the loan by the creditor (or its predecessor lender) who provided the purchase money to acquire the property mortgaged. Typically, creditors are banks, insurers or other financial institutions who make loans available for the purpose of real estate purchase.
A creditor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagee or lender.
[edit] Debtor
The debtor is the person or entity who owes the obligation secured by the mortgage, and may be multiple parties. Generally, the debtor must meet the conditions of the underlying loan or other obligation and the conditions of the mortgage. Otherwise, the debtor usually runs the risk of foreclosure of the mortgage by the creditor to recover the debt. Typically the debtors will be the individual home-owners, landlords or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.
A debtor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagor, borrower, or obligor.
[edit] Other participants
Due to the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The terminology varies with legal jurisdiction; see lawyer, solicitor and conveyancer.
Because of the complex nature of many markets the debtor may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help them source an appropriate creditor typically by finding the most competitive loan. Recently, many US consumers (particularly higher income borrowers) are choosing to work with Certified Mortgage Planners, industry experts that work closely with Certified Financial Planners to align the home finance position(s) of homeowners with their larger financial portfolio(s).
The debt is sometimes referred to as the hypothecation, which may make use of the services of a hypothecary to assist in the hypothecation.
In addition to borrowers, lenders, government sponsored agencies, private agencies; there is also a fifth class of participants who are the source of funds - the Life Insurers, Pension Funds, etc.
[edit] Other Terminologies
Like any other legal system, the mortgage business sometimes uses confusing jargon. Below are some terms explained in brief. If a term is not explained here it may be related to the mortgage loans rather than to the legal process.
Conveyance
The legal document that transfers ownership of unregistered land.
Disbursements
All the fees of the solicitors and governments, such as stamp duty, land registry, search fees, etc.
Freehold
The ownership of a property and the land.
Land Registration
A legal document that records the ownership of a property and land. This is also known as a Title.
Leasehold
The ownership of the property and land for a specified period, which may be sold separately from freehold, which may be owned by another person.
Legal Charge
A legal document that records the data of the rightful owner of a property or land.
Mortgage Deed
A legal document that stated that the lender has a legal charge over the property.
Sealing Fee
A fee made when the lender releases the legal charge over the property.
Seasoned mortgage
A mortgage which has been paid in a timely manner by the mortgagor for a period of typically no less than six months, and often for more than one year. The term is associated with the secondary market, where mortgages with similar characteristics are bought and sold in bulk.
[edit] Legal Aspects
There are essentially two types of legal mortgage.
[edit] Mortgage by demise
In a mortgage by demise, the creditor becomes the owner of the mortgaged property until the loan is repaid in full (known as "redemption"). This kind of mortgage takes the form of a conveyance of the property to the creditor, with a condition that the property will be returned on redemption.
This is an older form of legal mortgage and is less common than a mortgage by legal charge. It is no longer available in the UK, by virtue of the Land Registration Act 2002.
[edit] Mortgage by legal charge
In a mortgage by legal charge, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it.
To protect the lender, a mortgage by legal charge is usually recorded in a public register. Since mortgage debt is often the largest debt owed by the debtor, banks and other mortgage lenders run title searches of the real property to make certain that there are no mortgages already registered on the debtor's property which might have higher priority. Tax liens, in some cases, will come ahead of mortgages. For this reason, if a borrower has delinquent property taxes, the bank will often pay them to prevent the lienholder from foreclosing and wiping out the mortgage.
This type of mortgage is common in the United States and, since 1925, it has been the usual form of mortgage in England and Wales (it is now the only form - see above).
In Scotland, the mortgage by legal charge is also known as standard security.
History
At common law, a mortgage was a conveyance of land that on its face was absolute and conveyed a fee simple estate, but which was in fact conditional, and would be of no effect if certain conditions were not met --- usually, but not necessarily, the repayment of a debt to the original landowner. Hence the word "mortgage," Law French for "dead pledge;" that is, it was absolute in form, and unlike a "live gage", was not conditionally dependent on its repayment solely from raising and selling crops or livestock, or of simply giving the fruits of crops and livestock coming from the land that was mortgaged. The mortgage debt remained in effect whether or not the land could successfully produce enough income to repay the debt. In theory, a mortgage required no further steps to be taken by the creditor, such as acceptance of crops and livestock, for repayment.
The difficulty with this arrangement was that the lender was absolute owner of the property and could sell it, or refuse to reconvey it to the borrower, who was in a weak position. Increasingly the courts of equity began to protect the borrower's interests, so that a borrower came to have an absolute right to insist on reconveyance on redemption. This right of the borrower is known as the "equity of redemption".
This arrangement, whereby the mortgagee (the lender) was on theory the absolute owner, but in practice had few of the practical rights of ownership, was seen in many jurisdictions as being awkwardly artificial. By statute the common law position was altered so that the mortgagor would retain ownership, but the mortgagee's rights, such as foreclosure, the power of sale and the right to take possession would be protected.
In the United States, those states that have reformed the nature of mortgages in this way are known as lien states. A similar effect was achieved in England and Wales by the Law of Property Act 1925, which abolished mortgages by the conveyance of a fee simple.
Foreclosure and non-recourse lending
In most jurisdictions, a lender may foreclose the mortgaged property if certain conditions - principally, non-payment of the mortgage loan - apply. Subject to local legal requirements, the property may then be sold. Any amounts received from the sale (net of costs) are applied to the original debt. In some jurisdictions, mortgage loans are non-recourse loans: if the funds recouped from sale of the mortgaged property are insufficient to cover the outstanding debt, the lender may not have recourse to the borrower after foreclosure. In other jurisdictions, the borrower remains responsible for any remaining debt. In virtually all jurisdictions, specific procedures for foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property apply, and may be tightly regulated by the relevant government; in some jurisdictions, foreclosure and sale can occur quite rapidly, while in others, foreclosure may take many months or even years. In many countries, the ability of lenders to foreclose is extremely limited, and mortgage market development has been notably slower.
Mortgages in the United States
Types of Mortgage Instruments
Two types of mortgage instruments are used in the United States: the mortgage (sometimes called a mortgage deed) and the deed of trust.
The mortgage
In all but a few states, a mortgage creates a lien on the title to the mortgaged property. Foreclosure of that lien almost always requires a judicial proceeding declaring the debt to be due and in default and ordering a sale of the property to pay the debt.
The deed of trust
The deed of trust is a deed by the borrower to a trustee for the purposes of securing a debt. In most states, it also merely creates a lien on the title and not a title transfer, regardless of its terms. It differs from a mortgage in that, in many states, it can be foreclosed by a non-judicial sale held by the trustee. It is also possible to foreclose them through a judicial proceeding.
Most "mortgages" in California are actually deeds of trust. The effective difference is that the foreclosure process can be much faster for a deed of trust than for a mortgage, on the order of 3 months rather than a year. Because the foreclosure does not require actions by the court the transaction costs can be quite a bit less.
Deeds of trust to secure repayments of debts should not be confused with trust instruments that are sometimes called deeds of trust but that are used to create trusts for other purposes, such as estate planning. Though there are superficial similarities in the form, many states hold deeds of trust to secure repayment of debts do not create true trust arrangements.
Mortgage lien priority
Except in those few states in the United States that adhere to the title theory of mortgages, either a mortgage or a deed of trust will create a mortgage lien upon the title to the real property being mortgaged. The lien is said to "attach" to the title when the mortgage is signed by the mortgagor and delivered to the mortgagee and the mortgagor receives the funds whose repayment the mortgage secures. Subject to the requirements of the recording laws of the state in which the land is located, this attachment establishes the priority of the mortgage lien with respect to other liens on the property's title.[2] Liens that have attached to the title before the mortgage lien are said to be senior to, or prior to, the mortgage lien. Those attaching afterward are said to be junior or subordinate.[3] The purpose of this priority is to establish the order in which lien holders are entitled to foreclose their liens in an attempt to recover their debts. If there are multiple mortgage liens on the title to a property and the loan secured by a first mortgage is paid off, the second mortgage lien will move up in priority and become the new first mortgage lien on the title. Documenting this new priority arrangement will require the release of the mortgage securing the paid off loan.
The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. dead pledge) refers to the legal device used for this purpose, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage, the mortgage loan.
In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.
In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Participants and variant terminology
Legal systems tend to share certain concepts but vary in the terminology and jargon used.
In general terms the main participants in a mortgage are:
[edit] Creditor
The creditor has legal rights to the debt or other obligation secured by the mortgage. That debt is often the obligation to repay the loan by the creditor (or its predecessor lender) who provided the purchase money to acquire the property mortgaged. Typically, creditors are banks, insurers or other financial institutions who make loans available for the purpose of real estate purchase.
A creditor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagee or lender.
[edit] Debtor
The debtor is the person or entity who owes the obligation secured by the mortgage, and may be multiple parties. Generally, the debtor must meet the conditions of the underlying loan or other obligation and the conditions of the mortgage. Otherwise, the debtor usually runs the risk of foreclosure of the mortgage by the creditor to recover the debt. Typically the debtors will be the individual home-owners, landlords or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.
A debtor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagor, borrower, or obligor.
[edit] Other participants
Due to the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The terminology varies with legal jurisdiction; see lawyer, solicitor and conveyancer.
Because of the complex nature of many markets the debtor may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help them source an appropriate creditor typically by finding the most competitive loan. Recently, many US consumers (particularly higher income borrowers) are choosing to work with Certified Mortgage Planners, industry experts that work closely with Certified Financial Planners to align the home finance position(s) of homeowners with their larger financial portfolio(s).
The debt is sometimes referred to as the hypothecation, which may make use of the services of a hypothecary to assist in the hypothecation.
In addition to borrowers, lenders, government sponsored agencies, private agencies; there is also a fifth class of participants who are the source of funds - the Life Insurers, Pension Funds, etc.
[edit] Other Terminologies
Like any other legal system, the mortgage business sometimes uses confusing jargon. Below are some terms explained in brief. If a term is not explained here it may be related to the mortgage loans rather than to the legal process.
Conveyance
The legal document that transfers ownership of unregistered land.
Disbursements
All the fees of the solicitors and governments, such as stamp duty, land registry, search fees, etc.
Freehold
The ownership of a property and the land.
Land Registration
A legal document that records the ownership of a property and land. This is also known as a Title.
Leasehold
The ownership of the property and land for a specified period, which may be sold separately from freehold, which may be owned by another person.
Legal Charge
A legal document that records the data of the rightful owner of a property or land.
Mortgage Deed
A legal document that stated that the lender has a legal charge over the property.
Sealing Fee
A fee made when the lender releases the legal charge over the property.
Seasoned mortgage
A mortgage which has been paid in a timely manner by the mortgagor for a period of typically no less than six months, and often for more than one year. The term is associated with the secondary market, where mortgages with similar characteristics are bought and sold in bulk.
[edit] Legal Aspects
There are essentially two types of legal mortgage.
[edit] Mortgage by demise
In a mortgage by demise, the creditor becomes the owner of the mortgaged property until the loan is repaid in full (known as "redemption"). This kind of mortgage takes the form of a conveyance of the property to the creditor, with a condition that the property will be returned on redemption.
This is an older form of legal mortgage and is less common than a mortgage by legal charge. It is no longer available in the UK, by virtue of the Land Registration Act 2002.
[edit] Mortgage by legal charge
In a mortgage by legal charge, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it.
To protect the lender, a mortgage by legal charge is usually recorded in a public register. Since mortgage debt is often the largest debt owed by the debtor, banks and other mortgage lenders run title searches of the real property to make certain that there are no mortgages already registered on the debtor's property which might have higher priority. Tax liens, in some cases, will come ahead of mortgages. For this reason, if a borrower has delinquent property taxes, the bank will often pay them to prevent the lienholder from foreclosing and wiping out the mortgage.
This type of mortgage is common in the United States and, since 1925, it has been the usual form of mortgage in England and Wales (it is now the only form - see above).
In Scotland, the mortgage by legal charge is also known as standard security.
History
At common law, a mortgage was a conveyance of land that on its face was absolute and conveyed a fee simple estate, but which was in fact conditional, and would be of no effect if certain conditions were not met --- usually, but not necessarily, the repayment of a debt to the original landowner. Hence the word "mortgage," Law French for "dead pledge;" that is, it was absolute in form, and unlike a "live gage", was not conditionally dependent on its repayment solely from raising and selling crops or livestock, or of simply giving the fruits of crops and livestock coming from the land that was mortgaged. The mortgage debt remained in effect whether or not the land could successfully produce enough income to repay the debt. In theory, a mortgage required no further steps to be taken by the creditor, such as acceptance of crops and livestock, for repayment.
The difficulty with this arrangement was that the lender was absolute owner of the property and could sell it, or refuse to reconvey it to the borrower, who was in a weak position. Increasingly the courts of equity began to protect the borrower's interests, so that a borrower came to have an absolute right to insist on reconveyance on redemption. This right of the borrower is known as the "equity of redemption".
This arrangement, whereby the mortgagee (the lender) was on theory the absolute owner, but in practice had few of the practical rights of ownership, was seen in many jurisdictions as being awkwardly artificial. By statute the common law position was altered so that the mortgagor would retain ownership, but the mortgagee's rights, such as foreclosure, the power of sale and the right to take possession would be protected.
In the United States, those states that have reformed the nature of mortgages in this way are known as lien states. A similar effect was achieved in England and Wales by the Law of Property Act 1925, which abolished mortgages by the conveyance of a fee simple.
Foreclosure and non-recourse lending
In most jurisdictions, a lender may foreclose the mortgaged property if certain conditions - principally, non-payment of the mortgage loan - apply. Subject to local legal requirements, the property may then be sold. Any amounts received from the sale (net of costs) are applied to the original debt. In some jurisdictions, mortgage loans are non-recourse loans: if the funds recouped from sale of the mortgaged property are insufficient to cover the outstanding debt, the lender may not have recourse to the borrower after foreclosure. In other jurisdictions, the borrower remains responsible for any remaining debt. In virtually all jurisdictions, specific procedures for foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property apply, and may be tightly regulated by the relevant government; in some jurisdictions, foreclosure and sale can occur quite rapidly, while in others, foreclosure may take many months or even years. In many countries, the ability of lenders to foreclose is extremely limited, and mortgage market development has been notably slower.
Mortgages in the United States
Types of Mortgage Instruments
Two types of mortgage instruments are used in the United States: the mortgage (sometimes called a mortgage deed) and the deed of trust.
The mortgage
In all but a few states, a mortgage creates a lien on the title to the mortgaged property. Foreclosure of that lien almost always requires a judicial proceeding declaring the debt to be due and in default and ordering a sale of the property to pay the debt.
The deed of trust
The deed of trust is a deed by the borrower to a trustee for the purposes of securing a debt. In most states, it also merely creates a lien on the title and not a title transfer, regardless of its terms. It differs from a mortgage in that, in many states, it can be foreclosed by a non-judicial sale held by the trustee. It is also possible to foreclose them through a judicial proceeding.
Most "mortgages" in California are actually deeds of trust. The effective difference is that the foreclosure process can be much faster for a deed of trust than for a mortgage, on the order of 3 months rather than a year. Because the foreclosure does not require actions by the court the transaction costs can be quite a bit less.
Deeds of trust to secure repayments of debts should not be confused with trust instruments that are sometimes called deeds of trust but that are used to create trusts for other purposes, such as estate planning. Though there are superficial similarities in the form, many states hold deeds of trust to secure repayment of debts do not create true trust arrangements.
Mortgage lien priority
Except in those few states in the United States that adhere to the title theory of mortgages, either a mortgage or a deed of trust will create a mortgage lien upon the title to the real property being mortgaged. The lien is said to "attach" to the title when the mortgage is signed by the mortgagor and delivered to the mortgagee and the mortgagor receives the funds whose repayment the mortgage secures. Subject to the requirements of the recording laws of the state in which the land is located, this attachment establishes the priority of the mortgage lien with respect to other liens on the property's title.[2] Liens that have attached to the title before the mortgage lien are said to be senior to, or prior to, the mortgage lien. Those attaching afterward are said to be junior or subordinate.[3] The purpose of this priority is to establish the order in which lien holders are entitled to foreclose their liens in an attempt to recover their debts. If there are multiple mortgage liens on the title to a property and the loan secured by a first mortgage is paid off, the second mortgage lien will move up in priority and become the new first mortgage lien on the title. Documenting this new priority arrangement will require the release of the mortgage securing the paid off loan.
Injury
Injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or function of the body caused by an outside agent or force, which may be physical or chemical. Injury may also refer to injured feelings or reputation rather than injuries to the body.
Legal issues
Various legal remedies may be available for personal injury (eg. under the law negligence) or some other type of injury (eg. see damages and restitution).
In the United States, the legal definition of malicious injury is any injury committed with malice, hatred or one committed spitefully or wantonly. Such an action must be willfully committed with the knowledge that it is liable to cause injury. Injury involving element of fraud, violence, wantonness, willfulness, or criminality. An injury that is intentional, wrongful and without just cause or excuse, even in the absence of hatred, spite or ill will.
Legal issues
Various legal remedies may be available for personal injury (eg. under the law negligence) or some other type of injury (eg. see damages and restitution).
In the United States, the legal definition of malicious injury is any injury committed with malice, hatred or one committed spitefully or wantonly. Such an action must be willfully committed with the knowledge that it is liable to cause injury. Injury involving element of fraud, violence, wantonness, willfulness, or criminality. An injury that is intentional, wrongful and without just cause or excuse, even in the absence of hatred, spite or ill will.
Crime
The word "crime" came from Latin crimen (genitive criminis), from the Latin root cernō and Greek κρινω = "I judge". Originally it meant "charge (in law), guilt, accusation." In everyday usage, a crime is understood as any act that violates a law.
Informal relationships and sanctions have been deemed insufficient to create and maintain a desired social order, resulting in formalized systems of social control by the government, or more broadly, the State. With the institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State are able to compel individuals to conform to behavioural norms and punish those that do not. Various mechanisms are employed to regulate behaviour, including rules codified into laws, policing people to ensure they comply with those laws, and other policies and practices designed to prevent crime. In addition are remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Not all breaches of the law, however, are considered crimes, for example, breaches of contract and other civil law offenses. The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are normally reserved for those activities that are injurious to the general population or the State, including some that cause serious loss or damage to individuals. The label is intended to assert an hegemony of a dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behavior and to justify a punishment imposed by the State, in the event that an accused person is tried and convicted of a crime. The term "crime" can also technically refer to the use of criminal law to regulate minor infractions, such as traffic violations. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions and in some moral environments, legal persons are also considered to have the capability of committing crimes. The State can also technically commit crimes, although this is only rarely reflected in the justice system.
Informal relationships and sanctions have been deemed insufficient to create and maintain a desired social order, resulting in formalized systems of social control by the government, or more broadly, the State. With the institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State are able to compel individuals to conform to behavioural norms and punish those that do not. Various mechanisms are employed to regulate behaviour, including rules codified into laws, policing people to ensure they comply with those laws, and other policies and practices designed to prevent crime. In addition are remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Not all breaches of the law, however, are considered crimes, for example, breaches of contract and other civil law offenses. The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are normally reserved for those activities that are injurious to the general population or the State, including some that cause serious loss or damage to individuals. The label is intended to assert an hegemony of a dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behavior and to justify a punishment imposed by the State, in the event that an accused person is tried and convicted of a crime. The term "crime" can also technically refer to the use of criminal law to regulate minor infractions, such as traffic violations. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions and in some moral environments, legal persons are also considered to have the capability of committing crimes. The State can also technically commit crimes, although this is only rarely reflected in the justice system.
Finance
Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses, and organizations raise, allocate, and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects. The term finance may thus incorporate any of the following:
The study of money and other assets;
The management and control of those assets;
Profiling and managing project risks;
The science of managing money;
As a verb, "to finance" is to provide funds for business or for an individual's large purchases (car, home, etc.).
The activity of finance is the application of a set of techniques that individuals and organizations (entities) use to manage their financial affairs, particularly the differences between income and expenditure and the risks of their investments.
An entity whose income exceeds its expenditure can lend or invest the excess income. On the other hand, an entity whose income is less than its expenditure can raise capital by borrowing or selling equity claims, decreasing its expenses, or increasing its income. The lender can find a borrower, a financial intermediary, such as a bank or buy notes or bonds in the bond market. The lender receives interest, the borrower pays a higher interest than the lender receives, and the financial intermediary pockets the difference.
A bank aggregates the activities of many borrowers and lenders. A bank accepts deposits from lenders, on which it pays the interest. The bank then lends these deposits to borrowers. Banks allow borrowers and lenders, of different sizes, to coordinate their activity. Banks are thus compensators of money flows in space.
A specific example of corporate finance is the sale of stock by a company to institutional investors like investment banks, who in turn generally sell it to the public. The stock gives whoever owns it part ownership in that company. If you buy one share of XYZ Inc, and they have 100 shares outstanding (held by investors), you are 1/100 owner of that company. Of course, in return for the stock, the company receives cash, which it uses to expand its business in a process called "equity financing". Equity financing mixed with the sale of bonds (or any other debt financing) is called the company's capital structure.
Finance is used by individuals (personal finance), by governments (public finance), by businesses (corporate finance), etc., as well as by a wide variety of organizations including schools and non-profit organizations. In general, the goals of each of the above activities are achieved through the use of appropriate financial instruments, with consideration to their institutional setting.
Finance is one of the most important aspects of business management. Without proper financial planning a new enterprise is unlikely to be successful. Managing money (a liquid asset) is essential to ensure a secure future, both for the individual and an organization.
The study of money and other assets;
The management and control of those assets;
Profiling and managing project risks;
The science of managing money;
As a verb, "to finance" is to provide funds for business or for an individual's large purchases (car, home, etc.).
The activity of finance is the application of a set of techniques that individuals and organizations (entities) use to manage their financial affairs, particularly the differences between income and expenditure and the risks of their investments.
An entity whose income exceeds its expenditure can lend or invest the excess income. On the other hand, an entity whose income is less than its expenditure can raise capital by borrowing or selling equity claims, decreasing its expenses, or increasing its income. The lender can find a borrower, a financial intermediary, such as a bank or buy notes or bonds in the bond market. The lender receives interest, the borrower pays a higher interest than the lender receives, and the financial intermediary pockets the difference.
A bank aggregates the activities of many borrowers and lenders. A bank accepts deposits from lenders, on which it pays the interest. The bank then lends these deposits to borrowers. Banks allow borrowers and lenders, of different sizes, to coordinate their activity. Banks are thus compensators of money flows in space.
A specific example of corporate finance is the sale of stock by a company to institutional investors like investment banks, who in turn generally sell it to the public. The stock gives whoever owns it part ownership in that company. If you buy one share of XYZ Inc, and they have 100 shares outstanding (held by investors), you are 1/100 owner of that company. Of course, in return for the stock, the company receives cash, which it uses to expand its business in a process called "equity financing". Equity financing mixed with the sale of bonds (or any other debt financing) is called the company's capital structure.
Finance is used by individuals (personal finance), by governments (public finance), by businesses (corporate finance), etc., as well as by a wide variety of organizations including schools and non-profit organizations. In general, the goals of each of the above activities are achieved through the use of appropriate financial instruments, with consideration to their institutional setting.
Finance is one of the most important aspects of business management. Without proper financial planning a new enterprise is unlikely to be successful. Managing money (a liquid asset) is essential to ensure a secure future, both for the individual and an organization.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
American Idol
American Idol is an annual American televised singing competition, which began its first season on June 11, 2002. Part of the Idol franchise, it originated from the UK reality program Pop Idol.
The program seeks to discover the best young singer in the country, through a series of nationwide auditions. The outcomes of the latter stages of this competition are determined by public voting by phone. The format features three judges who critique the contestants' performances in order to facilitate the voting: record producer and bass player Randy Jackson; former pop star Paula Abdul; and producer and manager Simon Cowell. Ryan Seacrest is the host.
The show usually airs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. In its six seasons, its six winners have been, in order of their season, Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, and Jordin Sparks. The first five American Idols are from the Southern U.S and the sixth, Jordin Sparks, was from the Southwest. Hicks was the oldest winner at 29, Sparks the youngest at just 17.
American Idol is televised on Fox in the United States and on Fox and CTV in Canada. The Idol series was first created by Simon Fuller (manager of the Spice Girls and S Club 7) and developed by Simon Jones of FremantleMedia. The directors are Bruce Gowers (director of Queen's original "Bohemian Rhapsody" video), Nigel Lythgoe (a judge on So You Think You Can Dance) and Ken Warwick (Gladiators and Grudge Match).
The program seeks to discover the best young singer in the country, through a series of nationwide auditions. The outcomes of the latter stages of this competition are determined by public voting by phone. The format features three judges who critique the contestants' performances in order to facilitate the voting: record producer and bass player Randy Jackson; former pop star Paula Abdul; and producer and manager Simon Cowell. Ryan Seacrest is the host.
The show usually airs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. In its six seasons, its six winners have been, in order of their season, Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, and Jordin Sparks. The first five American Idols are from the Southern U.S and the sixth, Jordin Sparks, was from the Southwest. Hicks was the oldest winner at 29, Sparks the youngest at just 17.
American Idol is televised on Fox in the United States and on Fox and CTV in Canada. The Idol series was first created by Simon Fuller (manager of the Spice Girls and S Club 7) and developed by Simon Jones of FremantleMedia. The directors are Bruce Gowers (director of Queen's original "Bohemian Rhapsody" video), Nigel Lythgoe (a judge on So You Think You Can Dance) and Ken Warwick (Gladiators and Grudge Match).
Entourage(TV Series)
Entourage is an Emmy Award winning HBO original series created by Doug Ellin that chronicles the rise of Vincent Chase—a young A-list movie star—and his childhood friends from Queens, New York City as they navigate the unfamiliar terrain of Hollywood, California. Doug Ellin, Mark Wahlberg, and Stephen Levinson serve as the show's executive producers, and the show's premise is loosely based on Wahlberg's experiences as an up-and-coming movie star. The theme song is called "Superhero" performed by Jane's Addiction
Major characters
Image Name Actor Role
Vincent "Vince" Chase Adrian Grenier Actor
Eric "E" Murphy Kevin Connolly Vince's best-friend and manager
Johnny "Drama" Chase Kevin Dillon Actor; Vince's brother, aspiring actor, and cook
Turtle Jerry Ferrara Vince's driver and go-fer; music manager
Ari Gold Jeremy Piven Vince's agent
Recurring characters
Main article: List of recurring characters in Entourage
Entourage features many recurring characters. Sometimes these characters are played by celebrities such as Malcolm McDowell as Terrance McQuewick or Martin Landau as Bob Ryan and sometimes the celebrities play themselves, such as Mandy Moore and Seth Green.
Guests and cameos
Main article: List of celebrities appearing on Entourage
Entourage typically has at least one celebrity guest per episode. The long list of celebrities on the program includes Jessica Alba, Gary Busey, James Cameron, Larry David, Seth Green, Anthony Michael Hall, Hugh Hefner, Dennis Hopper, Scarlett Johansson, Val Kilmer, Jimmy Kimmel, Ralph Macchio, Danny Masterson, Amanda Peet, Brett Ratner, Bob Saget, Brooke Shields, Pauly Shore, Sarah Silverman, Luke Wilson, and James Woods.
[edit] Episodes
Main article: List of Entourage episodes
The first episode was simply titled "Entourage" and aired on July 18, 2004. The 12-episode fourth season of Entourage began airing on HBO on June 17, 2007. Mark Wahlberg has recently stated in an interview with HBO.com that the newest episodes of the show are not at all based on his life experiences, but are works of fiction.
Major characters
Image Name Actor Role
Vincent "Vince" Chase Adrian Grenier Actor
Eric "E" Murphy Kevin Connolly Vince's best-friend and manager
Johnny "Drama" Chase Kevin Dillon Actor; Vince's brother, aspiring actor, and cook
Turtle Jerry Ferrara Vince's driver and go-fer; music manager
Ari Gold Jeremy Piven Vince's agent
Recurring characters
Main article: List of recurring characters in Entourage
Entourage features many recurring characters. Sometimes these characters are played by celebrities such as Malcolm McDowell as Terrance McQuewick or Martin Landau as Bob Ryan and sometimes the celebrities play themselves, such as Mandy Moore and Seth Green.
Guests and cameos
Main article: List of celebrities appearing on Entourage
Entourage typically has at least one celebrity guest per episode. The long list of celebrities on the program includes Jessica Alba, Gary Busey, James Cameron, Larry David, Seth Green, Anthony Michael Hall, Hugh Hefner, Dennis Hopper, Scarlett Johansson, Val Kilmer, Jimmy Kimmel, Ralph Macchio, Danny Masterson, Amanda Peet, Brett Ratner, Bob Saget, Brooke Shields, Pauly Shore, Sarah Silverman, Luke Wilson, and James Woods.
[edit] Episodes
Main article: List of Entourage episodes
The first episode was simply titled "Entourage" and aired on July 18, 2004. The 12-episode fourth season of Entourage began airing on HBO on June 17, 2007. Mark Wahlberg has recently stated in an interview with HBO.com that the newest episodes of the show are not at all based on his life experiences, but are works of fiction.
Facebook is a social networking website. As of July 2007, it is the second most visited website of its kind on the World Wide Web, with over 28 million members. It is surpassed only by MySpace.
Facebook was restricted to members with a college or university email address, but has since been made available to any email address. People can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region. As of February 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 25 million members worldwide (also from non-collegiate networks).
Facebook is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, ranked between top 10–20 most visited websites as of June 2007 and is the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily. It is also the seventh most visited site in the United States.
The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff.
The site is free to users and generates revenue from advertising including banner ads and sponsored groups (in April 2006, revenue was rumored to be over $1.5 million per week).[6] Users create profiles that often contain photos and lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends. The viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network or confirmed friends. According to TechCrunch, "about 85% of students in [previously] supported colleges have a profile [on the site]. [Of those who are signed up,] 60% log in daily. About 85% log in at least once a week, and 93% log in at least once a month." According to Chris Hughes, spokesman for Facebook, "People spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook."[7] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based limited liability company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named as the second most "in" thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and sex and losing only to the iPod.[8]
[edit] Origins and expansion
Mark Zuckerberg
The former banner of Facebook.comWikinews has news related to this article:
Facebook's fundingHarvard University, and Phillips Exeter Academy graduate Mark Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook" in February 2004, with support from Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin. By the end of the month, more than half of the undergraduate population at Harvard were registered on the service. At that time, Zuckerberg was joined by Dustin Moskovitz for site promotion and Facebook expanded to MIT, Boston University, and Boston College. This expansion continued in April of 2004, when it expanded to the rest of Ivy League and a few other schools. The following month, Zuckerberg, McCollum, Hughes, and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto, California to continue work on Facebook's development with additional help from Adam D'Angelo and Sean Parker. In September, Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, the owners of the social networking website ConnectU filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had illegally used source code intended for a website they asked him to build for them.[9][10] Also at that time, Facebook received approximately $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round. By December, Facebook's user base had exceeded one million.
[edit] 2005
In May 2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners.[11] On August 23, 2005, Aboutface Corporation sold the domain name facebook.com to Facebook for $200,000. The website moved to this new domain name and dropped "the" from its name. As a part of the move, the site was overhauled to make profile pages more user-friendly, according to Zuckerberg. Afterwards, McCollum and Hughes returned to Harvard, although Hughes remained the site's spokesperson and McCollum remained on as a consultant and doing staff work during the summer. Then, on September 2, 2005, Zuckerberg launched the high school iteration of Facebook, calling it the next logical thing to do. At first, it was a completely separate entity to which users needed to be invited to join. However, in just fifteen days, most high school networks did not require a password to join. By October, Facebook's expansion had trickled down to most small universities and junior colleges in the United States, Canada, and The UK, in addition to having expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom, the entire Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) system in Mexico, the entire University of Puerto Rico network in Puerto Rico, and the whole University of the Virgin Islands network in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On December 11, 2005, universities in Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to more than 2,000 colleges and more than 25,000 high schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, more than 11,000,000 users worldwide.[12]
[edit] 2006
On February 27, 2006, Facebook began allowing college students to add high school students as friends due to requests from users.[13] About a month later, on March 28, 2006, BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of the site was under negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million, and it was rumored that the asking price was as high as $2 billion.[14] In April, Peter Thiel, Greylock Partners, and Meritech Capital Partners invested an additional $25 million in the site.[15] In May, Facebook's network extended into India, at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The following month, Facebook threatened to seek costs of up to $100,000 from Quizsender.com for copyright infringement for allegedly copying the "look and feel" of Facebook.[16][17] On July 25, new services were offered in the site that would potentially produce additional revenue. A promotion was arranged between Facebook and iTunes, in which members of the Apple Students group would receive a free 25 song sampler each week until September 30 in various music genres. The promotion's purpose was to make students more familiar and enthusiastic with each service as fall classes approached.[18] In the early half of August, Facebook added universities in Germany and high schools in Israel, (Haifa, Jerusalem, and Qiryat Gat) to its network. On the 22nd of that month, Facebook introduced Facebook Notes, a blogging feature with tagging, embedded images, and other features, also allowing the importation of blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services. This newly added feature also included the common blog feature of allowing readers to comment on users' entries. On September 11, 2006, Facebook became open to all users of the Internet, prompting protest from its existing user base.[19] Two weeks later, Facebook opened registration to anyone with a valid e-mail address (see below).[20]
[edit] 2007
On the 10th of May, Facebook announced a plan to add free, classified advertisements to its website, making it a competitor with established online companies such as Craigslist.[21] This feature, known as Facebook Marketplace, went live on May 14, 2007. On May 14, 2007, Facebook launched an API that allows the development of applications to be used on the site, known as Facebook Platform.[22] In June, the partnership begun the previous year between iTunes and Facebook continued, with the download service again offering free music samplers through the Apple Students group.
[edit] Sale rumors
In 2006, with the sale of social networking site MySpace to NewsCorp, rumors surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, has said that he does not want to sell the company and denies rumors to the contrary.[23] He has already rejected outright offers in the range of $975 million, and it is not clear who might be willing to pay a higher premium for the site. Steve Rosenbush, a technology business analyst, suspects Viacom.[24]
In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place for the acquisition of the social network, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion.[25] In October, after Google purchased video-sharing site YouTube, rumors circulated that Google had offered $2.3 billion to outbid Yahoo![26]
Peter Theil, a board member of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation is around $8 billion based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to that of Viacom's MTV brand[27] and based on shared target demographic audience.
[edit] Criticisms
[edit] Lawsuit from Connectu.com
This article documents an ongoing lawsuit.
Information may change rapidly as the suit progresses.
Founder of Facebook.com, Mark Zuckerberg, has been accused of illegally using both the concept and source code from competing site Connectu.com. In November 2003, ConnectU engaged Mark Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, to complete the computer programming for their website. Upon joining the ConnectU team, Zuckerberg was given complete unfettered access to the website code. Allegedly, Zuckerberg intentionally hampered the development of ConnectU while using code originally intended for ConnectU in the development of Facebook.
Since its original filing in Massachusetts the lawsuit has been dismissed without prejudice due to lack of diversity among parties. It was refiled on March 27, 2007[28] and is considered to be ongoing.
[edit] Privacy concerns
There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Theories have been written about the possible misuse of Facebook[29] and privacy proponents have criticized the site's current privacy agreement.[30] According to the policy, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped and Facebook has since responded to the concerns. Facebook has assured worried users the next privacy policy will not include the clause about information collection and has denied any data mining is being done "for the CIA or any other group."[31] However, the possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, as evidenced by the fact that two MIT students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14th, 2005.[32]
Another clause that some users are critical of reserves the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern has also been addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."[33] It is unclear if Facebook plans to remove that clause as well.
Facebook staff have the authority to view profiles in the event that the person is suspected of violating the site's terms of service.
[edit] News Feed and Mini-Feed
A sample Facebook home page taken on 11 April 2007, the day of the most recent layout update, showing the user's "News Feed". Friends' activities are documented and timestamped.On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new controversial features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of a member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.[34] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings are able to to control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.
Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt-out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members.[35] However, according to recent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.[36]
Another problem is that the Facebook users may be under the impression that deleting something from one's Mini-Feed deletes it from the News Feed as well. It does not. In fact, there is no way to prevent some forms of updates to one's profile from being broadcast over the News Feed, as Facebook offers only a limited opt-out list. Users unaware of the News Feed function often unintentionally broadcast profile changes. Some information may even be sent over News-Feed without the knowledge of the user - for example, imported notes are put into the News Feed, even though notes can be set up to import automatically. This can automatically associate a user in the News Feed with whoever writes on the blog that they are importing.
[edit] Concerns of higher education faculty and administrators
On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School at Iowa State University, entitled "Facing the Facebook".[37] Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom,"[38] quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organizations such as the National Association for Campus Activities,[39] the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,[40] and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what [Facebook] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".[41]
[edit] Integration of high school users
This user has been rejected by too many people and must wait ten days before trying to add more friends.Following the February 27, 2006 integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision.[42] Users from opposite branches could only fully interact if they were friends and some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from others. However, some college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience.[43] Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since university addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the bad publicity seen by MySpace.[44]
Adding to the controversy around opening Facebook to younger students, four high school students at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario were arrested in a Facebook-related protest on March 23, 2007. Earlier that week, five different students had been suspended for posting criticisms about a vice-principal of their school. About a dozen friends of the suspendees had decided to protest in front of the school, but that handful soon grew to over 100 students protesting for free speech. Local law enforcement authorities were called, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in the arrest of 4 students.[45]
[edit] Use in investigations
Main article: Use of social network websites in investigations
The information students provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by colleges, universities, and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use[46] specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only", misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. However, there are settings on Facebook that allow a user to make his/her profile private (only people the user approves may see his/her profile).
[edit] Alcohol policy violations
There have been incidents where colleges and universities use Facebook to investigate underage drinking and violations of dry campus policies or discover them while investigating other incidents. For example, several Residence Community Advisors at McMaster University lost their jobs when pictures were discovered of them having casual drinks in a residence hall one night towards the end of semester.[47] Many high schools have also begun to use Facebook to crack down on underage drinking and other illegal activities.
In response to the monitoring, some students have begun to submit "red herring" party listings.[48] In one case at The George Washington University, shown at CakeParty.org,[49] students advertised their party and were raided by campus police. The police found only cake, no alcohol, and later claimed the break up had been triggered by a noise complaint.[50][51]
[edit] Other investigations
Students in sororities and fraternities at the University of Miami are constantly put on probation because of pictures anonymously printed off Facebook and given to the Dean.[citation needed] Rival sororities actually turn each other in[citation needed], hoping to disqualify them from events such as recruitment and highly competitive Greek Week.
The United States Secret Service met with a University of Oklahoma freshman in March 2005 after he posted a joke about assassinating President Bush. However, this investigation began after a fellow University of Oklahoma student alerted the Secret Service to the threat and did not stem from federal monitoring of the site as some suggested.[52]
During student government elections held in October 2005, results at the University of Missouri and the University of Pennsylvania were delayed due to early campaigning violations on Facebook.[53][54]
A student at Fisher College was expelled for suggesting that a campus police officer be illegally "set up" and that he "needs to be eliminated."[55]
At the University of Mississippi, a group of students were brought before the University's Judicial Board in April 2005 and forced to remove a Facebook group that professed their love for a professor (Dr. Anne Quinney) in a sexually suggestive manner.[56]
One Miami University student was arrested after he set a composite sketch of a rape suspect as his profile picture.[57]
Others have been punished for rushing the football field at Penn State (Many "I rushed the field" groups were created after the Nittany Lion football team defeated Ohio State in October 2005, and State College Police and Pennsylvania State Police used the groups to arrest those who they believed rushed the field in violation of school policy),[58]
A Duquesne University student was punished for hate speech against homosexuals.[59]
Four Syracuse University students were reprimanded for harassing an instructor in a Facebook group. The creator of the group was expelled from the school.[60] On the other hand, University of Louisville students who had created a Facebook group to complain about a professor's teaching shortcomings helped lead to the dismissal of their targeted instructor in February 2006, and the students were not punished.[61]
In February 2007, following the hit-and-run death of freshman Carlee Wines, University of Connecticut campus police used Facebook to link the suspected driver, Anthony P. Alvino of Lindenhurst, N.Y., to the university.[62] By following leads via Facebook, police learned of the connection between Alvino and his girlfriend, Michele A. Hall, a UConn student.[63] Alvino was charged for the hit-and-run, while Hall was charged with helping cover it up and hindering prosecution.
In April 2007, just days after the Virginia Tech shooting, a student at the SUNY College at Cobleskill was remanded into psychiatric care and suspended from college after posting a photo of himself on his profile with a vaguely threatening message underneath. This story became even more controversial as it grew across the news.[64][65]
During the University of Bath’s 2007 Student Union Elections, Presidential candidate George Pappadakis was disqualified from running due to a premature campaign on Facebook. The subsequent decision induced heavy debate and criticism.[66]
[edit] Other uses of profile information
Because of users' concern over who was viewing their photo albums (pictured), Facebook staff added privacy controls such as Limited Profile settings to restrict their display.Some employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns.[67] Information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to employers with faculty or alumni accounts.[68]
Information posted on the site is sometimes distributed publicly. Students who are related to politicians or other public figures have had screenshots of their profiles or photo albums taken and shared in an attempt to embarrass their relatives.[69] After profile information was posted on Gawker and Wonkette, two popular weblogs, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly, sent the sites' publishers cease and desist notices.[70] Also, a group calling itself Performing Politics, Inc. publicly displayed the profiles of students at Yale who had made comments about homosexuality in an effort to show evidence of homophobia at the school.[71]
In Wrentham, Massachusetts State Senator Scott P. Brown (R) was invited to speak at King Philip Regional High School to talk about his position against gay marriage. During the speech, Brown read verbatim several posts attacking him from a Facebook group dedicated to a pro-gay rights history teacher. Often he included both verbatim profanity and the names of the students who wrote them.[72]
Militant members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in Britain have threatened students at Oxford who support the university's proposed South Parks laboratory saying they are legitimate targets for attack. A counter-activist group called Pro-Test has warned students not to support the lab's construction on Facebook as they believe ALF is monitoring the site.[73]
According to Facebook's privacy policy, Facebook reserves the right to release the information that users provide (including favorite movies, television shows, books, music, etc.) to organizations.
[edit] Responses
[edit] Schools block access
The University of New Mexico in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook.[74] After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.[75]
The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University's athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts.[76] On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.
[edit] Facebook memorials
A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died,[87] preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. (For examples of user petitions and discussion of the issues surrounding facebook memorialization, see the walls for the Facebook groups "Facebook Memorialization Is Misguided: Dead Friends Are Still People"[88] and "Write to Facebook about Memorialization"[89]) Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state."[90]
Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups to remember not only a deceased friend or individual, but also as a source of support in response to a great tragedy such as 9/11 or the crisis at Virginia Tech in April.
Customization and security
Facebook is often compared to MySpace but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and CSS while Facebook only allows plain text. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace profiles.[91] Incidentally, both users are now employed by Facebook. On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video and a flash game from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.[92] On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.[93] In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery.
Imitators
Vkontakte (В Контакте - translated as "In Contact"), is a Russian Facebook clone made by Pavel Durov (Павел Дуров). It is one of the fastest growing websites in the .ru community, according to Alexa Web Search. Ironically, most Russian users are not aware of Facebook's existence and are quite surprised to find out that English-speakers enjoy a similar social community. Vkontakte Russian Wikipedia Article. It should be noted though that Pavel Durov acknowledges the fact that Facebook.com served as a model for Vkontakte.ru History Of Vkontakte.ru (In Russian)
Other Facebook clones throughout the world include German StudiVZ, Dutch Hyves, and Australian StudentFace. All these sites share Facebook's success in their corresponding countries to a certain extent, according to Alexa, thus showing the efficiency of Facebook's model in other communities.
Additional features
The Wall
The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. One user's wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different user's wall posts show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friend's walls for leaving short, temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.
Gifts
Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.In February 2007, Facebook added a new gift feature to the website. Friends could send "gifts" (small icons of novelty items) to each other by selecting one from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a message. Gifts given to a user appear on the recipient's wall with the giver's message, unless the giver decided to give the gift privately, in which case the giver's name and message is not displayed to other users. Additionally, all gifts (including private gifts) received by a user are displayed in the recipient's "gift box" (right above their wall on their profile), marked with either the first name of the user (for public gifts) or the word "Private." An "Anonymous" option is also available, by which anyone with profile access can see the gift, but only the recipient will see the message. No one will see the giver's name, and the gift will go in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.
Some Facebook users are given one free gift to give; each additional gift given by a user costs US$1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's Day themed, and 50% of the proceeds received through February 2007 were donated to the charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure. After the month of February, the proceeds were no longer donated. Soon after, Facebook began making one new gift available each day, most of which had a limited supply or were available for a limited time. The daily new gift is advertised on every user's home page.
With the advent of Applications came a way to subvert the required US$1.00 payment; however, the gifts in the "Free Gifts" application, created by Zachary Allia, are not the same as the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.
Marketplace
In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. Ads can be posted in either available or wanted format. The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free.
Pokes
Facebook includes a "poke" feature which allows one user to send a "poke" to another. In principle this is intended to serve as a "nudge" to attract the attention of the other user. However while many Facebook users, as intended, use the feature to attract attention or say hello, some users construe it as a sexual advance. This interpretation of the feature inspired a popular Facebook group entitled "Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex," which, as of June 2007, has more than 200,000 members.
There are several new applications such as "X Me" by Jia Shen and "SuperPoke!" by Nikil Gandhy, Will Liu and Jonathan Hsu that allow users to do more than just poke other users. They can do various things using these applications such as hug, pinch, bite, kiss, bitchslap, tickle, or trip.
Status
The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of their current whereabouts and actions. Facebook prompts the status update with "(User name) is..." and Facebook users fill in the rest. Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a users' friend list. After the Virginia Tech massacre, one Virginia Tech Facebook member updated her status to let friends and family know she was safe.[97]
Applications
In June 2007, Facebook allowed users to develop applications within the framework of the site.
These applications include "Questionnaires, Surveys, Polls, Votes and Petitions", which enables users to create, share and respond to questionnaires, either for fun, to get to know friends better or for research purposes; "The Filter," which gives the user the ability to display music information on their profile; "Honesty Box" which allows people to anonymously tell their friends what they "really" feel about them; "Food Fight!," where users can "buy" and "throw" food at each other; "Graffiti," which lets users "draw" on each others' profiles; and "Top Friends," which gives a Facebook profile the same mechanism to select their "top" 4-32 friends. There are also several gaming applications such as the ilike challenge, which is a music trivia game that allows a user to compete against their friends.
On June 24, Facebook hit 1,000 new applications users can put onto their profiles.[citation needed]
Facebook Markup Language
Facebook Markup Language is a subset of the HTML markup language. It allows Facebook application writers to customize the "look and feel" of their applications, to a limited extent
Facebook was restricted to members with a college or university email address, but has since been made available to any email address. People can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region. As of February 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 25 million members worldwide (also from non-collegiate networks).
Facebook is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, ranked between top 10–20 most visited websites as of June 2007 and is the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily. It is also the seventh most visited site in the United States.
The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff.
The site is free to users and generates revenue from advertising including banner ads and sponsored groups (in April 2006, revenue was rumored to be over $1.5 million per week).[6] Users create profiles that often contain photos and lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends. The viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network or confirmed friends. According to TechCrunch, "about 85% of students in [previously] supported colleges have a profile [on the site]. [Of those who are signed up,] 60% log in daily. About 85% log in at least once a week, and 93% log in at least once a month." According to Chris Hughes, spokesman for Facebook, "People spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook."[7] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based limited liability company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named as the second most "in" thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and sex and losing only to the iPod.[8]
[edit] Origins and expansion
Mark Zuckerberg
The former banner of Facebook.comWikinews has news related to this article:
Facebook's fundingHarvard University, and Phillips Exeter Academy graduate Mark Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook" in February 2004, with support from Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin. By the end of the month, more than half of the undergraduate population at Harvard were registered on the service. At that time, Zuckerberg was joined by Dustin Moskovitz for site promotion and Facebook expanded to MIT, Boston University, and Boston College. This expansion continued in April of 2004, when it expanded to the rest of Ivy League and a few other schools. The following month, Zuckerberg, McCollum, Hughes, and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto, California to continue work on Facebook's development with additional help from Adam D'Angelo and Sean Parker. In September, Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, the owners of the social networking website ConnectU filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had illegally used source code intended for a website they asked him to build for them.[9][10] Also at that time, Facebook received approximately $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round. By December, Facebook's user base had exceeded one million.
[edit] 2005
In May 2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners.[11] On August 23, 2005, Aboutface Corporation sold the domain name facebook.com to Facebook for $200,000. The website moved to this new domain name and dropped "the" from its name. As a part of the move, the site was overhauled to make profile pages more user-friendly, according to Zuckerberg. Afterwards, McCollum and Hughes returned to Harvard, although Hughes remained the site's spokesperson and McCollum remained on as a consultant and doing staff work during the summer. Then, on September 2, 2005, Zuckerberg launched the high school iteration of Facebook, calling it the next logical thing to do. At first, it was a completely separate entity to which users needed to be invited to join. However, in just fifteen days, most high school networks did not require a password to join. By October, Facebook's expansion had trickled down to most small universities and junior colleges in the United States, Canada, and The UK, in addition to having expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom, the entire Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) system in Mexico, the entire University of Puerto Rico network in Puerto Rico, and the whole University of the Virgin Islands network in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On December 11, 2005, universities in Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to more than 2,000 colleges and more than 25,000 high schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, more than 11,000,000 users worldwide.[12]
[edit] 2006
On February 27, 2006, Facebook began allowing college students to add high school students as friends due to requests from users.[13] About a month later, on March 28, 2006, BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of the site was under negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million, and it was rumored that the asking price was as high as $2 billion.[14] In April, Peter Thiel, Greylock Partners, and Meritech Capital Partners invested an additional $25 million in the site.[15] In May, Facebook's network extended into India, at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The following month, Facebook threatened to seek costs of up to $100,000 from Quizsender.com for copyright infringement for allegedly copying the "look and feel" of Facebook.[16][17] On July 25, new services were offered in the site that would potentially produce additional revenue. A promotion was arranged between Facebook and iTunes, in which members of the Apple Students group would receive a free 25 song sampler each week until September 30 in various music genres. The promotion's purpose was to make students more familiar and enthusiastic with each service as fall classes approached.[18] In the early half of August, Facebook added universities in Germany and high schools in Israel, (Haifa, Jerusalem, and Qiryat Gat) to its network. On the 22nd of that month, Facebook introduced Facebook Notes, a blogging feature with tagging, embedded images, and other features, also allowing the importation of blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services. This newly added feature also included the common blog feature of allowing readers to comment on users' entries. On September 11, 2006, Facebook became open to all users of the Internet, prompting protest from its existing user base.[19] Two weeks later, Facebook opened registration to anyone with a valid e-mail address (see below).[20]
[edit] 2007
On the 10th of May, Facebook announced a plan to add free, classified advertisements to its website, making it a competitor with established online companies such as Craigslist.[21] This feature, known as Facebook Marketplace, went live on May 14, 2007. On May 14, 2007, Facebook launched an API that allows the development of applications to be used on the site, known as Facebook Platform.[22] In June, the partnership begun the previous year between iTunes and Facebook continued, with the download service again offering free music samplers through the Apple Students group.
[edit] Sale rumors
In 2006, with the sale of social networking site MySpace to NewsCorp, rumors surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, has said that he does not want to sell the company and denies rumors to the contrary.[23] He has already rejected outright offers in the range of $975 million, and it is not clear who might be willing to pay a higher premium for the site. Steve Rosenbush, a technology business analyst, suspects Viacom.[24]
In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place for the acquisition of the social network, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion.[25] In October, after Google purchased video-sharing site YouTube, rumors circulated that Google had offered $2.3 billion to outbid Yahoo![26]
Peter Theil, a board member of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation is around $8 billion based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to that of Viacom's MTV brand[27] and based on shared target demographic audience.
[edit] Criticisms
[edit] Lawsuit from Connectu.com
This article documents an ongoing lawsuit.
Information may change rapidly as the suit progresses.
Founder of Facebook.com, Mark Zuckerberg, has been accused of illegally using both the concept and source code from competing site Connectu.com. In November 2003, ConnectU engaged Mark Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, to complete the computer programming for their website. Upon joining the ConnectU team, Zuckerberg was given complete unfettered access to the website code. Allegedly, Zuckerberg intentionally hampered the development of ConnectU while using code originally intended for ConnectU in the development of Facebook.
Since its original filing in Massachusetts the lawsuit has been dismissed without prejudice due to lack of diversity among parties. It was refiled on March 27, 2007[28] and is considered to be ongoing.
[edit] Privacy concerns
There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Theories have been written about the possible misuse of Facebook[29] and privacy proponents have criticized the site's current privacy agreement.[30] According to the policy, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped and Facebook has since responded to the concerns. Facebook has assured worried users the next privacy policy will not include the clause about information collection and has denied any data mining is being done "for the CIA or any other group."[31] However, the possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, as evidenced by the fact that two MIT students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14th, 2005.[32]
Another clause that some users are critical of reserves the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern has also been addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."[33] It is unclear if Facebook plans to remove that clause as well.
Facebook staff have the authority to view profiles in the event that the person is suspected of violating the site's terms of service.
[edit] News Feed and Mini-Feed
A sample Facebook home page taken on 11 April 2007, the day of the most recent layout update, showing the user's "News Feed". Friends' activities are documented and timestamped.On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new controversial features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of a member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.[34] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings are able to to control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.
Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt-out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members.[35] However, according to recent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.[36]
Another problem is that the Facebook users may be under the impression that deleting something from one's Mini-Feed deletes it from the News Feed as well. It does not. In fact, there is no way to prevent some forms of updates to one's profile from being broadcast over the News Feed, as Facebook offers only a limited opt-out list. Users unaware of the News Feed function often unintentionally broadcast profile changes. Some information may even be sent over News-Feed without the knowledge of the user - for example, imported notes are put into the News Feed, even though notes can be set up to import automatically. This can automatically associate a user in the News Feed with whoever writes on the blog that they are importing.
[edit] Concerns of higher education faculty and administrators
On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School at Iowa State University, entitled "Facing the Facebook".[37] Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom,"[38] quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organizations such as the National Association for Campus Activities,[39] the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,[40] and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what [Facebook] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".[41]
[edit] Integration of high school users
This user has been rejected by too many people and must wait ten days before trying to add more friends.Following the February 27, 2006 integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision.[42] Users from opposite branches could only fully interact if they were friends and some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from others. However, some college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience.[43] Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since university addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the bad publicity seen by MySpace.[44]
Adding to the controversy around opening Facebook to younger students, four high school students at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario were arrested in a Facebook-related protest on March 23, 2007. Earlier that week, five different students had been suspended for posting criticisms about a vice-principal of their school. About a dozen friends of the suspendees had decided to protest in front of the school, but that handful soon grew to over 100 students protesting for free speech. Local law enforcement authorities were called, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in the arrest of 4 students.[45]
[edit] Use in investigations
Main article: Use of social network websites in investigations
The information students provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by colleges, universities, and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use[46] specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only", misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. However, there are settings on Facebook that allow a user to make his/her profile private (only people the user approves may see his/her profile).
[edit] Alcohol policy violations
There have been incidents where colleges and universities use Facebook to investigate underage drinking and violations of dry campus policies or discover them while investigating other incidents. For example, several Residence Community Advisors at McMaster University lost their jobs when pictures were discovered of them having casual drinks in a residence hall one night towards the end of semester.[47] Many high schools have also begun to use Facebook to crack down on underage drinking and other illegal activities.
In response to the monitoring, some students have begun to submit "red herring" party listings.[48] In one case at The George Washington University, shown at CakeParty.org,[49] students advertised their party and were raided by campus police. The police found only cake, no alcohol, and later claimed the break up had been triggered by a noise complaint.[50][51]
[edit] Other investigations
Students in sororities and fraternities at the University of Miami are constantly put on probation because of pictures anonymously printed off Facebook and given to the Dean.[citation needed] Rival sororities actually turn each other in[citation needed], hoping to disqualify them from events such as recruitment and highly competitive Greek Week.
The United States Secret Service met with a University of Oklahoma freshman in March 2005 after he posted a joke about assassinating President Bush. However, this investigation began after a fellow University of Oklahoma student alerted the Secret Service to the threat and did not stem from federal monitoring of the site as some suggested.[52]
During student government elections held in October 2005, results at the University of Missouri and the University of Pennsylvania were delayed due to early campaigning violations on Facebook.[53][54]
A student at Fisher College was expelled for suggesting that a campus police officer be illegally "set up" and that he "needs to be eliminated."[55]
At the University of Mississippi, a group of students were brought before the University's Judicial Board in April 2005 and forced to remove a Facebook group that professed their love for a professor (Dr. Anne Quinney) in a sexually suggestive manner.[56]
One Miami University student was arrested after he set a composite sketch of a rape suspect as his profile picture.[57]
Others have been punished for rushing the football field at Penn State (Many "I rushed the field" groups were created after the Nittany Lion football team defeated Ohio State in October 2005, and State College Police and Pennsylvania State Police used the groups to arrest those who they believed rushed the field in violation of school policy),[58]
A Duquesne University student was punished for hate speech against homosexuals.[59]
Four Syracuse University students were reprimanded for harassing an instructor in a Facebook group. The creator of the group was expelled from the school.[60] On the other hand, University of Louisville students who had created a Facebook group to complain about a professor's teaching shortcomings helped lead to the dismissal of their targeted instructor in February 2006, and the students were not punished.[61]
In February 2007, following the hit-and-run death of freshman Carlee Wines, University of Connecticut campus police used Facebook to link the suspected driver, Anthony P. Alvino of Lindenhurst, N.Y., to the university.[62] By following leads via Facebook, police learned of the connection between Alvino and his girlfriend, Michele A. Hall, a UConn student.[63] Alvino was charged for the hit-and-run, while Hall was charged with helping cover it up and hindering prosecution.
In April 2007, just days after the Virginia Tech shooting, a student at the SUNY College at Cobleskill was remanded into psychiatric care and suspended from college after posting a photo of himself on his profile with a vaguely threatening message underneath. This story became even more controversial as it grew across the news.[64][65]
During the University of Bath’s 2007 Student Union Elections, Presidential candidate George Pappadakis was disqualified from running due to a premature campaign on Facebook. The subsequent decision induced heavy debate and criticism.[66]
[edit] Other uses of profile information
Because of users' concern over who was viewing their photo albums (pictured), Facebook staff added privacy controls such as Limited Profile settings to restrict their display.Some employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns.[67] Information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to employers with faculty or alumni accounts.[68]
Information posted on the site is sometimes distributed publicly. Students who are related to politicians or other public figures have had screenshots of their profiles or photo albums taken and shared in an attempt to embarrass their relatives.[69] After profile information was posted on Gawker and Wonkette, two popular weblogs, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly, sent the sites' publishers cease and desist notices.[70] Also, a group calling itself Performing Politics, Inc. publicly displayed the profiles of students at Yale who had made comments about homosexuality in an effort to show evidence of homophobia at the school.[71]
In Wrentham, Massachusetts State Senator Scott P. Brown (R) was invited to speak at King Philip Regional High School to talk about his position against gay marriage. During the speech, Brown read verbatim several posts attacking him from a Facebook group dedicated to a pro-gay rights history teacher. Often he included both verbatim profanity and the names of the students who wrote them.[72]
Militant members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in Britain have threatened students at Oxford who support the university's proposed South Parks laboratory saying they are legitimate targets for attack. A counter-activist group called Pro-Test has warned students not to support the lab's construction on Facebook as they believe ALF is monitoring the site.[73]
According to Facebook's privacy policy, Facebook reserves the right to release the information that users provide (including favorite movies, television shows, books, music, etc.) to organizations.
[edit] Responses
[edit] Schools block access
The University of New Mexico in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook.[74] After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.[75]
The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University's athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts.[76] On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.
[edit] Facebook memorials
A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died,[87] preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. (For examples of user petitions and discussion of the issues surrounding facebook memorialization, see the walls for the Facebook groups "Facebook Memorialization Is Misguided: Dead Friends Are Still People"[88] and "Write to Facebook about Memorialization"[89]) Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state."[90]
Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups to remember not only a deceased friend or individual, but also as a source of support in response to a great tragedy such as 9/11 or the crisis at Virginia Tech in April.
Customization and security
Facebook is often compared to MySpace but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and CSS while Facebook only allows plain text. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace profiles.[91] Incidentally, both users are now employed by Facebook. On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video and a flash game from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.[92] On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.[93] In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery.
Imitators
Vkontakte (В Контакте - translated as "In Contact"), is a Russian Facebook clone made by Pavel Durov (Павел Дуров). It is one of the fastest growing websites in the .ru community, according to Alexa Web Search. Ironically, most Russian users are not aware of Facebook's existence and are quite surprised to find out that English-speakers enjoy a similar social community. Vkontakte Russian Wikipedia Article. It should be noted though that Pavel Durov acknowledges the fact that Facebook.com served as a model for Vkontakte.ru History Of Vkontakte.ru (In Russian)
Other Facebook clones throughout the world include German StudiVZ, Dutch Hyves, and Australian StudentFace. All these sites share Facebook's success in their corresponding countries to a certain extent, according to Alexa, thus showing the efficiency of Facebook's model in other communities.
Additional features
The Wall
The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. One user's wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different user's wall posts show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friend's walls for leaving short, temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.
Gifts
Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.In February 2007, Facebook added a new gift feature to the website. Friends could send "gifts" (small icons of novelty items) to each other by selecting one from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a message. Gifts given to a user appear on the recipient's wall with the giver's message, unless the giver decided to give the gift privately, in which case the giver's name and message is not displayed to other users. Additionally, all gifts (including private gifts) received by a user are displayed in the recipient's "gift box" (right above their wall on their profile), marked with either the first name of the user (for public gifts) or the word "Private." An "Anonymous" option is also available, by which anyone with profile access can see the gift, but only the recipient will see the message. No one will see the giver's name, and the gift will go in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.
Some Facebook users are given one free gift to give; each additional gift given by a user costs US$1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's Day themed, and 50% of the proceeds received through February 2007 were donated to the charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure. After the month of February, the proceeds were no longer donated. Soon after, Facebook began making one new gift available each day, most of which had a limited supply or were available for a limited time. The daily new gift is advertised on every user's home page.
With the advent of Applications came a way to subvert the required US$1.00 payment; however, the gifts in the "Free Gifts" application, created by Zachary Allia, are not the same as the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.
Marketplace
In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. Ads can be posted in either available or wanted format. The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free.
Pokes
Facebook includes a "poke" feature which allows one user to send a "poke" to another. In principle this is intended to serve as a "nudge" to attract the attention of the other user. However while many Facebook users, as intended, use the feature to attract attention or say hello, some users construe it as a sexual advance. This interpretation of the feature inspired a popular Facebook group entitled "Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex," which, as of June 2007, has more than 200,000 members.
There are several new applications such as "X Me" by Jia Shen and "SuperPoke!" by Nikil Gandhy, Will Liu and Jonathan Hsu that allow users to do more than just poke other users. They can do various things using these applications such as hug, pinch, bite, kiss, bitchslap, tickle, or trip.
Status
The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of their current whereabouts and actions. Facebook prompts the status update with "(User name) is..." and Facebook users fill in the rest. Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a users' friend list. After the Virginia Tech massacre, one Virginia Tech Facebook member updated her status to let friends and family know she was safe.[97]
Applications
In June 2007, Facebook allowed users to develop applications within the framework of the site.
These applications include "Questionnaires, Surveys, Polls, Votes and Petitions", which enables users to create, share and respond to questionnaires, either for fun, to get to know friends better or for research purposes; "The Filter," which gives the user the ability to display music information on their profile; "Honesty Box" which allows people to anonymously tell their friends what they "really" feel about them; "Food Fight!," where users can "buy" and "throw" food at each other; "Graffiti," which lets users "draw" on each others' profiles; and "Top Friends," which gives a Facebook profile the same mechanism to select their "top" 4-32 friends. There are also several gaming applications such as the ilike challenge, which is a music trivia game that allows a user to compete against their friends.
On June 24, Facebook hit 1,000 new applications users can put onto their profiles.[citation needed]
Facebook Markup Language
Facebook Markup Language is a subset of the HTML markup language. It allows Facebook application writers to customize the "look and feel" of their applications, to a limited extent
PayPal
PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which it charges a fee. On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska; Dublin, Ireland; and Berlin, Germany.
Beginnings
PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.[3] Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[4] Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity's website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots [5] with email payments as a feature and X.com's website initially included financial services with email payments as a feature.
At Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin. On the X.com side, Elon Musk recruited a wide range of technical and business personnel, including many that were critical to the combined company's success, such as Amy Klement, Sal Giambanco, Roelof Botha, Sanjay Bhargava and Jeremy Stoppelman.[6]
To block potentially fraudulent access by automated systems, PayPal devised a system (see CAPTCHA) of making the user enter numbers from a blurry picture, which they coined the Gausebeck-Levchin test. According to Eric M. Jackson, author of the book The PayPal Wars, PayPal invented this system now in common use. Although, there is evidence AltaVista used a CAPTCHA as early as 1997, before PayPal existed.[citation needed] The neutrality of The PayPal Wars, which was self-published by Eric Jackson through his company World Ahead Publishing, funded in part by Peter Thiel, is disputed.[7]
eBay watched the rise in volume of online payments and realized its fit with online auctions. eBay purchased Billpoint in May 1999, prior to the existence of Paypal. eBay made Billpoint the official payment system of eBay, dubbing it "eBay Payments", but cut the functionality of Billpoint by narrowing it to only payments made for eBay auctions.
For this reason, PayPal was listed in several times as many auctions as Billpoint. In February of 2000, there were approximately an average of 200,000 daily auctions advertising the PayPal service while Billpoint (in beta) had only 4,000 auctions. By April of 2000 there were more than 1,000,000 auctions promoting the PayPal service. PayPal was able to turn the corner and become the first dot-com to IPO after the September 11 attacks.
[edit] Acquisition by eBay
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBay’s subsidiary Billpoint. eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Most of PayPal’s major competitors have shut down or have been sold; Citibank’s c2it service closed in late 2003, and Yahoo!'s PayDirect service closed in late 2004. Western Union announced the December 2005 shut down of their BidPay service but subsequently sold it in 2006 to CyberSource Corporation. Some competitors which offer some of PayPal’s services, such as Wirecard, Moneybookers, 2Checkout, CCNow and Kagi, remain in business.
PayPal’s total payment volume, the total value of transactions in Q4 2006, was US$11 billion, up 36% year over year. The company continues to focus on international growth and growth of its Merchant Services division, providing online payments for retailers off eBay.
[edit] Business today
As of the end of Q4 2006, PayPal operates in 103 markets (including China), and it manages over 133 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 17 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, Pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Czech Koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.
Residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.[1]
In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:[2]
PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.
It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.
PayPal’s operation center is located near Omaha, Nebraska and PayPal’s international headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland. The company also recently opened a technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
[edit] Legal issues
In March 2002, two PayPal account holders separately sued the company for alleged violations of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and California law. Most of the allegations concerned PayPal's dispute resolution procedures. The two lawsuits were merged into one class action lawsuit (In re PayPal litigation). An informal settlement was reached in November 2003, and a formal settlement was signed on June 11, 2004. The settlement requires that PayPal change its business practices (including changing its dispute resolution procedures to make them EFTA-compliant), as well as making a US$9.25 million payment to members of the class. PayPal denied any wrongdoing.
In August 2002, Craig Comb and others filed a class action against PayPal in Craig Comb, et al. v. PayPal, Inc.. They sued for alleged mishandling of customer accounts and customer services, with regards to PayPal's user agreement. Allegations included the up to 180-day restriction on deposited funds until disputes are resolved, forcing customers to arbitrate their disputes under the American Arbitration Association's guidelines (a costly procedure), and requiring users to file claims individually, restricting class action suits. The court deemed these actions unconscionable and ruled in favor of Comb.[8]
Accolades
According to PayPal's "About Us" page, "PayPal has received close to 20 awards for technical excellence from the internet industry and the business community at large - most recently the 2003 Webby Award for Best Finance Site and the 2003 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Finance Site."
They have won awards since, notably the "Best Finance Services Site" and "People’s Voice Award" at the 2006 Webby Awards.[10]
Bank status
In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter on a state-by-state basis. Although PayPal is not a bank, the company is still subject to and adheres to many of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act. However, on May 15, 2007, PayPal announced that it would move its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg, commencing July 2, 2007 as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. This would be as a Luxembourg entity regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg equivalent of the FSA. PayPal Luxembourg will then provide the PayPal service throughout the European Union (EU).
Safety & Protection Policies
The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy[3] claims that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via charge back from their credit card company.
PayPal protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy[4]. In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorised payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise". Note that this contrasts with the consumer protection they claim to offer. This policy should be read carefully before assuming protection. In particular the Seller Protection Policy includes a list of "Exclusions" which itself includes "Intangible goods", "Claims for receipt of goods 'not as described'" and "Total reversals over the annual limit". There are also other restrictions in terms of the sale itself, the payment method and the destination country the item is shipped to (simply having a tracking mechanism is not sufficient to guarantee the Seller Protection Policy is in effect).
The company—by its own admission—uses automated systems to verify tracking numbers. If a seller has an item not received claim filed against them, they are required to enter a tracking number for the item. If they fail to enter a valid tracking number that shows a successful delivery, or even mistype the number by one digit, they will lose the claim automatically without a real person ever adjudicating the claim. In general, if a valid tracking number is entered which can be accessed online and shows a successful delivery, the seller will automatically win the claim.
The item significantly not as described claim is a more complicated matter. In this situation, the buyer has acknowledged the receipt of the item but has found the item to be "significantly not as described." The multi-level process provides an initial period of time for the seller and buyer to attempt to reach an agreement on their own. If the seller does not respond to the initial dispute from the buyer, or if the seller is unable to offer a settlement which is agreeable to the buyer, the buyer then has the option of escalating the dispute to a claim. If seller does not wish to communicate with buyer, the seller also may choose to escalate a dispute to a claim. The escalation from dispute to claim is not automatic; if a dispute is not escalated it will be automatically closed after a certain period of time. By escalating the dispute to a claim, the party is asking a PayPal representative to review the claim and make a settlement decision. In most cases, if the seller has been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, the buyer will be required to return the item to the seller at buyer's expense — and provide a tracking number for the return shipment — in order to receive their refund for the transaction. This policy is criticized as being in favor of the fraudulent seller. A seller can exaggerate the condition of his items and the worst that can happen is that he has the item returned. The innocent buyer has to pay return shipping and ends up out of pocket for something that was not his fault. This is in line with criticism of eBay's general policy of putting sales and its own profits above buyer protection against fraudulent sellers (for instance shill bidding).
If the seller has not been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, then the buyer's claim will be denied and the buyer will have no further opportunity for claims of any type using Paypal's systems. The only recourse the buyer would possibly have at that point would be through their credit card company (if payment was made using a credit card) or by filing a claim against Paypal through the Better Business Bureau or another similar consumer protection organization.
Security Key
In early 2007, PayPal introduced an optional security key to its users. This adds an additional layer of protection when logging into a PayPal or eBay account. Once a user enters their login ID and password, they are prompted to press a button on the small security key, then enter the six digit number to complete the login process. There is a one-time US$5 charge for this device, with no ongoing fees, however business accounts get them free of charge.
Money Market
In 2000, PayPal began offering its customers the option of investing their funds in a Money Market account managed by Barclays plc. If a user activates it, the balance of their account begins earning monthly dividends. The rate fluctuates daily, but thus far has been around 5%, and this percentage is the same regardless of the account balance.
Funds are not insured by the FDIC. While other online bank accounts like ING Direct, Citi Direct, HSBC Direct, or Emigrant Direct offer comparable or higher percentage yields and are FDIC-insured, one major advantage of the PayPal money market account is the accessibility of it with no long term commitment.
Sandbox
Developers implementing larger PayPal projects will likely want to avoid using real money. PayPal has a "sandbox" version of its website geared towards such developers. PayPal has detailed developer information for all aspects of its API online in PDF form, as well as a developer community and a third party developer market.
Beginnings
PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.[3] Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[4] Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity's website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots [5] with email payments as a feature and X.com's website initially included financial services with email payments as a feature.
At Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin. On the X.com side, Elon Musk recruited a wide range of technical and business personnel, including many that were critical to the combined company's success, such as Amy Klement, Sal Giambanco, Roelof Botha, Sanjay Bhargava and Jeremy Stoppelman.[6]
To block potentially fraudulent access by automated systems, PayPal devised a system (see CAPTCHA) of making the user enter numbers from a blurry picture, which they coined the Gausebeck-Levchin test. According to Eric M. Jackson, author of the book The PayPal Wars, PayPal invented this system now in common use. Although, there is evidence AltaVista used a CAPTCHA as early as 1997, before PayPal existed.[citation needed] The neutrality of The PayPal Wars, which was self-published by Eric Jackson through his company World Ahead Publishing, funded in part by Peter Thiel, is disputed.[7]
eBay watched the rise in volume of online payments and realized its fit with online auctions. eBay purchased Billpoint in May 1999, prior to the existence of Paypal. eBay made Billpoint the official payment system of eBay, dubbing it "eBay Payments", but cut the functionality of Billpoint by narrowing it to only payments made for eBay auctions.
For this reason, PayPal was listed in several times as many auctions as Billpoint. In February of 2000, there were approximately an average of 200,000 daily auctions advertising the PayPal service while Billpoint (in beta) had only 4,000 auctions. By April of 2000 there were more than 1,000,000 auctions promoting the PayPal service. PayPal was able to turn the corner and become the first dot-com to IPO after the September 11 attacks.
[edit] Acquisition by eBay
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBay’s subsidiary Billpoint. eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Most of PayPal’s major competitors have shut down or have been sold; Citibank’s c2it service closed in late 2003, and Yahoo!'s PayDirect service closed in late 2004. Western Union announced the December 2005 shut down of their BidPay service but subsequently sold it in 2006 to CyberSource Corporation. Some competitors which offer some of PayPal’s services, such as Wirecard, Moneybookers, 2Checkout, CCNow and Kagi, remain in business.
PayPal’s total payment volume, the total value of transactions in Q4 2006, was US$11 billion, up 36% year over year. The company continues to focus on international growth and growth of its Merchant Services division, providing online payments for retailers off eBay.
[edit] Business today
As of the end of Q4 2006, PayPal operates in 103 markets (including China), and it manages over 133 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 17 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, Pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Czech Koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.
Residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.[1]
In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:[2]
PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.
It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.
PayPal’s operation center is located near Omaha, Nebraska and PayPal’s international headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland. The company also recently opened a technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
[edit] Legal issues
In March 2002, two PayPal account holders separately sued the company for alleged violations of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and California law. Most of the allegations concerned PayPal's dispute resolution procedures. The two lawsuits were merged into one class action lawsuit (In re PayPal litigation). An informal settlement was reached in November 2003, and a formal settlement was signed on June 11, 2004. The settlement requires that PayPal change its business practices (including changing its dispute resolution procedures to make them EFTA-compliant), as well as making a US$9.25 million payment to members of the class. PayPal denied any wrongdoing.
In August 2002, Craig Comb and others filed a class action against PayPal in Craig Comb, et al. v. PayPal, Inc.. They sued for alleged mishandling of customer accounts and customer services, with regards to PayPal's user agreement. Allegations included the up to 180-day restriction on deposited funds until disputes are resolved, forcing customers to arbitrate their disputes under the American Arbitration Association's guidelines (a costly procedure), and requiring users to file claims individually, restricting class action suits. The court deemed these actions unconscionable and ruled in favor of Comb.[8]
Accolades
According to PayPal's "About Us" page, "PayPal has received close to 20 awards for technical excellence from the internet industry and the business community at large - most recently the 2003 Webby Award for Best Finance Site and the 2003 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Finance Site."
They have won awards since, notably the "Best Finance Services Site" and "People’s Voice Award" at the 2006 Webby Awards.[10]
Bank status
In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter on a state-by-state basis. Although PayPal is not a bank, the company is still subject to and adheres to many of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act. However, on May 15, 2007, PayPal announced that it would move its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg, commencing July 2, 2007 as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. This would be as a Luxembourg entity regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg equivalent of the FSA. PayPal Luxembourg will then provide the PayPal service throughout the European Union (EU).
Safety & Protection Policies
The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy[3] claims that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via charge back from their credit card company.
PayPal protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy[4]. In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorised payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise". Note that this contrasts with the consumer protection they claim to offer. This policy should be read carefully before assuming protection. In particular the Seller Protection Policy includes a list of "Exclusions" which itself includes "Intangible goods", "Claims for receipt of goods 'not as described'" and "Total reversals over the annual limit". There are also other restrictions in terms of the sale itself, the payment method and the destination country the item is shipped to (simply having a tracking mechanism is not sufficient to guarantee the Seller Protection Policy is in effect).
The company—by its own admission—uses automated systems to verify tracking numbers. If a seller has an item not received claim filed against them, they are required to enter a tracking number for the item. If they fail to enter a valid tracking number that shows a successful delivery, or even mistype the number by one digit, they will lose the claim automatically without a real person ever adjudicating the claim. In general, if a valid tracking number is entered which can be accessed online and shows a successful delivery, the seller will automatically win the claim.
The item significantly not as described claim is a more complicated matter. In this situation, the buyer has acknowledged the receipt of the item but has found the item to be "significantly not as described." The multi-level process provides an initial period of time for the seller and buyer to attempt to reach an agreement on their own. If the seller does not respond to the initial dispute from the buyer, or if the seller is unable to offer a settlement which is agreeable to the buyer, the buyer then has the option of escalating the dispute to a claim. If seller does not wish to communicate with buyer, the seller also may choose to escalate a dispute to a claim. The escalation from dispute to claim is not automatic; if a dispute is not escalated it will be automatically closed after a certain period of time. By escalating the dispute to a claim, the party is asking a PayPal representative to review the claim and make a settlement decision. In most cases, if the seller has been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, the buyer will be required to return the item to the seller at buyer's expense — and provide a tracking number for the return shipment — in order to receive their refund for the transaction. This policy is criticized as being in favor of the fraudulent seller. A seller can exaggerate the condition of his items and the worst that can happen is that he has the item returned. The innocent buyer has to pay return shipping and ends up out of pocket for something that was not his fault. This is in line with criticism of eBay's general policy of putting sales and its own profits above buyer protection against fraudulent sellers (for instance shill bidding).
If the seller has not been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, then the buyer's claim will be denied and the buyer will have no further opportunity for claims of any type using Paypal's systems. The only recourse the buyer would possibly have at that point would be through their credit card company (if payment was made using a credit card) or by filing a claim against Paypal through the Better Business Bureau or another similar consumer protection organization.
Security Key
In early 2007, PayPal introduced an optional security key to its users. This adds an additional layer of protection when logging into a PayPal or eBay account. Once a user enters their login ID and password, they are prompted to press a button on the small security key, then enter the six digit number to complete the login process. There is a one-time US$5 charge for this device, with no ongoing fees, however business accounts get them free of charge.
Money Market
In 2000, PayPal began offering its customers the option of investing their funds in a Money Market account managed by Barclays plc. If a user activates it, the balance of their account begins earning monthly dividends. The rate fluctuates daily, but thus far has been around 5%, and this percentage is the same regardless of the account balance.
Funds are not insured by the FDIC. While other online bank accounts like ING Direct, Citi Direct, HSBC Direct, or Emigrant Direct offer comparable or higher percentage yields and are FDIC-insured, one major advantage of the PayPal money market account is the accessibility of it with no long term commitment.
Sandbox
Developers implementing larger PayPal projects will likely want to avoid using real money. PayPal has a "sandbox" version of its website geared towards such developers. PayPal has detailed developer information for all aspects of its API online in PDF form, as well as a developer community and a third party developer market.
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