Facebook draws ire
of lactating mums

Agencies and Marketing Execs:

• Chad Stoller, former Executive Director-Emerging Platforms at Organic, returned to the firm after a five-month stint as VP-Marketing at Drop.io.
• Executive Editor Jim Brady is leaving WashingtonPost.com.

Biz Buzz:

• Netflix and Amazon topped holiday consumer satisfaction rankings this year, followed by QVC.com, Apple.com and BN.com (Barnes & Noble).

Legal, Government and Regulation:

• A US District Court Judge ruled Google cannot be held liable for "bad" products or misleading websites that use AdWords.
• Verizon was awarded $33.2 million in a suit against OnlineNic, which registered hundreds of domain names under Verizon's name. OnlineNic was nailed for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.

Mobile:

• Publishers say apps on the iPhone are beginning to generate nearly as many digital book sales as the Sony Reader (which still trails Kindle book sales).

Opinion:

• One survey finds pharma marketers are poised to embrace digital.

Overseas:

• The New York Times claims China has blocked access to NYTimes.com, mere days after the government defended its right to censor content it deems illegal or inappropriate. Expect to see such conflicts more often — and in more democratic countries — in the new year.

Publishing:

• Google launched a Product Ideas Blog that lets users review, propose and vote on different ideas.
• A survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists found more online journalists (bloggers, web-based reporters, online editors) are jailed today than journalists working in any other medium.
• Introducing Chabad.org, a news site dedicated to matters of interest to the Jewish community. It is run by a husband-and-wife team operating out of Israel; two Rabbis oversee logistics and editing.

Search:

• "Semantic" search firm Hakia launched customizable start pages, in the style of iGoogle, NetVibes and MyYahoo. The firm dubbed its product a "digital newspaper."
• Search Engine Land produced a search quiz that tests users' knowledge of the search industry and related events.

Social Networks:

• Facebook drew the ire of 80,000 mothers and supporters when it banned photographs of women breastfeeding. An online petition accuses the socnet of "[appeasing] the closed-minded."
• Search Engine Journal compiled a list of the top 20 Twitter-related posts of 2008.