Sarah Jacobsson

If you've ever quit Netflix -- only to come crawling back once you've realized that Hulu only has TV shows and the MPAA is cracking down on other video-streaming sites, you've probably noticed that when you re-signup for Netflix your data is still on the servers. Even if you quit the service over a year ago.

Well, those of you crying privacy foul need worry no more -- Netflix has agreed to delete former users' video history and queue data within one year of their leaving the service. The company agreed to this stipulation in a settlement regarding a class-action privacy lawsuit filed against Netflix last year. The lawsuit accused Netflix of violating the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which makes it illegal for video rental services to disclose viewers' video habits without written consent.

Dean Murray (R - East Patchogue)Online anonymity is once again under attack. This time, it comes from the New York state Senate floor, where a bill is aiming to cut down on cyberbullying, protect small businesses, and--naturally--protect politicians from anonymous attacks during campaign season.

This amendment would, were it approved (which it won't be, so don't worry), require New York-based websites to remove comments posted by anonymous users, unless said users agree to attach their names to said comments.

Asus probably isn't the first company that comes to mind when you think of big desktop replacement laptops that are optimized for gaming. The Asus G75VW, however, is the latest in a long line of gaming laptops produced by the company under the "Republic of Gamers" brand. Considering that gaming laptops often go for well over $2000, this big machine is relatively budget-priced, and it isn't awful--but it isn't great, either. Although it suffers in general performance, audio quality, and battery life, it has a nice screen, and the price may be right.

Our review model, priced at $1500 (as of May 23, 2012), sports an Intel Core i7-3610QM processor, 12GB of RAM, 1.5TB of hard-drive space, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M graphics chip. It also has built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive. The G75VW runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

After all the attention, clamor, and expectations Facebook is now a publicly traded company worth $104 billion. With shares trading at a hundred times earnings, Facebook is under a lot of pressure to increase the profit that it brings in. In other words, now the fun begins.

How will Facebook try to change our lives as it attempts to live up to investor expectations? Of course we'll see more ads, but that's  just a small part of Facebook's plan. If it wants to maintain its inflated price-to-earnings ratio, Facebook will have to settle for nothing less than Internet domination.  

Netflix Wednesday rolled out a much-needed update to its in-browser video player. The new player features a revamped control bar, the ability to browse other episodes during playback, and informative text overlays that pop up when you pause the video for a few seconds.

The new player appears to have some issues with Google Chrome on Mac OS X -- if you try to start the player in Chrome running on OS X, you get a warning pop-up that says the browser is not yet supported. That said, it may still work on your particular machine -- if you click through the warning, you may still be able to get Netflix to run with no issues.

Just days before Facebook's much anticipated initial public offering, one of the largest advertisers in the U.S. has decided to stop advertising on the platform. General Motors will stop advertising on Facebook because it has determined that paid ads on the site are, well, not effective, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the Journal, GM still plans to use Facebook as an advertising platform--it will promote its products on Facebook, and continue to build social rapport with its customers via Facebook--it just won't utilize Facebook's paid ads feature. If other Facebook advertisers are paying attention to GM's actions then this could be an issue for social network, which relies almost entirely on advertising sales to turn a profit.

Twitter is expanding the reach of its social network right into your inbox. The micro-blogging platform has announced that users now have the option of reading the "best of Twitter" in a weekly e-mail digest.

The e-mail digest isn't exactly the best of your Twitter feed, though. Instead, it is designed similar to Twitter's Discover tab, and highlights popular trending stories, not tweets. The digest will show only the first few lines of each story, and users will have to click on headlines to finish reading any particular story. Users will be able to tweet about the story directly from their e-mail platform, and also see related tweets from people they follow.

The 46-inch Sony Bravia KDL-46EX523 doesn’t stand out from the HDTV pack in design, features, or picture quality, but once you look at its price and its range of connected features, it starts to get a little more interesting.

Priced at $990 (as of March 28, 2012), this set has a lot of features that a budget buyer might want, including an edge-lit LED display, full HD support, built-in Internet apps, and Wi-Fi capabilities that make it a good option for people who enjoy Netflix streaming. The major trade-offs include a lack of 3D, a slower-than-most 60Hz refresh rate, and good--but not great--picture quality.

Facebook is launching an app store called the App Center that will showcase apps that exist on the social networking site’s platform and apps that tie in to the site using a Facebook login. The store will be accessible on the Web and on Facebook's iOS and Android apps, and will be available "in the coming weeks," according to an announcement on the site’s blog.

Just about every platform has an app store these days, whether it's mobile (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone) or not (Mac OS X, Windows 8). So why wouldn't Facebook also have one? After all, people use Farmville and other apps on Facebook, and apps that tie in with the social networking service (such as Spotify and Pinterest).

The Washington Post’s Social Reader app on Facebook is losing members in droves, a fate that seems to have befallen other “frictionless” apps that share pretty much whatever you’re doing on the Internet, whether you like it or not.

Forbes first reported the drop for the Post’s Social Reader app, and AppData.com confirmed it, finding that the Social Reader has fallen from 17.4 million monthly active users to 9.2 million users in the past month.

Mobile gamers will find powerful performance and some portability in Origin's latest custom-built gaming laptop, the 2012 Origin EON17-S. The EON17-S, which the company describes as the "next generation of high-performance," has been redesigned with a 17.3-inch full-HD display, updated specs, and an additional hard drive where the optical drive used to be.

Our review model costs $3442 and packs alluring specs: an Intel Extreme Edition Core i7-3920XM CPU overclocked to 4.5GHz, 16GB of speedy DDR3 RAM, and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M graphics card. The system also boasts two 120GB solid-state drives in RAID 0, as well as a 1TB hard disk in the optical bay (Origin includes a slim external Blu-ray writer for all of your optical-drive needs). Other notable features include built-in 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, built-in Bluetooth, and a built-in webcam, microphone, and fingerprint reader. The system runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

Hollywood's piracy schtick might be getting a little old. Not only does the movie industry continue to create less-than-impressive relationships with its audience by suing the pants off alleged file-sharers, now it's worried that faster Internet download speeds will enable piracy.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)'s concern is Google Fiber, Google's high-speed fiber-optic broadband that the company is currently deploying in Kansas City.