Apple: App Access to Contact Data Will Require Explicit User Permission  —  After a week of silence Apple has finally responded to reports that dozens of iOS applications have been accessing, transmitting and storing user contact data without explicit permission.

Facebook Launches Verified Accounts and Pseudonyms  —  Facebook, a service built on real names and real identities, will tomorrow start allowing prominent public figures to verify their accounts and then opt to display a preferred nickname instead of their birth name.

Apple finally talks, says Proview refuses to honor agreement to transfer iPad trademark  —  Numerous online stores in China took the iPad off their shelves after Proview said Apple was breaking its trademark on the term “iPad.”  The fight continues in court, but Apple released a statement today …

Pinterest's Rite of Web Passage - Huge Traffic, No Revenue  —  If you haven't heard of Pinterest, you likely will soon.  —  Traffic to the website—which lets users create online scrapbooks to share images of projects or coveted products—has grown tenfold over the past six months.

Facebook to Release Timeline for Brands This Month  —  Launch Announcement Expected at Company's Feb. 29 Marketer Conference  —  Facebook will be bringing its new Timeline profile pages to brands this month in the U.S., according to executives briefed on the company's plans.

LightSquared blew it, and here's why  —  LightSquared may have had a great case for building its wireless network, but the fledgling company lacked the political tact to see it through.  —  LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja delivers a speech at CTIA 2011.  —  LightSquared today fired …

DuckDuckGo Has Its First Million-Search Day  —  The growth chart continues to trend in the right direction for DuckDuckGo.  —  It was just about three weeks ago that we wrote about the search engine setting its own record with 731,000 searches in a single day.  To go from that to more than a million in a few weeks is impressive.

Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency  —  (Reuters) - Working conditions at Chinese manufacturing plants where Apple Inc's iPads and iPhones are made are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a non-profit agency investigating the plants.

FCC requires VoIP services to report outages, mirroring landline rule  —  In a US Federal Communications Commission meeting today, the Commission ruled that internet telephony (i.e. VoIP) providers are subject to the same outage reporting rules as other service providers. 31 percent …

Sony completes Ericsson buyout, Sony Mobile Communications is born  —  With regulators signing off, we knew it was just a matter of time before Sony's buyout of mobile partner Ericsson was complete, and it looks like today's the day.  Sony has announced that it has completed its acquisition …

The $600 Million Social Life Of Foursquare Founder Dennis Crowley  —  For Dennis Crowley, life has always been a game that should be played with friends.  Few people could turn that mentality into a $600 million business.  —  Dennis Crowley sold his first startup to Google.

HP CEO: Google-Motorola deal could close-source Android  —  HP CEO Meg Whitman said a closed-source Android and iOS could create a big opportunity for webOS in the long run  —  WebOS could be an important player in the long run as an open-source mobile operating system because Android …

Obama campaign opening tech field office in San Francisco  —  The president's re-election effort is looking for a boost in the middle of one of the most tech-savvy cities in the world.  It's not staffed up yet, but the campaign is looking for volunteers.  —  President Obama's re-election campaign …

Did Samsung just reveal a Galaxy Note 10.1 for MWC?  —  Samsung's official website may have revealed the name of a heretofore unannounced product: a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.  The name appears on the company's invitation to a Samsung Developer Day at MWC this year, alongside the Galaxy Note …

France Tel CEO says network stressed by Free Mobile  —  France Telecom said its network was being stressed by a rapid growth in traffic brought on by its hosting of new mobile entrant Iliad and vowed to protect its clients from service interruptions, its CEO told magazine Le Point.

EU Court: Social Networks Can't Be Made To Filter Content  —  BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)—The owner of a social network cannot be made to install monitoring systems to prevent illegal downloads of copyrighted material, the European Court of Justice, the European Union's highest court, ruled Thursday.

EU states must allow 4G Internet use on analogue TV spectrum by January 2013  —  The rollout of 4G wireless data connectivity in Europe took a step forward today as the European Parliament approved plans to free up radio spectrum for this and other uses.  —  While US consumers …

Opera Acquires Two Mobile Ad Networks  —  Browser maker Opera said late Wednesday that it has acquired London-based 4th Screen Advertising and San Francisco-based Mobile Theory, two mobile advertising networks.  Opera said the moves should help the company “better monetize the traffic” from its Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers.