It looks like Apple isn’t the only company Germany is looking to pick a bone with regarding user privacy. A German data protection official has prepared legal proceedings against social networking giant Facebook, which has had a history of privacy related problems in the past.

The data protection official, Johannes Caspar, who works in the Hamburg branch, has accused Facebook of illegally “accessing and saving personal data” of those who do not have a profile registered on the site. 

Facebook changed its privacy settings in April in order to allow any user to block access to their e-mail contacts. But for Germany, a country that has strict privacy laws that outline the kind of information and amount of information that can be accessed and by whom, this slight privacy change wasn’t enough. 

I think they’re just cranky about the World Cup and they’re out for blood…

At the end of 2009, we ranked the Top 50 Branded Facebook Pages for the first time, ignoring all the music and celebrity pages and ranking the largest brand-run Facebook pages. Today, exactly 6 months later, we rank them again. This time, we’re able to see who is growing, who is slipping, and just how fast you have to keep moving to make this list.

Just as we did last year, there’s a clear methodology, explained at the end as to which types of pages made the list and which type did not. But let’s get right to the findings, and then share the entire list.

If you’re interested in Facebook as a marketing medium, you’ll want to follow the ‘via’ link and see what the big guys are up to…

Elevation Partners has quietly amassed another huge chunk of Facebook shares on the secondary market, according to a recent letter to its limited partners. Elevation spent $120 million for five million more Facebook shares. This is on top of Elevation’s $90 million, 2.5 million share purchase back in November.

That November deal has already gone up 2.5 times in value in a short eight months, making Facebook one of the better performing deals in Elevation’s portfolio and an enviable holding for any firm. Even though the bulk of Elevation’s Facebook shares were purchased at the more recent price, if you blend the two deals, there’s still an on-paper gain. Blended together, Elevation’s 7.5 million shares were purchased at a $14 billion valuation, and Facebook is trading at upwards of $24 billion on the secondary market today.

Sure, the appreciation looks good, but a lot of people– including us when we first broke the story– have alleged that these deals are ones any hedge fund could do. That’s not actually true, according to several sources close to the deal.

Not this elevation — the other elevation. Elevation Parters! Trust me, I didn’t want to use a goofy spelling for my company name and domain, but the domain elevation.com is owned by Bono of U2 and I figured there’s nothing I could offer him that would make him want to sell me the domain — hence my company name…