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Facebook may be denying any wrongdoing, but a California judge is disagreeing with the social networks’ disagreement to the tune of a $9.5 million dollar settlement today. The Los Angeles Times reports that the settlement comes in response to a class-action lawsuit over Facebook’s Beacon program that published what users were buying. Sponsor The decision allocates $6 million of the settlement to a “digital trust fund” that will go to organizations that study online privacy, says the Times article. The Times explains the bit of controversy hovering around this final decision: Over the objections of privacy advocates, Facebook will have a seat on the fund’s three-member board. It consists of Chris Jay Hoofnagle, who heads the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Tim Sparapani, Facebook’s public policy director; and writer Larry Magid. While some people are saying that the settlement is unfair in a few ways, Justin Brookman, a senior resident fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology , seemed to disagree. The general contention has been that Facebook will have one seat on the three-member board for the “digital trust fund” and that it was already required to pay money out to promote online privacy, as our own Sarah Perez discussed when the settlement was first announced last October. Brookman said that today’s decision is “a really good settlement for consumers”, explaining that “there are really very few settlements that come up with that type of monetary figure.” He also contended that, while Facebook will have a seat on the board, it will be a minority member, as a majority vote requires two out of the three parties to agree. He said that the other two members, Hoofnagle and Magid, were both good choices who will act in the public’s interest. “We have a lot of confidence they’ll make wise awards of the money,” he said. “They both criticized Facebook when Beacon came out.” According to the Times, however, this may not be the end of the appeal process. One privacy advocate said he was exploring whether he could appeal the decision. “This sweetheart deal for Facebook is outrageous and another indication they don’t really want to ensure privacy online,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. Brookman noted, however, that a settlement like this for privacy issues was relatively unprecedented. Discuss

In a recent conversation here at ReadWriteStart we were talking about what readers want most. Beyond stories about where the latest funding opportunities are found, and beyond wanting to know what startups are doing that works, we know that sometimes our startup readers just want some simple practical advice. Towards that end we’ve posted many a list. And now it’s time for a review. Here are six of our best lists in abbreviated form. From how not to kill your startup, to public speaking, to funders to follow, we at ReadWriteStart want to help. If you have ideas for future lists, please post ‘em as comments below. Sponsor 6 Approaches to Your Company Blog The Operations Blog The Veteran / Inspirational Blog The Prediction Blog The Research Blog The Community / Advocate Blog The Coolhunter Blog Kevin Rose’s 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs Just Build It Iterate Hire Your Boss Demand Excellence Raising Money Hack the Press Invest in Advisors Connect With the Community Leverage Your User Base to Spread the Word Analyze Your Traffic 6 Great Approaches to Public Speaking How Not to Suck at a Group Presentation LA-based investor Mark Suster Guy Kawasaki wrote this rule for PowerPoint How to Present While People are Twittering: Presentation trainer Olivia Mitchell Uncovering Steve Jobs’ Presentation Secrets: Business Week columnist Carmine Gallo The Lessig Method: :Lawyer and activist Lawrence Lessig Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces 10 Principles For Not Killing Your Startup This one’s obvious – watch your cash flow. Spot a real problem and concentrate your efforts on solving it. Identify your target market(s) and collect market feedback early on. Design and develop a minimum viable solution as fast as possible. Surround yourself with dedicated, effective people. Read Crossing the Chasm. Appreciate the difference between early adopters and mainstream. Consider other sources of competitive power than just technological sophistication. Have a plan for cutting through market noise. Invest time in selecting and testing a business model. Be creative and resourceful in meeting your objectives. 5 Great Blogs For Funding Advice BOTH SIDES OF THE TABLE @msuster PAULGRAHAM.COM A VC, @fredwilson VENTURE HACKS, @venturehacks VENTURE BLOG, @ventureblog 10 Things to Be Clear About Before You Start a Company Is this your first venture? Are you really an entrepreneur? Does your venture involve something you understand really well? Can your mother understand the value proposition? Can you see the right wave? What does your startup want to be when it grows up? Starting a company is hard and filled with uncertainty. Get a partner or fly solo? Would you refuse a well-paying job to do this? Can you raise appropriate financing? Photo by Wiki Commons . Discuss

The Pitch: “Group gifts are popular for occasions such as weddings and office parties, but organizing them can be a hassle. Our application allows shoppers to easily split the cost of gifts with friends, family, and co-workers. On our site, users can select gifts to buy from retailers such as Target and Macy’s and invite others to contribute. We collect the money from each participant and send it to the retailer once we receive the total amount. We have also begun to partner with retailers to integrate eDivvy into their sites. By having our application on their checkout page, retailers receive traffic from each person chipping in instead of only the organizer, which increases their customer base. Soon, retailers will be able to advertise on our site, and we’re working on integrating our group gift invitations with Facebook and mobile applications.” PRESIDENT: Eden Clark LOCATION: Irvine, California EMPLOYEES: 11 LAUNCHED: Spring 2009 2009 REVENUE: $52,000 2010 PROJECTED REVENUE: $1.1 million 2010 PROJECTED NUMBER OF GROUP GIFT PURCHASES: 35,000 AVERAGE GROUP SIZE: Eight FEE FOR SHOPPERS: Four percent of every group purchase, plus 49 cents per credit card transaction FEE FOR RETAILERS: Five percent to 15 percent of each group purchase FUNDING SOUGHT: $1.5 million The Investors Weigh In Partner Up I like this company’s product — it’s something that I would use. But this is a crowded space, and there aren’t high barriers to entry. Even large retailers like Best Buy are putting their own spin on the concept. eDivvy needs to focus on building creative partnerships. I think Evite would be a natural fit, because it attracts people organizing group events. The company should also look at retailers that fit well with the theme of group purchases. A site like Diapers.com, for example, would attract people who hold baby showers. Hans RoderichGeneral partner and chief operating officerAzure Capital PartnersSan Francisco Diversify Revenue Organizing group gifts is one of those things in life that are begging for something to make them more efficient. This business could be an elegant solution. I am not sure how realistic the revenue streams eDivvy has identified are, however. It will be important to evaluate whether customers are prepared to pay the level of fees eDivvy is charging. I think that if eDivvy can create other revenue streams through sponsorships and joint ventures with retailers, then that will make the company more attractive to investors. Loretta McCarthyManaging directorGolden SeedsNew York City Is There Enough Demand? The idea of group buying is a good one, and it has proven to be reasonably successful, most notably with Groupon, which offers group discounts. But eDivvy addresses groups of related people buying a single gift for occasions such as weddings and baptisms. Those events happen relatively infrequently in people’s lives, whereas someone is more likely to seek group discounts for personal purchases. I doubt this is a big enough market opportunity for venture capitalists, although it might be one for an angel or seed-stage investor. Mark SusterPartnerGRP PartnersLos Angeles

Protocols, protocols, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. OAuth, OpenID, UX, Shibboleth, SAML, XRI, FOAF, Facebook Connect, that is a small sampling of some of the technologies that have been invented to move Internet Identity forward forward for the web. Today, at the Open ID User Experience Summit , a jaw-dropping statistic was given that 89% of users coming to LadyGaga.com chose a third-party logon rather than create a new account. “Signup with Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace” is the default option on LadyGaga.com – and it works. Sponsor Do You Have the Credentials: Want to be on the Guestlist? We wondered why is this site getting such high level of adoption of third-party logons, which hasn’t been seen at this level anywhere else. It seems that in addition to the momentum of the OpenID community, part of the story is about the landscape change occurring around video content. One great example is in the changes at YouTube including the Vevo ad wall. More than ever, tracking of the users that access protected content is becoming the norm. Even innocent phenomena like Rickrolling have been at risk as copyright holders are removing more and more content from YouTube. Have you seen one of these notices on YouTube before? It’s an example of a piece of content that has been pulled. Vevo now serves up the same thing, and the content owner is provided with marketing tools to place around the content -ads, placement, positioning. Google likes to get paid. It’s easy to see that while searching for Lady Gaga on the current version of Youtube. In contrast to the list of free videos that once once stood, sites like LadyGaga.com are offered as one of the top links right next to the Vevo-supported link. Somewhere, in an office in Mountain View, there is a voice whispering ” Show me the money “. Third Party Logon: Facebook and Twitter Connect our Personas Ironically, when clicking on the link from YouTube and arriving at LadyGaga.com, the most prominent third-party logon solutions displayed are Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Universal Music uses the RPX services based solution by JanRain , a Portland, Oregon company to power this capability for the site. Yesterday, at the OpenIDUX community meeting in Chicago, Brian Ellin of JanRain presented a set of slides on best practices in the OpenID world for User Experience and third-party logon. This talk included best practices and notes from JanRain, the company he works for, supported population of 173,000 web sites that use it for a third party logon. The company offers credentialing from over 10 key identity providers including Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and soon LinkedIn. Identity as a Service For the user, there is little reason to know the technology that is behind the scenes. All we need is to be able to easily choose the provider we want – and that it all works. In fact, when it’s done right, it’s is less clicks and time. And of course, one less password to remember. That being said, on the LadyGaga.com site at least three protocols are supported from the home page alone: OAuth for Twitter, Facebook Connect, and OpenID with MySpace. Getting the experience right first, has allowed these companies to support the work of integrated logon experience while the industry continues to innovate on the different core protocols for sharing identity across websites. We spoke Lisa Hannah, Director of Marketing at JanRain. She shared information on their analysis of the social media trends of third party logon users. They represent a balance in building industry relationships, while at the same time finding consumer solutions that work well enough to drive adoption. The Nice Thing About Change is That it Requires a Lot of Hard Work The OpenID community iterating the solution to get it right. The organizations and leaders in the community, including individuals like Brian Kissel, Allen Tom, Monica Keller, Mike Jones, Joseph Smarr, Eric Sachs, David Recorden and Chris Messina have continued to build momentum in the community and find common ground – even beyond where the companies they represent (Google, Microsoft, Facebook) are deciding on the balance of power of this generation of the Internet. Third-party logon is becoming standard practice. And like many things, it becomes easier to use with time. For this user, it’s starting to feel familiar, like an old friend. We’d Like to Ask Lady Gaga to Solve Health Care It had to happen somewhere, and LadyGaga.com is the site that shows us a glimpse of a new world of the Internet. Behavior change is all about the incentive – and bling. Perhaps this type of evidence will motivate the federal government in the direction of third-party logon. In the case of identity on the Internet, it is clear that there is benefit when open, mixed, and hybrid solutions are supported for the good of the user. As always, the experience is what matters. We’ll continue looking at Lady Gaga and third-party logon in an upcoming piece where we go through the details from a user experience and technical view. Do you support the movement towards users signing in using third-party logons? What do you think about Twitter’s OAuth, Facebook Connect and OpenID? Discuss

Just because you’ve been in talks doesn’t mean the deal is done. Entrepreneurs need to remain diligent about timelines in order to ensure that the deals they’ve set in motion actually come to fruition. If you’re negotiating a term sheet, building a partnership or on the verge of an acquisition, get the papers signed. Legendary GRP VC investor Mark Suster has seen his fair share of successful deals, and he writes, “don’t pop the champagne until the ink is dry on the contract and the money is in the bank.” Sponsor Suster wrote a great post on the need to close deals in a timely manner. While it’s important to negotiate well, he’s seen firsthand how deals can go up in smoke if given too much time. Suster raised a round right before a market crash and is convinced that if he’d waited even a month, his offers would have been rescinded. He explains that market crashes, deal fatigue, complacency, or losing your deal sponsor could mean the difference between a banner year and a missed opportunity. Some suggestions to expedite the deal process include: 1. Don’t Over Shop : Although a healthy interest from a number of players is important for leverage, shopping around too much has its downside. Says Suster, “There is a fatigue factor.  If deals drift, people start whisper campaigns.  It is a tight-knit industry.  Like it or not everybody knows each other. ” If you haven’t closed a deal in a timely manner others may assume something negative is holding you back. 2. Don’t Grind Every Detail : Know the important points that you want to negotiate and stick to them. He writes that you shouldn’t get caught up in inconsequential details as they’ll potentially add weeks to the legal process and you’ll risk creating ill will with your newfound partners. 3. Don’t Be Complacent : Suster suggests that you hold all those involved to their deadlines and ensure that lawyers get the documents out when promised. If someone is behind, call them and let them know you are both interested and that you’re willing to fly out and meet them or take calls in the middle of the night to acommodate them. 4. Get People In Person : Put yourself, your negotiating partner, both sides of lawyers and the other party in a room to hash out the details. Suster stresses that it’s important to create goals for what you want to accomplish and take breaks to gain consent from any higher authorities. Discuss