The Morning Lowdown 03.03.11

Morning Lowdown

»  Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is said to be considering legal action against Facebook for poaching. The social giant recently hired Microsoft’s global ad sales head Carolyn Everson as its VP of global sales. [AllThingsD]

»  It’s mostly true that Twitter doesn’t verify accounts anymore. Apparently, if you’re Charlie Sheen, they’ll make an exception and even verify your account in under 24 hours. The actor’s first tweet went out on March 1 just before 7 p.m. Eastern and he already has well over 1 million followers. [Ad Age]

»  New stats show that Microsoft’s Bing has surpassed Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) as the second most popular search engine. Bing had 4.4 percent of of the world’s search queries in February, while Yahoo had 3.8 percent. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) placed first with a whopping 89.9 percent marketshare. [V3.co.uk]

»  Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter account was hacked today while he was at the TED conference. We’ll spare you any Punk’d jokes since the tweets themselves play on the word. “Ashton, you’ve been Punk’d. This account is not secure. Dude, where’s my SSL?” read the first of two tweets. The second said, “P.S. This is for those young protesters around the world who deserve not to have their Facebook & Twitter accounts hacked like this. #SSL.” Considering the prestigious conference is dedicated to advanced technology and that Kutcher didn’t delete the tweets, it’s likely the star knew about the hack. If anything, the move highlights Twitter’s vulnerability. [ReadWriteWeb]

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