Facebook poised to roll out more privacy controls

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world's largest social network in to a more discreet place.

The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook's more than 1 billion users during the next few weeks and continue into early next year.

The most visible, and perhaps most appreciated, change will be a new "privacy shortcuts" section that appears as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people's news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users can get answers to common questions such as "Who can see my stuff?" and "How do I stop someone from bothering me?"

Other updates will include a tool that enables individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook and suggestions on how to request that an embarrassing or unflattering photograph be removed. Facebook also plans to plant a privacy education page at the top of its users' news feeds within the next month or so to help them better manage their online identities.

This marks the most extensive overhaul of Facebook's privacy controls in about 15 months.

The new controls are an implicit acknowledgement by Facebook that the nearly 9-year-old service hasn't always done the best job providing its users with easily accessible ways to corral the information and photos being posted on the website.

Facebook's critics suspect the social network deliberately obfuscated its privacy controls as part of a scheme to expose as much personal information as possible to help the company attract more advertisers.

But that has never been the case, according to Samuel Lessin, Facebook's director of product management. "Our number one priority is to not surprise users with our controls," he said.

Facebook Inc., which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., began paying more attention to its privacy controls and reputation as it matured into one of the world's best-known companies. The scrutiny has intensified since Facebook became a publicly traded company seven months ago.

Some of the upcoming changes reflect Facebook's ambition to establish its website as a digital scrapbook that will contain key moments spanning many decades of its users' lives.

The new photo-reviewing tool is designed to make it easier for someone to flag old pictures that might not seem as cool as they once did. For instance, a Facebook user who didn't mind being shown quaffing beer from a keg as an 18-year-old in college might not feel comfortable having that image publicly available as a 30-year-old looking for a job or starting a family.

Facebook rarely will remove a photo on its own, but one of its new features helps users ask a friend who posted the image to take it down.

Facebook is reshuffling its privacy controls the same week that it revoked its users' right to vote on changes to the social network's privacy policies. Lessin said the timing is purely coincidental.

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Enterprise, Patriot Ledger publisher Rick Daniels stepping down

Rick Daniels, president of GateHouse Media New England and publisher of The Enterprise of Brockton and The Patriot Ledger, will step down from his post at the end of the year, according to news reports.

Daniels plans to pursue investment and advisory roles for media companies, the Patriot Ledger reported, adding a successor has not yet been named.

GateHouse Media New England oversees six daily newspapers, more than 90 weekly newspapers and 150 websites. A spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.

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Pfizer to pay $55 million in drug misbranding case

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says Pfizer Inc. will pay $55 million to resolve allegations that Wyeth LLC promoted the drug Protonix for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer acquired Wyeth in October 2009.

Wyeth obtained FDA approval to promote Protonix only for short-term treatment of erosive esophagitis. The condition is associated with gastro-esophageal reflux disease. Wyeth allegedly promoted Protonix for all forms of GERD from February 2000 to June 2001.

GERD is a condition in which food or liquid leak backwards from the stomach into the esophagus.

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Stocks edge higher as Fed ends two-day meeting

NEW YORK — Stocks edged higher, extending a winning streak, as investors awaited news on whether the Federal Reserve will announce more bond purchases to stimulate the U.S. economy. Wall Street also watched for developments from budget talks in Washington.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 13 points at 13,262 as of 10:50 a.m. in New York. The Standard and Poor's 500 was up two points at 1,432. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.2 points at 3,022.

The U.S. central bank is expected to announce a revamped bond-buying plan at the end of a two-day policy meeting Wednesday to help hold down interest rates and encourage borrowing. The expectation is that the Fed will unveil a program Wednesday to buy $45 billion a month in long-term Treasurys. That would replace a program that expires at the end of the year.

In Washington, lawmakers are still trying to reach a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a series of sharp tax increases and spending cuts that will hit the economy in January if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to thrash out an agreement to reduce the U.S. budget deficit.

House Speaker John Boehner and Obama spoke on the phone Tuesday, a day after the president offered to reduce his initial demand for $1.6 trillion in higher tax revenue over a decade to $1.4 trillion. Obama continues to insist that much of the revenue comes from raising top tax rates on the wealthy.

Both the Dow and the S&P have advanced for the past five days as optimism increased that a deal can be struck. The S&P is trading at its highest in five weeks and has now erased all of its post-election losses. Stocks fell immediately after the vote Nov. 6 on concern that a divided government would struggle to resolve the budget issue.

"There's some optimism that we are going to have some sort of an agreement on the cliff before December 31," said JJ Kinahan, Chief Derivatives Strategist for TD Ameritrade. More Fed stimulus is "pretty much mostly priced in," he said, because policymakers would be unlikely to risk disappointing market expectations given the concerns about the unresolved fiscal situation.

Chemicals giant DuPont advanced 81 cents to $44.48 after the company unveiled plans to buy back up to $1 billion of its shares next year and said that profit for this year will reach the high end of its forecasts.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was little changed 1.66 percent.

Other stocks making big moves:

—Eli Lilly and Co. fell $1.57 to $49.03 after the Indianapolis drugmaker it will conduct the additional, late-stage study of its possible Alzheimer's treatment solanezumab. The move delays a regulatory decision on a drug that flashed potential to help patients with mild cases of the disease.

—Health insurer Aetna Inc. rose $1.93 to $46.40 after the company said late Tuesday that it expects sales and profit to grow next year.

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Report: E-reader sales plunge as tablets take over

NEW YORK — Sales of dedicated e-reading devices like the black-and-white Kindles are in an "alarmingly precipitous decline" this year after five years of rapid growth, research firm IHS iSuppli says.

Full-blown tablets with color screens are behind the decline, the firm says. Amazon.com Inc. now sells tablets under the Kindle brand, and Barnes & Noble Inc. has added tablets to its Nook e-reader line.

IHS expects shipments of e-readers to fall from 23.2 million last year to 14.1 million this year.

The rapid rise and now rapid decline of e-readers is unusual even for the volatile consumer electronics industry, says IHS analyst Jordan Selburn, but it's indicative of the broader trend of single-purpose devices like e-readers and cameras losing out to general-purpose ones like tablets and smartphones.

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Mass. ranks fifth for semiconductor industry jobs

When it comes to semiconductor industry jobs, Massachusetts ranks fifth in the nation, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

California leads all states with 47,100 semiconductor jobs, followed by Texas with 28,800, Oregon with 23,400 and Arizona with 18,800. The Bay State currently has 10,100 semiconductor jobs, besting New York by 2,500 jobs.

Rounding out the top 10 are Idaho (7,400), Florida (7,100), Vermont (5,100) and New Mexico (4,500). All employment figures reflect 2011 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. semiconductor industry's workforce grew by 3.7 percent over the previous year, according to the BLS. In November, SIA said total direct semiconductor employment in the United States is estimated at 244,800 jobs.

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State charges LPL Financial with limits, ethics violations

LPL Financial LLC of San Diego was charged today with failing to supervise agents who sold investments in non-traded real estate investment trusts in violation of both state limitations and the company's own rules, according to Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin.

LPL, which has a principal local place of business at 75 State St., is also charged with dishonest and unethical business practices, Galvin said. An administrative complaint seeks a cease and desist order against LPL, a censure and full restitution to those investors who were sold these instruments in violation of state regulations and the requirements of the REIT prospectus.

A probe by the Securities Division found 597 transactions by state residents in seven REITs with over $28 million invested, on which sales LPL received at least $1.8 million in commissions from 2006 through 2009. A total of 569 transactions had regulatory violations, including sales made in violation of Massachusetts' 10 percent concentration limitations; sales made in violation of prospectus requirements; and sales made in violation of LPL compliance practices.

REITs own and manage income-producing property or are involved in real estate financing. Non-traded REITs have limited redemption programs, and high fees and commissions that range between 15 and 18 percent.

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Pfizer to pay $55M to settle Wyeth illegal Protonix marketing case

Pfizer Inc. will shell out $55 million plus interest to resolve allegations that Wyeth, a company acquired by the drug maker in 2009, illegally marketed a misbranded drug for off-label use, federal prosecutors in Boston said today.

Wyeth manufactured and promoted Protonix, a proton pump inhibitor used by physicians to treat various forms of gastro-esophageal reflux disease, prosecutors said. Wyeth allegedly sought and obtained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to promote Protonix for short-term treatment of erosive esophagitis, a condition associated with GERD that can only be diagnosed with an invasive endoscopy.

Under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, a drug is misbranded if its labeling does not bear adequate directions for safe use and for the purposes for which it is intended. Before Wyeth even began promoting Protonix, the FDA warned the company its proposed promotional materials were misleading. Despite this, the company allegedly trained its sales force to promote the drug for all forms of GERD, prosecutors said.

Wyeth also promoted the drug as the "best PPI for nighttime heartburn," even though no clinical evidence supported that claim, prosecutors said, adding the company also used continuing medical education programs to promote Protonix for unapproved uses.

Wyeth allegedly introduced and caused the introduction into interstate commerce of Protonix between February 2000 and June 2001, prosecutors said, adding the claims settled by the agreement are allegations only, ones which Pfizer denies.

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Harvard Bioscience shares rise 17 percent on IPO spinout

Shares of Harvard Bioscience Inc. spiked more than 17 percent today to a high of $4.46 in the wake of a subsidiary of the Holliston-based company filing plans to raise up to $20 million in an initial public offering of its stock.

Harvard Bioscience shares closed yesterday at $3.79.

The business, called Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology Inc., is developing "bioreactor" devices that doctors can use to grow organs outside the body for transplant patients.

After the IPO, Harvard Bioscience will own at least 80 percent of the shares and eventually spin off the business to its own stockholders.

The subsidiary, incorporated in May, has tested a "synthetic scaffold" that can be used to create a replacement trachea. The technology has been used in "six successful human airway transplant surgeries," the company said in its IPO prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Harvard Bioscience said it's on track to gain Food and Drug Administration approval for trachea transplant products by the end of 2016 and enter a potential market of more than $300 million annually.

The company also believes the technology can be used to regenerate other organs.

Additional details about the IPO shares and prices were not available.

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NJ girl to meet with Easy-Bake team at Hasbro

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A New Jersey girl who started a campaign calling for an Easy-Bake Oven in gender-neutral colors is planning to meet with the people who design it.

Toy maker Hasbro says it has invited 13-year-old McKenna Pope and her family to meet with the Easy-Bake team Monday at its Pawtucket headquarters.

Hasbro's Julie Duffy says they invited McKenna in to listen to her thoughts and ideas.

McKenna was prompted to start an online petition after she wanted to buy an Easy-Bake Oven for her 4-year-old brother and found them only in purple and pink. Several top chefs, including Bobby Flay, have since asked Hasbro to make them in more colors.

Duffy says Hasbro has made the toy in gender-neutral colors in the past and believes it's great for girls and boys.

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