source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382933,00.asp

The Tata Group and Chinese Government to Buy Facebook

It's been announced that the giant Indian Tata Group and the Chinese government are buying Facebook for $770 billion. Things are about to get crazy.


This morning there was crazy announcement that a tentative agreement has been reached by the giant Indian Tata Group along with the Chinese government to buy Facebook Ltd and all its technologies for $770 billion (U.S. dollars), plus an undisclosed amount of Tata stock. The deal is expected to take until April 1, 2012 to finalize. And that's only if all U.S. and EU regulatory agencies sign off on it.


 The most important change for users is that Facebook management will be turned over to the India-Chinese joint venture to be dubbed the Sloo-Flirpa Group (SFG), named after a ship building consortium formed by the Indians and Chinese in the year 401 A.D. The group finally dissolved over a mining dispute involving the selling of fake gold. Ever since then, both cultures hoard gold.


 Anyway, users need to be leery of this deal, and I'd advise writing Congress immediately and not letting the deal go through. For one thing, the executives running the joint venture have already said that the old terms of service will be replaced with, as they put, "something more practical and profitable."


 Acting CEO, Erup Parc, said that users will have to live with the fact that new owners mean new policies and this is what they—the users—signed off on with the current Terms of Service. Critics from various blogs said that the company intends to turn every user into an advertising asset. If you like Nike shoes, then you will be a virtual spokesperson for Nike shoes, whether you like it or not. The idea is that you sign your rights away when you join Facebook, but Facebook, until now, has not really abused the opportunity to make real money off the users based on the onerous TOS.


 "The free ride is over," Parc told a group of shareholders in a secret meeting last week. Shareholders will get all their money back, plus equity in the Tata Group and a Tata micro-car once the car is approved in the U.S. and passes the more rigid standards of California. Critics of this deal say that Tata is buying Facebook as part of a scheme to get the little Tata car approved, since so many bigwigs and influential people have ended up with unlisted Facebook shares.


 According to a friend of mine, who was at the secret shareholder meeting, many of the shareholders were upset by the fact that Parc suggested the new Facebook should sue anyone who quits the service. My friend didn't elaborate on the mechanism, but told me I wouldn't like it. He didn't know, though, that I'm not really on Facebook. After I told him the facts, he then said (and I have no idea what he means), "You are soooo lucky!"


 The Chinese  rationale for this crazy buy-out hasn't never fully explained, except that they are apparently attracted to the huge 500,000,000-plus user base. Some people suggest that the Chinese would use the Facebook system as a tool for propaganda. Others say they want to force all Chinese to join it, so the secret police can keep tabs on everyone.
 Off the record, someone that's familiar with the thinking behind the deal told me that this is the greatest spying mechanism ever created and the Chinese, in particular, are going to make great use of it on a worldwide basis.


 The joint venture managers are expected to be in San Francisco later today and are going to be trained as replacements for all the workers currently employed by the company. The current employees will get two weeks pay and let go shortly.


 I know it's crazy. If someone said to me, "April Fools, this is just a bullcrap gag," I'd say "Ooops! Got me. Again!"