Mitt Romney saw a surge of new Facebook fans between yesterday and today, according to our Inside Facebook 2012 Election Tracker. We have not heard back from Romney’s campaign whether the growth is the result of an ad buy.

Pundits and polls suggest Romney is favored to win in Iowa on Tuesday. His daily Facebook growth had been lower than Ron Paul’s since December 3rd, but Romney edged Paul on Monday and then shot up today with 6,088 new page Likes.

After slower growth last week, Paul’s daily new fan count picked up again. He is currently No. 2 in most polls.

Rick Santorum’s Facebook page also made big gains since Tuesday. Santorum had been earning fewer than 200 Likes per day since mid-December, but saw 1,012 fans between yesterday and today.

Newt Gingrich, who had a small burst of new fans last Friday, only averaged about 375 Likes per day this week. Gingrich has been facing direct attacks on a number of fronts, including TV spots from Pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, and has fallen in steeply in recent polls.

Most fan growth has slowed among Republican presidential primary candidates since the final debate on December 15th, according to our Inside Facebook 2012 Election Tracker. In recent days, though, Newt Gingrich has seen a small increase in daily new fans and Michele Bachmann has gone into the negative.

There was an uptick in Gingrich’s fan growth today, which could be related to his recent denouncement of attack ads from Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates. A post on Gingrich’s Facebook page Thursday evening — which included a quote from his appearance on The Laura Ingraham Show — has far gotten more likes, comments and shares than any post since December 11th.

Ron Paul saw more than 6,000 new fans the day after the debate and then again after an appearance on Jay Leno. Paul has not been able to maintain that sort of momentum, but he continues to see more daily growth than any other candidate.

Bachmann has lost fans over the last two days, though she is still ahead of where she was a week ago. Her page is graphed below:

Europe Stifling Facebook’s Targeted Ads – The European Union is set to enact legislation to ban some avenues Facebook uses to create targeted ads, specifically by making Facebook be more transparent about what user data it’s collecting.

Spotify Opens Platform to Developers – Spotify announced the company would open its platform to app developers to include things like reviews and song lyrics, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook May Allow Gambling in UK - Facebook is exploring opening up the platform to gambling in the United Kingdom, according to TechCrunch, maybe as soon as 2012.

Mobile Channels Pushing Traffic for SNAP Interactive - SNAP Interactive told TechCrunch that Facebook’s recently launched mobile channels have given the company’s apps a “significant” traffic boost.

WashPo Reader Boasts 3.5M Users – The Washington Post Social Reader now boasts more than 3.5 million subscribers, according to a company statement. The growth came in just two months and is especially popular with users under 35, 83% to be exact.

Other Announcements:

Liquidus Releases Socialink 2.0 - Liquidus released the new version of its marketing application for car retailers, Socialink 2.0. New features include video integrations.

Secure.me App Protects Users on Facebook – Secure.me is an app that protects users from over-sharing or phishing from viruses on Facebook.

Proposed Law May Affect Facebook IPO – Legislation was introduced in the Senate this week that could result in the delay of Facebook’s IPO. A long-standing finance rule requires that companies with 500 or more shareholders make their finances available to the public (typically prompting companies to also make their stock available to the public). Facebook had accumulated many shareholders from distributing stock to employees and from its shares being bought and sold on private exchanges. The new rule would up the minimum threshold to 2000, presumably giving Facebook more leeway to decide if and when it will make its financial information and its shares public.

Could Yahoo’s Patents Hurt Facebook’s IPO? – Forbes has a piece this week that compared Yahoo’s extensive IP portfolio as potential revenue to Facebook’s ads-centric revenue approach, speculating that whoever owns that IP could charge licensing fees to Facebook.

Facebook Not Planning Taiwan Data Center – Facebook is not set to open Asia’s largest cloud data center in Taiwan, at the Central Taiwan Science Park, contrary to a widely republished article.

Mark Zuckerberg Officially Visits Harvard – The Atlantic gave an overview of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Crimson’s, coverage of Mark Zuckerberg while he attended the school.

Facebook COO to Interview NJ Gov – Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is set to interview New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, taking questions from users in an online town hall Monday. Note that Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to the Newark New Jersey school system. [Image Via Facebook]

Vitrue’s Social Mobile User Engagement Report – Vitrue released a report this week looking at social engagement with brands via mobile devices. Some interesting results included negative engagement with punctuation marks, short posts get more engagement, images improve engagement and weekends are when the most mobile interaction occurs.

How Well Does the Facebook Translate Button Work? – Lexiophiles compiled a brief analysis of how accurate Facebook’s translate button is.

Swedish Govt May See All Data in New Servers – Sweden’s 2008 law, FRA, allows the government to see any Internet data passing its borders without a warrant. Since the company is set to build a data center there, this potentially means Facebook users’ data could become a target of this law, according to a report.

Cogenra Solar to be Installed at Facebook’s CA HQ – Cogenra Solar is set to install a renewable energy project at Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California. According to a statement, the project will provide on site electricity production, hot water, and be integrated into the top of the building’s fitness center to power gym equipment, light and water for the showers.

Most Expect Candidates to be on Social Media – Digitas released a study this week noting that 61% of social media users expect to see candidates on social media platforms like Facebook.

Facebook Seattle Changes Offices - Facebook Seattle is changing office location. There are currently 60 employees but room for up to 200.

Facebook Not Worried About Messages Threat – CDW consultant Nathan Power found a way to send a malicious attachment to other Facebook users. Facebook responded that this threat is no different than the ones faced by other email providers, and requires “an additional layer of social engineering.“ Plus, there are easier ways to get malware to users.

Ceglia Ordered to Return to the U.S. – Paul Ceglia, who claims to own half of Facebook, had fled to Ireland but was ordered by a federal judge to return to New York in order to search for a missing flash drive which may contain pertinent evidence. Ceglia claims the flash drive was lost.

The following is an excerpt of an entry in our Facebook Marketing Bible. The full version contains additional analysis on the sign up, user generated content, video, and landing tab apps of Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Herman Cain, as well as suggestions for how they could improve their campaigns.

Politicians are gearing up for the 2012 elections and we’ve been tracking their campaign efforts on Facebook through the 2012 Inside Facebook Election Tracker. The web app charts the Like counts and compares candidates in the presidential primaries as well as the House, Senate, and Governor races.

Many candidates are using custom Facebook Page tab applications to drive awareness, gain fans, solicit donations, and spread their message. Here we’ll look at some of the best strategies and worst mistakes in how Page tab apps are being employed by four of the presidential primary candidates — Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Herman Cain. Our analysis can help political candidates, as well as any brand learn how to promote themselves through Facebook Pages.

Barack Obama’s “Are You In?” Invite App

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is using a Page tab app called “Are You In?” to get users to invite their friends to support his campaign. The app is installed on Obama’s main Page that has 23.7 million fans, as well as swing-state campaign Pages including Obama for America — Colorado, Ohio, and Iowa.

When users first visit the app and click the “I’m In” button, they’re given a chance to authorize the app. It then prompts them to publish a news feed story about supporting Obama that states “[User name} is in. Join the campaign”. Users are wall post entry fields for the profiles of several friends which they can use to tell them they’re “in” and invite them to the app. Users can also view all of their friends that are already “in” and a count of how many were inspired to join by their wall posts.

The campaign app is simple to use, employs both news feed and wall posts for virality, and uses a leaderboard-style gamification mechanic to encourage users to spread the word. Rather than cluttering the app and shared stories with specifics about policy or how to participate, its lightweight, concise approach makes it appealing to the widest possible audience — perfect for raising awareness of the campaign.

Obama also features a Donate tab to take in campaign contributions for his main Page. To keep his 23 million fans engaged, he frequently publishes links to campaign news, inspirational quotes, and descriptions of campaign merchandise available in his store.

Ron Paul’s Confusing Landing Tab

Republican presidential primary candidate Ron Paul has made a few mistakes with his Facebook Page that currently has 563,000 Likes. His Page features a “Support Ron Paul” landing tab app, though its not actually set as the Page’s default landing tab. It displays a fake Like button image in a banner next to the real Like button on his Page that could confuse potential supporters that click it and see nothing happen.

The Support Ron Paul tab is actually a Like-gated app that changes from the banner to showing links to donate or volunteer, but this is not clearly indicated to users. The app needs to explain that users gain access to special links or content in exchange for their Like, otherwise they might think they’re just looking at a static image.

The Ron Paul Facebook Promoter tab app hosted on the candidates Page has potential but is also confusing…

Access Facebook political campaign analysis and strategies, including reviews of more Page apps from Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing, promotion, and advertising on Facebook.

Wikia hired a CEO, and other companies added software engineers and marketing staff in this week’s look at Facebook platform industry career moves.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email mail (at) insidefacebook (dot) com, and we’ll get it into next week’s post. Also, please note that information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn.

Looking for new opportunities? Check out the Inside Network Job Board, which shows the latest openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s list of hires:

Wikia

• Craig Palmer, CEO – previously President & CEO of Gracenote.
• Jennifer Betka, Senior Vice President of Marketing – formerly worked at AOL, Time Warner, Veoh, SIRIUS XM, and the LA Times.

Shoutlet

• Blake Samic, Senior Product Manager – formerly Lead IT Architect at GE Healthcare.
• William Cliffe, Software Developer.
• Will Huck, QA Specialist.
• Brianna Purvis, Account Manager – formerly a specialist at Apple, Inc.

Votigo

• Shayna Lashway, Marketing Manager – previously worked a similar position at Botanical Interests.
• Andrew Thorne, Sales Executive -  previously worked as a Senior Digital Sales Executive at The Denver Post.

Vitrue

• Julie Murphy, Director of Business Development – previously a Senior Account Executive at the San Francisco Bay Area at Compendium.

Work4 Labs

• Leopold Boudard, Software Engineer – formerly a Technical/Artistic adviser and developer at Hypertopia.
• Olivier Deffieux, UI Designer – previously an Art Director at The Diplomat.
• Helen Nesteruk, Global Account Manager – previously a Production Manager at MILLIANNA.

Nanigans

• Stephanie Swanson, Contracted Graphic Designer – formerly a Game Art Intern at Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab.

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook offers users the Download Your Information tool to let them get a copy of all their content and connections, but we’ve now learned that the site is storing additional data about users not available in this export. This data includes deleted content, rejected friend requests, removed friends, a list of all of a user’s logins with timestamps and IP addresses, and several unfilled data fields that could pertain to unreleased products.

European citizens can request for Facebook to send the a CD loaded with a .PDF of this data plus much of what’s available in Download Your Information independently or through a privacy organization called Europe vs. Facebook, as Silicon Filter reports. However, Facebook makes users fill out a complicated form and reports indicate it doesn’t always comply with requests right away.

Still, the knowledge that Facebook is storing so much data, meta-data, and deleted data on users may impact how they use the site and view the company. Facebook should consider making more of the data it holds available to each user regardless of their citizenship. Most of the data wouldn’t be valuable to competitors, but just knowing they could retrieve it might quiet the privacy and data portability concerns of some.

Critics and security researches often complain about how Facebook handles user data. Just this week, Facebook came under some partially misguided criticism about the cookies it stores on a user’s device after they log out. Nik Cubrilovic thought Facebook was using some cookies for ad targeting when they were actually to improve site security. However, Facebook did confirm a bug discovered by Cubrilovic was causing User ID numbers to be stored in cookies in some cases, and has pledged to fix this today. More transparency could reduce the frequency of these complaints.

Highlights from the Facebook Privacy Data CDs

European users who succeed in leveraging their right to access personal data about themselves receive a CD containing the following data fields:

Here we’ll look closer at some of the more interesting data fields and discuss why users might be concerned that Facebook is holding this information:

Removed Friends and Friend Requests

Last week, a guide surfaced explaining how to use a complicated process and the new Timeline profile to determine who you are no longer friends with but once were. This data is readily available in the Facebook data CD.

User     Peter Freund (2266770044)
Time     2008-06-05 23:54:03 UTC
Removed By     2266770044

Also available is the date, sender, recipient, and status of all the friend requests a user has sent or received. Users might be surprised to find out even their rejected friend requests are being stored.

Sender     Peter Unfreundlich (1122334455)
Recipient     Max Mustermann (123456789)
Rejected      true
Time      2008-08-25 06:50:56 UTC

Logins and Account Status History

The Facebook data CD includes a record of the time, IP address, and site of every time a user has ever logged in to Facebook. This data may be deleted by Facebook after some time. As there is no record of visits or time-on-site, this is the closest users can get to finding out how frequently they’ve checked Facebook. Also available is a record of all the account activations and deactivations, which could be used to identify those especially concerned with privacy.

Ip     178.190.001.001
Time     2011-06-27 17:41:16 UTC
Site     WWW

Photos, Shares, and Wall Posts

While users can find some of this data in Download Your Information, these fields also included content users had deleted as well as lots of meta data. Shared links and wall posts that users had deleted appeared in the data CD.

It appears that when a user deletes a tag of themselves from a photo, that tag is actually only “deactivated” and may still be present in Facebook’s records. All the meta data about a photo’s location, when it was taken, with what device, and many of the device’s photo settings are also available in the data CD but not Download Your Information.

Album    Mobile Uploads
Image    [Fofo-Datei]
Titel    Picture of Max, Perta and Kurt
Photo   http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/123_123_123_123_123_n.jpg
Link     http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=123456789&set=a.123.123.123&type=1
Upload Ip     123.123.123.123
Uploaded     2009-04-10  13:06:43 UTC
Tags               Subject Id     123456789
                      Subject Name     Max Mustermann
                      Creator Id     123456789
                      Created     2009-04-10 17:25:23
                      X      51
                      Y      23
Comments     User     Max Mustermann (123456789)
                     Text      I love this pic!
                     Time     2009-04-10 17:28:10 UTC
Taken     2009-04-10  11:03:46 UTC
Modified     1234567890
Camera Make     Apple
Camera Model     iPhone 3GS
Orientation    1
Original Width    0
Original Height     0
Exposure    
Fstop  
Iso Speed     0
Focal Lenght    
Latitude     48.123456789012
Longitude     16.3655

Last Location

This shows the geographic location of a user’s last login to Facebook, including latitude, longitude, altitude, accuracy, altitude accuracy, heading, and speed. This data could be based on IP address, mobile phone sensors, checkins, listed current city, and more. It could be used to personalize the site’s content. It could also help Facebook identify suspicious logins that may have come from hackers, such as if a user logged in from California then soon after logged in from Russia.

Time     2011-04-16 18:51:27 UTC
Latitude     37.34688913
Longitude     121.94080227
Altitude     0
Accuracy     675
Altitude Accuracy    -1
Heading     -1
Speed    -1

Name Changes

Users are able to change their name on Facebook a small number of times. The record of different names used is not available to a user or their friends through the site, but can be found on the data CD. The information could be used to help law enforcement identify someone by a previously used alias.

Time 2010-03-19 11:48:50 UTC
Old Name Max Mustermann
New Name Max NonOfFacebooksBusiness

Credit Cards

Users who have purchased Facebook Credits will have their credit card information included in an encrypted format on their data CD. The inclusion of this data may contribute to the thorough verification process Facebook makes users undertake to attain the CD.

Profile Blurb

This field came up blank for those who posted excerpts of their data to Europe vs. Facebook. It could possibly be an old “About” section of the profile, or could indicate a forthcoming profile info section that would display introduction on the new Timeline profile design.

Physical Tokens

This field also came up blank. It could be used to list an ID number or something similar for Facebook employees who use a physical key card or security device such as RSA to enter Facebook offices. Alternatively, there’s a chance it could point to a future location product that uses near field communication-enabled devices to let users swipe to check in to Places.

Facebook’s advertising solutions haven’t reached their full potential in part because advertisers don’t understand them well enough to achieve peak results. The system is complicated, and the concept of social advertising is new, yet outside of some webinars and .PDFs, Facebook has done little educate advertisers on how to use its Ads products.

That’s about to change, as Facebook is establishing partnerships with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business, the Wall Street Journal reports. Facebook will send representatives to local and regional offices of the two business lobbies to educate members on how best to promote themselves on the social network through its marketing and advertising products.

This education could increase understanding and trust in Facebook Ads, leading more businesses to increase their Facebook marketing spend. Such adoption could help Facebook grow the advertising revenues that fuel the company.

Next month’s initiative with the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB will coincide with Facebook giving away $10 million in $50 ad credits to small business. When the ad credit promotion was revealed earlier month, we discussed how it could lure in small businesses to experiment with Facebook ads. However, we noted the promotion would only produce long-term advertisers if Facebook paired the ad credits with the education necessary for businesses to run successful advertising campaigns.

Facebook has recently released several new advertising options that can be especially helpful to small businesses, including Broad Category Interest targeting and zip code targeting. It will also soon make a wealth of new marketing opportunities available as advertisers will soon be able to target users based on their media consumption habits in addition to their listed interests thanks to new Open Graph app protocols launched at the f8 developer conference.

While veteran Facebook advertisers will appreciate these new tools, they may make Facebook’s marketing solutions even more complicated for those without experience. Facebook seems to have recognized this, and will now be augmenting its online resources with in-person education sessions.

Google has been offering free “Seminars for Success” and other in-person education events since at least 2008 to help marketers understand its AdWords and analytics products. Some see this outreach as an important component of Google’s rise to power in the advertising world.

Employing a similar strategy, Facebook could get advertisers more comfortable targeting by interest and behavior rather than just keywords. By choosing to run its education series through two powerful lobbies, Facebook can also advance its political interests.

The choice of partnering with the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB matches with the recent news that Facebook has started its own political action committee. Keeping regulators through the PAC and lobby relationships will help keep regulators at bay so Facebook can continue to monetize user data through ad targeting.

UK Won’t Ban Facebook – Facebook, Twitter and Research In Motion met with United Kingdom officials Thursday regarding the social networks’ role in summer riots there. The government ended up not moving to restrict access to the social networks in emergencies such as riots.

Facebook Takes Third Spot for Video – Facebook becomes the third largest video site on the Internet, comScore reported. That is 51.5 million people who watched videos on the platform in July.

AT&T to Discontinue Facebook Phone – AT&T is reportedly set to drop its “Facebook phone” called the Status, according to TechCrunch.

Places More Popular Than Foursquare – London developer Golden Gekko reports its clients report much more Facebook check-ins than Foursquare in Europe. Magnus Jern reported that the ratio ranged from 5-10 to 1. However, the future of the service is unclear.

Facebook Hit 1 Trillion Pageviews - Facebook surpassed 1 trillion pageviews according to Google’s Ad Planner tool, although comScore says otherwise.

Facebook Mobile App to Offer Photo Filters - Facebook looks to be competing with Instagram’s classy mobile app by offering almost a dozen photo filters to its mobile own application — following Facebook’s attempt to buy the startup, according to The New York Times. News of the feature first leaked out in June.

Recapping Facebook’s Bug Bounty – Neal Poole did a basic rundown of Facebook’s Security Bug Bounty program, which included information about multi-line JavaScript URI, redirects preserving fragment portions of URLs, XSS filters and more.

Facebook Wraps Up Farm Bureau Dispute – Facebook and the Farm Bureau had a dispute over Facebook trademarking “FB,” but it seems like the lawsuit is set to be wrapped up.

Milyoni Chart for Credits – Milyoni created a nice chart and whitepaper that includes ways that Facebook Credits can, and cannot, be used.

Facebook to Open Second Campus - Facebook is set to open up an additional campus from its current Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters. The second campus pwill be southwest of the current location, to be constructed in 2013 to accommodate about 2,800 employees.

Ticketmaster Allows Users to Find Friends – Line Nation’s Ticketmaster service launched an app that allows users to see where their friends are sitting on seat maps and tag themselves.

BBC Does Facebook On-Demand Video – BBC has developed an on-demand Facebook application allowing users to rent episodes from the show “Top Gear” for 48 hours.

ShopIgniter, Involver Partner – The two companies are entered into a partnership to help online retail businesses with a management content system.