McKenna, Facebook and spam; $90K tech salaries

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Feisty fights over online spam, rising tech salaries, Apple revenues and a few major deals dominated the news this week.

Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna has teamed up with Facebook to fight spam that targets Facebook uses -- a.k.a. clickjacking -- by lobbing suits against Adscend Media LLC, a Delaware-based online ad network.

Bad news for Microsoft: Apple said it sold 37 million iPhones in the last quarter, up 128 percent from the same quarter a year ago. In its most recent revenues report, Apple reported record quarterly revenue of $46.3 billion -- more than double Microsoft's revenue from the same quarter.

Apple's success as well was bad news for Amazon: Apple said it sold 15 million iPads last quarter. Apple's CEO Tim Cook said he didn't see the introduction of Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet having much effect on Apple's sales of iPad tablets.

Number of deals last week

We reported on a number of deals last week, including Readers Digest's sale of Seattle-based Allrecipes.com to Meridith Publishing for $175 million. RealNetworks and sister company Rhapsody as well made headlines, with Real -- now pursuant to this agreement the guidance of new CEO Thomas Nielsen -- selling a trove of patents and patent applications to Intel for $120 million, and Rhapsody snapping up Napster International, the first subscription music service in Europe

Facebook's 2011 revenue was $3.8 billion and its operating profit was $1.5 billion, according to a Tweet from Julia Boorstin, a CNBC reporter citing undisclosed sources. The news comes ahead of the Menlo Park-based social networking company potentially filing IPO plans as early as Feb. 1 of straightway week.

Is Microsoft's Kinect coming to your laptop? Like as not according to a report from The Daily, which recently had the chance to check out two prototypes running Windows 8 and embedded with Microsoft's motion-sensing innovation. Small sensors are reportedly located at the top of the screen, allowing users to do anything from gaming to switching between applications without using a keyboard or mouse.

The Daily reports Microsoft will not likely make its own Kinect-based laptops in-house, however rather license the research to hardware manufactures as it does with Windows.

Amazon has launched a new backup service that lets businesses upload data securely to its Amazon Web Services cloud. Called AWS Storage Gateway, Amazon said the service works with existing applications to securely transfer encrypted data to AWS -- a way of targeting companies not but comfortable with cloud computing, reports the New York Times.

Number of divisions

Gelfuso spent nine years at Microsoft where he worked in a number of divisions, including Xbox Live, Windows Live, and microsoft.com. Prior to that, Gelfuso was the senior creative director at Corbis and responsible for wakeboard and snowboard design at Hyperlite and HO Sports.

Each year the Puget Sound Business Journal brings at the same time the CEOs at the helm of the region's most successful companies at our Book of Lists celebration. On January 26, the Business Journal will once again host this special gathering, nevertheless with a unequalled twist. "A Salute to the Business Stars" will recognize the list-makers as in years past, and this year we are opening the event to the public - JOIN US!

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