In what is being hailed a victory for the world’s rainforests, Burger King has dropped Indonesian palm oil producer Sinar Mas from its list of suppliers, the third major brand to cave to a Greenpeace pressure campaign that’s been stalking the corporate pages of Facebook over the past six months.

The wait is over, Top Gear fans. The long-running speculation about The Stig’s true identity is now revealed. Regardless of who he actually is (cough… Ben Collins), the build-up of speculation and subsequent controversy has sent viral discussions throughout the social media landscape.

This sound familiar? Facebook users are lashing out at the social networking behemoth for new features that, they grumble, cross the line and trample on their privacy. This time the evil enemy, for some privacy-challenged users, is none other than Facebook Places, the much hyped location-based service just launched to take on Google, Foursquare and others.

The leash on the UK’s advertising watchdog is being loosened and it will finally get its teeth into social networks, with an expanded remit covering Facebook, Twitter and advertisers’ own websites. It’s a move which is long-overdue, though it won’t take effect for another six months.

In the economic downturn, companies are doing everything possible to simultaneously cut costs and build a loyal customer base around their brands. The automotive sector has led the way in this, as it was forced to overcome the the two-pronged assault of a struggling economy and ongoing pressure from the eco-lobby. As we reported last month, electronic car companies like Tesla Motors are taking brand building to social networks to help build grassroots excitement around the new technology, and Ford ditched the traditional closed-door auto show for the release of the 2011 Explorer, which proved to be good for customer reach and cutting costs.

Facebook’s “Like” button is becoming much more than a thumbs-up seal of approval. Urban Outfitters is now integrating “Liking” into a social shopping experience to boost its already massive online following and growing online sales, which could also prove to be the next method of community crowdsourcing.

“Location” has become the new keyword over the past few months with the rise of geo-based sharing services, most notably Foursquare. But many observers are skeptical, and a new report by Forester Research has everyone wondering: if they build it, will users actually end up checking-in? We think they will.

Social networking use in the US by the grandparents crowd is on the rise yet again. According to a new Pew Internet report, the number of Internet users born before John F. Kennedy took the Oval Office who now regularly go on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks has nearly doubled in recent months.

One of the world’s favorite clothing suppliers, Zara, will finally open its sales to online customers next week. Granted, the company is behind its biggest competitors, like Gap and H&M, by several years, but Zara has a secret weapon – a Facebook fan page of 4.5 million people could make the transition to online sales a walk in the park.

If there’s anything that (almost) everyone can agree about, it’s that Nutella is delicious. In fact, it’s so deliciously inspiring that fans themselves went out of their way to create and maintain the brand’s Facebook fan page for years. But at of the start of August, Nutella caught on and took over the fan pages. Now what? Can Nutella possibly lead a multi-million person fan page that it had no hand in creating?