IBT Staff Reporter

Facebook and the state of Washington sued a company on Thursday they accused of a practice called clickjacking that fools users of the world's top social network into visiting advertising sites, divulging personal information and spreading the scam to friends.

Ford Motor Co is poised to report its biggest annual profit in 13 years on Friday after an accounting change that signals the No. 2 U.S. automaker's belief it can remain profitable.

Mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility Inc posted a fourth quarter loss on weak revenue on Thursday in what could be its last report before a planned takeover by Google Inc.

A Brazilian prosecutor plans to file criminal charges against Chevron Corp and some of its local managers within weeks, adding the threat of prison sentences to an $11 billion civil lawsuit as punishment for a November offshore oil spill.

Ener1 Inc , which received a $118.5 million Department of Energy grant to make lithium-ion and other batteries for electric cars, filed for bankruptcy protection amid heavy competition and after the demise of a large customer.

The Republican presidential candidates are gathered in Jacksonville, Fla., tonight for their last debate before the Florida primary on Tuesday. The International Business Times will be live-blogging throughout the evening.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported a record quarterly profit on Friday, aided by its best-ever sales of smartphones, and hiked 2012 capital investment 9 percent to 25 trillion won ($22 billion) to boost chips and flat-screen production.

A leading U.S. lawmaker on online privacy issues said Thursday he would ask for a probe into whether recently announced changes in how Google handles consumer data violated an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported a record quarterly profit on Friday, aided by its best-ever sales of smartphones and one-off gains.

Starbucks Corp's reported a quarterly profit that topped Wall Street's view after global economic worries failed to weaken demand for drinks and other products from the world's biggest coffee chain.

Motorola Mobility Inc posted a quarterly loss after it warned earlier this month that it was having a tough time competing in the smartphone market amid intense competition from rivals such as the Apple Inc iPhone.

Security software maker McAfee rejected a claim that several large corporate customers had recently switched over to using products from rival Symantec Corp.

Bank of America Corp was the fourth-biggest U.S. mortgage lender in the fourth quarter of 2011, continuing its descent in the rankings after it stopped buying loans made by smaller banks.

A Suffolk University poll released late Wednesday showed Mitt Romney with a major advantage over Newt Gingrich in the general election, undermining the idea coming out of South Carolina that Gingrich is more electable against Barack Obama.

A New Zealand court granted bail on Thursday to two associates of the founder of online file-sharing website Megaupload, accused of being involved in a scheme that allegedly made more than $175 million from Internet piracy and illegal file sharing.

Caterpillar Inc reported a 58 percent rise in quarterly earnings that blew away Wall Street expectations on record sales of construction and mining equipment, and projected strong growth for 2012.

In 2009, federal investigators finally arrested Houston financier R. Allen Stanford. For twenty years, Stanford allegedly had run a $7 billion Ponzi scheme from his offshore bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua. U.S. authorities had been nosing around Stanford's empire for longer than a decade but hesitated to open a full-blown probe.

Slowing growth in China is emerging as a concern in some of this quarter's earnings reports from U.S. multinationals that have long relied on strong growth in China and other emerging markets to drive their profits.

A month-long rally on Wall Street appears to be sputtering as stocks slipped on Thursday in what investors called a possible warning of weakness ahead.

New orders for manufactured goods rose in December and a gauge of future business investment rebounded, showing the economy ended the year with more momentum than previously thought.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc plans to start selling a new single-serve beverage maker, according to an analyst report on Thursday, sending shares of rival coffee system maker Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc down more than 4 percent.

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are in a dead heat in Florida. Charles Zelden, a historian at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and an expert on elections, outlined who has the edge and what factors will determine the outcome of next Tuesday's primary.

Stocks fell on Thursday, interrupting a recent rally, as investors booked profits after weaker-than-expected housing data.

Stocks fell on Thursday, interrupting a recent rally, as investors booked profits after weaker-than-expected housing data.

Wireless spectrum for smartphones, and how the Federal Communications Commission is dealing with the lack of it, are the major obstacles facing AT&T in the future, CEO Randall Stephenson said.

Valley National Bancorp's margins fell sequentially, prompting investor concerns about its profit growth in a low-rate environment, while its Northeastern peer First Niagara Financial managed to hold the line on its margins.

A New Zealand court granted bail on Thursday to two associates of the founder of online file-sharing website Megaupload, accused of being involved in a scheme that allegedly made more than $175 million from Internet piracy and illegal file sharing.

In late October, a deflated Julian Assange called a press conference in London to announce he may have to mothball WikiLeaks. The reason, he said, was money. Visa, MasterCard, Western Union, and Paypal were preventing supporters from donating to the organization, Assange explained. He warned that unless the bankers' blockade was lifted at once, the cash-strapped organization would soon die.

The price of gold was up 1.57 percent in afternoon trading to $1,726.8 while the price of silver is up 1.77 percent to $33.71.