One year ago today at the f8 conference , Facebook released the Like button, its Open Graph social plugin for showing affinity for content on third-party websites.

This story of how the iPhone and iPad are tracking the every movement of their users keeps growing. Now DC Policymakers Ed Markey and Al Franken have gotten into the act, calling on Steve Jobs for an answer to this potentially massively embarrassing story. While I haven’t had the opportunity to chat today with Steve about the situation, I did talk earlier to Robert Vamosi , a cybersleuth at Mocana and the author of the excellent new book When Gadgets Betray Us

It’s been a big month in the Marino-Choy household. No sooner did Lisa Marino get promoted to CEO of the would-be comeback-kid RockYou, than did her husband Ro Choy get named COO of the surging Q&A site Formspring

That’s right. Even bloggers can get hired at Google.

Xtify , a mobile app platform that provides publishers with custom tools for push notifications (even when the app is closed), is launching its Retain product today.

We’ve all got iPhone mania in the Valley, never mind that Apple tracks our every move and won’t explain why or that AT&T users can’t actually make calls . But in Asia– and much of the rest of the developing world– the anticipated mobile giant is Android.

Googler and fellow Greek Margo Georgiadis will be leaving her job as Vice President of Global Sales and Planning at Google Chicago to join daily deals site Groupon as Chief Operating Officer, Chicago Business is reporting . She will be replacing former COO Rob Solomon, who left the company in March. At Google Georgiadis led a sales group comprised of over 1600 employees. Prior to Google, Georgiadis was a partner at McKinsey and Company, a CMO at Discover Card and Principal at Synetro Capital.

It appears that Google’s coupon service Offers, is live, starting in in Portland, Oregon. You also have the ability to subscribe to deals in areas within New York City, Oakland and San Francisco

Discrepancies among third party measurement services partially obscure what still looks like a steady growth rate for Facebook in the US and around the world.

Sometimes being a TechCrunch editor can actually be vaguely useful. Honest