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Washington: Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, got the largest boost from the US government's cash-for-clunkers vehicle trade-in programme, topping the list of new auto sales. Toyota accounted for 19 per cent of the almost 700,000 sales under the rebate programme, according to the US Transportation Department. Rebate applications valued at $2.88 billion (Dh10.56 billion) were submitted by the August 24 deadline. The initiative helped restore demand for the slumping auto industry, prompting General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC to boost production plans. Toyota, which is predicting a second consecutive year of losses, may be able to revise earnings outlooks based on the sales gain. "Toyota hasn't included the impact from incentive programmes in its forecasts," said Yoshihiro Okumura, who helps oversee the equivalent of $365 million at Chiba-gin Asset Management Co. "It will probably lift their results this year

Toronto: Facebook agreed Thursday to give users more control over the information they share with third-party applications like games and quizzes in response to concerns raised by Canadian privacy officials. Currently, people who wish to use such third-party software have to agree to share all their data with the application. With the changes, the application developer will have to specify which categories of data the software needs, so users can decide accordingly. Users will also have to specifically approve any access Facebook applications have to their friends' information. Such access still would be subject to the friend's privacy and application settings. \ "Application developers have had virtually unrestricted access to Facebook users' personal information," Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart told reporters Thursday. "The changes Facebook plans to introduce will allow users to control the types of personal information that applications ca