At long last, the Holy Grail of Internet IPOs is here. Facebook filed Wednesday to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering.

In 2011, Facebook earned $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion. As of December 31, Facebook had 845 million daily active users.

The company crossed the line into profitability in 2009, five years after it launched in founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Facebook earned $229 million that year on sales of $777 million, and has remained profitable ever since. Advertising accounted for 85% of Facebook’s 2011 revenue, or almost $3.2 billion.

Facebook’s other revenue stream is its payment system for purchases within apps and games: Facebook Credits. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from those payments, and passes the remaining 70% on to the app developer. Those fees brought in $557 million for Facebook last year.

Revenue from Zynga, which makes FarmVille and other games played on Facebook, represented 12% of Facebook’s total revenue in 2011.

Another choice tidbit: In 2011, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg raked in a $500,000 base salary. But he requested — and will receive — only $1 per year in salary starting January 1, 2013.

Don’t feel too bad for Zuck, who remains the largest shareholder in the company he created. His total compensation in 2011 came to $1.48 million, according to Facebook’s calculations.

He was one of the lowest-paid among Facebook’s executive ranks. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg topped the list with a total package Facebook estimated at $30.9 million, almost all of it in stock.

Engineering VP Mike Schroepfer made an estimated $24.7 million — again, mostly in stock — while CFO David Ebersman collected an $18.7 million pay package. (more…)

The Delhi High Court has ordered Facebook India to implement a way to remove objectionable content or the sites will face a blackout.

Justice Suresh Kait warned that if the social network cannot monitor their content, India will follow China’s censorship lead.

“Like China, we will block all such websites,” Kait said Thursday.

But if Facebook begins to moderate content, it will be the same as if they had written it. Once the Internet heavyweights begin to interfere, they become legally responsible for content under the Indian Information Technology Act.

What are your thoughts about Internet companies coming up with a way to sort content to appease the Indian court, and more importantly what do you think the Indian Government accomplishes by blocking Facebook?

Based on the social network’s recent growth, UK digital marketing firm iCrossing is projecting that Facebook will pass the significant milestone of one billion users this August.

It’s been known that Facebook has seen a slow down in new user registrations in Western markets, like the United States, where it’s coming close to saturation point amongst Internet users, but developing markets are picking up the slack and pushing it towards the landmark. (more…)

A federal court judge has fined Paul Ceglia $5,000 for failing to fully comply with an order to turn over his email information in his case against Facebook. Ceglia was also ordered to pay some of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s legal fees.

The sanctions are a setback for Ceglia’s claim in U.S. District Court that a 2003 contract he and Mark Zuckerberg signed entitles him to half ownership of the social networking site estimated to be worth more than $50 billion.

Ceglia’s lawyer says his client will pay the penalties.

Facebook Attorney Orin Snyder said the company will file a motion to dismiss Ceglia’s suit, claiming that Ceglia’s contract is fake.

Mercedes-Benz USA is bringing Facebook to its cars, with a special version of the service that is built-in to a new in-vehicle telematics system called mbrace2. The service will be introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week.

The version of Facebook to be offered in your MY2013 Mercedes will be stripped down to a limited set of features, specially designed for drivers and centered around the locations of businesses and friends.

Facebook VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing Dan Rose, said that the Mercedes version of Facebook reflects the company’s expansion to a growing list of settings where screens and Internet connections are available. (more…)