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General Motors Co. (GM) pulled its paid advertising from Facebook only days before the social network’s massive initial public offering (IPO).

GM reportedly spends about $4 billion annually on advertising worldwide. Of this $4 billion, approximately $10 million is spent on Facebook advertisements, and another $30 million on Facebook fan pages.

While Facebook ads take up a fairly small amount of GM’s total amount spent on advertisements annually, the automaker says the advertising on the social network has proved to be ineffective. GM has decided to axe its $10 million spent on Facebook ads, but will keep its Facebook fan pages.

“We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed,” said Greg Martin, a GM spokesman. “This happens as a regular course of business and it’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets — especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets.

“In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers.”

Experts say that GM could be having troubles gaining business from its Facebook ads because its customers are older and do not have as much of a presence on the social network.

Many wondered if GM’s decision, which came only three days before Facebook’s $104 billion IPO, would affect investor’s view of the social network at a crucial time. Facebook is expected to price its shares on Thursday and begin trading under the ticker “FB” on Friday.

While other automakers may see benefits to advertising with Facebook, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google ads are more effective than Facebook ads. Facebook’s clickthrough rate was 0.051 percent in 2010 while Google’s was 0.4 percent. Clickthrough rates are the number of times users click on ads.

This sort of information could really put a damper on Facebook’s upcoming IPO this week. Other potential impediments on Facebook’s plate include the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) probe into the social networks $1 billion Instagram acquisition, which aims to increase Facebook’s mobile usage, since the company’s amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday mentioned that Facebook revenue will decline as more user’s access the site from mobile devices instead of PCs.

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Apple’s iPhone is a huge seller both worldwide and in the United States. At first, the smartphone was exclusive to AT&T’s wireless networks in the U.S. Just over a year ago, Verizon jumped onboard. And with the launch of the iPhone 4S, Sprint was finally able to provide Apple’s popular smartphone to its customers.

When the deal was first announced, it was reported that Sprint would purchase 30.5 million iPhone over the course of four years (at a cost of $15.5 billion USD). It was also reported that Sprint wouldn’t make any money on the arrangement with Apple until at least 2014.

Fast-forward to today, and Sprint CEO Dan Hesse is now pushing back that profitability date until 2015. Hesse still stands by his assertion that “carrying the iPhone will be quite profitable;” shareholders are just going to have to wait a bit longer than they originally envisioned.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

For anyone that questions Hesse’s decision to make a deal with Apple, he simply tells them to take a look at embattled T-Mobile. T-Mobile recently announced that it would be laying off an additional 900 workers in the U.S. and has lost contract customers for 10 straight quarters.

T-Mobile is also the only one of America’s “Big 4″ wireless carriers that doesn’t have the iPhone.

In other Sprint news, TechnoBuffalo has learned that the wireless carrier will end early upgrades for customers effective June 1. The program allowed customers to upgrade to a new phone within 10 to 14 days of their originally scheduled upgrade date.

Granted, waiting an extra two weeks isn’t going to be a deal breaker for most people, so we doubt that many Sprint customers will cry themselves to sleep over this move.

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How useful these features are for you probably depends on how actively you use Google+. We have, however heard from many of our readers that this incessant focus on adding Google+ to just about every aspect of the Google experience is taking a toll on people’s patience. Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of the Gmail experience, for example, it feels as if Google is getting sidetracked left and right by Google+. As Y Combinator’s Paul Graham rightly noted earlier this year, “GMail has become painfully slow.” Adding more Google+ features to it is probably not making it any faster.

At least one new feature today, though, isn’t fully dependent on Google+ and actually quite useful (though it’s also integrated with it). When you search for an email address now, the search results will highlight your contacts’ details as well, including phone numbers, Google Chat status and email address. If you contact has a Google+ profile, this information will stay up to date automatically.

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Favorite Moments:

• Luke continues to show early sociopath signs. I hope they continue it.
• “I may have to readjust my grapes.”
• Beth Grant, one of the all-time great character actresses, plays Maxine..
• The Norman Rockwell bit was an inspired move.

What were your favorite moments?

Need to catch up on the season? You can find recent past episodes of Modern Family here.

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Today, Senators Charles Schumer and Bob Casey are expected to announce a plan they have to re-impose the taxes on Saverin, part of a bigger scheme to go after expatriates who give up citizenship in order to avoid taxes. On top of that, they want to make it official that people who avoid paying their taxes by renouncing citizenship will be permanently denied re-entry into the U.S.

The plan, the offices of the two Senators said, will be announced today at 11am Eastern in a press conference at the Senate Radio-TV Gallery in the U.S. Capitol building.

Called the “Ex-Patriot” act (short for “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy”, according to ABC News), the act proposes to re-impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anyone who renounces citizenship — even if they are no longer resident in the U.S.

In Singapore, where Saverin currently resides, individuals do not need to pay capital gains taxes, so it’s thought that Saverin is using his residency there to avoid paying a minimum $67 million tax bill — more if the share price rises — on shares that he sells in Facebook after the company is expected to IPO tomorrow. He is expected to make $3.84 billion once Facebook goes public. Saverin has lived in Singapore since 2009 and renounced his citizenship in September 2011.

It’s not clear how many other ex-pats might be liable for such hefty bills if the act gets passed. Facebook, which is expected to raise at least $16 billion in the IPO, is one of the biggest IPOs of all time and is getting an extra level of scrutiny as a result, with the debate ranging from accusations of Saverin being plain wrong in his approach and others, if not exactly supporting him, pointing out the other side of the debate and how he’s just being a good old, gambling capitalist.

Well, Schumer (D-NY) and Casey (D-PA) are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. They will call Saverin’s $67 million tax “duck” an “outrage” today in their press conference when they detail the rest of the Ex-Patriot act.

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