Facebook, Zynga Sign Deal With Suspected Devil

Alisher Usmanov is known as "the hard man of Russia," but the investment company he owns a third of, DST Holdings, is offering easy money to Facebook employees with some company shares to spare.

According to Russian reports, Digital Sky Technologies has offered another $100 million to Facebook employees in exchange for their shares. The company had earlier invested $200 million in Facebook and offered another $100 million to employees.

It's also good news for Zynga, which received $180 million from DST and a promise to buy employee shares.

Zynga and Facebook might want to watch out, though. Another holding company controlled by Usamanov bought a stake in Megafon, but Megafon shareholder Leonid Rozhetskin said he was physically threatened into making a deal.

Rozhetskin has since disappeared, though it's not clear if he's dead or in a witness protection program in the United States.

And Usamanov is not necessarily a friend of free speech or privacy on the Web -- he has worked to have critics silenced online, particularly if they accuse Usamanov of being a mobster.

Jackson West doesn't think Facebook's new privacy controls will be all that effective against the CIA or the FSB.