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California has inched forward in its efforts to protect your passwords for Facebook and other social networking sites from prying colleges and companies.

One of a pair of bills making their way through committees in the state Legislature was unanimously approved Tuesday by the Assembly Judiciary Committee.Senate Bill 1349 seeks to prohibit the practice at public and private California colleges and universities.

It reads: "A public or private postsecondary educational institution shall not require, or formally request in writing, a student or prospective student to disclose the user name or account password for a personal social media account or to otherwise provide the institution with access to any content of that account."

The bill, which has already been approved by the full Senate, moves on to the Assembly Higher Education Committee next week for consideration.

According to a Senate committee analysis, the state's public universities do not currently ask students for access to their social media accounts, though some private colleges request the information from student athletes to ensure they comply with National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rules.

Its companion bill, Assembly Bill 1844, covers the provisions for businesses and will be heard Wednesday in the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.

"I am pleased by todays overwhelming vote to end this unacceptable invasion of personal privacy," the Senate bill's author, Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), said in a statement on Tuesday. "The practice of employers or colleges demanding social media passwords is entirely unnecessary and completely unrelated to someones performance or abilities."

Neither bill would would prevent colleges or prospective employers from checking social networking websites for information that's publicly available. Employers often use social media to screen applicants. To avoid exposing themselves to liability, the employers typically stop short of asking for private information, employment lawyers have said.

At the federal level, a congressional committee is considering the Social Networking Online Protection Act (SNOPA), which would forbid employers from requiring job seekers or workers to hand over their social networking passwords as a condition of employment.

Public and governmental outrage and concern were stirred up earlier this year after the Associated Press published a report about isolated instances of job applicants and student athletes being pressed by employers and coaches, respectively, for their access information as a condition for consideration and participation.

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California bill on social media privacy moves forward

Summary: Microsoft finds its way into the social networking world thanks to the acquisition of Yammer.

Rumors about a potential Yammer acquisition have been circling for weeks now. Microsoft officially confirmed on Monday that it is indeed buying the enterprise social networking platform.

See also: Microsoft buys Yammer for $1.2 billion

Although the deal is still subject to approval, the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation has pledged to pay $1.2 billion in cash for Yammer.

If/when the acquisition goes through, Yammer will join the Microsoft Office Division, led by division president Kurt DelBene. But Yammer team members will continue to report to their current CEO, David Sacks.

Despite any promises of autonomy, theres no denying here that Microsoft has essentially bought itself into the social enterprise business.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted as much in prepared remarks, explaining that Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsofts growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.

But the Windows giant is not much different from a lot of other major tech players right now that are all doing the same thing.

As ZDNet editor Larry Dignan pointed out earlier this month, the big guns are chasing social enterprise at all costs.

For example, a few weeks ago Oracle paid approximately $689 million in cash and shares for social media analytics company Collective Intellect likely to round out its new public cloud offerings as well as catch up with archrival Salesforce.com and its acquired subsidiaries, Radian6 and Buddy Media.

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Microsoft acquires Yammer as social enterprise war escalates

Microsoft is paying $1.2 billion for Yammer and is folding the enterprise social networking vendor into its Office division.

[UPDATED at 1:14 p.m. PT]

The rumors were right. Microsoft announced on June 25 it has bought enterprise social networking vendor Yammer for $1.2 billion.

I doubt seriously whether Microsoft will be integrating any of Yammer's technology into Office 2013, as the client, server and services that are part of this wave are already quite far along in development. A public beta of Office 2013 is expected by many of us Microsoft watchers in July.

So many folks have asked me since the original rumor-go-round began why Microsoft would want Yammer. After all, Microsoft already has several partnership deals in place with Yammer and has its own social-networking technology built into SharePoint.

Here's the official statement from Microsoft as to why it's ponying up for the company:

(In my earlier speculation I wondered aloud whether Microsoft might be buying Yammer for similar reasons it bought Skype: It needed a cooler brand and wanted the cross-platform support. I still stand by those wonderings.)

As I blogged earlier this month, Microsoft was working on its own Yammer competitor, known as OfficeTalk. Last week, the Softies posted a downloadable case study which indicated that OfficeTalk is now nothing more than a Microsoft IT demo project.

When I asked Microsoft officials whether the company had decided against commercializing OfficeTalk after all, I received this response from a spokesperson: "Great ideas areas such as OfficeTalk, are always coming from The Garage. We have nothing new to share." (The Garage is a Microsoft internal incubator.)

Update: Here are a few additional tidbits from a call Microsoft and Yammer held for analysts and press about today's announcement:

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Microsoft acquires corporate social network Yammer for $1.2B

Yammer lets businesses can set up private "social" networks where employees can communicate.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Is corporate America ready to adopt social networking alongside traditional office tools like word processing apps and spreadsheets?

Microsoft is making a big bet in that direction. It has acquired Yammer, an "enterprise social networking" startup, for $1.2 billion in cash. The deal is Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) biggest acquisition since Skype, which it bought last year for $8.5 billion.

Yammer operates like a gated Facebook (FB): A business can set up a private network where employees can post announcements, share files, create events, swap messages and more. It also offers more traditional corporate features like a content management system and an "extranet" that businesses can use to communicate with outside contacts like customers and vendors.

Buying Yammer "underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a prepared statement.

Yammer, which was founded in 2008, had raised about $142 million in venture funding. It claims more than 5 million corporate users, including 80% of the Fortune 500 list.

The companies' joint statement said Yammer "will continue to develop its standalone service," and that it will also be paired with "complementary offerings from Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype."

On a conference call immediately following the press release, journalists asked several more questions about what the Yammer integration will look like.

But executives wouldn't get specific, instead throwing out corporate-speak about "natural synergies."

After a few minutes of that, one reporter asked if he should look to the the Skype incorporation as a model for how Yammer will fit in with Microsoft.

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Microsoft buys social-office network Yammer for $1.2 billion

Fed up with Facebook?

Facebook is clearly the top tool for social networking, but new and arguably more innovative social networking alternatives have emerged in recent years to fill the void left by Friendster and MySpace. So if you're looking to network somewhere other than Facebook, here are five alternative sites.

Pinterest One of the most popular social networks on the web today, Pinterest has received widespread acclaim for its fresh take on the standard photo sharing social network.

"Pinterest is a good example of an alternative social network that focuses on a simple feature -- photo sharing -- which has a complete social network built around it," said Christopher Gentile, CEO of the new social network Family iBoard.

This more focused approach to social networking helps create a simpler and more intuitive user experience.

Path Path is a simple photo and message sharing social network that limits users to a maximum of 150 connections. These restrictions are designed to provide a more private and personal experience, by encouraging users to connect only with the people they know best (the number 150 is based on "Dunbar's number," which purportedly denotes the limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain genuine social relationships).

In this more intimate setting, users may be encouraged to share photos and send messages more freely than on a more public platform like Facebook.

Foursquare Foursquare is a location-based social network that lets you "check in" at venues using your phone or mobile device. You can then connect with other Foursquare users to share information about where you are and what you are doing. The program also allows you to search your location for the restaurants, bars, shops and other amenities, and receive personalized recommendations based on other users' experiences.

Nextdoor Critics argue that the impersonality of the Internet has compromised the once thriving sense of community in America's neighborhoods. Nextdoor's mission is to rekindle this community spirit in neighborhoods across the U.S., by connecting users and their neighbors through a localized social network.

Users join with their home address and are automatically placed into a home neighborhood. This ensures that all of the content, connections and messages you see will come from other users living in your area.

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Tired of Facebook? Here are five social networking alternatives