It looks like police in Zurich are subscribing to the "if you can't beat them, build them little huts to do the nasty in" theory of prostitution control. Only in Europe.

Prostitution has become such a problem in Switzerland that Zurich officials have made proposals to add "sex boxes" to the city. The idea itself is adopted from German cities like Essen and Cologne, and will be a way for prostitution to continue on behind closed, uh, doors.

The boxes will serve as quickie drive-throughs, so-to-speak, and will free up city streets from unsightly acts that haunt Zurich residents whose homes overlook the city's red light district. "They get up to all sorts in broad daylight - and we're sick to death of looking at it," one resident told the U.K.'s Metro. (Silvio Berlusconi and the Politics of Sex)

From the looks of things, the boxes are big enough to conceal vehicles while prostitutes and clients handle business, away from the public eye.

This somewhat laissez faire approach to Swiss sex industry control even comes an official police endorsement: "We can't get rid of prostitution, so have to learn how to control it," Police spokesman Reto Casanova said.

First Facebook didn't want anyone else to have the word "book" in the name of his or her online community and now it doesn't want anyone to have the word "face" either.

Facebook has apparently taken over the trademark application for "Face" from a company who operated a site called Faceparty.com and is trying to pursue the trademark. It won't be an easy task though, because Aaron Greenspan—the fellow who took Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to court over the creation of Facebook—is opposing the application according to TechCrunch:

C'mon, you saw this one coming, right? Just like they always do come fall time, Apple will be holding a "special event" on September 1st out in San Francisco, and we'll be on the ground reporting live. Think we'll see that new Apple TV we've been hearing about? Some iPods? A 'one more thing'? Yes, probably. Tune in here at 10AM PT / 1PM ET on the 1st to catch the best liveblog in the business!

Facebook officially launched its "Places" location-based product on Wednesday, backed by seeming rivals Foursquare and Gowalla.

Facebook had been expected to announce a location service, ever since it announced the press conference earlier this week. Perhaps in response, Foursquare updated its privacy settings as well.

The Places service officially goes live Thursday, although an iPhone app will go live Wednesday night. The touch.facebook.com site will also go live, for HTML5-compliant browsers.

Facebook broadcast the press conference via its Facebook Live service, which the company launched last week.

According to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Places has been in development for several months. It had three goals, he said: helping share where you are in a nice and social way, to see who's around you, and just discover new and cool places to visit in the future.

Analysts pegged the announcement as a significant one for Facebook.

"This is an important announcement as it establishes Facebook immediately as not only a credible player in this space but arguably the most important player," Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with The Altimeter Group," wrote in a blog post. "I've argued in the past the features such as "check in" are more of a feature than a standalone service and therefore the idea of integrating this directly into Facebook, already a key hub of social activity makes sense. The fact that Facebook is also offering an API for others to tap into means that there's now a good foundation and framework in place that sets the stage for Facebook to bring both brands and local retailers in very quickly."

Places will be part of an iPhone app going live tonight, as well as on a special Places subdomain within Facebook. Facebook will also launch an API for its partners.

Checkin data will be provided soon. Search data for nearby places and is in testing with a small number of partners, executives said. Gowalla chief technical officer Scott Raymond appeared on stage to endorse the new Facebook platform, as did Holger Luedorf, the vice president of mobile products for FourSquare.

"Facebook validates the market," Luedorf said.

Facebook included tagging and the ability to check friends in as well, with strict privacy controls. Users can opt out if they wish, both from tagging and checking in.