Daily News Links

• Growth in consumer spending on downloaded movies and TV shows will far outpace ad spending, Adams Media Research forecasts, projecting pay-to-play will top $4 billion in 2011, compared to just $111 million last year.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• UK police rescued eight children from alleged sexual abuse after uncovering a suspected paedophile ring based in Britain with more than 300 members worldwide. The London-based Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre coordinated a global undercover operation which pinpointed alleged "principal suspects" in the UK. Officers from Britain, the US, Australia, and Canada operated a shift system to infiltrate the suspected paedophile ring on the web.  Read more here (from the Technology Guardian).
• Google this week lost an initial attempt to gain sole control over the Gmail trademark in Switzerland, but the search giant said the ruling would not force it to rename its e-mail service there.  Meanwhile, a Google representative confirmed that the company is in the midst of a legal challenge against the Polish registrant of Gmail.pl. Google insists the site belongs to a "cybersquatter" who acquired the domain name last November and at one point posted a for-sale sign on it.  Read more here (from CNet News.com).
• Fox Interactive Media's acquisition of Strategic Data Corp. should enable the company to wring more dollars from MySpace, IGN and its other online properties by allowing it to mine the personal data on its sites to deliver more targeted ads. It also gives Fox a means to build more direct relationships with marketers.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• The BBC head of TV news, Peter Horrocks, has pledged to represent a wider range of opinion on air and to "get closer to the audience." Speaking during a debate with Robin Aitken, a former reporter who wrote a book detailing an alleged institutional left-wing liberal bias, Horrocks accepted that in the past a full spectrum of views had not made it to air.  Read more here (from the Media Guardian).
• A new iTunes podcast will turn cartoons from The New Yorker into ad-supported animations. Each clip will be 15 to 30 seconds long, and will feature ad formats such as video post-rolls.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• VMware is the early leader in a fast-growing market for virtual-machine software, putting it on a collision course with Microsoft.  Read more here (from the New York Times).
• Twenty years ago the first mobile call was made in Australia.  Read more here (from The Age).
• Avaya said on Thursday that it will develop communications solutions for small business that combine Google's updated Apps Premier Edition suite of Web applications with its own IP telephony technology.  Avaya plans to link its IP Office product to Google Apps Premiere Edition. The combined solutions, which Avaya will sell through its network of resellers and distributors, are expected to be available by the end of the year, the company said in a statement.  Read more here (from PC World).
• A new airport X-ray scanner makes its debut in Phoenix, peering beneath passenger clothes to search for hidden weapons and explosives.  Read more here (from CNet News.com).
• Stephen M. Bennett, Intuit’s chief executive, discusses forays into online banking, health care expense-management software and tax software.  Read it here (from the New York Times).
• The launch of the long-delayed Panama search advertising platform could yield up to a 45% increase in 2007 revenue for Yahoo, UBS forecast yesterday. Advertisers, meanwhile, are reporting improved click-through rates.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• Built-in Wi-Fi access hasn't done much to sell Microsoft's Zune or the less-well-known Music Gremlin. But Wi-Fi-equipped digital audio players are here to stay, and a new generation of devices from companies like AOL, Archos, iRiver, and Sandisk should expand the capabilities of these connected music players.  Read more here (from PC World).
• Businesses would have to reimburse banks for costs stemming from data security breaches, under a Massachusetts bill that could be mimicked by other states and in Congress. In what appears to be the first stab at such an approach, the proposal would require any "commercial entity" that handles personal financial data to foot the bill for various banking costs caused by hacks or other intrusions into their systems.  Read more here (from CNet News.com).
• Skype Ltd. is looking to a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open up the country's mobile phone industry for "unlocked" devices and third-party applications -- such as Skype.  Read more here (from PC World).
• Lufthansa signed on as travel sponsor in the WashingtonPost.com's Sponsored Blogroll program, making it the first advertiser to sponsor an entire vertical category.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• The US Television Bureau of Advertising, an industry advocate for local TV, is set to build a multimillion-dollar electronic system to enable media agencies to buy airtime without the need for smudgy faxes and file cabinets full of paper invoices.  Read more here (from Ad Age).
• Comedy Central may have Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but only Yahoo will be able to boast a singing anchor. It plans to introduce a news personality in the next two months described as "Woody Guthrie meets Hunter S. Thompson."  Read more here (from Media Post).