Daily News Links

A big weekend edition of my Daily News Links to make up for some erratic posting last week ...

• MySpace has entered the news business with a feature that lets its users determine what items other members see. MySpace News brings to a much larger audience the user-recommendation capabilities already available through Digg and Time Warner's Netscape. It also marks the site's further inroads into becoming an internet portal akin to Yahoo and others.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• Content creators who upload their videos to YouTube will be offered as soon as next week the option of having short ads shown at the beginning or end, with the resulting revenues split 50-50, according to Howard Lindzon, founder of Wallstrip, a finance-oriented site that distributes videos through YouTube.  Read more here (from Variety).
• An EU expert group on digital libraries has agreed to a basic model for handling copyrights for digitalised cultural publications in libraries.  Read more here (from EUobserver.com).
• A growing familiarity with search engine advertising in international markets, including a new burst of growth in the UK, contributed to another quarter of outperformance at Google, figures released on Thursday showed.  Read more here (from the Financial Times).
• Consumer privacy groups on Friday sought to derail Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad supplier DoubleClick Inc., filing a complaint with US regulators to block the merger on privacy grounds.  Read more here (from Yahoo! News).
• When Apple sits down for contract negotiations with the major record companies over the next month, it will probably seek further concessions from them on selling music without copy-protection software. The owner of the market-leading iPod digital media player and iTunes online music store has already cut an early deal with EMI Group, the third-largest record company, and enters talks with the other labels from a position of strength, according to music industry executives. That leaves Vivendi's Universal Music Group; Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which is a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann; and Warner Music Group in a tough spot.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• AOL execs ushered the advertising world into the Time Warner Center Tuesday, where they made a glitzy pitch for more ad dollars. But rather than sell itself as a destination for everyone else's content, as Yahoo! had done at a similar event two months earlier, Time Warner's Internet unit peddled its own.  Read more here (from Forbes).
• Ticketmaster last week accused eBay's StubHub subsidiary of improperly obtaining and auctioning off premium seats to a spring concert tour featuring Lynyrd Skynrd.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• Video-sharing site yanks, then restores, video of Republican presidential contender drawing laughs when crooning about Iran.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• Dell will once again let home PC buyers choose between Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows XP when they purchase new machines.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• Australia-based airline Qantas has been given the green light to start testing in-flight mobile phone services, but voice services will be disabled. The Australian Communications and Media Authority gave the thumbs-up late Wednesday to a limited evaluation of GSM mobile phones and GPRS devices, but only for one commercial aircraft. According to a Qantas spokesperson, the three-month trial will involve a Boeing 767 plying between domestic capital cities.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• For more than a decade, the US Census Bureau posted on a public Web site the Social Security numbers of 63,000 people who received financial aid, officials say.  Read more here (from the Washington Post).
• Microsoft says a report claiming it only sold 244 copies of Vista in China in the first two weeks is just plain wrong.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• Baidu.com Inc., operator of China's most-used Internet search engine, said its Japanese Web site, which has links to pornography and critics of the Chinese government, has been blocked in its home market.   Read more here (from Bloomberg).
• AT&T has settled with 13 data brokers it accused of fraudulently obtaining customer phone records after the brokers agreed to pay an undisclosed cash settlement and to not seek customer data in the future. The lawsuits were AT&T's first involving so-called pretexting, where customer data is accessed by people posing as customers to get unauthorized online accounts where they could see calling records and other information.  Read more here (from the Wall Street Journal).
• A court battle that could result in substantial fines for news organizations and jail time for reporters is looming, after lawyers for a former Army scientist investigated in connection with the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001 signaled plans to demand the names of confidential sources for news stories about the anthrax probe.  Read more here (from the New York Sun).
• Legislation that would help protect consumers from harmful spyware that can harvest personal data from a user's computer was approved on Thursday by a US House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. The bill would require software distributors and advertisers to clearly notify and obtain
  consent from consumers before their programs can be loaded onto a computer. Violators could be fined up to $3 million for each unfair or deceptive act.  Read more here (from Yahoo! News).
• The installation of an insufficiently tested piece of software set off a chain reaction that eventually cut off BlackBerry service to more than five million users in North America users, the devices’ maker said late Thursday.  Read more here (from the New York Times).
• On the heels of Google's deal to acquire online ad serving giant DoubleClick, a group of investors including of two of the largest traditional media companies - NBC Universal and Time Warner - are backing a new, "breakthrough" ad serving technology. Time Warner Ventures and GE's NBC Universal and GE Media, Communications and Entertainment units were part of a $19 million round of early stage funding for Adify, which has developed what it calls a "Build Your Own Network" approach to ad serving, which is aimed at traditional media companies as well as endemic online marketers.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• Two people have been arrested and cautioned in the UK for using someone else's wireless Internet connection without permission. The practice, which sharply divides Internet users, has been fuelled by the rapid growth of fast wireless broadband in homes and people's failure to secure their networks.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• A US judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Google that charges the Web search leader's AdWords program abuses trademarks. In making his decision to allow the case to move forward, US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that the public has an interest in whether AdWords, the company's popular pay-per-click advertising system, violates US trademark law.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• EBay Inc. said Wednesday its first-quarter profit surged 52%, helped by higher average selling price of goods sold on its auction site and sharp growth in its online payment business.  Shares of eBay rose as much as 5% in late trading after the results were released.  Read more here (from MarketWatch).
• The Internet Watch Foundation says the number of images of serious child abuse online has quadrupled over three years. The IWF's chairman said the figures demonstrated an increasing appetite among Internet paedophiles for the most severe sorts of imagery, while sites selling abusive pictures and videos appeared to be turning to increasingly hardcore material in order to fend off competitors.  Read more here (from Technology Guardian).
• A Chinese couple sued Yahoo and its Chinese affiliates on Wednesday, alleging the Internet firms provided information that helped the Chinese government prosecute the man for his Internet writings.  Read more here (from CNN).
• Texas-based Vertical Computer Systems said Friday that it has filed a patent infringement suit against Microsoft. Vertical filed its suit Wednesday in US District Court in Texas, claiming Microsoft's .Net technology infringes on its patent. A Microsoft representative said that the company had yet to be served with a copy of the lawsuit and said it was premature to comment.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• Some attendees of the US National Association of Broadcasters conference last week were worried that local television affiliates will be the next business species to be endangered by the Internet.  Read more here (from CNET News.com).
• In a digital world increasingly dominated by social networks like MySpace and Facebook, new issues have arisen for younger consumers and the marketers who covet them. According to a new study released by The Pew Internet & American Life Project, some 32% of online teenagers and 43% of social-networking teens have been contacted online by complete strangers. Read more here (from Media Post).
• The  G9 group of telecoms companies has taken the next step in building a national fibre-to-the-node network, formally lodging draft details of its plan with the competition regulator for approval.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• Microsoft has unveiled two tools that it plans to use to extend its reach into the Web 2.0 landscape -- voice-activated search service via TellMe Networks, and Silverlight, a browser plug-in set to rival Adobe's Flash.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• Ontario lawmakers are considering a bill that would add bullying and cyber-bullying to the list of behaviours that could get a student suspended or expelled from an Ontario school. Education Minister Kathleen Wynne says she wants input from students because they are the experts in using You Tube, instant messaging and other Internet-based methods to share personal information, or bully someone using audio, pictures and video.  Read more here (from the Toronto Star).

Comments

[Helena]

Love your Daily News Links - I'm glad they're back.