US regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that
Google's
acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick could go
ahead, despite some people's concerns about its effect on
competition in the online advertising market.
The deal still has to be passed by the European Commission,
which is conducting its own competition enquiry into the deal.
"The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: this
acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit
consumers," said Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, in a
statement. "We hope that the European Commission will soon
reach the same conclusion, and we are confident that this deal will
deliver more relevant ads for consumers, more choices for
advertisers, and more opportunities for website publishers."
The European Commission announced in
November that it would conduct a full competition investigation
into the deal. "[The Commission] will investigate whether the
merger, which combines the leading providers of respectively, on
the one hand, online advertising space and intermediation services,
and, on the other hand, ad serving technology, could lead to
anti-competitive restrictions for competitors operating in these
markets and thus harm consumers," said a Commission statement at
the time. The Commission's verdict is due by 2 April.
Read more on this story at PC Mag's
site.
The High
Court ruled in a long running patent dispute that it would be
impossible to build a third generation (3G) mobile phone according
to the industry's set standards without infringing on a patent held
by Interdigital.
Nokia had attempted to show that it was possible to build a
standards compliant phone without infringing on one of 31 patents
held by Interdigital but the court ruled that one patent was
essential for the standards.
Read more on this story at The
Register.
A lawsuit against lawyer-rating site Avvo.com has been thrown out of court.
The site rates US lawyers with a score out of 10. We covered the
issues in a September episode of OUT-LAW Radio, Rate-a-lawyer site under attack.
In December, a judge said that Avvo's ratings, even if generated
through automated algorithms, are opinions, not facts, and thus
qualify for First Amendment protection, writes
Eric Goldman.
Telecoms regulator Ofcom said it is investigating ways to
address the problem of ISPs advertising speeds for internet
connections which consumers do not actually receive.
Chief executive Ed Richards said the body was considering
options such as forcing ISPs to provide individual customers with
speed estimates specific to their home.
More on this at
Silicon.com.
An estimated 3.6 million US adults lost money to phishing scams
in 2007, according to figures produced by
analysts at Gartner. It said that only 2.3 million had been
successfully scammed in 2006.
The company's survey found that $3.2 billion was lost during the
year in the attacks, in which scammers pretend to be from
legitimate businesses such as banks or eBay in order to gain
control of people's bank accounts or cards.
More at
Forbes.com.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has issued guidance to
prosecutors on how to interpret changes to the UK's main
cybercrime law that are expected to come into force this year.
The Computer Misuse Act was passed in 1990. Changes to the Act
are included in the Police and Justice Act 2006, though the
amendments are not yet in force. They provoked controversy because
of the affect they might have had on hacking researchers, but
experts say that the CPS advice
gives researchers some reassurance.
A Hampshire publican lost her appeal against a Crown Court
conviction for showing English football via a Greek satellite
channel, thus avoiding paying Sky Television for coverage.
Parts of the case were reserved for referral to European courts
over EU competition law, but the judges
ruled that the woman was aware that Sky had the right to charge
for broadcasts in the EU, and that she had intended to avoid making
that payment. More at
ThePublican.com.
