Well, the good news is the four Google Italy executives will have access to world-class legal representation. The bad news is they face criminal charges in Italy because of what a few punks uploaded to Google Video.
Here's how it went down: Four teenage idiots videoed themselves (or allowed themselves to be videoed) teasing a disabled kid in class and throwing tissue packets at him. After uploading the video to Google Video, an advocacy group for people with Down syndrome prompted police to do an investigation.
Google says the World Wide Web is big. Really big. You just won't believe how big it really is. I mean you think Kim Kardashian's butt is big but that's just peanuts to the Web.
Let's get something straight: Even if necessary and functional towards a desired end, criticism is never nice. Speaking of desired ends, NiceCritic.com allows perturbed coworkers/neighbors/schoolmates to send anonymous email messages like:
You might want to consider wearing longer skirts/dresses.
Or, maybe a message like this, which I could never, ever imagine a need for under any circumstances:
Online video news sharing site Redlasso said today that it is suspending blogger access to its video search and clipping service while it fights a copyright infringement lawsuit filed this week by NBC and Fox News Channel.
The company said it will continue to provide services to its business and radio clients.
Though Net Neutrality is not a partisan issue, as evidenced by bipartisan support outside of Congress, primary support (but not all of it) for enshrining what is called the Internet's First Amendment has come from Democratic legislators. Matt Stoller, blogging for Open Left, is proud to tell everyone, then, his campaign to get 16 Democratic Senate challengers in this year's election season on board for the cause is a success.
Yesterday's Twitter glitch (Twitch?) causing users' follower/followee lists to be trimmed for them appears to be resolved.
Twitter founder Biz Stone attributed the event to an error during a database upgrade. A post yesterday is time-stamped 12:01 Pacific, suggesting the error was fixed within about 12 hours. It would take longer, until today probably, to return actual numbers to normal on user accounts.
An email-related Yahoo product might be expected to affect no more than Yahoo Mail, Ymail, and RocketMail. Somebody's been feeling energetic, though, as Yahoo Zimbra Desktop Beta will allow users to access even Gmail and AOL Mail while they're offline.
Only four days after escaping from a federal minimum-security prison in Florence, Colorado "Spam King" Eddie Davidson was found dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound.
Two year's ago there was a bit of a media frenzy surrounding Goodmail's apparent arrangement with AOL; if you don't recall the exact players you might remember national news coverage of the "email postage" scare in spring 2006. Well, Goodmail's back with a new CEO and a new plan: certifying video email.
Hasbro has sued the makers of the popular Facebook App, Scrabulous, saying it infringes on the copyrights of its game, Scrabble.
Scrabulous has more than half a million players on Facebook while Hasbro licensee Electronic Arts launched its version of Scrabble on the social network this month has just over 8,000 players.
Not happy with Facebook's search and advertising system? Well, Microsoft's going to try its hand at improving things. A new deal between the two companies should bring Live Search aboard before winter begins.
A man dubbed "The Spam King" has escaped from a minimum-security federal prison in Colorado.
Edward "Eddie" Davidson, 35 was sentenced in April to 21 months in prison for sending massive amounts of unsolicited fraudulent emails promoting penny stocks as good investments.
Davidson was also ordered to pay $714,139 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and ordered to turn over gold coins and other property he purchased through his scheme.
He had been in the Florence, Colorado prison for about a month and a half when he escaped.
Google went live with Knol, a platform to read and write articles on all kinds of subjects. Knol was being tested privately since some time and had been pre-announced back in 2007. The address is knol.google.com, but notably not knol.com or knol.org or even googleknol.com. This project is somewhat reminiscent of Wikipedia, though there are many differences as well.
There had to be a better way. It's no surprise that Yahoo! Music is shutting down its download store and pointing customers to Rhapsody. But did they have to pull a Microsoft and stop supporting the retrieval of license keys or authorize playback on additional computers? Here's the email that came last night:
Spanish is everywhere; there may be around 360 million native speakers worldwide, and even little children in Lexington, Kentucky are being taught it in school. So LinkedIn is leaping at a big opportunity by making its site available in Spanish.
A UK businessman has won a libel case and $44,000 in damages at London's High Court after false allegations were made about him on Facebook.
Mathew Firsht sued a former friend for creating a bogus profile on the site that featured personal information about him and untrue claims about his sexual orientation.
A slew of Twitter users posted this morning the disappearance of significant portions of followers and followees from their accounts. Has Twitter lost swaths of user data? Or is it the side effect of ousting "aggressive followers," who Twitter equates with spammers? Are followers worth much?
Toads cause warts; new clothes on Easter bring good luck; and Google penalizes sites for having full RSS feeds. MentalFloss.com issued a "never mind" on that last superstition after Matt Cutts dropped a little science.
Pay any attention at all in this industry and you'll find desperate Web marketers and publishers grasping at any explanation of why their site has suddenly been delisted from Google's search rankings. As all of us know, that's the Power of the Goog.
Njection.com is a Web site that provides drivers information on the location of red light cameras and speed traps by allowing users to upload locations of such places which are then displayed on a map
Drivers in the U.S. can download information directly to their in- car GPS device for $40 a year and have access to continually updated files pointing out the locations of speed traps and red light cameras. Access to information about speed traps on the site is free.
While that Microsoft-Yahoo business stole the show for a while, Baidu's found its way into the spotlight again. The Chinese search engine company had an admirable second quarter, beating analysts' estimates in some important respects.
Britain's major online service providers have joined a government initiated plan to deal with the illegal downloading of music and films.
Internet service providers will send warning letters to users who are suspected of illegal file sharing. Around 6 million Britons are believed to have downloaded files illegally over the past year, costing the music and film industries millions in lost revenue.
Chinese police have arrested a well-known online dissident for violating his terms of probation, as the country seeks to crackdown on critics in the run up to the Olympic Games.
Du Daobin, from the central province of Hebei, received a suspended sentence for what the Chinese government says was subversion in 2004 and was detained by police for posting online essays in support of another dissident.
If you understood the subtitle reference, congratulations, you're old enough to watch porn, and probably run for President. If you didn't get it, you're awfully young and let me explain something before we move on: My understanding is that there are dirty movies on the Internet; I am told dirty movies are also called "porn" and you can't see them on TV or YouTube.
YouTube is dominant enough among video websites that, in order to keep its rivals from getting squished together at the bottom, it had to be removed from a graph showing Australian market shares. Still, MSN Video and CNET TV are doing well under its rule.
Mexico's primary provider of fixed-line phone service, Telmex, is prepared to introduce Internet-based television and is waiting for the government's approval to launch the service.
Telmex, controlled by Carlos Slim, one the world's wealthiest men has seen profits and ad revenue decline in the last several quarter's, due to increased competition from cell phone and cable providers.
Despite no ads or any obvious revenue generation, Google News is worth $100 million to Google, according to VP Marissa Mayer.
How does zero equal $100 million? As one of Google's many for free peripheral services, enough people sort of ride the Google wave over to the search engine from the News page. In Google's estimation, all that referral traffic is worth a pretty penny.
We've noted time and time again the way in which Wikipedia receives loads of traffic from Google, and to be honest, there's no clear sign that this will change. But Google has gone so far as to launch Knol, a sort of would-be competitor.
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