Friday, November 20, 2009
Google Books Settlement Proceedings to Drag on Until Mid-February
The latest revision of the Google Books settlement has been granted preliminary approval by a New York district judge, though it will be some time before that approval is finalized–if it is finalized. Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York said Thursday that he will hold a hearing Feb. 18 on the new agreement, which will restore access to millions of out-of-print books, but may also one day give the company a monopoly on the largest digital library in the world.
Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?” Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the company’s HQ this morning, and in the words of Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, it is intended to make computing a “delightful” experience.
ComScore’s October search market analysis is in and it’s good news for two of the Big Three search engines. Google and Microsoft both posted gains for the month, while Yahoo suffered a decline.
Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have submitted a new version of their digital book settlement, and while it makes concessions to the Department of Justice and others who have raised concerns about how it may violate antitrust laws, the new proposal doesn’t seem to have appeased all of its opponents.
Before AdMob accepted Google’s $750 million takeover offer, it was approached by Apple. This according to “people familiar with the matter,” who tell Bloomberg that Cupertino was also interested in the mobile advertising company. Odd to learn that Apple was considering such a move. After all, advertising isn’t exactly one of its core businesses.
Looks like Bing’s September market share decline was more an anomaly than anything else. According to the latest figures from Hitwise, Bing’s share of the search market increased seven percent in October, evidently at the expense of both Google and Yahoo.
Google’s five-year-old copyright feud with the publishing industry will drag on a few days more now that the deadline for submitting a revised settlement proposal has been pushed back once again. Google and attorneys representing the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers were supposed to file the document today, but instead asked the judge overseeing the matter to give them until the end of the week. 
Well, this is a first, I think: Google is promoting a consumer electronics device on its front page. Surf over to Google.com right now and you’ll find this pitch plugging Droid, Motorola’s new Android phone: “The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.”
Privacy advocates carping about the vast amounts of data Google collects about our Internet use can rest a bit easier today now that they know what the search company knows about them. This morning, Google rolled out Dashboard, a new service that consolidates user account information and settings for its various products onto a single page.
Looks like Google is tweaking its homepage again. Surf over to the search sovereign’s front page today and you’ll find that the buttons for “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” have been swapped out for a bit of new text: “This Space Intentionally Left Blank.”
