For those about to rock, All Things Digital salutes you.

Read More »

Former Genentech chairman and CEO Art Levinson has resigned from Google’s board, where he has been a director since April 2004. No reason was given for his departure, though his membership on both the Google and Apple boards, and the Federal Trade Commission inquiry into into possible implications of such dual memberships, surely played a role.

Read More »

It’s been a long time between weekend updates, and a long week without Peter Kafka, All Things D’s intrepid MediaMemo reporter. He returns Monday, and just in time, too, since John Paczkowski and Digital Daily will be out all next week. Must be August–do Europeans still take the whole month off? Or is that an urban legend? No matter; it definitely has not been sleepy around here.

Read More »

Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board this morning was a nice gesture, but it’s not going to end the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of the ties between the Google and Apple boards. In a statement issued this afternoon, the FTC applauded the move, but said the two companies are foolish if they think it will simply abandon its inquiry as a result.

Read More »

Read More »

Asked earlier this year if he would resign from Apple’s board in the face of Federal Trade Commission scrutiny of the close ties between the two companies’ boards of directors, Google CEO Eric Schmidt replied simply, “It hasn’t crossed my mind.” Well, apparently it has now.

Read More »

The Federal Trade Commission today dropped the hammer on Pricewert LLC, a black hat ISP that it says is responsible for all manner of Internet malignancies. According to the FTC’s lawsuit, the company “hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses and trojans. Fun for the whole family — especially if your family is the Russian mafia …

Read More »

After more than one billion unsolicited calls and some 30,000 complaints–one from Senator Charles E. Schumer–the Federal Trade Commission is finally going after companies responsible for those supremely annoying car warranty robocalls.

You know the ones I’m talking about, I’m sure. They’ve been occurring since 2007 and go something like this: “This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire.” Hang up and the machine calls you again later. Transfer to a “warranty specialist” and ask to be taken off the call list and you’re either hung up on or, in my case, given an 800 number to call that turns out to be a phone sex line.

Read More »

It was like a liveblogging tournament this past week–one that included a lot of the big players, but ended in a three-way tie.

According to BoomTown’s reliable sources, the elusive Microsoft-Yahoo deal is making “meaningful” progress. Accordingly, BoomTown also wondered whether Ballmer planned on visiting Carol Bartz on his trip to the Bay Area this week, or if the proximity of Stanford to Yahoo was just chance, given that Stanford was his main destination.

Read More »

Read More »

The Federal Trade Commission may worry about the ties between the Google and Apple boards, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt clearly doesn’t share its concern. Asked during a press luncheon if he would resign from Apple’s board in the face of FTC scrutiny, Schmidt bristled–“Why would you ask that question?”–and then said simply, “It hasn’t crossed my mind.”

Read More »

If the Federal Trade Commission takes issue with Google and Apple’s interlocking boards, Google will be well prepared. Last October, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati–the company’s outside law firm–gave a presentation on this very issue. Ironic, yeah? Click through to read the document in its entirety.

Read More »

Read More »

He had a good run of it, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s stint as an Apple director may be coming to an end. Now that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the close ties between Apple’s and Google’s boards of directors violate antitrust laws, Schmidt’s seat on the former’s board, which he has held since August 2006, seems more trouble than its worth.

Read More »

Apparently Google would rather abandon its proposed advertising partnership with Yahoo than have the government dictate its terms. This morning Google walked away from the deal saying it’s not in the company’s best interests to risk the protracted legal battle brewing over it. This, not a week after Google and Yahoo submitted a revised, diminished version of the pact that the companies had hoped would appease regulators. Seems Google wasn’t quite as committed to working with Yahoo as CEO Eric Schmidt suggested.

Read More »