Now that Yahoo is trading at $12.63 in an economy that’s falling Homer Simpson-style down the long rocky slope of economic collapse, some of the company’s institutional investors are hoping to convince it to sell itself to Microsoft again.
With a Department of Justice ruling on Google’s advertising partnership with Yahoo expected by late next week, a key legislator is urging further scrutiny of the deal. In a letter to the DOJ, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, encouraged it to monitor the Google-Yahoo deal, even if the agency signs off on it.
When Google and Yahoo announced their advertising partnership back in June, the companies said they’d give the Justice Department three and one half months to review it. Which is more than enough time according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who said the companies will proceed with the deal in October, even if federal regulators haven’t yet approved it.
Now that the Justice Department has asked a hotshot litigator to review the proposed search-advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo, everyone seems to be getting into the act. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is reportedly looking askance at the deal, apparently with an eye toward an investigation.
Is the government tracking us through our cellphones? Of course it is. If the National Security Agency hopes to create an accurate “database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, it needs to know the locations from which they were made, right?
Google co-founder Larry Page recently discounted the idea that a Google-Yahoo partnership would present any potential antitrust problems. We may soon find out if he’s right. This afternoon, just a few hours after announcing the not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper conclusion of its negotiations with Microsoft, Yahoo said it had inked a non-exclusive search-advertising deal with Google that could be worth about $800 million in annual revenues.
If there was an Emmy Award for legislation production, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker would surely win it. Last October he called upon Congress to pass a bill that would create a dedicated intellectual-property enforcement bureau and today it’s looking more and more like he’s going to get it.
This week members of the House [...]
The U.S. Justice Department has managed the impossible. It’s brought Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey together under a single aegis.
This morning the DOJ approved the merger of satellite radio companies Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) (home to Stern) and XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) (home to Winfrey), a move that will create a satellite radio company with [...]
A $9,250 per-song fine might seem an excessive punishment for illegally sharing music for no personal gain, but it’s really not. According to the U.S. Justice Department, anyway.
The DOJ says the $222,000 in damages awarded to the Recording Industry Association of America in the Virgin Records America et al. v. Thomas copyright-infringement case is constitutional. [...]
Bienvenue, iPhone: France Telecom will begin selling Apple’s cellphone this evening at selected Orange stores in Paris and other cities. … FCC Says ‘Uncle’: A proposal by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to tightly regulate the cable TV industry has been “drastically” trimmed. … Amazon: 1; Feds: 0. The federal government has lost its bid to compel Amazon to release details about the book-buying habits of thousands of its customers. …
Nothing like an alarmist study to get Washington lawmakers worked up into a pro-legislation lather. Which is exactly what NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker gave them at an antipiracy summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today.
Citing an Institute for Policy Innovation study that estimates that copyright-industry piracy costs the U.S. economy $58 [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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