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Google offers MS-style Seattlement for click fraud suit
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Andrew Orlowski
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Google will pay $90 million to settle a class action click fraud lawsuit. Any web site operator who was also a Google ad network partner who can show improper charges over the past four years will be eligible for damages. Google announced the news on a part of its site devoted to trivia, such as…
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Google outspooks the spooks with Total Information Awareness plan
by
Andrew Orlowski
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Google wants to mirror and index every byte of your hard drive, relegating your PC to a “cache”, notes on a company PowerPoint presentation reveal. The file accompanied part of Google’s analyst day last week. Google has since withdrawn the file, telling the BBC that the information was not intended for publication. The justification for…
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How the digital revolution screwed songwriters. Twice.
by
Andrew Orlowski
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This may not be news to most of you, but in light of DiMA’s Jonathan Potter blaming music publishers for the sorry state of digital downloads, it’s a topical reminder. Music companies – and we blur the distinction deliberately for the moment, for the sake of simplicity – paid songwriters in two ways. For what…
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Fon: a billionaire Wi-Fi Utopian and his Blog Chorus
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Andrew Orlowski
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Few start-ups encapsulate the desperate utopianism of the times so much as Fon Technology. Created by the Argentinian dot.com billionaire Martin Varsavsky, who built and sold the Spanish portal Ya.com and ISP Jazztel before the bubble burst, at the heart of Fon is a soulful of hope.… Read More
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77% of Google users don’t know it records personal data
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Andrew Orlowski
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More than three quarters of web surfers don’t realize Google records and stores information that may identify them, results of a new opinion poll show. The phone poll, which sampled over 1000 internet users, was conducted by the Ponemon Institute following the DoJ subpoenas last week. This suggests that the battle for internet privacy is…
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The cost of an “Always On lifestyle”
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Andrew Orlowski
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About a year ago, a man I’d never met before showed me pictures of a dramatic episode in his life. These showed him driving his wife to the hospital, where she was about to give birth. There were dozens and dozens of these pictures, and in each one his wife was looking progressively more grumpy.…