Ed Oswald

EURid, the registrar who manages the .eu domain, said Monday it had suspended 74,000 domain names due to suspicion of fraud. Three British companies, Ovidio, Fausto, and Gabino are accused of acting as a front for other registrars, some of which are based outside of the European Union.

In order to qualify for a .eu domain, the registrar must be based within the EU. EURid said it had already suspended several domain names because the companies could not prove they were based within the region.

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U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan told lawyers representing the interests of both SBC and AT&T and of Verizon and MCI that he could not give final approval to either merger unless he received more information. While both have been given the go-ahead by the FCC, the courts have not yet decided if the mergers are in the public interest.

Sullivan first ordered a review of the mergers earlier this month, after he questioned if the mergers benefitted the general public. "Through the eyes of a layperson, the mergers, in and of themselves, appear to be against public interest given the apparent loss in competition," he wrote at the time.

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The U.S. Commerce Department has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the progress toward privatization of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization it currently controls. While a transition is scheduled to take place on September 30, the U.S. government has the option to extend that deadline. Foreign governments have pushed for such a change, complaining that the United States has too much control.

It has become a worry among some Internet analysts that continued control by the U.S. could result in a fracture of the Internet, where countries break off and run their own domain name servers. However, some are cautioning against an independent ICANN. "ICANN has definitely made progress towards independence, but more needs to be accomplished before a complete transition is appropriate," Steve DelBianco, Executive Director for interest group NetChoice said.

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Yahoo and Symantec announced a partnership on Tuesday that will promote the company's Internet security products to Yahoo's users. Several Yahoo services would be enhanced with online versions of Symantec products, including Yahoo Mail, Toolbar and HotJobs. Additionally a co-branded version of Norton Internet Security will be offered.

A 30-day trial of the program will be offered, and users will be able to purchase a 12-month subscription at the conclusion of the trial for a promotional fee of USD $49.99. The service will be marketed throughout the Yahoo network, and will be freely available for download from the Yahoo Web site.

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Although it has refused to confirm, Amazon has been rumored to be readying its video download service for launch in mid-August. First reported by trade magazine Advertising Age on Sunday, the service is said to offer both movies and episodes of television shows.

Originally, the service was intended to be a music service, however Amazon executives changed their plans due to the dominance of Apple in the market. The company felt it would be too difficult to break into the market, thus they turned to video, a segment that still has no clear leader.

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A day after word of the product leaked to the press, Apple on Tuesday said it was launching a Bluetooth wireless version of its Mighty Mouse product, the two-button mouse made by the company. The new mouse comes with an upgraded laser tracking device that the company claims is some 20 times more sensitive than regular optical mice.

"We cut the cord on our popular Mighty Mouse to give consumers even more flexibility when using a Mac," Apple Mac marketing manager David Moody said.

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Google debuted an update to its Google Maps for Mobile product that will provide live traffic updates in 30 metropolitan areas, plus partial information for smaller cities as well. The search engine's mobile map service for cell phones is available as a small download for compatible models.

Traffic information will be provided as an additional layer that users can toggle on and off. Routes are shown in green, yellow, or red depending on the severity of traffic congestion, along with detailed information on incidents. Additionally, when users search for driving directions through the service, traffic conditions would be factored in to overall drive time.

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Occurrences of ransomware are on the rise, and the encryption algorithms used are becoming increasingly complex, security firm Kaspersky Labs warned Friday in its quarterly report on the state of the malware industry. The firm said incidences of ransomware reached a peak in the second quarter of 2006, after first appearing in the beginning of 2004.

Initially, those responsible used simple encryption to hold files at ransom. In more recent incarnations RSA encryption has appeared and hackers are using more complex ways of password-protecting and hiding corrupted files. Kaspersky says attackers and anti-malware companies are now locked in a cat-and-mouse battle, where researchers crack the code, and attackers respond back with more complex methods.

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Blog aggregator Technorati relaunched its popular site on Monday, redesigning the site to make it easier to use while making changes to the backend to improve indexing time of new posts. Additionally, the site has improved its link-counting mechanism, which in turn will improve its ranking and authority features, it says.

The changes are part of the site's third anniversary on the Web, and an effort to draw more users into the service. While those that had been with the site since its inception may have not found the site difficult to use, those new to blogging complained that the site was not usable by the everyday Web surfer.

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Over four dozen plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit argued in an Arkansas court Monday that Google's proposed $90 million "click fraud" settlement does not do enough to prevent the issue. However, an independent report submitted to the court Friday contradicts those claims, saying the search giant's efforts were "reasonable."

Fifty one members of the class action suit have objected to the settlement. Most say that the so called burden-of-proof falls too much on the advertiser, and many do not have the resources to spend on investigating possible occurrences of fraudulent clicks. Some say that the deal favors lawyers over the plaintiffs, and is a handout to the company.

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The creators of the popular Skype and Kazaa applications have turned their sights on television, aiming to create a new way to distribute video over the Web, BusinessWeek.com reported Sunday. Dubbed the "Venice Project," a product could debut as early as late this year, and negotiations are apparently underway with major television networks.

The hope is that the service will become the method by which all networks distribute their video content across the Web, although how it would work is not known at this time.

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Microsoft released second betas of both its Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server products on Monday, including several new enhancements and better stability. Some of the new features include better e-mail reliability, messaging management tools, new mobility features, and unified messaging capabilities.

Exchange's companion product Forefront Security is the next version of Microsoft Antigen, which was released for Exchange last month. The program is intended to help maintain a secure messaging environment, Microsoft says.

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Microsoft subsidiary Massive said Monday that it had launched its in-game advertising unit, with Toyota as its debut sponsor. The company will advertise its new 2007 Yaris Sedan in the Funcom title "Anarchy Online," an online multiplayer game. Gamers will be encouraged to interact with the ads to see an image of the new automobile. As well as in "Anarchy Online," the program will run across several other games utilizing Massive's technology, the company said.

To promote the Yaris, 2-D in game elements and video and audio ads would support the campaign. As with all ads in the network, any placed advertising does not affect the gameplay. "Leveraging this new interactive ad element from Massive allows gamers to interact with our brand in an environment they're passionate about," Toyota corporate marketing manager Kim McCullough said.

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MySpace was inaccessible for nearly 12 hours beginning Sunday night, as a power outage in its data center crippled the popular social networking site's ability to handle web traffic. Beginning at about 6:40pm Pacific, a message from the sites founder Tom Anderson greeted users explaining the situation. At the time, Anderson thought the site could be back up within the hour, however it finally returned around 6:00am Pacific Monday.

The outage is likely due to power issues related to the ongoing heat wave in Southern California. Nearly 175,000 homes lost power in Los Angeles over the weekend as power grids struggled to cope with the overwhelming demand. Los Angeles is not the only city to have power troubles: other cities across California have had similar problems. News Corp, the parent company of MySpace, had not publicly commented on the outage.

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AMD confirmed rumors Monday and said it was merging with graphics chipmaker ATI in a transaction worth $5.4 billion. The first computer systems that would take advantage of the strengths of the combined company will begin appearing in 2007, the company said.

The merger will allow AMD to offer integrated processor and graphics solutions to its customers. By 2008, AMD plans to introduce new processor configurations that would integrate the CPU and graphics processor into a single unit. The end result will be smaller, more powerful computers.

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