FTC official dispels $11,000 anti-blogger fine as misinterpretation
When the US Federal Trade Commission last Monday published its amended Guidelines for commercial publishers' behavior, set to go into effect December 1, many sources ended up passing judgment on the document before having read it in its entirety. One misinterpretation that was passed around the blog-O-square like a hot potato was the notion that the FTC would impose an $11,000 fine for each offense where a blog failed to disclose its connections to the manufacturer of a product for which it posted a review.
One blogger, whose tagline is "an Internet entrepreneur who generates six figures online per year," chocked up the supposed fine as another example of the government's "infinite wisdom." Meanwhile, quite ironically, discussion of the fine on one of the world's more popular blogs managed to become newspaper material by way of the Washington Post.
Microsoft to replace Works with ad-supported 'Office Starter 2010'
In a bold new experiment for distributing Office that, quite surprisingly, does not involve Office Web Apps, Microsoft announced this afternoon its plans to let OEMs pre-install the full Office 2010 on new PCs, but enable it to run in a limited format until users purchase their licenses. That format, for the first time, will be ad-supported.
When Office 2010 premieres (the official date is still unknown at this point), a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews, new Windows 7 PCs will be made available through participating OEMs (no list has been revealed yet) that contain, pre-installed, a product that will be known as Office Starter 2010. It will contain partly functional versions of Word and Excel -- or perhaps more accurately, it will appear to contain partly functional versions, because the complete Office 2010 software will be installed on these systems.
Judge orders Google, publishers to start over on Books settlement
In the wake of a Dept. of Justice Statement of Interest last month questioning whether Google had the right to negotiate a settlement deal on behalf of publishers that aren't direct parties to the deal -- and that may not even exist anymore -- the federal judge overseeing the case, Judge Denny Chin, ordered Google and publishers' groups to draft a completely revised settlement proposal by November 9.
At issue now is that several of the groups on whose behalf Google was claiming to be acting, actually do exist; and a number of them filed objections to the settlement, most recently on September 22, asking why they weren't made direct participants. Last September 2, Judge Chin ruled that groups representing photographers whose scanned works would be made public through Google Books, were too late in making their objections heard.
Clever Adobe compilation trick sneaks Flash apps onto iPhone
Up to now, Apple's prohibition against anyone's runtime modules from appearing on its iPhone without authorization has been one of two central reasons that Adobe's Flash video and Flash platform have not made their appearance there -- the other reason being simply that Steve Jobs doesn't like it.
But at its annual MAX developers' conference in Los Angeles this week, Adobe's engineers unveiled a surprise: It's planning a public beta release of Flash Professional CS5 that will go through a new and unique set of hoops to enable developers to write or export apps built for the Flash runtime, to run on the iPhone as native apps. The new Flash Pro will use a mechanism for Flash application developers to deploy their apps on the iPhone anyway, even without the Flash mobile runtime.
Firefox 3.6 public beta slated for 10/14, promises faster startups, loads
Mozilla's stated goal for its next version of Firefox, first and foremost, is a perceivable improvement in the time it takes to do things, not just render pages. We saw a big performance jump in JavaScript execution and page rendering in Firefox 3.5; but for 3.6, the developers want to apply the same level of improvement to responsiveness and process activation.
Although all Mozilla daily builds -- even the "private" alphas -- are publicly downloadable, the public may be formally invited to render its opinions on version 3.6 on Wednesday, October 14. That's the decision made during a Mozilla planning meeting Monday.
Fake entries in new e-mail/password lists point to unsophisticated phishing
If last weekend's unsolicited posting of about 10,000 supposed Hotmail addresses and passwords to a legitimate developers' Web site did not contain some addresses that were fake, the theory that a hacker may have obtained those addresses through an attack on Microsoft's servers might continue to hold water. That theory lost ground today, after more addresses from major services other than Hotmail -- including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, and Comcast -- appeared without warrant on Pastebin.com, a site for developers to share debugging information.
In what could be the first publicly shared forensic report on the original Hotmail list, security researcher Bogdan Calin with server security software maker Acunetix reported that of the 10,028 entries that appeared in that list (which was apparently partial, including usernames that only began with A and B), 185 of the entries actually had blank passwords. That in and of itself could not have come from a server's own list of valid passwords, thus lending much credence to the theory that the responses came from a phishing scam.
EU to test Microsoft's revised proposal for Web browser ballot screen
Nearly ten weeks after Microsoft issued a proposal to the European Commission for a mechanism to let Windows users and installers choose the default Web browser they want to use during setup, the EC issued a statement this morning saying it likes Microsoft's basic idea, but will give the rest of the market an opportunity to weigh in with its opinions.
The EC statement admitted for the first time that Microsoft had submitted at least one "improved" version of its ballot screen concept since last July.
"The improvements that Microsoft has made to its proposal since July would ensure that consumers could make a free and fully informed choice of Web browser," reads this morning's statement. "Microsoft has in particular agreed to present users with a first screen explaining what Web browsers are. 'Tell me more' buttons for each browser would also enable users to learn more about the web browser they may wish to install. The user experience would be better and the choice screen would better represent competing browser vendors. Finally, the proposed commitment would now be subject to a clause allowing the Commission to review it in the future to ensure that consumers would continue to have a genuine choice among browsers."
Apple joins an exodus of companies from US Chamber of Commerce
A massive energy bill that has already passed the House, and is currently before the Senate, would create new government programs that would not only encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by utilities and energy companies, but set limits over time as to the quantity of that reduction over the next several years. The US Chamber of Commerce (USCC), a private business federation that is not affiliated with the federal government, went on record last August as being skeptical of any legislative or regulatory effort that assumes greenhouse gasses truly endanger human health. Late last month, the Chamber voiced its opposition to that bill.
Today, Apple Inc. joined a growing list of companies including General Electric, athletic apparel maker Nike, and even energy companies such as PG&E and nuclear power plant operator Exelon, in terminating their membership in the Chamber.
'What is a browser?' Is this Google's idea of a 'ballot screen?'
Oftentimes in the case of Google, small actions are the seeds for something much greater. In the case of a marketing video released this morning, we spotted something that looks like one of those Google seeds.
Last June, as part of a Google Creative Lab project, a Google employee named Scott Suiter produced a video with two colleagues. In that video, Suiter interviewed about 50 people one afternoon passing through Times Square in New York City, asking them the simple and nondescript question, "What is a browser?" Many of the folks who appeared in the video tended to confuse a browser with a search engine with a Web site with an operating system, making common mistakes that ordinary folks make, but giving another class of more Internet-active ordinary folks new targets for their unending streams of vitriol.
Apple's Canadian hat trick: Exclusivity to end as Bell, Telus get iPhone 3G S
In separate and very brief announcements this morning, Bell Canada and Telus -- Canada's #2 and #3 wireless service providers -- said they will be adding Apple's iPhone 3G and 3G S to their lineups this November. The move will mean the exclusivity deal between Apple and #1 provider Rogers Wireless, announced in October 2007, was probably a two-year agreement and is due to expire next month, even though Rogers only began selling the iPhone several months later.
Telus' and Bell's announcements were the talk of all Canada today, as news of the increasing availability of the world's most praised handheld gadget dominated the afternoon's headlines. At issue: Will this mean iPhone prices will come down, including for service; and will call quality go up? Neither new carrier made any promises this morning, and Apple is adding nothing to the discussion.
Yahoo, Apple, Adobe, others named in Eolas patent lawsuit blitz
It's the same technology that was at the heart of a news-making patent suit against Microsoft: the patent held by Eolas Technologies that defines how a Web browser plug-in can activate functionality. A trio of Eolas patents was upheld under scrutiny in 2005, resulting in a battle in the nation's higher courts over whether Microsoft owes someone else for the right to use what could essentially be described as an "on-switch." It was a battle that brought a premature, if welcome, end to the marketing push for ActiveX.
But the final round of that fight never played out, as Eolas and Microsoft settled for an undisclosed sum, just as Microsoft won the right to argue the invalidity of Eolas' patents anyway. Since those arguments were never made, the 2005 decision upholding their validity stood.
Microsoft acknowledges Live ID accounts breach
Yesterday, Neowin's Tom Warren discovered a list of what appeared to be Windows Live Hotmail account credentials, posted last weekend to a location where you wouldn't expect such a list to appear: a collaborative debugging code sharing site for low-level software developers called pastebin.com. Warren reported the news to the world at the same time he reported it to Microsoft.
Still, Microsoft acknowledged the problem late yesterday, but attributed the source of the problem to "a likely phishing scheme." If such a scheme does exist, then its first victim today was poor pastebin.com, whose proprietor Paul Dixon (LordElph) was forced to take the site offline due to the sudden surge of activity.
House Republicans in uncharacteristic unison over 'one-size-fits-all' net neutrality
As Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress after the 2006 mid-term elections, they enacted a strategy of shifting the authority for implementing and regulating so-called net neutrality to the Federal Communications Commission, where Republican opposition was less likely to forestall it. Now that the FCC itself is under Democratic control, and its new chairman Julius Genachowski comes into the job already having been recognized as the nation's leading net neutrality advocate, Republicans in Congress have little else to do but voice their opposition from the sidelines.
That's exactly what they're doing today, in a concerted effort whose timing is curiously in sync with the publication of a position paper on net neutrality from leading service provider Verizon.
Having purchased its competition, Google joins Flash video group
Two months ago, Google announced its intention to purchase On2 Technologies, the producer of the technology behind the Ogg Theora codec that was the prime candidate earlier this year to become the open video solution for HTML 5. Google's engineers had come out in opposition to Ogg Theora, and that fact was cited by the HTML 5 working group as reason for its suspending efforts to incorporate open video for this version.
Whatever Google's reasons may have been for purchasing On2, not everyone in the company appeared to be interested in advancing the format. Today, that sentiment appears to have been made official, with the announcement during Adobe's MAX conference in Los Angeles that Google is joining Adobe's Open Screen Project, established last year.
FTC: Bloggers must disclose material connections to endorsed products
In a unanimous vote this morning, the US Federal Trade Commission has decided to enact changes to federal code regarding truth in advertising and in product endorsement, including the first such extensions to regulate the activity of bloggers. Acknowledging that bloggers may be individuals who publish their opinions online without compensation, but with a wide audience, the FTC voted to enact new regulations beginning December 1 to compel bloggers to reveal all material connections that may have led them to endorse a product, even if that endorsement honestly reflects how bloggers feel about it.
The amendments will come in the form of changes to the FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, last amended in 1980. During a public comment period, the FTC acknowledges it received several comments from unnamed citizens arguing that the nature of new online media makes it impossible to draw a distinct dividing line between, say a "blog" and a "publication," or a "commercial blog" and a "personal blog" (both may include advertising).
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