Ad giant Google in new 'abuse' case offer to EU antitrust cops
Google appeared to confess today that it had given up fighting the European Commission and its rivals in the search business over claims that it stifled the market by abusing its dominant position.
In a surprise statement from the ad giant, the company appeared to be willing to go much further than it had originally suggested to …
Google gets closer to EU antitrust deal over search dominance 'abuse'
Google is closing in on a deal with competition officials in the European Commission which stops far short of formal sanctions, after the EU's antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia said today that he was negotiating a settlement agreement with the ad giant.
Almunia's office is working on "the precise drafting of the proposed …
Facebook allows full personal data ransack with Graph Search
Stalkers and advertisers will be pleased to know that Facebook is now more searchable than it has ever been, after the social network confirmed that it was in the process of allowing users to dig much deeper into a "friend's" past posts on the free content ad network.
The Mark Zuckerberg-run company has been chasing larger ad …
Facebook sharpens ad-shifting tool: Soon users will eat creepily SPECIFIC ad-gloop
Facebook is refining its algorithm to better serve up tailored advertising to its userbase in yet another move to satisfy its actual customers: advertisers.
In recent months the Mark Zuckerberg-run company has made a number of strategic tweaks to its free content ad network – a move which has helped drive Facebook's stock to its …
French data cops to Google: RIGHT, you had your chance. PUNISHMENT time
Google has declined to make required changes to its privacy policy, France's privacy watchdog said today. The French data cops added that they will slap the ad giant with sanctions.
The Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) - on behalf of the European Union's Article 29 Working Party - headed up an …
Samsung proposes 'remedies' to EU antitrust chief in fine dodge hope
Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone vendor, has submitted a package of concessions to the competition wing of the European Commission in a move to try to offset a massive fine.
The EU's antitrust commissioner Joaquin Almunia said during a speech in New York today that the South Korean electronics giant had "sent us a set of …
Google FAILS in attempt to nix Gmail data-mining lawsuit
Google faces a torrid court battle in the US after a judge ruled that a class action lawsuit brought against the company that challenges its practice of scanning emails for ad-targeting can proceed.
Mountain View had protested against plaintiffs in the case, who claimed that Google had breached several stateside laws including …
PayPal pays pals $800m for Braintree
PayPal, the dough-handling arm of online tat bazaar eBay, is buying rival payments portal Braintree for $800m in cash.
Braintree, founded in the US in 2007, specialises in mobile transactions and has nearly 200 employees working out of offices in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
Braintree's CEO William Ready said today that …
Google's latest PRIVACY MELTDOWN: Web chats sent to WRONG people
Stunned Google Talk users have discovered their messages are going to the WRONG recipients on the web chat system.
Conversations appear to be funnelled to anyone on your contacts list rather than just the intended receiver. The advertising giant is aware of the cock-up, but has yet to fix the glitch.
It means that netizens …
MPs slam bumpkin fibre rollout, demand halt to further £250m cash spaff
Whitehall has insisted that its delayed multimillion-pound rural broadband project represents good value for taxpayers - even as a brutal parliamentary report published today attacks the government for failing to rein in BT.
MPs on Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), chaired by Labour politico Margaret Hodge, submitted …
Google tentacle slips over YouTube comments: Now YOUR MUM is at the top
Google's mission creep into more aspects of our online lives continued apace on Tuesday, after the company confirmed that it was tailoring YouTube comments to be more "relevant" to its users.
What this means is that netizens accessing the video-sharing site will no longer be able to easily view the most recent comments made by …
Michael Gove: C'mon kids, quit sexting – send love poems instead
Education Secretary Michael Gove has apparently come over all gooey and romantic by plugging a new app called Love Book that was created by one of his wife's close friends.
The Tory MP is urging teenagers to stop the practice of sending naughty messages to each other – the phenomenon known as sexting – and urged them to exchange …
Ex-BT boss bags £9 MILLION bye-bye bundle, moves to key gov post
BT's former boss Ian Livingston just received an extremely generous leaving present from the telecoms giant – 2.6 million shares in the company worth about £8.9m.
Earlier this month, Livingston left BT for his new, unpaid job in the House of Lords as Prime Minister David Cameron's Minister of State for Trade and Investment.
The …
Axe falls: Virgin Media plans to kill 600 management jobs
Virgin Media is shedding up to 600 management jobs in the wake of Liberty Global's takeover of the British telco.
The Register understands that the cost-cutting restructure is intended to help the company focus on growth. A source close to the situation told us that, in the coming months, most of the other UK-based positions – …
Cisco email accidentally sent to 1000s of employees causes message list MAYHEM
Ever become stuck in a seemingly infinite loop of emails from colleagues hitting the "reply-all" option and asking to be removed from a mailing list containing the addresses of thousands of employees?
If the answer to that question is a resounding yes followed by a massive sigh, then you ought to have some sympathy for Cisco, …
BLAST OFF! Antares launches Cygnus on commercial cargo test mission
The launch of a commercial rocket carrying a spacecraft with cargo intended for the International Space Station has successfully blasted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.
Today's 10:58 EDT flight time was slightly delayed due to a gaseous nitrogen adjustment that needed to take place ahead of the …
MPs: This paperless health service plan isn't worth the paper it isn't written on
MPs doubt that the Health Secretary's plans to make the NHS paperless by 2018 will be on time and budget, based on Whitehall's shambolic handling of the abandoned electronic health care record system.
The widely derided National Programme for IT (NPfIT) was first signed off by ministers in 2002 under the previous Labour …
Ghastly! Yahoo! Groups! gripes! grip! grumpy! gremlin! grumblers!
Thousands of Yahoo! users are clogging up the site's customer feedback forums with complaints about its makeover of Groups, an online discussion board system. Some are upset the redecoration job has locked out the blind and disabled folk.
It was Yahoo!'s first major redesign of Groups in years and the response to the changes …
ISPs set to install network-level smut filters despite Lib Dem opposition
UK telcos are continuing to work towards flicking the switch on network-level filters that will allow subscribers to block "harmful" content by the end of this year.
That's despite the fact that the Liberal Democrat Party - which is the junior member of the Coalition government - has overwhelmingly opposed the parental controls …
Dominant web ad giant (Google) possibly 'weeks' away from Euro slapdown
Google will learn within weeks if its alleged abuse of dominance in the European search market will earn it a formal complaint from the EU's competition regulator.
Sanctions and fines of up to 10 per cent of Google's annual worldwide turnover could yet be imposed on the company, antitrust commissioner and EC veep Joaquin Almunia …
Huawei CTO insists: 'We are not a threat to UK and US national security'
A top Huawei exec has dismissed claims that his company poses a threat to British and US national security - despite Western government officials' fears over Huawei's alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
Professor Sanqi Li - speaking in an exclusive interview with The Register at the multinational's R&D centre in …
So WHY does Huawei's enigmatic boss shun the West's spotlight?
The elusive chairman and founder of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei shies away from publicity – not because his past is marred by controversy, but rather because he doesn't want to become the next Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer: a celebrity, of sorts, taking the focus away from the multinational's work.
That, at least, is the view of …
Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?
Nominet - currently pushing its plan to let people shell out for .uk web domains without the .co, .org and other second-level labels - now wants to know if certain words should be banned from any .uk registrations.
In July, the UK domain registry once again pushed to unleash a tidal wave of second-level domain names on the web; …
Twitter to buy ad exchange as it edges closer to IPO
Twitter plans to spend a reported $300m on MoPub - a mobile ad exchange.
The micro-blogging company announced its intentions in a blog post yesterday. The proposed acquisition strongly hints that Twitter is taking a step closer to floating on Wall Street next year.
It said:
The two major trends in the ad world right now are …
Google submits YET ANOTHER offer to fix 'search dominance' in EU
Google, in an effort to resolve the European Commission's competition concerns relating to the company's strong grip on the search market in the EU, has submitted yet another revised set of proposals to Brussels' officials.
Antitrust commissioner Joaquin Almunia told Bloomberg that he had received the rejigged offer from Google …
Now we know why UK spooks simply shrugged at SSL encryption
In July 2012, Britain's top spook Charles Farr made a rare public appearance: sat across a table from MPs in Parliament, he was quizzed by backbenchers scrutinising Home Secretary Theresa May's widely criticised plan to snoop on Brits' internet connections.
At the time, the government was trying to get politicos to agree that …
Hunt's 'paperless', data-pimping NHS plan gets another £240m
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed this week that Whitehall had slapped a further £240m on the pile of taxpayer cash needed for his grand plan to store and process medical records digitally.
That means the government has now set aside £500m – which is expected to be matched by local health and care trusts to make up a total …
Gov IT write-off: Universal Credit system flushes £34m down toilet
The UK's spending watchdog has scolded the Department for Work and Pensions for so far wasting £34m of taxpayer money on its botched attempt to implement a one-dole-to-rule-them-all IT system.
In a stinging rebuke of the government's handling of Universal Credit, the National Audit Office concluded that the DWP, which is led by …
Universal Credit CRUNCHED: Dole handouts IT system to be rebuilt
The man brought in to steer the government's crisis-hit one-dole-to-rule-them-all IT system has admitted that the Department for Work and Pension's Universal Credit project has been poorly managed and needs to be completely overhauled.
Howard Shiplee was hired by Work and Pensions Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith in May this …
Twitter just got sh**tier: Natter emitter hit by code critter, fritters web glitter
Twitter has been cast back into the dark ages of 2006 after a number of useful functions disappeared from its website without warning or explanation.
A quick rummage around the site shows that the @username autocomplete feature no longer works in the search or new tweet box. And all the photos posted by twits have vanished from …
'WTF! MORONS!' Yahoo! Groups! redesign! traumatises! users!
Yahoo! has told thousands of users who are complaining about the Purple Palace's pisspoor redesign of its Groups service that it will not be rolled back to the old format - despite a huge outcry.
The Marissa Mayer-run company revamped Yahoo! Groups last week, but it was immediately inundated with unhappy netizens who grumbled …
Tory think tank: Hey, civil servants! Work with startups to save £70bn
Articulated-truck-loads of paperwork awaiting the ministrations of a rubber stamp- or pen-wielding civil servant should soon be a thing of the past, according to Tory think tank Policy Exchange.
It wants to see bureaucrats mashing up APIs with Silicon Roundabout startups instead and leaders "driv[ing] digital into the DNA of …
Verizon, Experian and pals bag £25m to inspect Brits' identities for UK gov
The first private companies to win UK government contracts to verify Brits' identities online have been named. And PayPal is absent from the list despite being in the running for a slice of the £25m pot of public cash.
Credit agency Experian, the Post Office, Brit upstart Mydex, Verizon and crypto biz Digidentity have now inked …
Brit music body BPI lobbies hard for 'UK file-sharers database'
Britain's biggest ISPs are in talks with copyright-holders to find ways to nag broadband subscribers about illegal file-sharing or downloading that may have happened on their connections.
But plans apparently tabled by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) that include maintaining a database of customers whose IP addresses are …
Top Twitter lawyer quits micro-blogging site ahead of IPO
Twitter's general counsel Alex MacGillivray has quit his job as top lawyer at the micro-blogging site.
He will continue to advise the company, which is widely expected to float on Wall Street next year.
Vijaya Gadde, who most recently managed Twitter's corporate and international legal business and previously worked at Juniper …
Facebook strips away a bit more of your privacy – but won't say why
Facebook is slurping mobile phone numbers from its users without explaining why, it has emerged.
In an upcoming overhaul to the social network's data use policy, Facebook said it had made a number of updates about the information it receives about individuals using the free content ad network.
It includes simplifying the …
Facebook gov surveillance data kept locked inside, er, Facebook
Facebook has released its first government transparency report, revealing – unsurprisingly – that once again India, the US and Blighty were the countries whose police were most likely to snoop on our online activities.
Ironically, anyone wishing to actually access the data, at the time of writing, needs a Facebook ID first.
The …
Did Google's Waze gobble run rivals off the road? UK watchdog starts probe
Google's acquisition of free map app Waze has awoken Britain's competition watchdog, which today confirmed it was scrutinising the gobble.
Israeli firm Waze Mobile was bought by Google in June this year for a rumoured $1bn. It gave the advertising goliath satnav-like software that, we're told, taps into the whereabouts of 50 …
BILLION DOLLAR BALLMER: Microsoft chief makes $1bn simply by quitting
Steve Ballmer has just seen his personal wealth surge by a cool $1bn after announcing his retirement from Microsoft - which immediately caused the company's stock to soar close to a 12-month high on Wall Street.
The software vendor, which trades on Nasdaq under the MSFT banner, saw its shares initially surge by close to 9 per …
Ballmer's emotional farewell to Redmond: I LOVE THIS COMPANY
Microsoft's 99,000 employees face a future without its chief chair-flinger Steve Ballmer who just announced his retirement to a happy Wall Street.
He penned a letter to MS staff that was stuffed with classic Ballmerisms, including a repeat of one of his famously sweaty outpourings:
"I LOVE THIS COMPANY."
Ballmer joined …
BALLMER TO RETIRE FROM MICROSOFT
Steve Ballmer is leaving identity crisis-hit Microsoft.
The software maker's chief announced his intention to retire from MS within the next year.
He said: "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time."
Whomever the new boss of Microsoft will be, he or she has a big job ahead of them in …
Report: Secret British spy base in Middle East taps region's internet
Among the vast haul of information lifted from secret networks by former US intelligence sysadmin Edward Snowden are details of a top-secret British spy base placed in the Middle East to tap into undersea communications cables and eavesdrop on the region's internet, it has been reported.
According to the Independent, the …
Tat bazaar eBay takes a rest for 'scheduled maintenance', goes offline
eBay is currently out of action for its users, but the downtime is not because of an unexpected outage. It is instead due to "scheduled general maintenance", the company has confirmed to The Register.
That said, fans of second-hand goods cannot presently bid for a pair of old smelly shoes on the popular online tat bazaar.
The …
Yahoo! web! traffic! BIGGER! THAN! GOOGLE! in! July!
Historians looking back on 2013 might want to call it the Marissa Mayer Effect. Others, more accurately, could attribute Yahoo!'s web traffic leap ahead of Google in the US in July to largely being a hat-tip to, er, Google.
Mayer, of course, is a Google alumnus and knows a thing or two about driving traffic to web properties. …
Total cost of that axed NHS IT FIASCO to taxpayers: £10.1bn
The shambolic nationwide NHS patient record computer system, abandoned by Whitehall in 2011, will ultimately cost UK taxpayers a staggering £10.1bn.
US-headquartered Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), alongside UK telecoms giant BT, failed to fully implement the massive project, sparking widespread derision before the plug was …
Zuckerberg: I want the WHOLE WORLD in my hands
Mark Zuckerberg's altruistic finger is twitching just as usage of his free content ad network appears to have plateaued.
In a post on his personal Facebook account, Zuck asked: "Is connectivity a human right?"
He thinks the answer to that question is "yes" and the copper-haired, flip-flop-wearing billionaire wants to work with …
New BT chief gets keys to copper-encrusted door next month
BT's incoming chief exec Gavin Patterson will formally take the reins on 10 September, the telecoms giant confirmed to the City this morning.
He will replace current boss Ian Livingston, who surprisingly resigned from his job in June after Prime Minister David Cameron poached him for a front-bench trade and investment role in …
Screw you, Brits, says Google: We are ABOVE UK privacy law
Google is disputing a lawsuit brought by UK-based Apple users whose browser habits were slurped – without permission – by the ad giant. Mountain View claims that Britain's data protection laws do not apply to it as British courts have "no jurisdiction" over the company.
Owners of Apple devices who used Cupertino's Safari browser …
Facebook's flush Sheryl Sandberg savaged over UNPAID intern advert
Facebook's second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg faced a backlash on her free-content network after the Lean In organisation she founded advertised for an unpaid intern with "social chops".
Sandberg, the author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, makes a lot of noise about how women should follow in her footsteps and get …
OWN GOAL! 100s of websites blocked after UK Premier League drops ball
Hundreds of legitimate websites were branded pirates and effectively kicked offline this week - after a court ordered UK ISPs to block access to an IP address they all shared with a copyright-infringing site.
That network address - 96.45.82.196 - resolves to DNS Made Easy's http-redirection-d.dnsmadeeasy.com service, which is …
