Sharp and Toshiba are discussing a flat-panel display alliance that could lead to a big shake-up in the industry, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday.
As part of the deal, Sharp will begin supplying Toshiba with LCD (liquid crystal display) panels from a new plant the company is building in Osaka, Japan, according to The Nikkei newspaper.
The ¥380 billion (US$3.4 billion) plant is currently under construction in Osaka's Sakai City, with production scheduled to begin in 2009. The plant will be able to handle mother glass -- the large sheets on which several display panels are made -- of 2.85 meters by 3.05 meters. This size, dubbed 10th generation, is larger than that used by any other display manufacturer and will make the Sakai plant the world's most advanced LCD production center.
The large-size glass also brings a cost advantage for Sharp. The per-inch price of LCD panels drops with increases in the size of mother glass, so the panels are likely to be more competitive than those from rivals. That's especially important in the TV market, where strong competition has made price a key to success.
Toshiba currently obtains panels for its large-screen TVs from IPS Alpha Technology Ltd., a company that it jointly owns with Panasonic and Hitachi, and from South Korea's Samsung. By aligning with Sharp for large-screen panels, Toshiba will pull out of IPS, The Nikkei said. IPS currently operates a 6th-generation LCD manufacturing line, and the company will need substantial investment to upgrade or replace this if it is to remain in the market.
Sharp and Toshiba wouldn't immediately comment on the newspaper report; however, Sharp hinted that an announcement could come later Friday.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Broadcom says Qualcomm is importing chips against ban
The U.S. International Trade Commission said it will investigate whether Qualcomm is complying with a ban that prohibits it from importing certain chips into the U.S.
The investigation is the result of a complaint that Broadcom filed with the U.S. ITC. Qualcomm is importing chips that employ a work-around of a Broadcom patent that the court ruled Qualcomm infringes. Broadcom alleges that the new technology also infringes its patent.
The investigation is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between the two chip companies. In July, the ITC ruled that Qualcomm was infringing on Broadcom patents. In a very rare decision, the ITC forbade the import of phones that included future versions of certain Qualcomm chips, rather than all the offending chips, because the commission decided that would have unduly damaged the economy.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has since stayed that ruling.
One attorney suspects that Broadcom's most recent complaint to the ITC is an effort to essentially overrule the appeals' court stay.
"This enforcement proceeding represents a crafty way for Broadcom to get around the court's stay and go directly to the ITC to give some teeth to the remedy provided by the ITC," said Lyle Vander Schaaf, an attorney at Bryan Cave and a former ITC attorney.
If the commission decides in Broadcom's favor, Qualcomm could face millions of dollars in penalties, he said.
Broadcom said it is seeking fines and additional orders against Qualcomm.
The investigation is the result of a complaint that Broadcom filed with the U.S. ITC. Qualcomm is importing chips that employ a work-around of a Broadcom patent that the court ruled Qualcomm infringes. Broadcom alleges that the new technology also infringes its patent.
The investigation is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between the two chip companies. In July, the ITC ruled that Qualcomm was infringing on Broadcom patents. In a very rare decision, the ITC forbade the import of phones that included future versions of certain Qualcomm chips, rather than all the offending chips, because the commission decided that would have unduly damaged the economy.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has since stayed that ruling.
One attorney suspects that Broadcom's most recent complaint to the ITC is an effort to essentially overrule the appeals' court stay.
"This enforcement proceeding represents a crafty way for Broadcom to get around the court's stay and go directly to the ITC to give some teeth to the remedy provided by the ITC," said Lyle Vander Schaaf, an attorney at Bryan Cave and a former ITC attorney.
If the commission decides in Broadcom's favor, Qualcomm could face millions of dollars in penalties, he said.
Broadcom said it is seeking fines and additional orders against Qualcomm.
ComScore: Online sales heat up this week
U.S. buyers shopped aggressively online on Monday and Tuesday of this week, spending significantly more than they did on the comparable days last year, according to comScore.
Online retail spending hit US$700 million on Monday, up 33 percent from last year, and $670 million on Tuesday, up 25 percent, the Web-monitoring company said Thursday.
During the first 48 days of the holiday shopping season -- Nov. 1 to Dec. 18 -- U.S. shoppers have spent almost $25 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.
As Christmas day approaches, the intensity of online shopping will ease up, although late-shipping deals, in-store pickup options and price reductions should keep growth rates strong in the remainder of the holiday season, comScore said.
The company expects online spending during the holidays to reach $29.5 billion, which would represent a 20 percent increase over the 2006 season.
Meanwhile, Nielsen Online said Wednesday that a majority of online shoppers it surveyed reported being either "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with the customer support they received from online shopping Web sites.
Nielsen Online's survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88 percent said those reviews were, or would be, positive.
Netflix topped the survey's customer satisfaction list, having been rated "very satisfied" by 90.3 percent of respondents, and was followed by comparison-shopping site NexTag.com (87 percent), giant e-tailer Amazon.com (86.6 percent), Yahoo Shopping (84.3 percent) and Kohls.com (84.1 percent). Rounding out the top 10 were Barnesandnoble.com, HomeDepot.com, Circuitcity.com, eBay.com and JCPenney.com.
On the other end of the spectrum, sites that in recent days have been flagged for buckling under the strong holiday-season traffic include Mastercard.com and Macys.com.
Macys.com's home page faced slowdowns throughout Tuesday, taking, at its worst, about 38 seconds to load, compared with the usual 2 seconds, according to Web site uptime and availability tracker Gomez.
Apparently, while experiencing availability problems, Macys.com has been serving up a page telling shoppers that the site is crowded and that they have to wait until traffic decreases in order to be let in. An apparent screenshot of this page was posted by The Consumerist blog on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mastercard.com has racked up downtime of almost five hours between Nov. 9 and Dec. 20, equivalent to uptime of 99.5 percent for that period, according to Pingdom, which also tracks Web site performance. As such, Mastercard.com has performed significantly worse than sites from competing credit-card companies like Discover, Visa, Diners Club and American Express, all of which have had uptime above 99.9 percent during this period, Pingdom said Thursday.
Neither Macy's nor MasterCard immediately responded to requests for comment.
Online retail spending hit US$700 million on Monday, up 33 percent from last year, and $670 million on Tuesday, up 25 percent, the Web-monitoring company said Thursday.
During the first 48 days of the holiday shopping season -- Nov. 1 to Dec. 18 -- U.S. shoppers have spent almost $25 billion in online retail purchases, up 19 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.
As Christmas day approaches, the intensity of online shopping will ease up, although late-shipping deals, in-store pickup options and price reductions should keep growth rates strong in the remainder of the holiday season, comScore said.
The company expects online spending during the holidays to reach $29.5 billion, which would represent a 20 percent increase over the 2006 season.
Meanwhile, Nielsen Online said Wednesday that a majority of online shoppers it surveyed reported being either "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with the customer support they received from online shopping Web sites.
Nielsen Online's survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88 percent said those reviews were, or would be, positive.
Netflix topped the survey's customer satisfaction list, having been rated "very satisfied" by 90.3 percent of respondents, and was followed by comparison-shopping site NexTag.com (87 percent), giant e-tailer Amazon.com (86.6 percent), Yahoo Shopping (84.3 percent) and Kohls.com (84.1 percent). Rounding out the top 10 were Barnesandnoble.com, HomeDepot.com, Circuitcity.com, eBay.com and JCPenney.com.
On the other end of the spectrum, sites that in recent days have been flagged for buckling under the strong holiday-season traffic include Mastercard.com and Macys.com.
Macys.com's home page faced slowdowns throughout Tuesday, taking, at its worst, about 38 seconds to load, compared with the usual 2 seconds, according to Web site uptime and availability tracker Gomez.
Apparently, while experiencing availability problems, Macys.com has been serving up a page telling shoppers that the site is crowded and that they have to wait until traffic decreases in order to be let in. An apparent screenshot of this page was posted by The Consumerist blog on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mastercard.com has racked up downtime of almost five hours between Nov. 9 and Dec. 20, equivalent to uptime of 99.5 percent for that period, according to Pingdom, which also tracks Web site performance. As such, Mastercard.com has performed significantly worse than sites from competing credit-card companies like Discover, Visa, Diners Club and American Express, all of which have had uptime above 99.9 percent during this period, Pingdom said Thursday.
Neither Macy's nor MasterCard immediately responded to requests for comment.
Key Cisco leader Giancarlo resigns
Charles Giancarlo, who was seen as a likely candidate to head Cisco Systems, has resigned from the networking giant after 14 years to "pursue new professional opportunities," Cisco announced Thursday.
Giancarlo will join Silver Lake Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has played host to other executives who left to run other companies. He will be a managing director at the firm's Menlo Park, California, office, starting Jan. 1, Silver Lake said in a statement.
Giancarlo has played a number of important roles at Cisco, and became executive vice president and chief development officer in 2005. Leadership of the company's overall engineering, product and technology strategy will be turned over to a Development Council of seven leaders, which was formed earlier this month under Giancarlo's leadership, Cisco said in a statement. He will leave the company on Dec. 31.
The Development Council will report to Chairman and CEO John Chambers. Formation of the group fits Cisco's recent push for collaboration in place of traditional top-down management. Chambers has said that executive teams within Cisco have helped the company move faster.
It's the second major departure from Cisco in less than a year. In February, Michelangelo Volpi, the head of Cisco's routing and service provider businesses, and also seen as a possible heir to the top spot, resigned to later head up online video company Joost.
Giancarlo, 50, joined Cisco through the acquisition of Kalpana, an early Ethernet switching company. He developed Cisco's acquisition strategy and led several of the company's advanced and emerging technologies, including wireless networking, unified communications, security, video and Telepresence, Cisco said.
"Cisco is very proud to have had Charlie as one of its leaders, and he will always be considered part of Cisco's extended family," Chambers said in a written statement.
Giancarlo also has been president of Cisco's consumer-oriented Linksys subsidiary. That business will now be led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Michael Pocock, who will report to Ned Hooper, Cisco's senior vice president of business development and of the company's consumer and small business group, Cisco spokeswoman Elizabeth McNichols said.
The move surprised longtime Cisco watchers. Infonetics analyst Michael Howard guessed that Giancarlo might have tired of the big-company environment and yearned to return to his startup roots. Other Cisco executives, including onetime Chief Development Officer Mario Mazzola, have left the company only to start small networking ventures that later were acquired by Cisco.
Sun Microsystems' Ed Zander worked at Silver Lake before taking over Motorola in 2004, and Michael Capellas was at the firm between leadership stints at MCI and First Data.
Giancarlo will join Silver Lake Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has played host to other executives who left to run other companies. He will be a managing director at the firm's Menlo Park, California, office, starting Jan. 1, Silver Lake said in a statement.
Giancarlo has played a number of important roles at Cisco, and became executive vice president and chief development officer in 2005. Leadership of the company's overall engineering, product and technology strategy will be turned over to a Development Council of seven leaders, which was formed earlier this month under Giancarlo's leadership, Cisco said in a statement. He will leave the company on Dec. 31.
The Development Council will report to Chairman and CEO John Chambers. Formation of the group fits Cisco's recent push for collaboration in place of traditional top-down management. Chambers has said that executive teams within Cisco have helped the company move faster.
It's the second major departure from Cisco in less than a year. In February, Michelangelo Volpi, the head of Cisco's routing and service provider businesses, and also seen as a possible heir to the top spot, resigned to later head up online video company Joost.
Giancarlo, 50, joined Cisco through the acquisition of Kalpana, an early Ethernet switching company. He developed Cisco's acquisition strategy and led several of the company's advanced and emerging technologies, including wireless networking, unified communications, security, video and Telepresence, Cisco said.
"Cisco is very proud to have had Charlie as one of its leaders, and he will always be considered part of Cisco's extended family," Chambers said in a written statement.
Giancarlo also has been president of Cisco's consumer-oriented Linksys subsidiary. That business will now be led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Michael Pocock, who will report to Ned Hooper, Cisco's senior vice president of business development and of the company's consumer and small business group, Cisco spokeswoman Elizabeth McNichols said.
The move surprised longtime Cisco watchers. Infonetics analyst Michael Howard guessed that Giancarlo might have tired of the big-company environment and yearned to return to his startup roots. Other Cisco executives, including onetime Chief Development Officer Mario Mazzola, have left the company only to start small networking ventures that later were acquired by Cisco.
Sun Microsystems' Ed Zander worked at Silver Lake before taking over Motorola in 2004, and Michael Capellas was at the firm between leadership stints at MCI and First Data.
Szulik out at Red Hat; former Delta exec tapped as CEO
Longtime Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik is being replaced, the company announced on the same day it posted a quarterly revenue gain of 28 percent.
James Whitehurst, formerly the chief operating officer for Delta Airlines, will take on Szulik's leadership positions and a seat on the board starting in the new year. Szulik, currently president and CEO, will remain as chairman of the board.
Szulik had been Red Hat's CEO for the past eight years and is one of the most prominent business executives in the open-source world.
Whitehurst joins Red Hat as the company works through a transition aimed at helping it compete better with giants like Oracle and Microsoft. The company is best known for its Linux server distribution, but that market is getting increasingly crowded. As a result, Red Hat is trying to reach out into other areas or beef up existing offerings, like its services.
Despite the competitive landscape, Red Hat managed to produce solid results for its third quarter ending Nov. 30. It posted revenue of US$135.4 million, an increase of 28 percent over the same period last year.
Net income reached $20.3 million or $0.10 per diluted share, compared with $14.6 million or $0.07 per diluted share in the corresponding quarter of 2006.
The company highlighted its JBoss Advanced Partner Program, launched during the quarter, aimed at offering support services to value-added resources in North America. Red Hat bought JBoss last year as part of its efforts to expand its offerings.
James Whitehurst, formerly the chief operating officer for Delta Airlines, will take on Szulik's leadership positions and a seat on the board starting in the new year. Szulik, currently president and CEO, will remain as chairman of the board.
Szulik had been Red Hat's CEO for the past eight years and is one of the most prominent business executives in the open-source world.
Whitehurst joins Red Hat as the company works through a transition aimed at helping it compete better with giants like Oracle and Microsoft. The company is best known for its Linux server distribution, but that market is getting increasingly crowded. As a result, Red Hat is trying to reach out into other areas or beef up existing offerings, like its services.
Despite the competitive landscape, Red Hat managed to produce solid results for its third quarter ending Nov. 30. It posted revenue of US$135.4 million, an increase of 28 percent over the same period last year.
Net income reached $20.3 million or $0.10 per diluted share, compared with $14.6 million or $0.07 per diluted share in the corresponding quarter of 2006.
The company highlighted its JBoss Advanced Partner Program, launched during the quarter, aimed at offering support services to value-added resources in North America. Red Hat bought JBoss last year as part of its efforts to expand its offerings.
Microsoft to hand over Windows secrets to Samba team
Developers of open-source Samba software will find their work a little easier thanks to an agreement with Microsoft, signed Thursday, that will give them access to previously secret data on how the Windows operating system works.
Microsoft was compelled to make this information available following a March 24, 2004, European Commission antitrust ruling against the company. In July 2006, the EU fined Microsoft €280.5 million (US$338.6 million at that time) for failing to provide documentation on Windows protocols to its rivals. Microsoft lost an appeal of that decision in September, setting the stage for the deal.
The deal was signed with a nonprofit group called the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation, (PFIF) which negotiated on behalf of the Samba team because Samba is not represented by a corporate entity. PFIF will pay a one-time fee of €10,000 and, in return, will be able to allow open-source developers, including the Samba team, to access the documents.
Developers will have to sign nondisclosure agreements and will not be allowed to redistribute Microsoft's documentation, but they will be able to write open-source software that implements the Windows protocols. The deal will also clarify which patents Microsoft believes are related to this technology, making it easier for open-source developers to avoid patent violations.
Antitrust rulings forced Microsoft to set up protocol-licensing programs in the past, including the Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP) and the Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP), but these efforts were not compatible with open-source software licenses.
To reach an agreement with the Samba team, Microsoft created a new type of WSPP licensing agreement, which gives developers access to the Windows protocols as well as a clear list of the patents that Microsoft has declared relative to its technology.
"They're giving us all the documentation to make everything work," said Jeremy Allison, co-author of Samba. "We will have no more excuses to suck ... if we don't have something, we won't be able to say it's not our fault we don't know how to do it."
Samba and Microsoft executives had been meeting since March in hopes of hammering out a deal, said Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, in a blog post entitled "If you're surprised, you're not paying attention."
"I expect that this will significantly improve the process of Samba development, and produce better quality interoperation between Windows and Linux/UNIX environments," he wrote.
Samba is an open-source version of the file-and-print software used by Windows. It is a standard component of the Linux and Unix operating systems, allowing these systems to share data and work alongside Windows clients.
But development of Samba has traditionally been back-breaking work. Developers would analyze network traffic to try and glean how Windows was working and then build their software based on that knowledge -- a process called reverse-engineering.
With the new agreement, developers will have access to Microsoft's own protocol specifications and will be able to build their software based on those documents, Allison said. That, in turn, will accelerate the team's development of its next generation of software, which will implement the new Sever Message Block (SMB) 2.0 protocol, used by Windows Vista.
Though the deal was reached on Thursday, developers were still waiting for the final technical aspects of the document hand-over to be settled, Allison said. He expects to get his hands on the technical specifications fairly soon. "I'm guessing that for my Christmas vacation I'll have some enjoyable things to read," he said.
Microsoft was compelled to make this information available following a March 24, 2004, European Commission antitrust ruling against the company. In July 2006, the EU fined Microsoft €280.5 million (US$338.6 million at that time) for failing to provide documentation on Windows protocols to its rivals. Microsoft lost an appeal of that decision in September, setting the stage for the deal.
The deal was signed with a nonprofit group called the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation, (PFIF) which negotiated on behalf of the Samba team because Samba is not represented by a corporate entity. PFIF will pay a one-time fee of €10,000 and, in return, will be able to allow open-source developers, including the Samba team, to access the documents.
Developers will have to sign nondisclosure agreements and will not be allowed to redistribute Microsoft's documentation, but they will be able to write open-source software that implements the Windows protocols. The deal will also clarify which patents Microsoft believes are related to this technology, making it easier for open-source developers to avoid patent violations.
Antitrust rulings forced Microsoft to set up protocol-licensing programs in the past, including the Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP) and the Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP), but these efforts were not compatible with open-source software licenses.
To reach an agreement with the Samba team, Microsoft created a new type of WSPP licensing agreement, which gives developers access to the Windows protocols as well as a clear list of the patents that Microsoft has declared relative to its technology.
"They're giving us all the documentation to make everything work," said Jeremy Allison, co-author of Samba. "We will have no more excuses to suck ... if we don't have something, we won't be able to say it's not our fault we don't know how to do it."
Samba and Microsoft executives had been meeting since March in hopes of hammering out a deal, said Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, in a blog post entitled "If you're surprised, you're not paying attention."
"I expect that this will significantly improve the process of Samba development, and produce better quality interoperation between Windows and Linux/UNIX environments," he wrote.
Samba is an open-source version of the file-and-print software used by Windows. It is a standard component of the Linux and Unix operating systems, allowing these systems to share data and work alongside Windows clients.
But development of Samba has traditionally been back-breaking work. Developers would analyze network traffic to try and glean how Windows was working and then build their software based on that knowledge -- a process called reverse-engineering.
With the new agreement, developers will have access to Microsoft's own protocol specifications and will be able to build their software based on those documents, Allison said. That, in turn, will accelerate the team's development of its next generation of software, which will implement the new Sever Message Block (SMB) 2.0 protocol, used by Windows Vista.
Though the deal was reached on Thursday, developers were still waiting for the final technical aspects of the document hand-over to be settled, Allison said. He expects to get his hands on the technical specifications fairly soon. "I'm guessing that for my Christmas vacation I'll have some enjoyable things to read," he said.
'Bricking' bug threatens most HP, Compaq laptops
The hacker who posted an exploit last week that threatened a large swath of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s laptop lineup followed up Wednesday with new attack code that can "brick" nearly every HP laptop.
In a post to the milw0rm.com Web site Wednesday, a Polish security researcher who used the alias "porkythepig" spelled out a pair of vulnerabilities in an ActiveX control used by HP's Software Update, the patch management program bundled with virtually every HP- and Compaq-branded laptop.
According porkythepig's post, the Software Update bugs let an attacker corrupt Windows' kernel files, making the laptop unbootable, or with a little more effort, allow hacks that would result in a PC hijack or malware infection. In either case, a drive-by attack could be conducted by feeding users an e-mail message with a link to a malicious Web site.
"Every HP notebook machine containing the HP Software Updates application is vulnerable," claimed porkythepig. "It is possible that the vulnerable machine model list disclosed by the vendor as a confirmation to the previous issue concerning HP laptops, [the] HP Info Center case, will be similar in this case."
Last week, porkythepig disclosed multiple flaws in other software included with HP's portables. When the company patched the vulnerabilities a day later, it listed 83 affected laptops.
The scenario in which an attacker overwrites the kernel and thus "bricks" the HP or Compaq notebook, was out of the ordinary, since most hacks aim to snatch control of the machine or infect it with identity-stealing malware. But the crippling attack, said porkythepig, is actually the simpler of the two. "This attack vector doesn't require any additional victim social engineering, because the system files are always placed in the predictable locations," he said.
A drive-by attack that hopes to execute rogue code, however, requires more work. To successfully exploit the ActiveX bug in Software Update and compromise the computer, the hacker needs to know the location of certain files.
The researcher said he had tested the exploit code on Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and Vista, and that the vulnerabilities pose a risk to any user with either Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or IE7 on the PC. Nor will HP be able to use the down-and-dirty fix it deployed last week, said porkythepig. After he revealed several bugs in HP's Info Center a week ago, HP issued an update that simply disabled the vulnerable software.
"Simple disabling of the vulnerable control by the vendor's patch, like in the other HP software vulnerability case, HP Info, [could still] result in the machine['s] software update system [being] compromised, and would leave the user vulnerable to future security issues," porkythepig said in the milw0rm.com write-up.
HP did not reply to e-mailed requests for confirm and comment.
In a post to the milw0rm.com Web site Wednesday, a Polish security researcher who used the alias "porkythepig" spelled out a pair of vulnerabilities in an ActiveX control used by HP's Software Update, the patch management program bundled with virtually every HP- and Compaq-branded laptop.
According porkythepig's post, the Software Update bugs let an attacker corrupt Windows' kernel files, making the laptop unbootable, or with a little more effort, allow hacks that would result in a PC hijack or malware infection. In either case, a drive-by attack could be conducted by feeding users an e-mail message with a link to a malicious Web site.
"Every HP notebook machine containing the HP Software Updates application is vulnerable," claimed porkythepig. "It is possible that the vulnerable machine model list disclosed by the vendor as a confirmation to the previous issue concerning HP laptops, [the] HP Info Center case, will be similar in this case."
Last week, porkythepig disclosed multiple flaws in other software included with HP's portables. When the company patched the vulnerabilities a day later, it listed 83 affected laptops.
The scenario in which an attacker overwrites the kernel and thus "bricks" the HP or Compaq notebook, was out of the ordinary, since most hacks aim to snatch control of the machine or infect it with identity-stealing malware. But the crippling attack, said porkythepig, is actually the simpler of the two. "This attack vector doesn't require any additional victim social engineering, because the system files are always placed in the predictable locations," he said.
A drive-by attack that hopes to execute rogue code, however, requires more work. To successfully exploit the ActiveX bug in Software Update and compromise the computer, the hacker needs to know the location of certain files.
The researcher said he had tested the exploit code on Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and Vista, and that the vulnerabilities pose a risk to any user with either Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or IE7 on the PC. Nor will HP be able to use the down-and-dirty fix it deployed last week, said porkythepig. After he revealed several bugs in HP's Info Center a week ago, HP issued an update that simply disabled the vulnerable software.
"Simple disabling of the vulnerable control by the vendor's patch, like in the other HP software vulnerability case, HP Info, [could still] result in the machine['s] software update system [being] compromised, and would leave the user vulnerable to future security issues," porkythepig said in the milw0rm.com write-up.
HP did not reply to e-mailed requests for confirm and comment.
New York nears decision on ODF vs OOXML
Officials in New York are nearing decision-making time about which XML-based office document format, ODF or OOXML, that state will use across the IT systems of its agencies as the debate over a universal file format continues.
According to the state's Web site, the public comment period about whether the state should mandate a document format is scheduled to end Dec. 28. At that point officials will review all comments and decide which course of action to take.
In August, the state legislature requested that New York Chief Information Officer and Director of the Office for Technology Melodie Mayberry-Stewart gather information and input from people who would be affected about how the state should approach access, creation and maintenance of electronic documents in a way that achieves, among other things, vendor neutrality and interoperability.
A document posted to the state Web site outlines questions users should consider when debating whether ODF or OOXML would be a better fit for New York government agencies. They have until 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 28 to make their comments, which should be sent electronically to the state technology office's Principal Attorney Darlene Van Sickle via e-mail to erecords-study@oft.state.ny.us
In addition to New York, other states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, have eyed mandating one document file format across their IT systems.
The debate over whether ODF (Open Document Format for XML) or OOXML (Open XML) should be the universal file format for office documents apparently will remain heated in 2008 after a stormy year for those on both sides.
In September, the International Organization for Standardization rejected an attempt by Microsoft to use another standards body, Ecma International, to fast-track OOXML through the standards process. Complaints poured in that Microsoft placed people sympathetic to its cause in key voting positions toward the end of the process in an attempt to swing the vote in its favor.
The next month a group designed to promote ODF, the OpenDocument Foundation, withdrew support of ODF in favor of CDF (Compound Document Format). As 2007 closes, companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems and Google continue to promote ODF, while Microsoft remains the most visible supporter of OOXML.
According to the state's Web site, the public comment period about whether the state should mandate a document format is scheduled to end Dec. 28. At that point officials will review all comments and decide which course of action to take.
In August, the state legislature requested that New York Chief Information Officer and Director of the Office for Technology Melodie Mayberry-Stewart gather information and input from people who would be affected about how the state should approach access, creation and maintenance of electronic documents in a way that achieves, among other things, vendor neutrality and interoperability.
A document posted to the state Web site outlines questions users should consider when debating whether ODF or OOXML would be a better fit for New York government agencies. They have until 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 28 to make their comments, which should be sent electronically to the state technology office's Principal Attorney Darlene Van Sickle via e-mail to erecords-study@oft.state.ny.us
In addition to New York, other states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, have eyed mandating one document file format across their IT systems.
The debate over whether ODF (Open Document Format for XML) or OOXML (Open XML) should be the universal file format for office documents apparently will remain heated in 2008 after a stormy year for those on both sides.
In September, the International Organization for Standardization rejected an attempt by Microsoft to use another standards body, Ecma International, to fast-track OOXML through the standards process. Complaints poured in that Microsoft placed people sympathetic to its cause in key voting positions toward the end of the process in an attempt to swing the vote in its favor.
The next month a group designed to promote ODF, the OpenDocument Foundation, withdrew support of ODF in favor of CDF (Compound Document Format). As 2007 closes, companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems and Google continue to promote ODF, while Microsoft remains the most visible supporter of OOXML.
IBM unveils 'smart' e-mail search engine
IBM has created a free semantic e-mail search engine aimed at users of the company's Lotus Notes software and Microsoft Outlook.
The engine, called IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES), allows users to search their mail based on concepts, such as dates and phone numbers, according to IBM. It also allows searchers to define their own concepts.
Once the software is installed, it indexes and analyzes the user's e-mail store. Searches are conducted through a browser interface that delivers results through a stripped-down, Google-like interface.
Users can enter simple keyword-based queries or ones using basic natural language constructions. For example, to find e-mails from a friend named Mark Smith, you could simply enter "from Mark Smith."
But to find only the e-mails Smith sent in a certain month, a query might be constructed as "Mark from January 2007." You could find his phone number by typing "Smith's phone number."
The results don't show a list of e-mail headers or display the messages in full. Instead, the software extracts the passage it believes contains the right answer, and highlights what it deems to be the specific information requested, such as a phone number.
Users can also search for attachments, with search results providing direct links to the documents in question.
E-mail is a good target for developing a semantic search engine because users frequently repeat certain phrasings and words and repeatedly exchange the same type of information. "There is a fairly large number of things that are so e-mail specific," said Shivakumar Vaithyanathan, the project's technical lead.
Researchers in a number of IBM labs worked on the project for the past year and a half, according to Vaithyanathan. The product has been quietly available on the company's alphaWorks site for a couple of months, but only now is IBM attempting to drive widespread adoption, according to a spokeswoman.
"To be able to solve all these problems in some meaningful way, we want some feedback," Vaithyanathan said.
IBM also released the tool internally to its employees and said it has received mostly positive responses.
The engine, called IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES), allows users to search their mail based on concepts, such as dates and phone numbers, according to IBM. It also allows searchers to define their own concepts.
Once the software is installed, it indexes and analyzes the user's e-mail store. Searches are conducted through a browser interface that delivers results through a stripped-down, Google-like interface.
Users can enter simple keyword-based queries or ones using basic natural language constructions. For example, to find e-mails from a friend named Mark Smith, you could simply enter "from Mark Smith."
But to find only the e-mails Smith sent in a certain month, a query might be constructed as "Mark from January 2007." You could find his phone number by typing "Smith's phone number."
The results don't show a list of e-mail headers or display the messages in full. Instead, the software extracts the passage it believes contains the right answer, and highlights what it deems to be the specific information requested, such as a phone number.
Users can also search for attachments, with search results providing direct links to the documents in question.
E-mail is a good target for developing a semantic search engine because users frequently repeat certain phrasings and words and repeatedly exchange the same type of information. "There is a fairly large number of things that are so e-mail specific," said Shivakumar Vaithyanathan, the project's technical lead.
Researchers in a number of IBM labs worked on the project for the past year and a half, according to Vaithyanathan. The product has been quietly available on the company's alphaWorks site for a couple of months, but only now is IBM attempting to drive widespread adoption, according to a spokeswoman.
"To be able to solve all these problems in some meaningful way, we want some feedback," Vaithyanathan said.
IBM also released the tool internally to its employees and said it has received mostly positive responses.
Air France launches in-flight cell phone trial
Air France launched a commercial trial of an onboard cell phone service, but in a limited fashion that avoids a controversial aspect.
Travelers on certain Air France planes on European routes can send and receive short messages and, provided their phones support Internet access, send and receive e-mails.
Initially, travelers won't be able to make or receive voice calls. That limitation skirts an important issue: whether cell phone talkers will annoy nearby passengers.
However, in about three months, Air France does plan to allow voice calls, but said it will regulate the service "to maintain passengers' comfort and well-being." It did not explain how it might do that.
Onboard calls and messages are routed through a small cellular base station inside the plane. From there, messages are transmitted over satellite to the ground and then on to the telephone network. The service is supplied by OnAir, a company part owned by airplane maker Airbus.
To use their phones, passengers must dial as if they're making an international call. Air France did not say how much each message would cost for users, but said the price is comparable to traditional mobile phone use.
The planes come equipped with a new illuminated sign that instructs passengers when to keep their phones off. Travelers can send and receive messages only when the plane rises above 10,000 feet.
Tips for using the service will be explained on a leaflet in seat pockets, Air France said. In addition, users will be able to fill out a survey about their experiences using it. After six months, Air France will consider whether to launch the service on all of its flights.
Airlines and regulators worldwide have been considering onboard cell phone use for years. Some regulators, including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, have banned mobile phone use on airplanes. The European Union, however, has approved the idea, and various national regulators there have begun to allow it. Airlines in other regions, like the Australian operator Qantas, are also conducting more limited tests of the service.
JetBlue, Yahoo and Research In Motion recently launched a service on one airplane in the U.S. that allows users to send and receive e-mail from BlackBerry phones, Wi-Fi smartphones and laptops. However, the service uses an onboard Wi-Fi network instead of cellular phone technology.
Travelers on certain Air France planes on European routes can send and receive short messages and, provided their phones support Internet access, send and receive e-mails.
Initially, travelers won't be able to make or receive voice calls. That limitation skirts an important issue: whether cell phone talkers will annoy nearby passengers.
However, in about three months, Air France does plan to allow voice calls, but said it will regulate the service "to maintain passengers' comfort and well-being." It did not explain how it might do that.
Onboard calls and messages are routed through a small cellular base station inside the plane. From there, messages are transmitted over satellite to the ground and then on to the telephone network. The service is supplied by OnAir, a company part owned by airplane maker Airbus.
To use their phones, passengers must dial as if they're making an international call. Air France did not say how much each message would cost for users, but said the price is comparable to traditional mobile phone use.
The planes come equipped with a new illuminated sign that instructs passengers when to keep their phones off. Travelers can send and receive messages only when the plane rises above 10,000 feet.
Tips for using the service will be explained on a leaflet in seat pockets, Air France said. In addition, users will be able to fill out a survey about their experiences using it. After six months, Air France will consider whether to launch the service on all of its flights.
Airlines and regulators worldwide have been considering onboard cell phone use for years. Some regulators, including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, have banned mobile phone use on airplanes. The European Union, however, has approved the idea, and various national regulators there have begun to allow it. Airlines in other regions, like the Australian operator Qantas, are also conducting more limited tests of the service.
JetBlue, Yahoo and Research In Motion recently launched a service on one airplane in the U.S. that allows users to send and receive e-mail from BlackBerry phones, Wi-Fi smartphones and laptops. However, the service uses an onboard Wi-Fi network instead of cellular phone technology.
E.U. group says Google-DoubleClick deal will harm privacy
European consumer groups warned the European Commission Thursday that Google's plan to take over the online advertising company DoubleClick, currently under investigation, would erode consumers' privacy and would push up prices for online goods and services.
In a letter to competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, BEUC, the pan-European Union consumer group, together with three national associations, urged the Commission to use its powers to block the deal in its current form.
"Consumers' privacy could be at risk; it is crucial that the Commission integrates privacy concerns into the Google/DoubleClick merger review process," said Monique Goyens, BEUC's director general in a statement.
In addition to privacy concerns, the letter also argued that combined strength of the two Internet firms would harm consumers "with respect to the price, degree of innovation, quality, and selection of online products and services that would likely be available to consumers following the merger."
Neither Google nor the Commission were available to comment.
Meanwhile, also on Thursday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleared Google's acquisition of DoubleClick on a 4-1 vote after an eight-month investigation. The FTC concluded that acquisition "is unlikely to substantially lessen competition" and downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups, saying those concerns are "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and "extend to the entire online advertising marketplace."
The Commission's competition department has until April 2 to decide to permit the deal, approve it on the condition it is changed or prohibit it outright.
Competition reviews normally focus on the economic impact of mergers and takeovers, rather than their potential impact on privacy.
Consumer groups wrote to Kroes in June, shortly after the planned deal was announced, warning about its impact on privacy. Thursday's follow-up letter focused on the economic effects of the deal on consumers, as well as reiterating the groups' concerns about privacy.
Acknowledging that privacy falls beyond the scope of merger reviews, they nevertheless tried to persuade the Commission to bear it in mind.
"Privacy issues raised in our 27 June letter are detrimental to consumers' welfare and ought to be taken into account in the merger review process," the consumer groups said.
Economic harm to consumers would result from the deal because it would strengthen what the groups describe as the super-dominant position of Google in the online advertising industry.
"The online advertising market will be placed in jeopardy if the Google/DoubleClick merger is allowed to proceed, because the combined company will dominate both major 'pipelines' for online advertising - both the pipeline for search ads and the pipeline for non-search ads," they wrote to Kroes.
"If allowed to proceed, the transaction will enable the world's largest network for the sale of non-search online advertising (Google) to capture and use to its own benefit the dominant provider of stand-alone ad-serving tools (DoubleClick) used by web publishers to connect other networks to the non-search inventory which they need to survive and which is not already committed to Google," the letter said.
By eliminating competition between the two companies for both stand-alone ad serving tools and integrated ad networks, the deal will ultimately "reinforce Google's super-dominant position in the market for search ads," they said.
In addition to the possibility of higher prices for consumers, the deal could undermine the common business model for online publishing, which relies on advertising revenue. This could force content providers to switch to a model based around revenue from subscriptions, forcing consumers to pay for what they get free now.
"Higher online advertising prices may result in part of the advertising budgets shifting to other media, resulting in less revenue than initially forecasted for web publishers. Such publishers might then be forced to charge users to access content in circumstances where they do not do so today," the consumer groups warned.
In a letter to competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, BEUC, the pan-European Union consumer group, together with three national associations, urged the Commission to use its powers to block the deal in its current form.
"Consumers' privacy could be at risk; it is crucial that the Commission integrates privacy concerns into the Google/DoubleClick merger review process," said Monique Goyens, BEUC's director general in a statement.
In addition to privacy concerns, the letter also argued that combined strength of the two Internet firms would harm consumers "with respect to the price, degree of innovation, quality, and selection of online products and services that would likely be available to consumers following the merger."
Neither Google nor the Commission were available to comment.
Meanwhile, also on Thursday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleared Google's acquisition of DoubleClick on a 4-1 vote after an eight-month investigation. The FTC concluded that acquisition "is unlikely to substantially lessen competition" and downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups, saying those concerns are "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and "extend to the entire online advertising marketplace."
The Commission's competition department has until April 2 to decide to permit the deal, approve it on the condition it is changed or prohibit it outright.
Competition reviews normally focus on the economic impact of mergers and takeovers, rather than their potential impact on privacy.
Consumer groups wrote to Kroes in June, shortly after the planned deal was announced, warning about its impact on privacy. Thursday's follow-up letter focused on the economic effects of the deal on consumers, as well as reiterating the groups' concerns about privacy.
Acknowledging that privacy falls beyond the scope of merger reviews, they nevertheless tried to persuade the Commission to bear it in mind.
"Privacy issues raised in our 27 June letter are detrimental to consumers' welfare and ought to be taken into account in the merger review process," the consumer groups said.
Economic harm to consumers would result from the deal because it would strengthen what the groups describe as the super-dominant position of Google in the online advertising industry.
"The online advertising market will be placed in jeopardy if the Google/DoubleClick merger is allowed to proceed, because the combined company will dominate both major 'pipelines' for online advertising - both the pipeline for search ads and the pipeline for non-search ads," they wrote to Kroes.
"If allowed to proceed, the transaction will enable the world's largest network for the sale of non-search online advertising (Google) to capture and use to its own benefit the dominant provider of stand-alone ad-serving tools (DoubleClick) used by web publishers to connect other networks to the non-search inventory which they need to survive and which is not already committed to Google," the letter said.
By eliminating competition between the two companies for both stand-alone ad serving tools and integrated ad networks, the deal will ultimately "reinforce Google's super-dominant position in the market for search ads," they said.
In addition to the possibility of higher prices for consumers, the deal could undermine the common business model for online publishing, which relies on advertising revenue. This could force content providers to switch to a model based around revenue from subscriptions, forcing consumers to pay for what they get free now.
"Higher online advertising prices may result in part of the advertising budgets shifting to other media, resulting in less revenue than initially forecasted for web publishers. Such publishers might then be forced to charge users to access content in circumstances where they do not do so today," the consumer groups warned.
NetSuite sets initial stock price at $26
NetSuite on Wednesday set the initial price of its stock at $26, greatly exceeding its original estimate.
The company is selling 6.2 million shares of stock. It said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the proceeds from the sale would net it $151.9 million after expenses.
NetSuite, which sells a line of hosted business software, company initially set the suggested price range for its stock at $13 to $16, and subsequently raised it to $16 to $19 and then $19 to $22. The stock is now trading on New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "N." After rising to $39.01, shares had dropped to $25.76 at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
The company set the price by running an online "Dutch" auction, in the same fashion of search giant Google, instead of having underwriters set the price.
Scott Sweet, managing director of IPOboutique.com, a firm that tracks the IPO market and offers investment advice, said NetSuite is greatly overvalued as a result of the auction.
"Once again the Dutch auction concept failed to live up to its self-described mantra as being a better conduit in the pricing of an IPO by the investors than the standard method of pricing by the underwriters," he said in an e-mail message Thursday. "In past Dutch auction deals, and it appears the same in this case, investors put in overzealous high bids to 'beat' others in a scramble to get shares. In doing so, it is highly likely that it has greatly diminished the IPO's performance and highly overvalued the company."
NetSuite has said it plans to use proceeds from its IPO to pay off an $8 million balance on a line of credit with Tako Ventures, an entity controlled by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and to possibly make acquisitions.
Ellison controls about 60 percent of NetSuite's outstanding stock -- some 31.9 million shares.
NetSuite said Wednesday that Ellison has now completed the transfer of those shares into a holding company, NetSuite Restricted Holdings. The move is meant to "effectively eliminate" Ellison's voting power and avoid potential conflicts of interests, NetSuite said.
The company is selling 6.2 million shares of stock. It said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the proceeds from the sale would net it $151.9 million after expenses.
NetSuite, which sells a line of hosted business software, company initially set the suggested price range for its stock at $13 to $16, and subsequently raised it to $16 to $19 and then $19 to $22. The stock is now trading on New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "N." After rising to $39.01, shares had dropped to $25.76 at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
The company set the price by running an online "Dutch" auction, in the same fashion of search giant Google, instead of having underwriters set the price.
Scott Sweet, managing director of IPOboutique.com, a firm that tracks the IPO market and offers investment advice, said NetSuite is greatly overvalued as a result of the auction.
"Once again the Dutch auction concept failed to live up to its self-described mantra as being a better conduit in the pricing of an IPO by the investors than the standard method of pricing by the underwriters," he said in an e-mail message Thursday. "In past Dutch auction deals, and it appears the same in this case, investors put in overzealous high bids to 'beat' others in a scramble to get shares. In doing so, it is highly likely that it has greatly diminished the IPO's performance and highly overvalued the company."
NetSuite has said it plans to use proceeds from its IPO to pay off an $8 million balance on a line of credit with Tako Ventures, an entity controlled by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and to possibly make acquisitions.
Ellison controls about 60 percent of NetSuite's outstanding stock -- some 31.9 million shares.
NetSuite said Wednesday that Ellison has now completed the transfer of those shares into a holding company, NetSuite Restricted Holdings. The move is meant to "effectively eliminate" Ellison's voting power and avoid potential conflicts of interests, NetSuite said.
Software AG pays $26M for mainframe UI tools
Software AG has bought the application modernization activities of Jacada, adding to its portfolio of tools for prolonging the life of mainframe applications by giving them a Web interface.
The sale marks Jacada's move out of the application modernization and middleware software business in order to concentrate on development of call center systems.
Software AG has bought the rights to Jacada's Terminal Emulator, Interface Server and HostFuse products, among others. Jacada keeps its WorkSpace and WinFuse software, and rights to the Jacada brand.
Eight of Jacada's research, development and support staff will join Software AG to maintain the application modernization products.
Software AG will pay $26 million in cash for the business, which generates $12 million in annual revenue, it said Thursday.
It will gain access to 200 of Jacada's 1,200 customers, mostly in the U.S., giving it a chance to expand its SOA (services-oriented architecture) work in an important market, it said.
The deal is tiny compared to Software AG's purchase of U.S. software vendor webMethods: It paid $546 million for the SOA and business process management (BPM) company in June.
Software AG is also looking to acquire other smaller companies or business units which could benefit from its global infrastructure. Earlier this year it paid $62 million for 80 percent of its Israeli distributor SPL Software.
Also on Thursday, Jacada announced the appointment of a new CEO, Paul O'Callaghan, from Jan. 1. President of the company since May 2006, he replaces Gideon Hollander, who will remain with the company as chairman.
The sale marks Jacada's move out of the application modernization and middleware software business in order to concentrate on development of call center systems.
Software AG has bought the rights to Jacada's Terminal Emulator, Interface Server and HostFuse products, among others. Jacada keeps its WorkSpace and WinFuse software, and rights to the Jacada brand.
Eight of Jacada's research, development and support staff will join Software AG to maintain the application modernization products.
Software AG will pay $26 million in cash for the business, which generates $12 million in annual revenue, it said Thursday.
It will gain access to 200 of Jacada's 1,200 customers, mostly in the U.S., giving it a chance to expand its SOA (services-oriented architecture) work in an important market, it said.
The deal is tiny compared to Software AG's purchase of U.S. software vendor webMethods: It paid $546 million for the SOA and business process management (BPM) company in June.
Software AG is also looking to acquire other smaller companies or business units which could benefit from its global infrastructure. Earlier this year it paid $62 million for 80 percent of its Israeli distributor SPL Software.
Also on Thursday, Jacada announced the appointment of a new CEO, Paul O'Callaghan, from Jan. 1. President of the company since May 2006, he replaces Gideon Hollander, who will remain with the company as chairman.
Trojan bumps Google ads from Web pages
A security company has identified a Trojan horse program that replaces Google text advertisements on Web pages with ads from another source, depriving Google of revenue and potentially causing problems for end users.
Google may be powerless to stop the trick since it involves the modification of an internal PC file, called the hosts file, that is used to match domain names of Web sites with IP (Internet protocol) addresses, said Romanian security company BitDefender.
When a person visits a Web site, the browser checks the hosts file to see if it has an IP address for a particular domain name. If the hosts file is corrupted or hijacked, the browser can be directed to fetch a different Web page than the one the user intended to.
Modifying the hosts file can be done for legitimate reasons. For example, PC users can change the hosts to block banner ads served from known ad networks. When a Web page tries to contact an ad server, the request is diverted by the hosts file and no ad appears.
BitDefender said in an advisory this particular malware directs a browser to download advertisements from a different server than Google's ad server.
BitDefender named the malware Trojan.Qhost.WU and said it is not spreading fast and poses a "medium" risk of damage. It did not say how the Trojan is being circulated, and company representatives did not return a call for comment.
Besides costing Google ad revenue, there is a danger that those replacement advertisements could contain links to sites with malicious software, BitDefender said. Web site owners who buy ads through Google, as well as Google itself, can lose out on both Web traffic and revenue if people are diverted from its ads.
There is not much that Google can do for those who download the malware. However, security products such as BitDefender's can detect and remove it.
Without commenting on the Trojan specifically, Google said it removes Web sites from its search index that contain malware.
"We have canceled customer accounts that display ads re-directing users to malicious sites or that advertise a product violating our software principles," the company said in a statement.
Google may be powerless to stop the trick since it involves the modification of an internal PC file, called the hosts file, that is used to match domain names of Web sites with IP (Internet protocol) addresses, said Romanian security company BitDefender.
When a person visits a Web site, the browser checks the hosts file to see if it has an IP address for a particular domain name. If the hosts file is corrupted or hijacked, the browser can be directed to fetch a different Web page than the one the user intended to.
Modifying the hosts file can be done for legitimate reasons. For example, PC users can change the hosts to block banner ads served from known ad networks. When a Web page tries to contact an ad server, the request is diverted by the hosts file and no ad appears.
BitDefender said in an advisory this particular malware directs a browser to download advertisements from a different server than Google's ad server.
BitDefender named the malware Trojan.Qhost.WU and said it is not spreading fast and poses a "medium" risk of damage. It did not say how the Trojan is being circulated, and company representatives did not return a call for comment.
Besides costing Google ad revenue, there is a danger that those replacement advertisements could contain links to sites with malicious software, BitDefender said. Web site owners who buy ads through Google, as well as Google itself, can lose out on both Web traffic and revenue if people are diverted from its ads.
There is not much that Google can do for those who download the malware. However, security products such as BitDefender's can detect and remove it.
Without commenting on the Trojan specifically, Google said it removes Web sites from its search index that contain malware.
"We have canceled customer accounts that display ads re-directing users to malicious sites or that advertise a product violating our software principles," the company said in a statement.
FTC approves Google/DoubleClick deal
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will not try to block Google's acquisition of online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick, the agency said Thursday.
The commission voted 4-1 to approve the deal after an eight-month investigation. "After carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition," the majority wrote in a statement.
The commission downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups. Privacy concerns are "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and "extend to the entire online advertising marketplace," commissioners wrote.
Google, the provider of the most widely used search engine, announced in April that it planned to acquire ad serving giant DoubleClick in a $3.1 billion deal.
The commission examined several factors and concluded that the two companies are not direct competitors, the FTC said in a news release on Thursday. The agency found that competition in online ad-serving markets is vigorous and likely to increase.
The agency will closely monitor the ad-serving space, however, commissioners wrote. "The markets within the online advertising space continue to quickly evolve, and predicting their future course is not a simple task," the majority wrote. "We want to be clear ... that we will closely watch these markets and, should Google engage in unlawful tying or other anticompetitive conduct, the commission intends to act quickly."
Google, which faces a similar examination before the European Union, praised the FTC decision.
"The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: this acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "We hope that the European Commission will soon reach the same conclusion, and we are confident that this deal will deliver more relevant ads for consumers, more choices for advertisers, and more opportunities for Web site publishers."
Google will remain committed to user privacy, Schmidt added. "For us, privacy does not begin or end with our purchase of DoubleClick," he said. "We have been protecting our users' privacy since our inception, and will continue to innovate in how we safeguard their information and maintain their trust."
The same month that Google and DoubleClick announced the deal, three privacy groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), filed a petition asking the FTC to block the deal unless Google made significant changes to its privacy policy. The groups argued that the combined company with have unparalleled access to Web users' personal information.
EPIC and the CDD didn't have an immediate reaction to the ruling.
FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour voted against the deal, saying she disagreed with the majority's view on the direction of the ad-serving market.
And Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, while voting with the majority, said the deal raised serious competition and privacy issues. Those issues, "though in part brought to light by the deal, clearly transcend it," he wrote.
In late May, Google announced that the FTC was examining the deal for potential antitrust problems. The FTC can rule that a merger raises antitrust issues, and the agency can recommend remedies. If the merging companies don't reach a settlement with the FTC, the agency can see an injunction against the merger in a U.S. court.
Leibowitz, in November, said the agency was reviewing the case on antitrust, but not privacy, grounds. The privacy groups have argued, however, that the privacy issue is related to antitrust partly because of the competitive edge Google would get in targeting advertising to specific people.
In December, EPIC and CDD filed a new complaint, asking FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself from the case. Majoras' husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick, but DoubleClick and the FTC said that the Jones Day law firm hasn't represented the company before the FTC.
The commission voted 4-1 to approve the deal after an eight-month investigation. "After carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition," the majority wrote in a statement.
The commission downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups. Privacy concerns are "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and "extend to the entire online advertising marketplace," commissioners wrote.
Google, the provider of the most widely used search engine, announced in April that it planned to acquire ad serving giant DoubleClick in a $3.1 billion deal.
The commission examined several factors and concluded that the two companies are not direct competitors, the FTC said in a news release on Thursday. The agency found that competition in online ad-serving markets is vigorous and likely to increase.
The agency will closely monitor the ad-serving space, however, commissioners wrote. "The markets within the online advertising space continue to quickly evolve, and predicting their future course is not a simple task," the majority wrote. "We want to be clear ... that we will closely watch these markets and, should Google engage in unlawful tying or other anticompetitive conduct, the commission intends to act quickly."
Google, which faces a similar examination before the European Union, praised the FTC decision.
"The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: this acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "We hope that the European Commission will soon reach the same conclusion, and we are confident that this deal will deliver more relevant ads for consumers, more choices for advertisers, and more opportunities for Web site publishers."
Google will remain committed to user privacy, Schmidt added. "For us, privacy does not begin or end with our purchase of DoubleClick," he said. "We have been protecting our users' privacy since our inception, and will continue to innovate in how we safeguard their information and maintain their trust."
The same month that Google and DoubleClick announced the deal, three privacy groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), filed a petition asking the FTC to block the deal unless Google made significant changes to its privacy policy. The groups argued that the combined company with have unparalleled access to Web users' personal information.
EPIC and the CDD didn't have an immediate reaction to the ruling.
FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour voted against the deal, saying she disagreed with the majority's view on the direction of the ad-serving market.
And Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, while voting with the majority, said the deal raised serious competition and privacy issues. Those issues, "though in part brought to light by the deal, clearly transcend it," he wrote.
In late May, Google announced that the FTC was examining the deal for potential antitrust problems. The FTC can rule that a merger raises antitrust issues, and the agency can recommend remedies. If the merging companies don't reach a settlement with the FTC, the agency can see an injunction against the merger in a U.S. court.
Leibowitz, in November, said the agency was reviewing the case on antitrust, but not privacy, grounds. The privacy groups have argued, however, that the privacy issue is related to antitrust partly because of the competitive edge Google would get in targeting advertising to specific people.
In December, EPIC and CDD filed a new complaint, asking FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself from the case. Majoras' husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick, but DoubleClick and the FTC said that the Jones Day law firm hasn't represented the company before the FTC.
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