Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Google demonstrated its new entertainment hub for TV with a browser which includes a joint effort with Sony, Intel and Logitech. As part of the announcement Google explained that “Google TV is a new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet.” No surprise since it seemed inevitable that the Internet and television would merge a some point and it’s little wonder that Google a first mover!

IT Teams Up with Dairy Farmers

A recent report indicated that manure “from 10,000 cows could provide the power for a small computing center at a bank,” so Google, Microsoft, and HP are building more data centers in more rural areas to capitalize on dairy farmers’ use of cattle waste. “Information technology and manure have a symbiotic relationship,” said Chandrakant D. Patel, the director of H.P.’s sustainable information technology laboratory. How refreshing to see that IT can really be GREEN!

Google’s Woes Continue in the EU About WiFi Data

Things seem to be getting worse in the EU as Spain, France, and the Czech Republic announced plans to investigate collection of WiFi network data which raise the likelihood of EU sanctions. Of course Google takes the position that unsecure WiFi network data is not private and that other companies collect this data in the EU including Skyhook and organizations like the German Fraunhofer Institute. This will be interesting to follow and may have world-wide implications!

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With a barrage of antitrust headlines it hard to know which one has the greatest impact on the Internet and IT community. But clearly New York’s antitrust filing against Intel in Delaware is near the top of the list. Why Delaware? Apparently NY is using the on-going Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) antitrust suit against Intel as a form of piling on, not to mention that AMD is building a new $4.2 billion plant in NY. NY’s antitrust claims are a lot like the EU antitrust findings that Intel’s business practice of paying computer manufacturers rebates and incentives for using Intel chips rather than those of AMD (or anyone else).

Oracle’s Plan to Acquire Sun Hit an EU Roadblock

Apparently the EU is not pleased that Oracle, the database market leader, intends to acquire Sun which owns the open source database product MySQL without selling off MySQL. The EU is concerned about Oracle’s competitors Microsoft and IBM even though Oracle is the dominant database company. But some think that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun and My SQL will be transformational to the IT industry by providing a different market against Microsoft.

Challenge to EU Browser Settlement

Google, Mozilla, and Opera are still concerned about the Microsoft settlement even though the EU approved Microsoft’s plan to allow customers a choice of browsers, not automatically only provide Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Net Applications recent market share reports indicates that “Internet Explorer has a 67 percent share of the global browser market,... Firefox has 24 percent, Apple’s Safari, 4.4 percent, Google’s Chrome, 3.5 percent, and Opera, 2 percent.” On the surface it seems that Microsoft’s competitors should be able to increase their EU market share based on the settlement, but stay tuned to see how the EU reacts to these new complaints.

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Watching the world economy meltdown in the past year it’s not much of a surprise that Google value increased by about 25% to number 7 in the world with an estimated value to an $32B! Other technology companies did not fare as well as reported by BusinessWeek and Interbrand:IBM increased by about 2%, Microsoft lost about 4%, Intel declined by 2%, and Oracle lost 1%. So Google’s growth during the down economy means that Google must be doing many things right.

Google Could Become The Leader Source of News

With the announcement of Fast Flip Google now has a site where users can get all the news they need without ever leaving Google. Google reports that the “service is being initiated with the cooperation of about three dozen publishers, including major news outlets like BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek; magazines like Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, Esquire and Good Housekeeping; and Web-only publications like TechCrunch, Salon.com and Slate.” In the meantime Microsoft added a service to Bing called Visual Search which adds a new way to view news and expand the uses of Bing search engine. Given the troubles in the newspaper world is any wonder that Google and Microsoft have new plans to take greater roles in news?

Google Finally Using DoubleClick to Boost Display Ads

After making a fortune on small text ads now Google will make redirect its energy to boosting display ads. No one should be surprised by Google use of DoubleClick to migrate to displays ads and be in direct competition with Yahoo! Yahoo! is the current king of display ads and Google’s move will definitely impact Yahoo!’s advertising revenue. We need to stay tuned to see how things play for Google and Yahoo! Stay tuned.
 

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Recent reports from the EU potentially impact a number of Internet and IT industry issues of great import, including plans for new laws to protect consumers from IT security breaches, Microsoft’s strategy to defend antitrust claims regarding the Internet Explorer (IE) browser, and a ruling that Intel violates antitrust laws.

EU Notice for Loss of Data

The EU plans to pursue new laws that would create more stringent reporting of IT security breaches, more like the US and Japan. Of course IT breaches are not a new topic in the IT community nor on this blog. However the new California law in 2003 requiring notice to consumers was a model that many states of have adopted, and citizens are clearly better off that they are notified of possible loss of their personal information.

Microsoft Browser Strategy

Recent blogs that Google, joined Mozilla and Opera complaining about Microsoft’s anticompetitive distribution of the IE browser is taking an interesting turn. Apparently Microsoft plans to argue in defense that restrictions on distribution of its IE will strengthen Google’s search-advertising market in an anticompetitive way. Apparently the EU estimates that 85% of the browsers in the EU are Microsoft’s IE, but if Microsoft has its way IE will continue to be distributed with Windows Operating Systems as it has since 1995.

Intel to Get an Adverse Ruling

The EU is expected to rule this week that Intel’s marketing in the EU violates antitrust laws, and Intel’s 81.9% market share is not because it has superior products. Rather the EU will rule that Intel has illegally handed out rebates and paid computer makers to delay products with rival chips.

EU Impact on IT

It’s probably about time that the EU enacted IT security breach laws to protect consumers like many US states. The EU is taking IT very seriously, and not reacting well to US IT companies’ market strategies that may be acceptable in the US. As more countries provide high speed Internet access to all citizens, countries around world will need to be even more vigilant to protect their citizens, by informing them of IT security breaches to protect personal identity and from anticompetitive behavior.

Since I see the Internet as the greatest social change in the history of humans (since there are no boundaries of time and geography), it seems reasonable that governments will only have a higher responsibility to protect citizens since we are all more and more reliant on the Internet and IT.
 

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