Google clashes with British MPs over takedown policy
Google was dragged over the coals by a British parliamentary committee on Monday afternoon, as the technology company’s approach to removing illegal content from its search results again came under scrutiny.
Kim Dotcom actually owns kim.com
A week on from his spectacular arrest, fascination with Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom shows no sign of abating.
One nugget which hasn’t yet been noted: the German-born hacker does actually own the domain name kim.com.
Spotify hits 3m subscribers to improve conversion rate
No wonder the record labels are sounding much more positive about music subscription services. Spotify is starting to reap the benefits of its oft-doubted “freemium” business model.
After hitting 2.5m subscribers in November, the Anglo-Swedish digital music service has now reached 3m, with more than 20 per cent of its active user base paying every month to banish advertisements or listen on smartphones.
iPhone becomes top US smartphone – and other Apple superlatives
After posting forecast-beating results last night, Apple has hit another high this morning.
According to figures published on Wednesday by Kantar Worldpanel, the WPP-owned market researcher, Apple’s iPhone has just overtaken Google’s Android to become the most popular smartphone platform in the US.
Kim Dotcom, the 37-year-old man behind Megaupload, was already a notorious figure in the online file-sharing world before he was forced out of the “panic room” of his $24m New Zealand mansion and arrested, in one of world’s largest criminal copyright cases.
Despite being convicted for computer hacking and later insider trading in Germany in the late 1990s, the man formerly known as Kim Schmitz has always denied any wrongdoing.
But since moving to Hong Kong and then New Zealand, he has never been shy about flaunting his success either.
Anonymous in revenge attack for MegaUpload shutdown
Anonymous, the amorphous hacktivist collective, has claimed its “largest attack ever” on 10 music industry and government websites in retaliation for Thursday’s shutdown of MegaUpload.
Wikipedia’s anti-SOPA blackout will go ahead on Wednesday
Wikipedia is planning an online “blackout” on Wednesday, in protest against proposed US legislation intended to stem web piracy.
Half price Facebook ads – as long as you link back to Facebook
Facebook is heavily incentivising its advertisers to keep users within the social network, rather than clicking out to their own sites, according to a new report by social marketing agency, TBG Digital.
Google admits bad behaviour in Kenya
Google has admitted that employees in its Kenyan office have pillaged a local rival’s database to try to sell their competing products to its customers.
In an embarrassing lesson for any company that is growing fast internationally, Google – motto: Don’t be evil – was caught out by its victim, Mocality, in a sting operation.
Murdoch on MySpace: “We screwed up in every way possible”
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Rupert Murdoch has been tweeting his ruminations about the “digital tornado” unleashed by the innovations presented.
The News Corp chairman said the technologies unveiled at CES were more innovative than ever, “some great, all disruptive”, and suggested Facebook might join the “big three” of Apple, Google and Amazon, who were “dominant and now growing… Plenty of others good, but not in same league.”
That seemed to prompt more than a few jibes about MySpace, which News Corp bought for $580m only to sell it for $35m six years later, from Mr Murdoch’s many critics on Twitter.
With typical candour, the media mogul admitted that the company “screwed up in every way possible”:
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