Media - Internet

FOUNTAIN CITY, Wisconsin (AP) -- A man from Wisconsin says his attempts to sign up for an e-mail account with Yahoo failed when he used his name, which includes the letters a-l-l-a-h -- as in Allah, the Arabic word for God. Ed Callahan said he started trying to establish the e-mail account after his mother, with the same last name, could not get one. As he tried using various words, he determined...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said it was posting on the Web confidential documents used in its defense as it fought the threat of European Commission antitrust fines reaching up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) a day. The U.S. software giant planned to post the documents at 1800 GMT on Thursday at www.microsoft.com/presspass/legalnews.mspx, including an...

Microsoft is accusing the European Commission (EC) of denying it a fair defense in its long-running anti-trust case, so officials could nip off early for their Christmas holls. That's just one of the claims Microsoft is laying at the door of the EC - a fact learned today after Redmond took the unprecidented step of publishing confidential documents and correspondence used in the case. Microsoft...

The Association of Online Publishers (AOP), UK, has cautiously welcomed the campaign led by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) to encourage publishers to seek compensation from search engines which it argues exploit their editorial content for commercial gain. "There's absolutely no doubt that quality content delivered by established brands is more valuable to consumers than the vast...

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has called for an end to the free Internet which he says is costing coms companies a fortune. According to the Financial Times, Whitacre said that content providers should be paying for the use of the network which is effectively being delivered for free by the coms companies. He said that web providers could pay the comms companies by charging their customers for visiting...

Microsoft unveiled new company guidelines yesterday intended to spell out how it will deal with government censorship demands, in China and anywhere it does business, and limit the impact of its compliance. It was responding to criticism that followed its decision to shut down five weeks ago, at the Chinese government's request, the online journal of a popular blogger in Beijing who used the...

Amid growing concerns that U.S. Internet companies are bowing to foreign censors, Microsoft announced a set of policies Tuesday aimed at better protecting blogs and other online content from government restrictions. It remains to be seen whether the company's new approach will enable more free speech in countries such as China, but one expert in online rights said it appears to be a promising...

A reporter for the weekly Dover Post newspaper was fired Monday for offensive comments made on his personal weblog. Matt Donegan, a copy editor and reporter for the newspaper, was fired by Dover Post Editor Don Flood after a reader reported the blog entries to Sussex County radio talk-show host Dan Gaffney. A producer for Gaffney's show called Flood on Monday to inform him about the blog, and...

When a Brookfield alderman launched a Web site to promote and pummel candidates in local elections, he took a step that perhaps no other blogger in Wisconsin has taken. He registered under state campaign finance rules as an independent person trying to influence voters. Ald. Scott Berg even filled out a form listing every elected official and challenger he would advocate for and against on his...

When the New York Times announced last year it would start charging non-subscribers to the print edition to read its best columnists online most people thought the plan would fall flat on its face. Well, it hasn’t! When the Wall Street Journal a few years back made its web presence via subscription, everyone thought that was a born loser. It wasn’t and last year wsj.com increased its online...