“Although the United States believes the parties have approached this effort in good faith and the amended settlement agreement is more circumscribed in its sweep than the original proposed settlement, the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement,” the DOJ said in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“It is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation,” the report continues. “Under the [revised proposal], Google would remain the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats. Google also would have the exclusive ability to exploit unclaimed works–including so-called ‘orphan works’–without risk of liability.”

And then there was this:

Google’s exclusive access to millions and millions of books may well benefit Google’s existing online search business. Google already holds a relatively dominant market share in that market. That dominance may be further entrenched by its exclusive access to content through the ASA. Content that can be discovered by only one search engine offers that search engine at least some protection from competition. This outcome has not been achieved by a technological advance in search or by operation of normal market forces; rather, it is the direct product of scanning millions of books without the copyright holders’ consent.

In other words, the amended deal continues to give Google (GOOG) significant anticompetitive advantages and rewards the company for scanning books in violation of copyright protections. And while the Justice Department did not go so far as to explicitly urge rejection of the deal, it recommended that parties to the settlement make further changes before the Feb. 18 fairness hearing at which it is to be reviewed.

Another setback for Google, or as Gary Reback–a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer who represents Microsoft (MSFT) and the Open Book Alliance, a coalition opposed to the settlement–said, the filing is a “profound embarrassment–bordering on an outright humiliation” for the search company.

Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.

- Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Feb. 2007

Looks like Apple (AAPL) has run afoul of Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) again. The watchdog agency, which took Apple to task in 2004 for its boast that the Power Mac G5 was “the world’s fastest, most powerful personal computer,” has ruled that one of the iPhone commercials the company has been running in the U.K. is misleading. The ad, which touts the iPhone’s Web browsing abilities, included the following voiceover:

You never know which part of the Internet you’ll need. The ‘do you need sun cream’ part? The ‘what’s the quickest way to the airport’ part? The ‘what about an ocean view room’ part? Or the ‘can you really afford this’ part? Which is why all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.”

ASA took issue with that last line. Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, there are actually quite a few parts of the Internet that aren’t available on the iPhone, which make’s the ad misleading in ASA’s eyes. “Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, you couldn’t really see the Internet in its full glory,” ASA spokesperson Olivia Campbell told the BBC. “They made a very general claim that you can see the Internet in its entirety, and actually that’s not quite true.”

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how you look at it. Because truthfully, the iPhone can access Flash and Java content. It just doesn’t doesn’t render it. In any event, the ASA is an independent organization, not a government one so it can’t exactly enforce its ban on the commercial at issue here, anyway.

Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.

- Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Feb. 2007

Looks like Apple (AAPL) has run afoul of Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) again. The watchdog agency, which took Apple to task in 2004 for its boast that the Power Mac G5 was “the world’s fastest, most powerful personal computer,” has ruled that one of the iPhone commercials the company has been running in the U.K. is misleading. The ad, which touts the iPhone’s Web browsing abilities, included the following voiceover:

You never know which part of the Internet you’ll need. The ‘do you need sun cream’ part? The ‘what’s the quickest way to the airport’ part? The ‘what about an ocean view room’ part? Or the ‘can you really afford this’ part? Which is why all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.”

ASA took issue with that last line. Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, there are actually quite a few parts of the Internet that aren’t available on the iPhone, which make’s the ad misleading in ASA’s eyes. “Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, you couldn’t really see the Internet in its full glory,” ASA spokesperson Olivia Campbell told the BBC. “They made a very general claim that you can see the Internet in its entirety, and actually that’s not quite true.”

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how you look at it. Because truthfully, the iPhone can access Flash and Java content. It just doesn’t doesn’t render it. In any event, the ASA is an independent organization, not a government one so it can’t exactly enforce its ban on the commercial at issue here, anyway.