In a Thursday legal filing, Apple argued that the hearing schedule as it stands now is “asymmetrical” and creates a “severe imbalance” by addressing Samsung’s request to toss the Galaxy 10.1 Tab ban before Apple’s request for a new injunction is heard.

“If Apple’s request for injunctive relief is not heard until December 6 … Samsung’s request to dissolve the injunction should also be heard on December 6 in view of the overlap with the same motions,” Apple argued in its filing. “Apple’s request for injunctive relief is, if anything, more urgent than Samsung’s attempt to dissolve the injunction, and should not be resolved on a slower schedule than Samsung’s motion.”

Samsung, in a dueling filing of its own, disputed Apple’s claim, arguing Apple has no legitimate grounds to push for a new schedule.

“Apple seeks to disrupt the court’s carefully crafted orders for post-trial motions by delaying consideration of Samsung’s motion to dissolve the Galaxy Tab 10.1 preliminary injunction and placing it on the same schedule as Apple’s motion for a permanent injunction,” Samsung said in the filing. “Apple offers no legitimate grounds to delay consideration and resolution of Samsung’s dissolution motion. There is no ‘asymmetry’ that the Court needs to correct.”

And on it goes. At this point, I think we could all use some injunctive relief.

Yahoo said in a court filing that it is in settlement talks with Facebook over its patent infringement litigation.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant asked for a two-week delay for a hearing on the legal battle, noting, without a great deal of detail, that “the parties are currently engaged in settlement negotiations to resolve this dispute.”

AllThingsD.com had already reported two weeks ago that the pair were engaged in serious talks to end the litigation. The settlement is in advanced stages and hinges on a variety of terms around cross-licensing patents and an enhanced partnership between Yahoo and the social networking giant. It is unlikely any substantive cash payment will trade hands.

In a statement Friday, AT&T said commissioners won’t be able to vote a proposal announced Tuesday from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that the $39 billion merger be sent before an administrative law judge. The carrier announced it had withdrawn its FCC application in the early hours of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The move by Julius Genachowski, the FCC’s chairman, would be a setback for the two companies that are already facing opposition from the Justice Department, which filed a lawsuit to stop the deal. The FCC’s move would be another obstacle for the two companies to overcome. The agency’s hearing would happen the conclusion of the antitrust trial, according to this person.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

At a hearing, the committee debated the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would give the U.S. attorney general new authority to shut down U.S. financial support to “rogue” foreign websites that sell pirated movies, music or other counterfeit goods. The Justice Department could ask for a court order to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Think about the federal government’s blocking of the $39 billion AT&T and T-Mobile merger and you might want to reread Google’s blog today, penned in reaction to the news that the Justice Department is making a second request for information about its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

“This is pretty routine,” wrote Google’s Motorola integration exec Dennis Woodside. “We’ve gotten these kind of requests before.”

Maybe Google has (and it has with other purchases) — but in actuality, only four percent of transactions got such a follow-up request from regulators.

To be fair, it is much more common in high-profile, big-money deals like this one, but it means a longer closing period and more uncertainty around the Android mobile ecosystem until it’s done.

Still, Google has good reason to be patient. Despite tough criticism and brutal lobbying, it won approval from Justice for its $700 million deal to buy flight data service ITA Software in April, after nine months of scrutiny and a number of conditions imposed.

And the search giant waited out an intense six-month Federal Trade Commission approval process last year for its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising start-up AdMob. It had an even harder time with the FTC’s nod of its 2007 DoubleClick purchase for $3.1 billion.

One that it lost — an obvious bridge too far that I dubbed Yahoogle — was Google’s 2008 effort to meld a troubling partnership with Yahoo in search advertising.

So, we’ll see soon enough which way D.C. — which just had Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt up to the Senate for an antitrust hearing chit-chat — will go.

Until then, here’s Woodside’s whole blog:

An update on our Motorola acquisition

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM ET

Posted by Dennis Woodside, SVP Google

Since we announced our plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, we’ve been excited about the positive reaction to the proposed deal — particularly from our partners who have told us that they’re enthusiastic about our defense of the Android ecosystem.

And as David Drummond said when we announced our plans in August, we’re confident that this deal will be approved. We believe very strongly this is a pro-competitive transaction that is good for Motorola Mobility, good for consumers, and good for our partners.

That said, we know that close scrutiny is part of the process and we’ve been talking to the U.S. Department of Justice over the past few weeks. Today we received what is called a “second request,” which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. (This is pretty routine; we’ve gotten these kind of requests before.)

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. We’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.

This is a photo that’s clearly begging for a caption, so sound off in the comments.

Remarkably, that was the gist of Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s testimony before a Senate antitrust subcommittee today.

“Consumers have a truly vast array of options -– some search and some not -– from which to access information,” Schmidt told regulators, citing Amazon, Facebook and Bing — “which some commentators have speculated … could overtake Google as early as 2012” — among other examples. “And most importantly, all of these options for obtaining information can be accessed without ever using Google. … Google’s success despite strong competition is based on its persistent focus on satisfying consumers –- getting them to the answers they want quickly and accurately. Keeping up requires constant investment and innovation, and if Google fails in this effort users can and will switch. The cost of going elsewhere is zero, and users can and do use other sources to find the information they want.”

In other words, Google’s business is perpetually at risk and its dominance potentially fleeting. An interesting slice of humble pie for a company with a full two-thirds of the U.S. search market to be serving up to the committee. Does Google really expect it to buy the pitch that it’s not all that important or powerful in the industry?

Ready, aim, fire — at Google at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee hearing happening right now in Washington, D.C.

It is titled: “The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?”

Here we go:

11:04 am: As usual in D.C., the Senators on the committee get to pontificate first.

Oh, joy! (I used to live there and cover Congress stuff for the Washington Post from time to time and I am having bad déjà vu right now.)

A quick cut to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who is appearing alone. He looks a little peaked, especially as the pols begin to describe the scary behemoth the search giant is.

And also that it is trying to force users to its other products.

Rut-roh.

11:07 am: Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican from Utah, who is a Google critic, is talking on about the search giant’s power, reading from his testimony in a dullish style.

I thought this dude was a Tea Party firebrand!

“The primary focus should be consumer welfare,” he says, blah, blah, blaaaaaaah.

11:09 am: Now, the subcommittee’s dour chairman, Sen. Herb Kohl from Wisconsin, is introing Schmidt, who is actually being introed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

She is an Eric fan, obvi, praising his accomplishments at Google. But she also gives props to Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Nextag, who is testifying against Google later. Also, let her add, is the fabulous CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman, another anti-Google speaker to come.

“I hope they tango rather than tangle,” says Feinstein inexplicably about those called to testify. Hey, white geeks can’t dance, although wrestling would also be hard for them too.

In any case, gotta love these everybody-loving pols!

11:14 am: Finally, Schmidt, who — of course — starts off invoking the last big tech giant who was here getting spanked by Congress.

Schmidt does not name Microsoft — classy, by which I mean not at all — but is referring to the software giant.

“We get it,” he says about the lessons Google has learned from Microsoft’s own antitrust troubles back in the day.

11:18 am: Schmidt is talking about Google and saying he welcomes the competition.

“Today it’s Google turn in the spotlight,” he says, still not uttering the word “Microsoft,” much as Microsoft execs have often not been able to say Google. “One company’s past [should] not be another company’s future.”

Now, the senators can have at him. Kohl is up first.

11:20 am: The first question is if Google is favoring its own products, via search.

Schmidt harkens back to what he calls early Google lore that it is just trying hard to get consumers stuff quicker.

The need for speed!

“Is really trusting Google to do the right thing sufficient?,” asks Kohl, who quotes former President Ronald Reagan’s famous line: “Trust but verify.”

That gives Schmidt the chance to talk about how quickly Google could lose out to competitors and then is onto how hard it is to do what Google does.

It takes extra-smart smartypants. Trust us, he says, as we are smartier!

11:24 am: Kohl comes back with a damning quote from Google’s famous Marissa Mayer, who apparently has said that the company favors its own products and why not?

Schmidt says he was not there when she allegedly said this, but that its own testing and intuition tells Google if consumers want a Google map or whatever tout de suite!

Kohl repeats the Mayer quote again: “We do all the work for the search page, so we put [a Google Maps link] in first.”

“I will let Marissa speak for herself,” says Schmidt, now too deep in the weeds of her verbal faux pas. Get out, Eric!

11:28 am: Sen. Lee is up, not taking any of this speedy, we-know-best business.

And he has a chart! I love a good chart. It shows Google info always ranks first in listings versus other sites it competes with.

Schmidt has not seen this poll, but thinks it is not accurate.

11:31 am: Let me note that Schmidt’s grey suit is fantastic looking. And right behind him, you can see Google’s top lawyer, the always nattily dressed David Drummond.

Back to the chart!

Lee wants to know why, according to his chart, that Google seems to come up first.

“Either way, you’ve cooked it,” claims Lee.

“Senator, I can assure you we have not cooked anything,” counters Schmidt.

(Note: Google does have an excellent cafeteria in Silicon Valley, complete with organic arugula and Kombucha for all.)

11:33 am: Hoo boy! But Lee’s time has expired, so Schmidt gets a break in the form of New York’s Sen. Charles Schumer.

I like the way he says “ee-no-vation” for innovation.

He does an expected plug for New York, of course. Somehow it is No. 1 in tech. Not so much, but brag on, Chuck!

11:38 am: Schumer is still talking about New York and its fab entrepreneurs.

Apparently, he has done a lot of jawboning with start-up dudes (likely over Kombucha) and they think Google is a positive force.

“Google is actually pretty good, we don’t see them as rapacious,” Schumer says the New York nerds tell him.

Is “rapacious” the criteria here?

Schumer is running out of time and has yet to ask a question and now is trying to get Schmidt to test Google’s broadband project in the Hudson Valley.

Now that’s rapacious!

Is there going to be an actual question here?

Yes: Oh please tell us, genius boy, what could Google do better?

Really.

11:42 am: Now, Sen. John Cornyn from Texas is on and asking about the prescription controversy Google was embroiled in recently.

Oops, I missed a bit when someone called me about the CEO mess at Hewlett-Packard I reported on earlier.

Onto Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. She is cleverly using an article about the Vikings football team to ask about how Google’s super-secret-sauce algorithm works and how it ranks results.

“Do you think companies should have a lot more certainty in how they are ranked?,” she asks.

11:51 am: Schmidt is not really answering, except to say Google is not perfect.

“We don’t know how to do it with more certainty,” he says, which is odd for a company that is perhaps the most irksomely certain group of geeks ever assembled on the planet.

Klobuchar moves to copyright issues. “There’s a real problem here,” agrees Schmidt.

Yes, and some media companies think Google is the problem and has not done enough to fix the problem.

“It’s difficult,” says Schmidt. Well, isn’t Google smartier?

“We’re under great pressure to resolve this,” he says.

11:55 am: Klobuchar is still worried about the small businesses, but she wants Google to come to Duluth.

Good lord, it’s a shakedown in plain sight. Maybe Google isn’t the scary one here! These pols seem pretty frightening.

Now Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley is saying he will attend some Google event in his state.

Of course!

Grassley makes a wishy-wishy statement, and we get to hear from Iowans on both sides.

Some are apparently concerned that Google is a troublemaker and some aren’t.

Iowans, like a lot of folks, are torn.

“We are happy to be judged,” says Schmidt.

12:00 pm: Now it is time for Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota.

“First let me say, I love Google,” he says.

Otay. I wonder if Franken knows that Google is a giant scary computer.

But, as a citizen of San Francisco, I say he should love whoever he wants!

Franken is also concerned about his love’s behavior and is taken aback by one of Schmidt’s previous answers.

It’s that irksome Marissa Mayer quote again.

When asked if the algo was unbiased, Schmidt apparently was not as sure as shootin’!

Now, it is onto Yelp and the fiery quotes from Stoppelman about how Google nefariously blocks the review site’s content.

Eric “generally” disagrees with Jeremy.

At one point Google tried to buy Yelp, so this is a fraught situation.

Does Franken know about the previous Google-Yelp hookup?

Drama!

Schmidt says it is Yelp’s fault for asking to be removed from the algo. Actually, Yelp only asked Google to stop jacking its fare.

12:11 pm: Oh noz, another pol? This time Sen. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut.

He is super-smiley, while calling Google a “behemoth.” I like that word a lot and use it for the company often, although I always like to use a qualifier like “thuggish” or “freaky.”

Back to the blabby Blumenthal, who cannot seem to get out a question.

Wait! He asks if Google can suggest some fixes to “avoid government regulation.”

I. Kid. You. Not.

12:21 pm: Kohl is back and giving Google a little more slap-a-doo.

I like the whole Kohl thang of looking over his glasses down at Schmidt.

He asks: Should we trust Google? Should we?

In my opinion: If your mother says she loves you, you should check it.

So, no!

Schmidt assures him: “We make mistakes.”

Lee is then back, asking if Google gives preference to its own products in search?

Exactly the point and a question that is still not answered properly.

12:24 pm: Lee remains troubled by Schmidt’s testimony.

He uses terms like “leverage its natural dominance” and “significant market share to disadvantage” competitors.

Sounds like, um, Microsoft. And then it is back to that niggling Marissa Mayer quote. (Memo to the voluble exec, who apparently never met a microphone she didn’t want to talk into: You might want to take a day off today at the Googleplex.)

Google-luvin’ Franken is back and he is asking about mobile search.

Where Google is dominant again! (Jellllllo, Al, we in Silicon Valley know that one already!)

He asks if all Android devices come pre-loaded with Google products. Schmidt thinks two-thirds come with it, but handset makers can choose.

12:31 pm: Back to all-smiles Blumenthal, who says he has come to no conclusion.

But lo! He is not as silly as he seems and goes into an interesting racetrack analogy about how Google owns the track and now has horses and now those horses are winning.

Hmmmm…

Schmidt disagrees, natch!

He thinks the Internet is the platform and Google is the GPS.

Metaphor contest!

I think Google is a big tasty banana cream pie we can’t stop eating, although we know it’s bad for us.

That or an alien wearing an expensive suit who will soon eat us all.

Franken comes in with a doping horses joke. Remember when he was funny on “Saturday Night Live”?

Me neither.

It goes on without a lot of really good discussion. Klobuchar asks something, but I forget it immediately. My bad!

She has a last question about advertisers and privacy. Softball!

Let me write this for Schmidt before he inevitably spits it out: Of course, Google wants to protect privacy.

12:37 pm: Finally, the second panel of critics. Sadly, I must go to an appointment in Silicon Valley to visit one of its rapacious companies.

Oops, I meant ee-no-vative.

But, no worries, John Paczkowski will take over from here once it gets going again after the break.

12:47 pm: The panel’s back in session. The first critic to take a shot at Google, Thomas Barnett, a lawyer for Expedia.

12:51 pm: Riffing on Schmidt’s earlier “We know, we get it” comment, Barnett argues the opposite.

“Google doesn’t get it,” he says, adding that the company’s ever-expanding market power is troubling.

12:54 pm: Google is a monopoly, Barnett continues, and it has a duty not to abuse that position. He concludes by saying antitrust enforcement can and should play a role in maintaining competition in the markets in which it does business.

12:57 pm: Moving on now to Nextag CEO Katz, who has some tough words for the search giant. “Today Google doesn’t play fair,” he says.

He argues that Google rigs its results to drive consumers to Google Product Search when they search for information to inform their purchases.

1:00 pm: Next: Stoppelman of Yelp, who wonders if it’s even possible to create a company like Yelp today because of Google’s massive market power.

1:04 pm: Google’s outside lawyer, Susan Creighton, takes the mic next. Having trouble with the video stream from the Senate, but as best I can tell she talked broadly about the competitive landscape and reiterated Schmidt’s “competition is just a click away” narrative.

1:08 pm: She concludes by saying government oversight of Google’s search results rankings would put the company at a disadvantage and turn its search service into something akin to a “regulated utility.”

1:09 pm: Interesting. Creighton says she doesn’t believe Google has monopoly power.

1:10 pm: “Each of you right now can test whether or not you like Google’s search results and if you don’t like them it’s free and instantaneous to try someone else.”

1:22 pm: Apologies, the Senate video feed has gone from bad to worse.

1:23 pm: Franken asks Yelp’s Stoppelman and Nextag’s Katz if they could start their companies today given Google’s market power.

Both say that’s unlikely.

1:26 pm: Terse exchange between Franken and Creighton about whether Google paid Apple to be the default search engine on its iOS devices. Lots of back and forth, but Creighton finally concedes that there’s some sort of financial deal between the two companies.

1:39 pm: Sen. Lee asks what Google might do to “level the playing field.” Stoppelman suggests separating search from its other properties. Pipe dream.

1:40 pm: Well, it looks like it may be getting near the end of the session, which is a good thing because we get it to by now.

And that is: Nothing significant is going to get said here.

Later today, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will appear at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee for hearings on whether Google is a search bully or not.

Schmidt, according to written testimony obtained by the Politico blog, will be trotting out the company’s longtime argument that its competitors are “only one click away” from taking Google down.

And, in what can only be described as a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding furthering of that meme, Schmidt will apparently claim that Microsoft’s much tinier Bing search service could catch and pass Google by next year.

Reads the testimony, according to Politico: “Microsoft’s Bing launched in June 2009 and has grown so rapidly that some commentators have speculated that it could overtake Google as early as 2012.”

Say what? Say ridonkulous! The Facebook worry, I get, but costing-Microsoft-a-billion-a-quarter Bing?

That’s because in the most recent market-share report from comScore, Google had 64.8 percent of the total, with Yahoo at 16.3 percent and Bing at 14.7 percent. Even combining the pair — who are currently in a search partnership — they still have less than half the share that Google has.

In any case, although the Google-as-imminently-threatened concept displays a lot of gumption, it’ll be interesting watching Schmidt try to sell it.

And also to see Google’s critics call foul.

After Schmidt appears, there will be a second panel, featuring Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman; Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Nextag; and Tom Barnett, spokesman for FairSearch.org and counsel to Expedia.

Stoppelman, who almost sold his online reviews company to Google in late 2009, has since become a vocal detractor of the search giant’s methods.

In his testimony as well as exhibits, all posted below, Stoppelman paints a more dire picture of Google:

“When one company controls the market, it ultimately controls consumer choice. If competition really were just ‘one click away’ as Google suggests, why have they invested so heavily to be the default choice on web browsers and mobile phones? Clearly they are not taking any chances.”

Stay tuned for my liveblog at 11 am PT, as well as other AllThingsD coverage of the hearings.

9.21.11 Verbal Testimony _10am final_

9.21.11 Written Testimony _clean_

9.21.11 Exhibits

In appearance after appearance, the gaffe-prone Schmidt has made one tactless remark after another — often on sensitive or controversial topics. So when he appears before a Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing this Wednesday to testify about the company’s dominance of Internet search, he had best choose his words carefully.

Because there’s a lot more at stake here than Google’s public image, which Schmidt has done as much as anyone to tarnish. And Senate subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and his colleagues likely have an even lower tolerance for Schmidt’s freaky, power-tripping pronouncements than most.

But can Schmidt restrain himself from making them? Given his record to date, that seems unlikely. In the past year alone he’s made a string of verbal gaffes for which he and Google have taken quite a beating in the media.

Speaking about Google’s social media efforts and its growing rivalry with Facebook at the company’s Zeitgeist conference last September, Schmidt ominously said, “The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data. Failing that, there are other ways to get that information.”

That same month, he told the Atlantic, “We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”

Defending Google’s Street View service on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” program in October, Schmidt said that people who don’t like Street View cars taking pictures of their homes and businesses “can just move” afterward to protect their privacy. Ironically, Schmidt said this on the very day that Google conceded that those cars did collect more than just fragments of personal payload data.

And then there was the now-infamous “creepy line” comment: “There is what I call the creepy line. The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.”

Schmidt’s personal policy, evidently, is the exact opposite.

These are just a few examples; there are plenty of others here, and they’re worth reading because Schmidt really does have a penchant for controversial statements. His testimony Wednesday will likely be as pivotal a moment for Google as then Microsoft CEO Bill Gates’s was in the company’s 1998 antitrust trial. Will it be equally embarrassing?

PREVIOUSLY:

• Talking Schmidt: Google’s CEO in His Own Words
  
• Ball Gag Starting to Look Like a Good Idea for Google CEO

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110919/will-schmidt-show-restraint-at-senate-hearing-or-will-he-need-one/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110728/mr-schmidt-goes-to-washington-sept-21/ http://allthingsd.com/20110728/mr-schmidt-goes-to-washington-sept-21/#comments Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:50:54 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=104021 “The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?” That’s the title of the Senate subcommittee hearing on Google’s growing dominance of the Internet, which now has an official date: September 21. The event’s star witness: Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, who overcame his reluctance to put in an appearance after the subcommittee threatened to use its subpoena power to compel him to appear.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110728/mr-schmidt-goes-to-washington-sept-21/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110719/rupert-murdoch-wendi-deng-and-the-phonegate-pie-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20110719/rupert-murdoch-wendi-deng-and-the-phonegate-pie-video/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:23:06 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=99840 You can read detailed coverage of Rupert and James Murdoch’s testimony in the PhoneGate hearings from Kara Swisher. But here’s the 30 seconds of footage you’ll see over and over today: News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch attacked by a foam-pie-throwing protestor, who is then subdued by a crowd that includes Murdoch’s wife Wendi.

Worth noting that NWSA shares appeared to tick up a bit after the pie attack, and that the hearings restarted a few minutes later. And of course, we need to point out that this site is owned by News Corp.

Here’s a couple versions of the clip, in case one goes down:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110719/rupert-murdoch-wendi-deng-and-the-phonegate-pie-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110719/liveblogging-murdoch-son-at-phonegate-hearing-a-lion-in-winter/ http://allthingsd.com/20110719/liveblogging-murdoch-son-at-phonegate-hearing-a-lion-in-winter/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:36:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=99560

This morning, News Corp. CEO and majordomo Rupert Murdoch, his son James (who is also a top company exec) — as well as former employee and full-time lightning rod Rebekah Brooks — march on down to the British Parliament to answer questions from a committee there about the ever-growing PhoneGate scandal.

For those living under a rock, News Corp. is embroiled in ever more serious controversy about who knew what and when (also where, why and how much) in the hacking of phones of a myriad of well-known people in the U.K. by its News of the World tabloid newspaper.

Besides celebrities and politicians, that has included the voicemails of a murdered girl, an appalling act that has galvanized public opinion and the weak spines of legislators into action in this inquiry.

It’s sordid, it’s ugly and it makes for what could be an explosive event, starring the man who brought you “Titanic,” Glenn Beck, “Glee” and, most recently, the sale of Myspace.

There’s no question, getting the 80-year-old Murdoch on the ropes will be the aim of the committee members holding the hearing, and how one of the world’s most famous and legendary media moguls performs — or does not — will be a big deal to both interested observers and News Corp. shareholders.

By way of full disclosure, that’s not me, but this site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. In other words, somewhere up the corporate food chain, Murdoch is my boss.

In any case, that has never stopped me or AllThingsD.com from telling it like it is, so here is the liveblog of what is sure to be a doozy of a media event:

6:36 am PT:: It all starts for the Murdochs, as soon as the former Scotland Yard head John Yates has completed questioning about the police’s obvious bungling of the various investigations over the years.

Rupert Murdoch and his son, James Murdoch, are on, looking grave and dressed in grey.

Sitting behind them are Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, and his top adviser at News Corp., Joel Klein, who is heading up the phone hacking scandal internally at the company.

The hearing — in a room that looks like a high school debate could take place there — starts off politely enough.

But the first question is directed toward James Murdoch about his clearly incomplete investigation when phone hacking allegations were first made many years ago. He begins with an apology.

“These actions do not live up to the standards of News Corp.,” says the younger Murdoch.

He is interrupted by his father, Rupert Murdoch, who notes rather dramatically: “This is the most humble day of my life.”

The questioner quickly asks the obvious query, after James Murdoch claims News Corp. was not in full possession of the facts when execs had told a previous committee there was no reason to believe there was more widespread hacking.

Were News Corp. execs lying?

James Murdoch continues to insist that the bulk of evidence came out — “real evidence” — in later civil trials. And also, that News Corp. is now investigating the situation fully.

He throws around words like “proactive action” and “transparency,” which is probably cold comfort now to those hacked when things were less clear to News Corp.’s senior management.

Now up, Rupert Murdoch, who is asked quickly about statements he made about not tolerating wrongdoing and who had lied to him at News Corp. about the phone hacking.

Apparently, he “didn’t know” a lot about the hacking that took place, while also defending the non-hacking employees of his company.

But the questioner is still on him about exactly what he did know about the situation, which seems to be — at least according to his testimony — a lot of I-don’t-knows.

6:53 am: It continues about what Rupert Murdoch knew and when he knew it and what he did. Or not.

As Rupert Murdoch keeps up with this tone of not being clued in to what have turned out to be critical events, James Murdoch wants to keep jumping in with the details, which he is eager to impart.

“At what point did you find out criminality was endemic at News of the World?” asks the questioner.

Rupert Murdoch does not like the word endemic, but stresses that he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” by the case of the murdered girl, Milly Dowler.

The questioner seems frustrated by Rupert Murdoch’s answers, which are, for the typically razor-sharp media mogul, unusually slow.

Like a persistent terrier who wants to perform, James Murdoch is back again offering to serve up the deets.

7:04 am: Now, it is onto the closing down of News of the World: Was the tabloid shut down because of the criminality?

“We had broken our trust with our readers,” says Rupert Murdoch. “We felt ashamed for what had happened.”

A new questioner is on, with a bizarre query about why Rupert Murdoch came in the back door of the Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street on a recent visit there.

It’s a cloddish effort to show him as a powerful puppetmaster to pols, but only serves as a punch line.

Back on track, with questions about whether there was hacking in the U.S., which Rupert Murdoch said he could not believe had happened.

More questions about how badly the company acted, which came down to the questions about whether he was “ultimately” responsible for the hacking.

“Nope,” says Rupert Murdoch, who keeps insisting he relied on others, some of whom apparently “misled” him.

It’s an astonishing admission and, really, excuse, given he has been chairman, CEO and a very strong leader of News Corp. for more than a half-century.

7:16 am: A new questioner, who asks who decided to close down News of the World. It was Murdoch himself, his son and other execs.

Next up, why did News Corp. pay off a victim of hacking, which James Murdoch did without informing his father or the News Corp. board.

James Murdoch essentially points out that it is typical to do this in companies of the global scale of News Corp.

These are apparently very busy, busy, busy people, who do not seem to have time to notice how such juicy and best-selling scoops might have been magically produced by News of the World.

Onto ethical conduct guidelines, which News Corp. has in a pamphlet form, says James Murdoch, but pages which some at the company have obviously never cracked.

Rupert Murdoch is asked again about his culpability in the case, which he continues to maintain he does not shoulder the blame.

James Murdoch does note that the company “will think more forcefully … about our journalism and ethics.”

Given the situation, in which every day brings a new revelation of bad acts by News Corp. employees, this promise of better behavior seems to be a case of much too little and very, very late.

Rupert Murdoch still uses the opportunity to stress the need for a free press, despite its excesses.

7:31 am: More about the payments to settle with phone hacking victims and how soon the company realized the problems were more widespread.

James Murdoch talks about how he might have acted differently had he known more then as he does now.

“If we knew now what we knew then,” says James Murdoch, “we would have taken more action and moved more aggressively.”

But what else is he going to say? It’s a could-have, would-have, should-have line of questioning that is eliciting very little in the way of true information.

Finally, a good point about “willful blindness,” which is a term from the Enron scandal about avoiding knowing about problems you really should have known about.

“Is that a question?,” asks James Murdoch. It is a statement, actually, and a decent enough one.

“We didn’t do that,” says Rupert Murdoch firmly this time.

Still, soon enough, Rupert Murdoch is insisting he was not as involved as people have imagined him to be with the management of his newspapers.

A new questioner is pressing this important point, but Rupert Murdoch is not biting on a query about his legendarily hands-on managing style.

“I’d say, ‘What’s doing?’” he explains about his conversations with editors, but adding he might not have been told about payoffs to phone hacking victims.

The questions are in the deep weeds here, but it’s still interesting that Rupert Murdoch continues to maintain that his life was too busy to wallow in the details, however controversial and important those details might be.

7:55 am: More and more don’t-knows pile up and up in a giant mountain of acts perpetrated by someone somewhere, but not the Murdochs.

“I can tell you I was surprised as you were,” says James Murdoch about certain payments to various hackers and those who were hacked.

Was it Les Hinton, who then ran News International and later Dow Jones, from which he recently resigned?

Could be! Maybe! Mistake were made! Who knows!

Well, someone does!

It moves onto Brooks, the tarnished News International exec and editor whom Rupert Murdoch does note he still trusts. Finally, some certainty!

Brooks is definitely one of the more compelling characters in this drama, although the media focus on her striking red hair color seems odd and vaguely sexist, as if she is some flame-haired she-devil from media hell. She might certainly be guilty in this mess, but her fabulous hair has nothing to do with it.

(Rupert’s mane is grey, by the way, and James’ is brown, if you really need to know.)

Fascinatingly, Murdoch’s backing of Brooks has been strong and consistent, despite intense criticism of her by many in this scandal.

The payment of legal fees of perpetrators and payments to the victims in the hacking seems to obsess one questioner, who wants News Corp. to stop doing it.

Murdoch says he’d like to if contracts did not preclude that, which essentially means News Corp. will keep up forking over the legal fees and payments.

8:12 am: The attention turns to how James Murdoch found out about the various emails that showed there was more evidence of hacking than was first thought about and what he felt about it.

He says very little, noting that the matter is under police investigation. It’s not don’t-know now, but can’t-say.

The hearing is beginning to feel a little rope-a-dope, with the Murdochs apologizing and taking blows, saying very little — either claiming lack of knowledge or lack of ability to comment about the ongoing police inquiry — and tiring out the questioners.

It is a classic tactic of the boxing champion Muhammad Ali and it works in the ring.

Whether that will be the case with PhoneGate remains to be seen, but it certainly has made what could have been a more explosive hearing much less so.

Instead, it seems to have turned into a what didn’t the Murdochs know and when didn’t they know it hearing.

On questioner gets this irony. “That’s frankly unsatisfactory,” he says about the Murdochs continuing shock and surprise at the thorny situation they find themselves in.

Maybe it seems a little hard to believe, but the persistent story from James Murdoch is that they were told by their lawyers, the police and others that nothing was awry once the initial phone hacking investigation was complete and only found out about the larger problem in later civil lawsuits.

But, asks the questioner to Rupert Murdoch, should his editors and managers at News of the World have known about it?

Of course, they should have.

But, once again, the legendary media baron, who made his fortune and fame in disseminating news and information across the world in newspapers, on television, on satellite and on the Web — at least for now — can’t say.

So, was he “kept in the dark” about the situation? Rupert Murdoch acknowledges he might have asked more questions, although he noted his British newspapers were only a small part of his massive empire.

But, he adds, “Anything that is seen as a crisis comes to me.”

Well, not the phone hacking crisis, it seems.

But, they’re sorry. So sorry. And, of course, humbled.

8:54 am: Suddenly, there is a disturbance, in which someone seems to have possibly attempted to accost the Murdochs.

But it is not clear what has happened, as the hearings are suspended for 10 minutes.

James Murdoch leaps up quickly to protect his father, which he has been doing in this hearing verbally already, where the strategy seems to be to let him largely do all the talking.

Even faster on her feet and with arms raised toward a man in a plaid shirt and carrying a pie plate with shaving cream is Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi.

The man seems to have managed to get some of the foam on Rupert Murdoch, but Wendi Deng appears to have partially thwarted her husband from receiving a full pie in the face.

It’s the first striking visual of this hearing, protecting the patriarch and the king of the empire from harm, no matter what.

Here is a video of the incident:

According to Britain’s Channel 4: “As the man was being led away in handcuffs escorted by a single police officer, he refused to give his name, saying: ‘As Mr Murdoch himself said, I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation.’”

9:09 am: The room is cleared, so it is only the Murdoch crew behind James and Rupert Murdoch, and now the committee is even more solicitous.

Rupert Murdoch is without his jacket and his wife is being commended for her most excellent left hook.

Still, it’s back to business and the questioner does zero in on a major disconnect over how two media execs as famously aggressive and involved as the Murdochs were so passive in this hacking situation.

It “was a terrible shock,” says James Murdoch.

The same is said about what would be even more disturbing and recent allegations of the hacking of the victims of the 9/11 bombings.

Both father and son say there is no evidence of this so far, but they were surely looking into it.

While it certainly did not come through in what have largely been feckless questions from the committee, the final questioner does correctly ask the pair if they might want to pay more attention.

The last question is for Rupert Murdoch and finally gets to the real query everyone wants to ask.

Noting Murdoch is “captain of the ship,” she asks if he has considered resigning.

“No,” answers Murdoch firmly.

“Why not?” she presses.

“People let me down and it’s for them to pay,” says Rupert Murdoch. “But I think, frankly, I am the best person do clean this up.”

He finishes up with a statement about being sorry, how he was also betrayed and how phone hacking and bribery is wrong.

“Saying sorry is not enough, things must be put right,” he says.

Finally, something we do know.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110719/liveblogging-murdoch-son-at-phonegate-hearing-a-lion-in-winter/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110519/tech-giants-defend-privacy-practices/ http://allthingsd.com/20110519/tech-giants-defend-privacy-practices/#comments Thu, 19 May 2011 21:18:56 +0000 Amy Schatz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=41300 Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. defended their privacy practices Thursday to lawmakers considering how to update privacy laws to include more protections for Internet users.

At a Senate hearing on mobile privacy issues, lawmakers grilled technology executives on their policies and how they share consumer information with other companies. The hearing comes amid recent revelations that Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones routinely collect information about the location of consumer cellphones. Apple has since limited the data it collects.

“I know you can shut off your location services but that doesn’t do the trick because we want to use them,” said Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), who recently introduced a privacy bill along with Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), which would establish consumer online privacy rights. “We still need a privacy standard. We still need basic rules of the road.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110519/tech-giants-defend-privacy-practices/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100113/does-it-matter-why-google-did-it-the-real-point-is-chinas-appalling-internet-behavior/ http://allthingsd.com/20100113/does-it-matter-why-google-did-it-the-real-point-is-chinas-appalling-internet-behavior/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:11:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22931 Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Maybe Google finally went on the offensive against China to take focus away from a significant security breach.

Maybe the search giant did it because its business prospects in the hopelessly gamed and deeply corrupt Chinese market were negligible and dwindling fast.

Maybe Google got sick and tired of harassment from authorities and having to censor its results in order to operate.

And maybe, just maybe, Google’s top leadership finally decided to do the right thing after the ethically challenged compromises made in the past–in order to to do business in one of the world’s biggest economies–became too much to bear any longer.

I would guess that a little bit of all these things led to the announcement by Google yesterday that it had been under attack from–if you read between the very bright lines–Chinese government-sponsored hackers, that the company would no longer censor its search results and that it might pull its business out of China all together.

While a lot of the speculation so far has been about Google’s motives, real or imagined, it seems to me that the focus should sit squarely on how appalling the Chinese government behaves regarding the Web.

And more to the point, how it tries to pass off egregious censorship, vicious retribution of its critics using digital skullduggery and persistent violations of basic freedoms as justified by government policy and laws.

That canard is accepted by no one with any kind of conscience and falls flat in today’s increasingly transparent digital-centric world.

Still, few in Silicon Valley, which is knee-deep in lucrative Chinese Web investments, have ever done much in the way of protesting about the situation, even though the writing has been on the wall since China strong-armed Yahoo into releasing information about dissidents and then threw those courageous citizens in jail and threw away the key.

(Thus, one blog post noting that Yahoo’s withdrawal from the country and subsequent investment in Chinese Web company Alibaba meant that the Internet giant “played China far better than Google,” was utterly perplexing, given that it glossed over the key part regarding tragic victims of Yahoo’s cloddish missteps there. Let’s be clear: No matter how much money it makes, for that alone, Yahoo can never ever be called smart when it comes to China.)

Perhaps it is time to remember the late House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (pictured above), who lambasted Yahoo management then, calling its execs moral “pygmies.”

In another memorable hearing, the California Democratic congressman took a well-deserved whack at other tech companies for their lack of “social responsibility” and for caving to “Beijing’s outrageous but predictable demands” simply to garner more profits.

Here’s a video of the eloquent Lantos–himself a survivor of the Holocaust, so he knew exactly what he was talking about when he spoke of government suppression and abuse–at a hearing that included Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Cisco (CSCO) and, yes, Google (GOOG).

What he said then must have finally sunk in: “Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply don’t understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”

How far Google execs are willing to take this fight with China will determine how well they sleep in the future. But good for them for beginning this move, which is critical to the Web evolving globally as a free, unfettered and transparent force.

Most of all, we should only hope that Google’s actions spur other tech companies to try to change China the only way its government understands: By saying enough is enough regarding how China behaves in the digital community, and finding a “spine,” as Lantos called for, to actually do something that will make a difference.

Because, let’s be honest, enough was enough a very long time ago.

I urge you to watch this inspiring and pointed speech by Lantos in its entirety:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100113/does-it-matter-why-google-did-it-the-real-point-is-chinas-appalling-internet-behavior/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20100111/judges-question-fccs-net-neutrality-authority/ http://allthingsd.com/20100111/judges-question-fccs-net-neutrality-authority/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:00:03 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=32316 Comcast recently asked a court to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s order that censured it for interfering with peer-to-peer traffic on its network, and remarkably, the cable giant may get its way.

During a hearing last Friday, a three-judge panel questioned whether the FCC has the authority to impose Net-neutrality rules without an explicit Congressional mandate.

“You can’t get an unbridled, roving commission to go about doing good,” said Chief Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, suggesting that the agency’s “Internet Policy Statement” is “aspirational, not operational.”

That is essentially what Comcast argued in its brief asking the court to vacate the FCC order. “There was simply no federal law to interpret, enforce, or apply against Comcast,” the company’s lawyers wrote in the filing.

It would seem, then, that the three-judge panel is skeptical of the FCC’s authority here and may well end up vacating its sanction against Comcast (CMCSA). That would be an unfortunate turn of events for the FCC, which is pushing hard to solidify its Net neutrality authority.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he was confident the agency has the legal authority. Said Genachowski: “Our hope is that there’s an outcome that preserves a free and open Internet and accomplishes what we’re in this game to do.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100111/judges-question-fccs-net-neutrality-authority/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091210/tussle-in-brussels/ http://allthingsd.com/20091210/tussle-in-brussels/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:48:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30646 Oracle is defending its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems before the European Commission this week, and according to the company’s legal team, the first day of arguments went quite well. “I am extremely happy,” Oracle attorney Thomas Vinje said of the first half of the two-day hearing in Brussels.

And evidently for good reason. Oracle (ORCL) has managed to muster a substantial list of customers willing to argue that its purchase of Sun (JAVA), and more specifically, of Sun’s open-source MySQL database software, will not undermine competition in the database market.

Among the eight companies helping Oracle defend the deal: Vodafone (VOD), the U.K.’s National Health Service, Sabre Holdings and Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV). “There can’t be a better voice than customers,” Vinje said. “The customers said that there is robust competition in the market.”

But that’s today. Tomorrow will be a different story entirely. Tomorrow, Microsoft (MSFT) and SAP (SAP) will comment on the $7 billion deal, and neither company is particularly fond of it, or of Oracle for that matter. Both will presumably argue that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun could hinder MySQL’s development since Oracle has little reason to support a database technology that competes with its own–though some, like IBM, disagree.

One last bit of news worth noting, here. European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes seems confident the EC will resolve its differences with Oracle. “I am still optimistic that we can reach a satisfactory outcome that will ensure that there is no adverse impact on effective competition in the European market,” she told a news conference.

More tomorrow.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091210/tussle-in-brussels/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091125/eu-hearing-on-oracle-sun-set-for-dec-10/ http://allthingsd.com/20091125/eu-hearing-on-oracle-sun-set-for-dec-10/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:16:24 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=29867 Come early December, Oracle will meet with European Commission regulators to urge their approval of its merger with Sun Microsystems. “Two people with knowledge of the matter” tell Reuters that “Oracle has asked for a hearing which has been fixed for Dec. 10.”

Should make for an interesting meeting given Oracle’s refusal to take the EC’s concerns about the future of Sun’s MySQL database seriously. Certainly, it’s difficult to imagine Oracle (ORCL) caving to the Commission’s demands when it has criticized the group’s findings as a “profound misunderstanding” of the database market and open source.

And if not that, then what? Would Oracle abandon the deal instead? That too seems unlikely because it would mean delaying CEO Larry Ellison’s plan to transform Oracle into the next IBM (IBM). As Ellison said in October, “T. J. Watson’s IBM was the greatest company in the history of enterprise in America because its combination of hardware and software was running most of the enterprises on the planet. We think with the combination of Sun technology and Oracle technology we can succeed and beat IBM. That’s our goal.”

Given the EC’s concerns about the Sun (JAVA) acquisition and Oracle’s refusal to address them, what other option is there?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091125/eu-hearing-on-oracle-sun-set-for-dec-10/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091118/att-awarded-hug-and-a-box-of-tissues-in-verizon-ad-case/ http://allthingsd.com/20091118/att-awarded-hug-and-a-box-of-tissues-in-verizon-ad-case/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:07:45 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=29344

“AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s ‘There’s A Map For That advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.”

– Excerpt from Verizon’s response to AT&T’s complaints about its new ad campaign

Verizon was right. The truth does hurt. And it is especially painful when it’s meted out by a court of law. A U.S. District judge on Wednesday denied AT&T’s request to force Verizon to pull its “There’s A Map For That” and “Island of Misfit Toys” commercials, saying that while the ads might be “sneaky,” they are not deceptive.

“People might misunderstand [Verizon’s commercials],” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten, “but that doesn’t mean they’re misleading.”

He gave AT&T (T) another chance to make its case at a Dec. 16 hearing, but given his dim initial view of the company’s complaint, the carrier seems unlikely to prevail.

AT&T plans to press on with the case anyway. “While we are disappointed with the court’s decision on our request for a temporary restraining order, we still feel strongly that Verizon’s ads mislead consumers into thinking that AT&T doesn’t offer wireless service in large portions of the country, which is clearly not the case,” AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said in an email. “We look forward to presenting our case to the court in the near future.”

In the meantime, AT&T has begun running some attack ads of its own. Sadly, the first effort is not nearly so clever as Verizon’s (VZ) and features far too much Luke Wilson and far too little humor.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Verizon to AT&T: Do Yourself a Favor and Shut Up
• Frosty’s Winter Litigation Wonderland: AT&T Demands Verizon Pull Holiday iPhone Ads [With Full Complaint]
• Verizon Banishes iPhone to Island of Misfit Toys
• Verizon on AT&T Suit: There’s a Word for That. “Junk.”
• Verizon to iPhone Users: “Want Five Times More 3G Coverage? There’s a Map for That.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091118/att-awarded-hug-and-a-box-of-tissues-in-verizon-ad-case/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091118/court-kills-preposterous-pirate-beatles-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20091118/court-kills-preposterous-pirate-beatles-site/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:05:15 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=13044 It’s official: You still can’t buy the Beatles’ songs on the Web, despite the efforts of a site that attempted to do so by rewriting copyright law on the fly.

A Los Angeles federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against BlueBeat, a California-based site that had briefly sold the band’s music, arguing it used “psycho-acoustic simulation”–basically, making a note-for-note recording of the band’s recordings–to make the songs its own.

The same judge had already issued a temporary restraining order on behalf of music label EMI Music Group against the site earlier in the month and had scheduled a hearing for Friday, Nov. 20. But this ruling cancels out the hearing and by any reasonable standard should end the case.

Then again, this whole story has been a head-scratcher from the start, so who knows? Maybe the BlueBeat guys will try an even more preposterous argument down the road.

Part of me thinks that the whole thing may be some sort of Negativeland/U2 hack/stunt/performance art piece. Or maybe there were a lot of mood-altering substances involved. Or maybe it’s part of a conspiracy to create work for copyright lawyers.

Whatever. I’ve embedded the court ruling below, if you insist on reading it. But here’s a clip of Richard Pryor reading the alphabet on “Sesame Street,” which is just as edifying and much more entertaining.

bluebeat beatles suit –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091118/court-kills-preposterous-pirate-beatles-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091007/microsoft-yahoo-deal-regulatory-update-eh/ http://allthingsd.com/20091007/microsoft-yahoo-deal-regulatory-update-eh/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:31:36 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19165

Unlike the gripping back and forth of the fight over Yahoogle last year, the approval process for the search and online advertising partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo is chugging along slowly but surely as the Justice Department has deepened its investigation by reaching out to a broad range of publishers, advertisers, public interest groups and rivals for comment recently.

A month ago, the government agency lobbed in a “second request” for information about the deal the pair struck earlier this summer.

This kind of regulatory review is typical in deals of this magnitude.

But so far, there is no significant external challenge to the MicroHoo deal, even–according to many sources BoomTown has interviewed over the last week–from Google, the likeliest company to try to scuttle or, at the very least, slow down the deal.

“Is it worth fighting a big fight over?” asked one person close to the thinking of Google (GOOG). “Not really.”

Said another source, surveying the state of play: “It’s eh, kind of inevitable and not that interesting on a lot of levels.”

While none of the key constituencies wanted to comment or make predictions about the outcome of the regulatory scrutiny, most seem to agree that MicroHoo is more likely to be approved than not.

At the time the partnership was announced in July, execs at both Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) said a lot of investigation was likely from Justice, although they said they were also confident that it would be allowed go through by year’s end.

So far, several sources said, the key issue raised by the Justice Department has been whether the argument Microsoft and Yahoo are making–that they need scale to compete with Google–is valid or not.

Currently, Google has just under 70 percent of the search market in the U.S., while Microsoft and Yahoo together have about 28 percent.

Google has been arguing that huge scale is not necessary to be successful in the search ad market, although its execs have often said bigger is better when it comes to natural search and in spurring more clicks on ads.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo have said they need all the firepower they can muster together to battle Google’s hegemony.

In a related concern, some regulators are worried–as they were when Google and Yahoo were trying to get approval for a similar deal last year–that any hookup of big players in the market will effectively take Yahoo out of the search business.

“With only three big players, going to two is not desirable to the government,” said one source. “Yahoo has to reassure everyone that it is focused on a sustainable business model beyond search.”

In a blog post yesterday, in fact, Yahoo said it was committed to search innovation.

In any case, most expect another month of investigation at least, although the lack of any loud voice in opposition could shorten that time frame.

And, added some sources, unlike with Yahoogle, there is not likely to be any kind of Congressional hearing on the deal.

Nonetheless, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google remain concerned that deals like this will lead to more focus on privacy issues, specifically around behavioral targeting.

That would be more a matter for legislators or the Federal Trade Commission and would probably come well after the deal is cleared and as part of a bigger topic.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D., Va.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, said he will consider consumer privacy legislation this fall.

Boucher led hearings on the subject this summer, and there might be more, especially as Web companies garner a lot of personal information from consumers with little oversight of what they do with those data.

If Boucher does call for hearings, he might want to replay this particularly boneheaded (but funny!) video from Yahoo’s U.K. ad staff, which classifies various Yahoo customer types–such as “disco-dancing heart surgeons from Nantwich”–as farm animals:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091007/microsoft-yahoo-deal-regulatory-update-eh/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090924/newspapers-to-congress-please-dont-give-us-a-bailout/ http://allthingsd.com/20090924/newspapers-to-congress-please-dont-give-us-a-bailout/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:59:01 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11353 The newspaper bailout proposal you may have heard about over the last few months? The newspapers want no part of it, says an industry spokesman.

That said, the industry wouldn’t turn down some help from Congress, says John Sturm, CEO of the Newspaper Association of America.

Testifying at a House hearing this morning, Sturm says his group does like proposals that would let newspapers–and other businesses–change some of their accounting practices related to tax refunds (via net operating-loss provisions) and pension plans. Oh, and he’s in favor of a proposed law that would let papers operate as nonprofits while still generating advertising revenue.

The complete text of Sturm’s opening statement is embedded at the bottom of this post, and if you want to watch the hearing, organized by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, it was streamed live (albeit choppily) here.

My political handicapping skills are nonexistent, but that said, I think there’s no chance of Congress passing a bill that singles out newspapers for aid. Local papers are still vitally important to local lawmakers, but many of those lawmakers’ constituents hate their papers, for all manner of offenses, real and imagined. I just can’t imagine what they’d do if they were told their tax dollars were going to support their local rag.

Still, I wouldn’t rule out some politically motivated pressure being applied to bogeymen like Craigslist and Google (GOOG), in the form of antitrust scrutiny or other arm-twisting.

JFS-Statement-Joint-Economic-Committee-092409-Hearing –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090924/newspapers-to-congress-please-dont-give-us-a-bailout/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090911/google-to-create-world%e2%80%99s-largest-searchable-archive-of-arguments-against-google-books/ http://allthingsd.com/20090911/google-to-create-world%e2%80%99s-largest-searchable-archive-of-arguments-against-google-books/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:07:10 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=24558 Add another name to the list of opponents of the Google Book Search Settlement: Marybeth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights. In testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Thursday, Peters tarred the deal as “fundamentally at odds with the law” and villainized Google, saying the company is making a “mockery” of the copyright protections in the U.S. Constitution.

“The settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law, for millions and millions of rights holders of out-of-print books,” Peters said. “It would flip copyright on its head by allowing Google to engage in extensive new uses without the consent of the copyright owner–in my view, making a mockery of Article One of the Constitution, that anticipates that authors shall be granted exclusive rights.”

The settlement, as Peters sees it, will allow Google (GOOG) to profit from the work of others without prior consent. “It could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come,” she said. “In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later, under the imprimatur of the court.”

One of the more blistering attacks on the deal to date, especially given its source: The nation’s top copyright official. But Google nevertheless dismissed it as unfounded: “We think the settlement is legal, and we think it is structured well within the guidelines of what you can do in a class action settlement,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said during the hearing. “It certainly is not usurping Congress’s authority to do whatever it wants.”

A typically arrogant response from Google, though the company does appear to be conceding a bit of ground in the face of widening opposition to the deal. Responding to Peters’s criticism and claims that the deal will essentially grant Google a de facto monopoly over out-of-print books, Drummond said the company plans to make those works available to any book retailer.

“For the out-of-print books being made available through the Google Books settlement, we will let any book retailer sell access to those books,” Drummond told the committee. “Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any internet-connected device they choose.”

Sadly for Google, that conciliatory gesture did not go over well with critics of the deal. “The Internet has never been about intermediation,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said of the company’s offer. “We are happy to work with rights holders without anyone else’s help.”

The Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley was even more disdainful. “I fail to see what’s really new here,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s like Macy’s telling Sears, ‘You can sell Macy’s clothing.’ There’s no fundamental change of the conditions under which Macy’s acquires those clothes. Google remains in control.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090911/google-to-create-world%e2%80%99s-largest-searchable-archive-of-arguments-against-google-books/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090623/congress-readies-an-opt-in-privacy-bill-and-the-web-industry-cringes/ http://allthingsd.com/20090623/congress-readies-an-opt-in-privacy-bill-and-the-web-industry-cringes/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:41:30 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8522 Here comes the battle the online ad business has been dreading: Congress is drawing up a bill that would require users to sign up to let advertisers track their online behavior–and, if you believe online publishers, more or less destroy the online ad business.

Simulmedia founder and CEO Dave Morgan told an industry conference today that Rep. Rick Boucher, the Virginia Democrat who has become the loudest voice in Congress in the advertising/privacy fight, is prepping a bill that will force publishers to let Web surfers “opt in” before they’re served with any third-party tracking cookies.

Not a huge surprise: Boucher laid out the case for the bill last week at a Congressional hearing. It’s unclear just exactly what that would mean for the business: Could Google (GOOG) not send cookies out if you, say, played a YouTube video embedded on a third-party site (like the one the White House runs)?

But right now the details of the proposed bill don’t matter: The industry has already started arguing against it via promotions that explain just how valuable Web advertising is to the country (and by extension, the targeting/tracking that cookies enable it). From MediaFlect’s Dorian Benkoil:

“Congress’ position is that consumers are not appropriately aware of what is being done on their machines, and the use of cookies delivered by a third party is something consumers have not been appropriately informed of,” said Morgan, who oversees privacy initiatives for the Internet Advertising Bureau [and who] was in Washington last week talking to FTC officials and congressional staff, he said. “Congress’ default position is that that will require an opt-in,” to serve a third-party cookie.

That’s a perfectly sensible position from a consumer’s perspective: Why should advertisers and their proxies track what you’re doing on the Web without your consent? But from the advertising/publisher perspective, an opt-in plan means a plan no one will ever agree to, which means no more cookies/tracking, period, which means Web advertising becomes as imprecise and clumsy as good-old TV and print ads.

Which is why the Web guys prefer a bill that allows surfers to opt out–or preferably, no bill at all.

I still like my Solomon-like solution, which I’ve thrown out before: Let consumers opt in, but give them a reward for doing so.

It doesn’t have to be much–consumers say they care about privacy, but in reality, they’re very happy to trade personal info for trinkets and geegaws. Maybe you get “privacy points” every time you visit a site for the first time and sign away your right to complain about tracking. And if you earn enough you get a bag of Cheetos, etc. Sure we can work something out.

[Image credit: rpongsaj]

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