Among the terms of the settlement, Google will be required to license ITA’s software to other airline booking sites and has to fund research and developing into the software at levels consistent with what ITA has spent in recent years. Google will also be required to continue work on ITA’s next generation of software.

EMoney’s Tricia Duryee reported last month that Google and the government were close to reaching a settlement.

Joseph Wayland, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division said in a statement that the proposed settlement “assures that airfare comparison and booking websites will be able to compete effectively, providing benefits to consumers.”

ITA’s software is the backbone of several of the Web’s airline ticket search services including sites like Kayak and Hotwire. When Google first move to acquire ITA for $700 million last July it said would make it easier for consumers to find flight information online. However several online travel companies opposed it, among them Sabre Holdings, the owns the largest database of airline fares, and the online travel booking site Expedia.

Google shares rose $1.82 on the news to $581.82 a share. Expedia shares rose $2.53 or 11 percent on unrelated news that the company plans to spin off its TripAdvisor unit into a separate, publicly traded company.

(Image via Wikipedia)

In a 4-1 vote–Commissioner Michael Copps dissented–the FCC is allowing the deal to go through, but with some conditions, most of them relating to the online video business. One key requirement that’s not happening: Comcast isn’t being required to divest itself of its equity in the Web video site Hulu, which a few lawmakers had called for. It will however be required to give up its role in managing Hulu. NBC U jointly owns it with the Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. (which also owns this Web site).

In a statement, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the conditions imposed “include carefully considered steps to ensure that competition drives innovation in the emerging online video marketplace.”

Among those conditions, the FCC will also require Comcast to offer Web versions of its TV shows to what it calls “bona fide online distributors” under the same terms it offers them to cable and satellite providers. This would indicate that shows appearing on Hulu will probably end up on Apple TV or YouTube or elsewhere, meaning, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka suggested last month that Hulu’s exclusive rights to NBC content are over.

Comcast will also be required to offer broadband to some 2.5 million low-income households for less than $10 a month, and will be required to extend its network to reach 400,000 homes, build out service in six rural communities and provide free video and high-speed Internet access to 600 schools and libraries in underserved areas. This will allow Genachowski to claim some kind of victory on one of the Obama administration’s signature technology policy issues, which is spreading the availability of broadband.

In a dissenting statement, Copps called the merger “a transaction like no other that has come before this commission–ever,” and said “It confers too much power in one company’s hands.”

Harold Feld, legal director at Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based public interested group, said the organization was largely satisfied with the conditions except for one. It would have liked to see Comcast required to sell broadband service on a wholesale basis. “As longtime supporters of wholesale access, we believe such a condition would go a long way to help consumers by increasing broadband competition,” he said.

But perhaps those restrictions were better left in place. Because on Thursday, the DOJ opened a preliminary investigation into IBM’s business practices, seeking to determine if the company has abused its monopoly position in the mainframe market. The inquiry stems from a complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association that claims IBM (IBM) has undermined sales of competing mainframe hardware products by refusing to license its mainframe operating system and certain other intellectual property.

“IBM has used its power to resurrect and create a formidable set of barriers in the mainframe market by their misuse of intellectual property,” CCIA CEO Edward J. Black, told the New York Times. “Once IBM walls are taken down by the government enforcing the law, there will be a rush of people looking to get part of this marketplace.”

Perhaps. Certainly that’s not really the case now. As the CCIA and T3 Technologies–which filed an antitrust complaint against IBM in Europe earlier this year for similar reasons–would argue, IBM has essentially left the industry with a single mainframe vendor: itself. And if that sounds like an exaggeration, consider this: A few years back, a company called Platform Solutions attempted to license IBM’s mainframe software. IBM refused and then sued Platform, accusing it of a raft of IP-related violations. Platform countersued. And then, in 2008, IBM acquired the company and promptly shut down its operations.

“For decades, IBM licensed its system software and intellectual property to other computer manufacturers,” T3 president Steven Friedman said earlier this year. “However, for no reason other than to remove all competition from the mainframe market, IBM eliminated programs to allow customers to buy its mainframe software for use on non-IBM mainframe solutions….[Now] only IBM…offers IBM- compatible mainframes and, based on IDC reports, controls over 99% of all existing IBM-compatible mainframes in use today.”

But perhaps those restrictions were better left in place. Because on Thursday, the DOJ opened a preliminary investigation into IBM’s business practices, seeking to determine if the company has abused its monopoly position in the mainframe market. The inquiry stems from a complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association that claims IBM (IBM) has undermined sales of competing mainframe hardware products by refusing to license its mainframe operating system and certain other intellectual property.

“IBM has used its power to resurrect and create a formidable set of barriers in the mainframe market by their misuse of intellectual property,” CCIA CEO Edward J. Black, told the New York Times. “Once IBM walls are taken down by the government enforcing the law, there will be a rush of people looking to get part of this marketplace.”

Perhaps. Certainly that’s not really the case now. As the CCIA and T3 Technologies–which filed an antitrust complaint against IBM in Europe earlier this year for similar reasons–would argue, IBM has essentially left the industry with a single mainframe vendor: itself. And if that sounds like an exaggeration, consider this: A few years back, a company called Platform Solutions attempted to license IBM’s mainframe software. IBM refused and then sued Platform, accusing it of a raft of IP-related violations. Platform countersued. And then, in 2008, IBM acquired the company and promptly shut down its operations.

“For decades, IBM licensed its system software and intellectual property to other computer manufacturers,” T3 president Steven Friedman said earlier this year. “However, for no reason other than to remove all competition from the mainframe market, IBM eliminated programs to allow customers to buy its mainframe software for use on non-IBM mainframe solutions….[Now] only IBM…offers IBM- compatible mainframes and, based on IDC reports, controls over 99% of all existing IBM-compatible mainframes in use today.”

The judge presiding over the case, who’d been urged by the U.S. Department of Justice to reject an earlier version of the settlement, set that date during a morning hearing so brief that when MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt about it at a company roundtable this morning, Schmidt was unaware a date had been set. When Peter broke the news to him, Schmidt didn’t have much of a comment, but he did speak briefly about the settlement and Google’s view of it earlier in the morning.

From Peter’s paraphrased notes on the session:

With respect to book search, we were doing something that we thought was appropriate. We were sued, and after three years of discussion we’ve come to a settlement. This is perfectly normal. From our perspective, this is a settlement we like, it’s a settlement we think they’ll like, and we’ll hear what the court says, within minutes. Let me reframe your question: There’s nothing particularly exclusive about what we’re doing. The rights registry we’re doing is for the benefit of orphan works. “It’s not a particularly good business for us. We’re doing it because we think it’s the right thing to do.” We don’t think the settlement is perfect, but we think it’s good.

Though it’s not yet clear what form the revised settlement might take or what adjusted terms are being discussed, Google and the authors and publishers it has allied with it have quite a few critics to appease, including academics, librarians, privacy advocates, would-be rivals and the French and German governments.

The Microsoft antitrust trial seems like a distant memory, doesn’t it?

Not quite yet to the Justice Department, it seems, which asked the federal judge overseeing the 2002 settlement with federal and state regulators yesterday to extend her oversight of some of the judgment another 18 months.

The Justice Department said it wants that extended to make sure Microsoft fully complies with the requirement that technical documentation to licensees is crackerjack.

And Microsoft (MSFT) has agreed to be under the watch until May, 2011.

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s oversight of the software giant was supposed to run out this November. She must approve the extension.

Here’s the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release on the issue:

Justice Department Requests Extension of Microsoft Final Judgment

Microsoft Agrees to 18-Month Extension, Subject to Court Approval

WASHINGTON, April 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/–The Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today that it is necessary to extend the term of certain portions of the Microsoft final judgment by at least 18 months. The Department said that an extension is necessary to ensure the quality of the technical documentation Microsoft provides to licensees.

The Department’s Antitrust Division made its views known today as part of its Joint Status Report to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Antitrust Division enforces the final judgment in conjunction with antitrust enforcers from 17 states and the District of Columbia, which along with Microsoft joined in today’s filing with the court.

In 2006, Microsoft agreed to a two-year extension of the communications protocol licensing program contained in Section III.E of the final judgment, along with all of the final judgment’s enforcement provisions. Microsoft also agreed that the Department and state antitrust enforcement agencies may, at their discretion, apply to the court for an additional extension of all or part of the extended provisions of the final judgment for a period of up to three additional years, through November 2012. The United States is exercising its right under this provision to seek an extension of Section III.E and its supporting provisions through May 12, 2011. Without this action, the final judgment would have expired on Nov. 12, 2009.

Section III.E of the final judgment requires that Microsoft make available to competing server software developers, on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, certain technology used by Microsoft to make its server operating systems interoperate with client PCs running the Windows operating system. Microsoft must provide licensees with technical documentation that is designed to enable them to use this technology in their own server products so that those products work better with Windows.

In past status reports, the Department reported to the court its concerns with the quality of the technical documentation Microsoft provides to licensees under this program and with the length of time it is taking Microsoft to improve that documentation.

The Department today also submitted the necessary papers to the court for its consideration.