The Register reports that “one of Britain’s top cops has said that e-crime is the most significant criminal threat facing the UK, and that the government is failing to respond effectively. Chief Constable Ian Johnston, Head of Crime at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and boss of the British Transport Police, was speaking at the Microsoft UK Public Sector Law Enforcement Conference this morning in Reading.
The New York Times today has an interesting article on Google’s objectives in the C block auction, pointing out that “Google’s main goal […] was not to win, but to make sure the reserve price was met so that the openness conditions would become effective, ensuring that its search, e-mail, maps and other services would be easily available on phones operating on those frequencies.”
In more Google-related news, CNetNews.com points out that “[i]t’s been nearly six months since Google sent ripples through the mobile phone industry with the announcement of its plans to develop Android, a Linux-based operating system. But after an initial splash, Google has been pretty quiet. So much so, in fact, that several representatives of companies within Google’s Open Handset Alliance professed frustration at the ambiguity of some important details at the CTIA 2008 conference this week in Las Vegas. Much is still up in the air, just a few months before the first phones are expected to arrive. Google has yet to make crucial decisions about the code base that will accompany Android; such as, which applications are required to make it an Android phone? How will that base be maintained into the future? And how much freedom will Android developers and partners really have to tweak the software?”
In a different article, CNet reveals that “[a] fan-run blog called Craigslist Blog has been served a takedown notice from the massive classifieds site, according to a post from blogger Tim White on Thursday. White posted the e-mail he’d received from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, which claimed that White’s URL "craigslistblog.org" was "infringing" and that its name was "needlessly confusing to members of the media and the general public, and must be changed." Buckmaster did not demand that White stop blogging, but he did request that he stop using the domain, turn it over to Craigslist, and additionally stop posting excerpts from Craigslist on the unofficial blog. In response, White agreed to stop excerpting Craigslist content, and the unofficial Craigslist Blog now prominently displays the phrase ‘(the unofficial one)’ in its masthead. But White wouldn’t back down on the domain.”
According to eWeek.com, “Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Jerry Yang, whose company helped identify a Chinese dissident who was later jailed, said on Thursday that legal ‘gray areas’ overseas made doing business internationally difficult. Yang, whose family emigrated from Taiwan when he was ten, called himself ‘a big believer in American values’ but added: ‘As we operate around the world we don’t have a heavy handed American view.’ ‘We operate within these environments to the extent that the law has any clarity,’ Yang told an event at Georgetown University, where Yahoo gave a $1 million gift to study the link between the Internet and international values. ‘We think we’re hitting more gray areas than ever before. I don’t think it’s an easy question,’ he said.”