In order to keep the EU economy competitive, the European Commission is drafting a so-called “Small Business Act” – a set of policies that is supposed to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU grow.  On Thursday, European Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen welcomed the “broad support” that his [...]

Yahoo!News reports that “Quaero, a European consortium developing new search engine technologies, is ramping up recruitment of researchers.  Although some of the consortium's research activities have already begun, the starting signal for much of the work came on March 11, when the European Commission said it had no objections to [...]

The New York Times writes that “[i]n the Internet age, the corporate firewall is a leaky sieve.  That is the sobering conclusion, spelled out in technical detail, in a new report on what is actually happening on corporate computer networks.  The research was done by Palo Alto Networks, a start-up [...]

FT.com reports that “Britain will this week propose that companies employing fewer than 20 people should be exempt from future European Union regulations, in a drive to cut the burden on business of legislation agreed in Brussels.  John Hutton, business secretary, will ask for the exemption to be written into [...]

InfoWorld reports that “Microsoft has proposed a tiered approach to protecting the privacy of people targeted by online advertising, saying advertisers should get permission before using sensitive, personally identifiable information to deliver ads.  […]  Microsoft agrees with the FTC's decision to focus on an industry self-regulatory approach, but the company [...]