European cross border trade might be stifled by new law

According to the Financial Times, “European retailers, banks, online groups and other companies are sounding the alarm over a draft law” which requires that “cross-border legal disputes between companies and consumers must in future be decided by the law that applies in the country of the consumer”, meaning that “companies selling goods and services across the European Union will have to apply 27 legal regimes which they fear will act as a brake on cross-border trade.”

The International Herald Tribune reports that “[a]fter spending millions of dollars to buy digital media companies, online advertising firms and search engines, only a few of the 350 magazine and newspaper companies represented at [last week’s Magazine Media conference in Hannover] said, in a show of hands, that they were making more than 3 percent of their sales online.”

In a different article, the Financial Times points out that “Wall Street seems to be losing patience with how long Google 2.0 is taking to build – and how expensive the project is turning out to be.” 

The Register writes that the anti-spyware bill which on Thursday got its third hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives “would give the U.S. Federal Trade Commission even greater latitude in pursuing the companies and individuals responsible for spyware.”

According to the Seattle Times, “[t]he U.S. generates more malicious computer activity than any other country, and sophisticated hackers worldwide are banding together in highly efficient crime rings, a new report says.”