Internet & Media

Verizon awarded 'largest-ever' cybersquatting judgment

A federal court in Northern California has awarded $33.15 million to Verizon Communications in what the company is calling the largest cybersquatting judgment ever.

Verizon, which announced the judgment Wednesday, had filed the case against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco-based Internet domain registration company. Verizon had claimed that OnlineNIC used Internet names--663 to be exact--that were chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names, according to Verizon.

It might be hard, however, for Verizon to actually collect on the judgment, which was a default ruling, or one entered against a defendant who fails to answer a summons. No one … Read more

Online spending doubles for weekend before Christmas

Here's a little statistical cheer for online retailers bracing themselves for what many have been predicting will be a dismal holiday sales season.

The latest online retail spending report released Tuesday by ComScore shows that consumers last weekend spent almost double what they spent on the corresponding weekend before Christmas last year. U.S. consumers online spent $677 million last weekend, December 20 and 21, compared to $341 million the weekend before Christmas in 2007, which was December 22 and 23.

It should be noted, however, that there are five fewer days this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, making … Read more

Hey Obama: Reboot the music industry!

Yesterday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a post suggesting that president-elect Obama needs to do more than throw money at ailing industries, but actually needs to "reboot" America by investing in infrastructure and education. In Newsweek, law professor and intellectual property thinker Lawrence Lessig argued for a more narrowly focused reboot of the FCC, which should be encouraging technical innovation but instead tends to favor big incumbents.

But what about the music industry? Yes, the big labels have earned a lot of scorn for their technophobia and suing their customers--a practice which finally ended last week… Read more

FriendFinder not likely to find pals on Wall Street

Correction, 3:05 p.m. PT January 7: This story incorrectly identified the firm underwriting FriendFinder's IPO. The firm providing that service is Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Limited.

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

FriendFinder Networks, the company formerly known as Penthouse Media Group, is filing to go public to pay off almost a half a billion in debt in an equity market that stinks. Simply put, FriendFinder is launching an IPO Hail Mary to stay alive. At least FriendFinder's initial public offering filing turned up a bunch of interesting nuggets.

FriendFinder is best known … Read more

Santa must be real, he's on Google Earth

As it has for the past four years, Google will be mapping Santa Claus' trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too.

Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa's current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Santa fans can also track his movements in 3D in Google Earth (download) by downloading a special NORAD Tracks Santa KML. … Read more

Northern Calif. households switched to digital TV early

Residents of the Redding and Chico areas of Northern California who had still been watching analog TV were moved to digital channels on Monday as the CBS, NBC, and Fox stations permanently switched to digital-only TV two months ahead of the national mandate.

Station executives said on Tuesday that the transition went well, except for those households that didn't have an analog-to-digital converter.

"We did a good job about getting the word out about converter boxes early," said Doug Holroyd, general manager of Fox KCVU, which serves as many as 12,000 households.

The station gave away … Read more

New York Times sued over Boston.com's linking practice

Updated 12:43 p.m. PST with GateHouse comment in e-mail sent to staff, as well as comment from Chicago Reader Web editor.

A publisher of mostly small, local newspapers has sued the New York Times Co. over its aggregation of news headlines on Boston.com, challenging the practice many sites use of linking to other sources.

In its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on Monday, Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse Media, which publishes more than 100 papers in Massachusetts, accuses the Times of violating copyright by allowing its Boston Globe online unit to copy verbatim … Read more

How can we expect Blu-ray to succeed?

Online research firm Futuresource released a study Monday that discussed the relative success Blu-ray is enjoying right now in Western Europe.

According to the report, Blu-ray disc sales are up significantly in Europe so far this holiday season, and based on its findings, it believes the strong sales will continue through 2009. In fact, it believes European Blu-ray sales will triple during 2009, seeing 2.5 million players enter homes next year. Similar results are being witnessed in the U.S.

But that's not all. A release last week claimed the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, witnessed sales of 1.7 million Blu-ray units, representing the most popular Blu-ray title of all-time.

Quite impressive, eh? Well, what if I told you that worldwide combined DVD and Blu-ray sales of The Dark Knight totaled 13.5 million units? Suddenly, that 1.7 million Blu-ray unit mark doesn't look so hot next to the 11.8 million DVDs that were sold, huh?

Of course, we shouldn't expect Blu-ray to catch up anytime soon. According to Futuresource in a study it released earlier this year, Blu-ray isn't expected to outsell DVD until 2012. And even then, Blu-ray will control just a bit more than 50 percent of media sales with DVD coming in around 45 percent to 50 percent. In other words, DVDs will still be a major force four years from now.

Based on all that information, can we honestly sit here and say that Blu-ray has a chance at becoming the success DVD is?

I just don't see it.… Read more

Report: Facebook privacy chief eyes Calif. AG office

Facebook's chief privacy officer is expected to declare his candidacy soon for attorney general of California, according to a report on TechCrunch.

Chris Kelly, who will run in the 2010 general election as a Democrat, is expected to leave the social-networking site in June to focus on his campaign, according to the report.

For Kelly, who has led the company's negotiations with state attorneys general on issues such as privacy, it will mean a sort of a change of sides. In May, Kelly negotiated an agreement with the attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia … Read more