settlement

AT&T may need to knock on a few doors and place a few calls to get back nearly a billion dollars it payed to states and other governments on behalf of its wireless customers. That's one of the requirements of a class-action settlement approved last week over taxes the company is alleged to have levied improperly for wireless data.

Lawyers from Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny filed suits in every state claiming that AT&T was in violation of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which placed a moratorium on taxes for Internet access until November 1, … Read more

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Amazon.com offers a cheaper. ad-supported Kindle

Google launches a trivia page called A Google a Day

A U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the Winklevoss twins who sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

Google plans to invest $168 million in a solar power plant in the Mojave Desert

New legislation may propose a sales tax on all online transactions

Sony introduces two new OLED monitors

The irony for Microsoft is pretty hard to escape.

The federal judge overseeing Microsoft's 2002 settlement with antitrust regulators noted at a hearing today (subscription required) that the software giant had made "extraordinary" progress in resolving outstanding issues. But just consider the much bigger story of the day: Mozilla's new Firefox 4 browser was downloaded 6.5 million times in less than 24 hours. (Check out Mozilla's real-time Firefox 4 download data here.) Compare that to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9, introduced a week earlier and downloaded 2.3 million times in the first 24 … Read more

Google today said that a settlement for a class action suit by Gmail users over privacy violations related to Google Buzz has been granted preliminary approval by a federal district court judge. The approval was reached on October 7 but the company released the news today as it is preparing to notify Gmail users about it.

The settlement, proposed in September, calls for Google to pay $8.5 million toward a fund for organizations focusing on Internet privacy policy or education. In a statement today, Google said:

We are satisfied with the agreement and are glad to move forward, We … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has agreed to pay the U.S. government $55 million to settle charges that it paid kickbacks to technology partners for recommending HP products to federal agencies.

This final agreement, announced Monday by the Department of Justice, follows a tentative settlement reached earlier this month in which HP agreed in principle to resolve the case. The settlement closes the book on the DOJ's allegations that HP defrauded the General Services Administration (GSA) and other government agencies by paying "influencer fees" to third-party vendors.

"Contractors must deal fairly with the government when doing business with federal … Read more

LifeLock has agreed to pay $12 million to settle charges that the company failed to protect customers against identity fraud as advertised and put customer data at risk.

The company was known for its bold marketing tactics, including one that backfired after Chief Executive Todd Davis put his Social Security number in ads to promote the company's service and then had someone use his identity to take out a loan in 2007.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 35 state attorneys general had accused the Tempe, Ariz., company of deceptive business practices for making false claims to promote … Read more

NEW YORK--The disparate and dissenting constituencies that showed up to federal court here on Thursday to comment on Google's plan to create a digital library illustrated just how polarizing and far reaching the effort has become.

The gallery at the federal court house here filled not one but two rooms (one room watched the proceedings via close-circuit TV). Foreign dignitaries squeezed onto benches with cane-wielding advocates for the blind, college professors, literary agents, authors of children's books, and, of course, lots and lots of lawyers.

The one thing that most in attendance shared was a passionate view of … Read more

NEW YORK--Federal Judge Denny Chin kicked off the much-anticipated Google Books hearing Thursday morning here by making one thing clear: there will be no quick ruling in the case.

"I'm going to say right off, I'm not going to rule today," Chin said, highlighting the droves of written submissions that have come in from passionate parties on all sides of the case. "I'm going to listen to opinions carefully and I'm going to ask a few questions."

And that he's already done in morning testimony, which has been going on for … Read more

Although the amended settlement agreement for Google's Book Search addressed some concerns the U.S. Justice Department had, it still could give the company anticompetitive advantages in the digital book marketplace, the agency said on Thursday.

The Department of Justice advised the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that "class certification, copyright, and antitrust issues remain" in a court filing.

The settlement--reached between Google and the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers--would allow Google to partially display in-copyright but out-of-print books alongside books authorized by publishers and public domain works … Read more