Corporate & legal

Nokia, the world's largest maker of handsets, supports the idea of turning cell phones into credit cards and is putting its money where its mouth is.

On Wednesday, the company announced its minority stake in Obopay, a mobile-payment company that enables people to pay for items from Obopay accounts tied to their mobile phones.

Mobile-banking services are expected to grow quickly over the next few years, especially in the developing world, where many people live in places without adequate access to banks or credit.

Market researcher Berg Insight expects the number of people using mobile-banking services to grow on … Read more

Google is joining a $5.75 million investment round in Pixazza, a start-up that hopes to profit by overlaying photos on the Web with links that let people buy the products in the images.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is now launching the technology for general use by advertisers, Web publishers, and the network of self-appointed but screened specialists who identify the products in the photos, said Chief Executive Bob Lisbonne. The company is starting with the apparel industry but plans to expand to home design and furnishings, travel, electronics, and sports starting later this year, he said.

Lisbonne … Read more

Facebook has hired an American Civil Liberties Union attorney to serve in the new role of director of public policy for the social network, according to The New York Times.

As a senior attorney at the ACLU, Timothy Sparapani worked on issues like data mining and national ID cards. He also has close ties to privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Center for Digital Democracy.

Representatives from those groups have complained about Facebook's advertising practices and its revised terms of service agreement. (The CDD complained this week that revised terms … Read more

Just two days before Microsoft and Novell signed a controversial deal in 2006, the two sides still hadn't figured out a way to make peace over Linux without violating the licensing terms that govern the open-source operating system.

The terms of the GNU General Public License made it tough for Microsoft to get paid a royalty for each copy of Linux that Novell sold and also made it tough for Microsoft to offer patent protection to Novell without giving it to all users of Linux. But, just hours before it hoped to announce a deal, Microsoft workers thought up … Read more

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

Intel on Monday told employees that it would reprice its employee stock options.

In a regulatory filing, Intel detailed plans to reprice stock options at a lower price, similar to what Google did. In addition, Intel said that it would freeze salaries of senior executives in 2009. But stock option grants are unaffected.

Intel shareholders will vote on the company's repricing proposal at its annual meeting May 20.

Here are a few details provided by Intel CEO Paul Otellini in a memo to employees:

Intel is granting all eligible … Read more

Customers who lost data after it had failed to be backed up properly by service provider Carbonite in 2007 may have few legal remedies, a lawyer said on Monday. Meanwhile, Carbonite is suing the hardware manufacturer and reseller for charges including breach of warranty, breach of contract, fraud, and unfair and deceptive practices.

Carbonite filed a lawsuit last week against hardware maker Promise Technology and reseller Interactive Digital Systems, alleging it was sold $3 million worth of defective equipment, which affected backups of 7,500 customers.

In its lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts' Suffolk County Superior Court, Carbonite claims it lost … Read more

Sony Ericsson's struggling handset business is losing its top North American executive.

Najmi Jarwala, president of Sony Ericsson USA and head of the company's North American operations, is leaving Sony Ericsson "to pursue other career opportunities," the company said in a statement Monday. Last week Sony Ericsson revealed that it expects to lose between $460 million and $528 million during the first quarter of the year, as demand falls for its phones.

Sony Ericsson has had some success in the U.S. with its Cybershot and Walkman phones, but hasn't come up with a major … Read more

Shares of Sun Microsystems took a hit in Monday morning trading, falling at least 7 percent while the broader markets advance.

Sun fell as low as $7.53 a share, following reports Friday in The Wall Street Journal that IBM is currently engaged in combing through Sun's contracts, as part of the evaluation process on whether to move forward with an acquisition.

Sun's shares had been on a rocket ride, after reports surfaced last week in the Journal that IBM was in negotiations to acquire the company for roughly $6.5 billion.

After the reports surfaced, Sun's … Read more

TomTom, the GPS maker being sued by Microsoft, has joined a collective of companies that have pooled their patents in an effort to help defend open-source software against legal threats.

In a press release on Monday, the Open Invention Network said that TomTom had joined its ranks. The collective aims to create a "supportive and shielded ecosystem to ensure the growth and adoption of Linux" and has amassed a pool of 275 pending and issued patents.

"Linux plays an important role at TomTom as the core of all our portable navigation devices," Peter Spours, director of … Read more