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Tom couldn't decide whether to go with the "marginalized whackjob" wall paint, or just get a marginalized whackjob fringe. Vote? In other news of the day, the McCain campaign discovers that the DMCA can be ANNOYING! Maybe they'll do something about it once they're back in politics-land! Also, EA says no one cares about DRM except an organized online cabal. We know how well that attitude worked out for the music industry.

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McCain campaign complains about takedown notice procedure http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1795 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081014-mccainpalin-campaign-angry-over-bogus-dmca-takedowns.html … Read more

Yahoo is falling victim to the current economic woes, with analysts lowering forecasts for the company's financial future and layoffs in the works. But one part of the company is all but chortling with glee: Yahoo Finance.

According to ComScore's latest statistics, Yahoo is king of the heap, with 19.9 million unique users in the month of September, an all-time high for the site, according to Yahoo. I'm guessing that's going to look small once we see the October statistics, too.

Nowhere in the top 10 is Google Finance. Disclosure: No. 8, though, is BNET, … Read more

Given the day-to-day changes in the world's economic fortunes, it's surprising that analysts are willing to make any forecasts at all, but among those who do, the news isn't sunny.

In the Internet sector, nobody is backing away from predictions that online sales and advertising will fare relatively well. But larger economic factors are inescapable, according to some new reports.

"We are lowering our estimates on Google, Yahoo, Amazon, VistaPrint, eHealth, Blue Nile, and Gmarket to reflect: (1) a weaker macro outlook exacerbated by the bank crisis; (2) the rapid rise in the dollar over the … Read more

Google has begun expanding its Street View feature of Google Maps to several major cities in France, the first European country to get the Internet giant's driver's-eye view.

"We've added coverage for six major cities in France: Paris, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Marseille, and Nice," Luc Vincent, engineering director of Street View and a native of France, said Wednesday in a blog. "France is the first country in Europe to benefit from Street View imagery, and I'm delighted that many of my favorite places are included in the new coverage, including the street where … Read more

U.S. paid search rose 26.9 percent year over year in the third quarter, despite weakness in the economy and markets, according to a report released Tuesday by SearchIgnite.

But while paid search increased overall by double digits during the quarter, retail advertisers increased their search spending by a modest 1.5 percent.

And more surprisingly, retailers significantly scaled back their paid search advertising for the month of September, resulting in a 10 percent drop in year-over-year retail advertising spending compared with September 2007. The decline occurred despite a slight increase in click-through conversion rates and the average value … Read more

Google and Yahoo are in early-stage negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement, according to a report Monday night in The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department and a multistate task force are still reviewing the proposal to decide whether to oppose the partnership, which has been criticized by advertising groups as anticompetitive. In September, the Justice Department hired antitrust litigator Sandy Litvack as a consultant in its networking and technology unit to weigh whether the case could be won at trial, say sources.

Under the nonexclusive partnership, which … Read more

Google lost two copyright cases in Germany on Monday but the search company reportedly plans to appeal.

A German court ruled that Google violated the copyright of Michael Bernhard by displaying one of his photographs as a preview thumbnail, according to the Bloomberg news service.

Separately, a German court ruled in favor of Thomas Horn, who owns the copyright to some German comics that appeared in Google's search results.

In Bernhard's case, the court ruled "that it doesn't matter that thumbnails are much smaller than the original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution," … Read more

On today's show, the world of anonymous chatting gets even more confusing, thanks to the increasing numbers of computers passing the Turing test. Is it a pervert? Is it a computer? Is it both? In other news, Chrome breaks Molly's heart, Sony breaks all the rules and keeps the PS3 prices high, and people keep preordering G1 Android phones. Who knew?

Test explores if robots can think http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7666246.stm http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/13/1450205.shtml

Sony … Read more

Google's YouTube has begun testing a dramatic departure in content and advertising, adding 15 50-minute TV episodes from Star Trek, Beverly Hills 90210, and MacGyver and with prominent new ads.

"We are starting to test full-length programming on YouTube, beginning with some fan favorites requested by you," Google said on its YouTube blog on Friday.

It's an experiment in video display and advertising, too, with ads for Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Intel's Centrino chip technology showing prominently on the videos I watched. The TV shows are preceded by a 15-second pre-roll ad, and … Read more