Ping.it, an Oslo, Norway-based startup, has been around since 2009 and has experimented with a number of business models, but it launched in public beta this week as a content discovery service. Ping.it’s main feature is “probes,” which it describes on its blog as “small apps which go out and retrieve information from across the Web on behalf of the user. They can be created, edited, shared and subscribed to – all by Ping.it users.”

“I see Ping.it as a new step forward in content discovery using elements from traditional RSS Readers and social media,” founder Marius Lian told me. “Google Reader was discontinued for a reason – time to move on.”

Not content with sticking two fingers up at the authorities with his Mega secure cloud storage service, larger-than-life entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is planning to release further privacy-centric services. And interestingly, in a Q&A session with the New Zealand Herald late last night, Dotcom said he intended the secure email and instant messaging services to be both military-grade and so easy to use that the user wouldn’t have to do anything to benefit from this security.

This is always the issue with security – if it requires much thought on the user’s part, it will generally fail. Dotcom, who also released a white paper on Tuesday to accuse the U.S. government of misleading New Zealand authorities while pursuing the German-born millionaire, said in the session that he wanted to “provide tools that give our users their privacy back”:

“We are working on encrypted email, IM, etc. The key to make encryption a global success is ease of use. So I am spending most of my time figuring out how I can give you encryption without you having to do anything and at the same time give you military grade privacy. You are all naked on the Internet. I like to help you put some pants on :-)”

It remains unclear what Mega is planning, technologically speaking, to achieve this kind of friction-free encryption. There are plenty of tools out there for sending encrypted emails and messages, but they tend to involve browser extensions or web forms, or paid subscriptions.

Mega’s cloud storage service has also come in for criticism by some security experts, who have pointed out that its use of so-called “convergent encryption” (in order to allow de-duplication) theoretically leaves a trace of who uploaded which file.

That extradition thing

Of course, Dotcom’s plans hinge somewhat on the ongoing extradition proceedings that he faces. The U.S. had Dotcom and some of his associates raided and arrested at the start of 2012 over allegations of copyright infringement, to do with their highly popular (and now deceased) Megaupload file-sharing service, and wants them sent over to face charges.

Since then, the case has occasionally veered into farce, with the New Zealand prime minister having to apologize for the country’s security services illegally spying on Dotcom, and a judge having to step down from the proceedings after describing the U.S. as “the enemy”.

All the while, Dotcom has maintained that Hollywood lobbyists were behind the raid and arrests. He reiterated and expanded upon these claims in the white paper released on Tuesday, verbosely entitled “Megaupload, the Copyright Lobby and the Future of Digital Rights: The United States vs You (and Kim Dotcom).”

The document highlights ties between U.S. vice president Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America (the MPAA, Dotcom’s bête noir), describing the whole affair as a “contract prosecution” linked to campaign contributions. It calls on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Office of Professional Responsibility of the U.S. Department of Justice to “conduct an investigation and hearings into the conduct of the Megaupload prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

The Huffington Post already has international editions for Canada, the U.K., France, Spain, and most recently, Italy. A Japanese edition will launch May 7.

“More than any other German Publishing House, Tomorrow Focus has mastered its online transition and built a brand portfolio that is not only wide and deep, but reflects and complements The Huffington Post’s goals and core values,” Huffington Post CEO Jimmy Maymann said in a statement.

Gumroad was founded by former Pinterest designer Sahil Lavingia in 2012 and aims to let anybody sell anything — whether it’s a song, a PDF, a video or a T-shirt — without having to set up their own store. The company has raised $8.1 million from Kleiner Perkins and Crunchfund, among others.

Readmill offers a clean, easy-to-use e-reading interface through its iPhone and iPad apps. Gumroad will let users selling ebooks on its platform add a “Send to Readmill” button that lets buyers send the ebook directly to their iOS device. (32 independent digital bookstores have also enabled “Send to Readmill.”)

“Reading should be an open and shared experience, for both authors and readers,” Gumroad’s Lavingia said in a statement. “Readmill and Gumroad will help authors make money doing what they love — writing — selling directly to their readership — so they can continue doing what they love: writing more.”

Separately, Readmill has partnered with Faber Factory, a U.K. based platform for independent publishers that is a joint venture between U.K. publisher Faber and Faber, U.S. publisher Perseus Books Group and Firsty Group, a U.K. company that helps publishers and authors sell ebooks directly. Readmill said these partnerships are part of its effort to “help independent publishers and retailers gain further traction and sell more books,” and says it is hoping to offer authors and publishers statistics on users’ reading data later this year.

The case followed complaints by Microsoft and others over Google’s treatment of rivals’ web services in its search results. These companies argue that Google favors its own services, which are not clearly marked as such, and also that it unfairly locks advertisers onto its platform and scrapes content from third-party search and comparison sites without consent.

A recent leak outlined the terms of the proposed settlement deal, but here’s the official version:

To address these concerns, Google offers for a period of 5 years to:

(i) – label promoted links to its own specialised search services so that users can distinguish them from natural web search results,
- clearly separate these promoted links from other web search results by clear graphical features (such as a frame), and
- display links to three rival specialised search services close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users,

(ii) – offer all websites the option to opt-out from the use of all their content in Google’s specialised search services, while ensuring that any opt-out does not unduly affect the ranking of those web sites in Google’s general web search results,
- offer all specialised search web sites that focus on product search or local search the option to mark certain categories of information in such a way that such information is not indexed or used by Google,
- provide newspaper publishers with a mechanism allowing them to control on a web page per web page basis the display of their content in Google News,

(iii) no longer include in its agreements with publishers any written or unwritten obligations that would require them to source online search advertisements exclusively from Google, and

(iv) no longer impose obligations that would prevent advertisers from managing search advertising campaigns across competing advertising platforms.

Authorities in the U.S. more-or-less cleared Google over similar complaints, but it’s important to note that Google’s share of the search market there is around 67 percent, whereas in the E.U, it’s around 90 percent. This gives it stronger market power in Europe, and forces the regulators’ hand somewhat (as do local laws).

A Q&A document, which outlines the Commission’s concerns in detail, points out that “it does not seem likely that another web search service will replace [Google] as European users’ web search service of choice.”

“In this context, it is important for the Commission to intervene in order to ensure that Google’s prominent market position in web search does not affect the possibility for other competitors to innovate in neighbouring markets, including in the long-term,” the document states.

So far, though, those deals with mobile providers haven’t been made public. Txtr announced Wednesday that it is selling the Beagle directly online in Europe for €59 (USD $76). “We are in talks with mobile operators and will announce details of the packages offered soon,” the company says on its website (via Google Translate). “For those who do not want to wait any longer, we offer an exclusive and unique opportunity to acquire the txtr beagle.” The Beagle will also eventually be sold in the United States for $69.

However, deals with mobile providers appear to be on the way. Txtr’s COO, Thomas Leliveld, told me that Txtr is “in contract phase with a leading EU operator” that will offer a subsidized device under €20. “We are also in closing stage with five more major EU operators,” he said. “I hope to be able to announce the lead customer in the next few weeks.”

At €59, the Beagle isn’t a great deal: It’s a barebones, Wi-Fi-less e-reader that runs on two AAA batteries. Users transfer ebooks to it from their Android smartphones via Bluetooth; iOS is not yet supported. The €59 purchase price includes a €10 credit for ebooks. By comparison, Amazon sells its cheapest Kindle (which includes Wi-Fi) in Europe for €79 (USD $102).

Via The Digital Reader

Flattr, co-founded by The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, is quite a simple system. The user signs up to donate a certain amount — $5 for example — each month, and then “flattrs” people for their content, with the recipient getting an amount equal to the monthly pot divided by the number of flattrs the user has made. It was originally for tipping bloggers who had Flattr buttons on their sites, but last month the company expanded the functionality to allow the automatic tipping of people posting on Twitter, SoundCloud, Instagram and other sites.

However, Flattr has now removed the Twitter functionality after Twitter asked it to desist. As Flattr co-founder Linus Olsson explained in a blog post on Tuesday:

“Recently Twitter contacted us and told us that we are violating their API terms citing the second part of a clause (IV. Commercial Use, 2C. Advertising Around Twitter Content) saying ‘Your advertisements cannot resemble or reasonably be confused by users as a Tweet. For example, ads cannot have Tweet actions like follow, retweet, favorite, and reply. And you cannot sell or receive compensation for Tweet actions or the placement of Tweet actions on your Service.’

“This is a quite logical clause as it would stop companies to sell e.g. retweets and followers. It’s an understandable rule to keep the Twitter network clean but in this case the rule is strangely stomping out innovation on their platform.”

Now, Flattr is a for-profit firm that takes a 10 percent cut of payments carried out over its system. But even after Flattr offered to forego that cut in the case of flattred tweets, Twitter apparently said no. So, from today, favoriting tweets won’t result in the tweeter getting money — although those using the Flattr browser extension can still “flattr” tweeters through this alternative mechanism.

I’ve asked Twitter whether it sees another way in which Flattr can operate on its platform, but am yet to receive a response.

On the face of it, this action of Twitter’s seems to tally with its recent shutting-down of Ribbon’s service, which used Twitter’s Cards technology to allow full-on payments to take place within tweets themselves. However, Ribbon and Flattr appear to have broken two different rules — in Ribbon’s case, it looks like the company wasn’t making the right kind of Cards access request, and in Flattr’s it was the contravention of the tweet action regulation.

It’s probably too early to tell whether Twitter has an ulterior motive here, but Olsson suspects it does. As he told me:

“I would speculate that they want to control all the ways that money is changing hands on Twitter – if they control that, they can control the flow and in future get a cut of it. That would be a logical business model for Twitter – if you use Twitter to sell something you need to pay Twitter for it. I’m just speculating here, of course.”

Flattr will now put this theory to the test, Olsson added, by building a system “where you can send a flattr to someone on Twitter by tweeting them instead”. In the meantime, the service continues to expand its reach by adding YouTube to the roster of services through which flattrs can be made.

I should probably add by way of disclosure that, since signing up for Flattr a month ago, I have received two flattrs for tweets of mine: one for €3 ($3.92 – I’m guessing the user didn’t favorite many tweets that month) and the other for €0.16. After Flattr took its cut, the remainder was €2.84, which is just less than the €3 that I have set as my monthly budget for flattring others.

The long-awaited deal is significant because it concludes a multi-year investigation by EU competition authorities, and because it is the first time that Google has bent to government demands over how it presents its search results. The details of the five-year deal, which has yet to be formally announced, were reported on Saturday by the Financial Times.

The terms of the deal

According to the FT, Google’s obligations vary depending on the nature of the search results. The most onerous conditions relate to listings like travel or restaurants where Google has a clear financial interest. In these cases, the company must identify any search listings that are Google-owned, and also provide at least three links to competing search engines. For other Google-related listings that do not produce direct revenue — weather or news, for instance — the company must provide a label.

The labeling will involve markers like boxes, separate page placement and “hover links.” A third party will monitor for compliance with these and other parts of the agreement.

The deal also requires Google to honor requests from news agencies and other sites not to “scrape” their content for use in its search listings, and to provide assurances that it won’t punish these sites by deleting them from the search listings altogether.

The agreement also addresses Google’s advertising practices by preventing it from imposing exclusive ad deals on its partners, and by making it easier for those partners to switch their ad campaigns to rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo.

The FT has a detailed account of the obligations here.

A victory for the EU, the public or Google?

When the deal is formally announced by EU regulators, we can expect to see considerable spin from Google and its competitors about what it really means.

At this stage, it’s clear that the deal represents the largest regulatory imposition to date over Google’s search business, which is still the core of the company and its prime money maker. This amounts to a victory for the EU and its high-profile competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia.

While Google will hardly be celebrating the regulations, the company could have fared far worse. The five-year deal, which is legally binding, means Google avoids the sort of heavy fines and bitter regulatory battles that ensnared arch-rival Microsoft for well over a decade.

Europeans consumers, meanwhile, are likely to continue using Google as they have done so far. Despite repeated accusation by groups and companies tied to Microsoft that Google manipulates its search results, there is little actual evidence that the company blatantly puts its thumb on the scale.

The agreement may, however, serve to give Google critics some peace of mind by providing legal assurances that their worst fears won’t come true. And, as the deal is not finalized, critics and others will have time to comment on its provisions.

A different outcome from America

One of the most noticeable features of the deal is how much it differs from the outcome of a similar investigation carried out by America’s Federal Trade Commission.

In a January report, the FTC concluded a two-year antitrust inquiry by announcing that Google had done nothing wrong in the field of search. While the FTC did extract a pledge the company related to patent abuse, this was more a face-saving measure for the FTC than a burden on Google. (Here’s a plain English summary of the US investigation).

Different laws in the US and EU explain the divergent outcomes. American antitrust laws, for instance, focus on harm to consumers not competitors — a different line of inquiry to what happens in Europe. America also has more robust speech laws. Google argued strenuously that its search results are protected by the First Amendment; the FTC likely folded its cards rather than risk losing a court case over the question.

Google also controls a higher share of the search market in Europe than it does in the U.S. — more than 90 percent, compared with around 67 percent.

According to a source familiar with the investigations, Google was also more willing to settle in Europe because a legally binding EU commitment  does not expose the company to civil lawsuits.

Waterstone is chairman. Read Petite was founded by literary agent Peter Cox and consultant Martyn Daniels. Neill Denny, a former editor of book trade magazine The Bookseller, is COO.

Cox tells The Bookseller, “We are genuinely trying to expand the reading market, and bring publishers together under our aegis to do something new. Up until now short-form writing has not really been economic to produce, but we think we can unleash it.”

Monthly subscription prices haven’t been set yet, but Waterstone tells the Guardian that they will likely be “a few pounds,” giving readers unlimited access to a library of long-form journalism and short stories. The stories will be submitted by publishers.

Read Petite sounds similar to U.S. e-singles sites Byliner and the Atavist, both of which are experimenting with subscriptions that give readers access to all their titles for a monthly fee.

So, now that the takeover has come to pass (the Financial Times reports the deal value as £45 million (USD $69 million), or around £20 per user), what fallout should we expect?

Cleaner data

According to Mendeley CEO Victor Henning, everything should be just fine. Mendeley will “stay an independent site” with plans to expand its 50-strong team to 80 within the next 18 months, he told me, adding that the deal would give both parties better data:

“All those resources will help us do two things. One is more integration — the biggest gap in our product offering is that it’s too difficult for users to get to full text content. When people found something on Mendeley it was usually just the metadata with a link to the publisher’s website. Elsevier publishes around 20pc of the world’s scientific output and has deals with other publishers for its Scopus database. We’ll be working to integrate Mendeley with Scopus and ScienceDirect to make it easier for our users to enrich and clean up the content we already have — our content is crowdsourced. Elsevier has a lot of clean structured data we can use to clean it up, and our data can enrich Elsevier’s because we have rich social information.

“We can now also take a more long-term perspective about monetization versus feature development and user growth. As an independent startup we were always trying to break even as soon as possible, and were under pressure to monetize new features. Now we can pick up certain things for the roadmap, for example hiring a fully-fledged mobile team. There will be a new iOS app soon, and we’re going to start building an Android app from scratch.”

Henning added that Elsevier’s existing 17 million author profiles would also have a positive effect. “Now, once we’re integrated, when you sign up to Mendeley we will immediately be able to present you with your profile to claim,” he said. “It will make it easier for users to get started.”

But what about all that criticism of Elsevier? There, Henning insisted there was little risk of users taking flight:

“People have criticized Elsevier for things they’ve done in the past but, particularly last year when they were subjected to criticism for their stance on open access publishing, they’ve taken that feedback to heart. They’ve doubled the number of open access journals that they publish. They do support open access publishing and they will expand on it in the future. Another move they made last year is, people were saying they’d like to text-mine content that you have, and they opened up to the community about that.”

Elsevier, meanwhile, also said in a blog post that Mendeley was “open, social and collaborative, and it is important to [Elsevier] that it retains all of those traits”.

“Elsevier has all the power”

However, not everyone is sounding so positive. One notable perspective is that of Jason Hoyt, Mendeley’s former R&D head and, since leaving the company, founder of open access publisher PeerJ.

Hoyt said in a post on Tuesday that Elsevier had previously hampered or outright stymied open access projects at Mendeley, including the service’s PDF preview functionality and a scheme to automatically put papers filed with Mendeley into the open access archive of the author’s institution:

“If one is honest, from a business perspective the Mendeley founders did the right thing to comply with Elsevier’s demands. My personal passions about Open Access hindered that, so no surprise it didn’t work out for more than a few years… I think that Mendeley as it stands today will continue to be useful even at Elsevier. That said, I think it will be challenging for Mendeley to become a truly transformative tool in science, which is what had originally convinced me to move from San Francisco to London four years ago.”

Meanwhile, open access blogger Mike Taylor noted that “Elsevier has all the power in the relationship” with Mendeley:

“So Mendeley say things like ‘very little will change for you as a Mendeley user’ and ‘we will continue to support standard and open data formats’, and I’m sure they believe them. But it’s dependent on the whim of Elsevier. The moment it becomes inconvenient or financially disadvantageous for them to do these things, they’ll stop.”

It will be worth keeping an eye on the user numbers of Mendeley and its main academic community rivals (such as ResearchGate) and reference management rivals (such as Zotero) to see which way the scholarly users themselves feel the wind is blowing.

Disclosure: Reed Elsevier, the parent company of science publisher Elsevier, is an investor in GigaOmniMedia, the company that publishes GigaOM.