But, as more and more consumer commerce is carried out online through etailers that operate independently, how can customers gauge sellers’ trustworthiness?

That is a problem Denmark-based Trustpilot has been trying to crack in Europe since it was founded in 2007. And now it is taking on a further €10 million ($13 million) to fund entry to the United States (announcement).

The money comes from Index Ventures, which is joining previous  backers SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone, which gave €4.5 million a year ago and which think Trustpilot’s method of letting buyers rate and review merchants will be big. CEO Peter Mühlmann writes that he wants to double staff from over 100 in the next year.

Trustpilot says: “The benefit for businesses using Trustpilot is that they can backtrack each customer review to the transaction on which the review is based. This helps businesses pinpoint where and how to improve customer satisfaction.”

But, as it tries to unlock the large US market, the outfit may nevertheless still face challenges at home. Despite operating in the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands and Italy, I have never heard of it; it simply would not have occurred to me to use it to find trustworthy sellers.

That means it is starting from a lower base in the States. But Trustpilot also supplies reviews to Google product search pages — a place where people are more likely to see them.

But Trustpilot claims merchants who display its reviews on their site can increase purchase conversions by 20 percent. Its focus on providing value to businesses through highlighting positive reviews seems to take second place to providing a service to consumers.

The service claims to have garnered over six million reviews of over 100,000 merchants.

Scandinavian’s Schibsted is following its spring acquisition of the Aspiro music service by purchasing 10 percent of Danish ebooks service Riidr, ArcticStartup reports.

Kobo-like platform Riidr is a service for reading .epub and watermarked ebooks through a simple web interface or through iOS and Android apps. So far, its titles are only Danish and Swedish. Riidr also lets readers move those titles over to Kindles, thereby growing the Scandinavian repertoire on Amazon’s device.

Aftenposten newspaper publisher Schibsted is one of the largest news and magazine publishers in Europe and Scandinavia and is diversifying from newspapers with this investment.

Schibsted CEO Rolv Erik Ryssdal wrote last month that the company has gathered its news content, classified and other payment efforts, started at its Fædrelandsvennen title, up together with others from its digital portfolio into a groupwide program it’s calling Schibsted Payment:

“[The aim is] to facilitate simple payment solutions for all of our companies’ customers, for buying everything from second-hand bikes on FINN.no to quality content in our newspapers.”

“We must lead the way in finding new quality content and new sources of revenue. We must derive most of our revenues from digital courses.”

Riidr and Aspiro are two ways Schibsted may get to build competency in this area.

Riidr tells ArcticStartup newspapers may get to offer its ebooks through their web pages.

Last month, Netflix said better-than-expected losses from its UK and Ireland launch will entice it to launch elsewhere in Europe this year.

Turns out, the new launches will be in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, Netflix announced on Wednesday.

Lovefilm already operates streaming-only movie subscription in three of those countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway). Now the only one of Lovefim’s markets uncontested by Netflix is Germany.

Netflix signed more than a million subscribers in its first six months in the UK and Ireland, where it does not offer DVD rental. That likely overtakes Lovefilm’s own streaming-only service Lovefilm Instant, which it introduced to compete with Netflix in January.

But Lovefilm is not Netflix’s only competition in Scandinavia. Voddler, Bonnier’s SF Anytime, Viasat’s Viaplay and SVT Player are amongst existing Swedish VOD operators.

Netflix’s Wednesday announcement says it will carry “a wide array of Hollywood, local and global TV shows and movies”. That suggests it has succeeded in inking some content deals with Scandinavian broadcasters as well as movie studios.

IHS Screen Digest recently had this analysis:

“Competing with an entrenched array of existing incumbent players will generate additional costs for Netflix, particularly if the service provider decides to ink deals for the best movie and international TV rights.”

“Sweden presents an attractive market for Netflix, with high GDP, developed broadband infrastructure and positive consumer attitudes to using legal online video services.

“Viaplay has deals with all major international and local distributers. Importantly, many of the incumbent Swedish online video providers already distribute premium video content directly to different connected living room devices (TVs, Blu ray players, game consoles, etc) – traditionally Netflix’s strength.”

Same day Netflix announces Scandinavia move, HBO trumpets “HBO Nordic, which will serve Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.”

— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) August 15, 2012

A Scandinavian pitch contest jury has named iZettle, a Square-like mobile payment gadget, the region’s Digital Champion and given Klarna, a pay-after-delivery facilitator, a Billion Dollar Company award.

The contest was held by tech M&A advisory house GP Bullhound, which judged along with VCs and entrepeneurs, at Stockholm’s Riskkapital 2012 VC event on Thursday.

The call was put out to pitchers earlier this year. The programme named the following as the 25 most interesting companies in the Nordics’ digital economy…

1. Artificial Solutions (natural language interaction)
2. Avito
3. Bambuser (live mobile video capture)
4. Betsson (online gaming)
5. Blocket (classified ads)
6. Brandos (shoe retail)
7. Burt
8. Cint
9. Digital Route (data management)
10. EPiServer (website builder)
11. Garagekoll (parking space rental)
12. Guldbrev (scrap gold buyer)
13. iZettle (mobile payment gadget)
14. Klarna (buy now, pay later facilitator)
15. Livebookings (restaurant booking)
16. Mathem.se (groceries)
17. Neonode (multi-sense interface recognition)
18. Nordnet (savings bank)
19. Orthocone Innovation Technologies (LCD technology)
20. Qliktech (data exploration)
21. Seamless (mobile payments)
22. Soundcloud (audio sharing)
23. Spotify (music access)
24. TocaBoca (mobile learning games)
25. Wrapp (Facebook gift cards)

Update: As expected, BT has confirmed it will wait for a court order before proceeding. More details below.

This morning, the BPI released a statement saying that it has sent a letter to BT to request it to block Pirate Bay. “If BT will not agree to block voluntarily, then it has been asked to consent to a court order,” the statement read.

The BPI, which says it is teaming up with other organizations representing the creative industries, is banking on a precedent set by a case decided in October in which BT was ordered by the courts to block another site, Newzbin2, that facilitates illegal downloads.

That was the first time that a UK ISP has been ordered to block a pirate site, although such actions have been in place in other countries like Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and Sweden since 2009.

We have reached out to BT for comment on the situation, and we will update this post as we learn more. The operator is expected to put out a statement later today.

But we understand from sources that it’s not likely BT will comply with the initial, voluntary request because that could imply a dangerously slippery slope. “BT cannot block web sites willy nilly,” said the source.

Furthermore, BT has said as much itself. During the Newzbin2 case brought by the Motion Picture Association, BT had this to say: “This is a helpful judgement, which provides clarity on this complex issue. It clearly shows that rights holders need to prove their claims and convince a judge to make a court order. BT has consistently said that rights holders need to take this route.”

Update: BT’s response, as we wrote, will be to wait for a court order, not do it voluntarily. “We can confirm we are now in receipt of a letter from the BPI [ requesting that BT block the Pirate Bay site]. BT is considering its response. In line with the Newzbin judgment, a court order will be needed before any blocking could begin. BT is currently focused on implementation of that order.”

Given the clear proof that the BitTorrent site is helping distribute thousands of pieces of content, with no royalties paid to the rights owners, it is likely that BT will work with the BPI in getting the court order to close the site through legal means. The precedent of the Newzbin2 case is likely to make that process relatively easy, depending on who comes to Pirate Bay’s defense.

“We would not tolerate Counterfeits “R” Us on the High Street – if we want economic growth, we cannot accept illegal rip-off sites on the internet either. We hope that BT will do the right thing and block The Pirate Bay,” the CEO of the BPI, Geoff Taylor, said in a statement today.

BT, if ordered by the court, will have 14 days to block the site and foot the bill for the change.

Aspiro — the Swedish music streaming service that is not Spotify — today announced that it had signed a deal with a “new partner” in one of the Benelux countries. Aspiro doesn’t say who the customer is but from its past track record for customers it may be an ISP or a mobile operator. Under the terms of the agreement the partner will sell Aspiro’s streaming service, called WiMP, under a new brand name. Aspiro says that agreement will give it a revenue bump to the tune of 8 million-30 million Swedish Kronor ($1.2 million-$4.6 million) over the next four years.

It says the new service is expected to launch in the next three to six months.

The white-label route is one that we may start to see increasingly from Aspiro as it looks to expand its customer base and subscriber footprint. Currently, it has only one other agreement of the kind, in Portugal. “Although launching WiMP-branded directly to consumers is our main strategy, we are also flexible towards partners who want to use their own branding. This agreement could generate a substantial growth for us,” the CEO of Aspiro, Gunnar Sellæg, said in the company’s statement.

At the end of October, Aspiro announced that it was selling a 6.5 percent stake in the company to Norwegian music and entertainment retailer Platekompaniet for SEK 16 million ($2.5 million).

As of June, WiMP had some 300,000 paying users in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, in addition to another 700,000 via an agreement with Norway’s Canal Digital, whose subscribers can opt for WiMP to be bundled into their pay-TV subscription packages.

The route of offering music services via a local ISP is one that is being tested by Virgin Media with its Spotify deal in the UK. Other partnerships of this kind have seen a lot of success: TDC in Denmark has been offering a music streaming and downloading service, TDC Play, since 2008 in partnership with the company 24/7, and in June it said it had seen 340 million downloads on the service (but no details about actual subscribers).

Aspiro is due to present its interim report for Q3 on November 10, when it might give out more up-to-date details on subscriber numbers and the new customer.

Meanwhile, the music download company 7digital has launched an app optimized for Android tablets — with perhaps the most unique feature being an enhanced graphic interface for browsing new and downloaded music.

The move is part of 7digital’s wider strategy to offer its service via more of its own-branded apps, which it is doing on top of the many deals it has in place to power music download services for a range of companies that include handset makers like Samsung and online music providers like Last.fm.

7digital in September noted 500,000 installs of its Android handset app and 600,000 downloads of its BlackBerry app. It has not said, however, how many music downloads have been made via those apps.

Some deals were well telegraphed but not the scope of the announcement, made at the Mipcom TV trade show in Cannes Wednesday. The services vary by country, with the bulk available in the U.S. The partners include UK broadcasters BBC, Channel 4, Channel Five (no ITV); online services like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG), Dailymotion and Lovefilm; Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) through Xfinity and NBC Universal, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Verizon in the U.S.. (Full list below.)

Xbox Live users gain access to some services through free registration; Xbox Live Gold is a subscription plan. Initially, Microsoft wanted to limit the new services that would be streamed through the Xbox to the Xbox Live Gold tier but that caused problems for the BBC and some other networks required under their charters to be available to the widest tier on a service. Microsoft bent, we’ve been told: those networks will be on the Xbox Live tier, available in their countries for no additional fee while others in the same country — Channel 4 in the UK, for instance — are only on the pay plan.

All of the partners’ announcements are coordinated to refer only to features and not to strategy.

• The BBC is making no comment about any of this. “The BBC is pleased to confirm the completion of a partnership deal with Microsoft that will enable the BBC to make on-demand services available to all UK users of the Xbox Live platform,” a spokesperson tells paidcontent. “We’re not yet in a position to go into any specifics – or confirm a launch date – but we’ll share more details as soon as we can.”
• Lovefilm, which previously was shut out by Microsoft’s seeking a slice of its subscription revenue, has not responded to our questions.
• Channel Four, whose cross-platform 4oD service can only be used by paid-up Xbox Live gold subscribers, has also not responded.

To be sure, the new name is not exactly streamlined and zippy, and sounds confusingly similar to one of Sony’s existing product divisions:

“Sony Network Entertainment introduces Sony Entertainment Network,” reads the Sony blog post describing the new platform.

Sony Entertainment Network will encompass Video on Demand powered by Qriocity, which will now be called simply Video Unlimited; and Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, which will become Music Unlimited; and the PlayStation Network. The changes were detailed by Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany, today.

While the rebranding could simplify the Sony’s cloud entertainment offerings to the market, it will also have the added bonus of taking away a name that became synonymous with the hacking scandal that hit Sony earlier this year, in which millions of accounts were compromised around the world and the network shut down for weeks, and which it says will result in a “signficant decrease” in sales this year.

The announcement coincided with Sony’s other big news today from IFA: the official unveiling of two new tablets — the company’s first foray into the market currently dominated by iPad.

In the publicity around those two tablets, Sony touted the many entertainment services it had in place that would link up with the new devices, including Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited — without mentioning the Qriocity brand.

In addition to being available on Sony’s tablets, Sony announced today that Music Unlimited will also start to be offered in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium by the end of this year.

Cookies are small text files that are often used to track users’ browsing across websites, and thus target advertising. They’re also used for more mundane purposes such as remembering when a user is logged in to a particular site.

The EU directive that would require users to “opt-in” to accept cookies has proven controversial, with advertisers raising the spectre of consumers faced with an endless stream of opt-ins buttons upon simply loading a website. A single website can have dozens of cookies placed by third-parties including analytics and advertising companies. Under the EU rule, websites would be able to send cookies without an opt-in only when they’re for the direct purpose of a service requested by the user–the best example being a cookie remembering that someone is logged in, or is using a particular “shopping cart.”

In the UK, the government is in discussion with the major browser vendors about how to follow the new directive. UK Information Commissioner Chris Graham made clear in a talk to advertisers today that websites won’t be compelled to confront users with a barrage of windows asking for “opt-in” permission to share cookies. “It would obviously ruin some users’ browsing experience if they needed to negotiate endless pop ups – and I am not saying that businesses have to go down that road,” the Daily Telegraph reported Graham as saying. The better solution would be one based on browser settings, he said. But “necessary changes to the technology aren’t there yet.”

The new cookie rules are an EU directive, which means that each EU member state is supposed to design its own national laws that will comply with the basic outline of the directive. But deadlines for EU directives are routinely missed and some countries take many months or even years to become compliant with these directives.

So far, these cookie guidelines appear to be getting a very chilly reception in Europe. Only two nations have stated their intention to fully comply, while three others–France, Slovenia, and Luxembourg–have told the EU they will do a partial implementation of the rules, according to The Register, a UK tech publication.

No specific financial terms were given for either announcement but they will go some significant way towards Nokia’s aiming to reduce its operating expences by €1 billion ($1.5 billion) by fiscal year 2013.

Symbian: The outsourcing deal with Accenture transfers all of Symbian’s software activities to the systems integrator. That will include 3,000 people who currently work on Symbian for Nokia. As part of the agreement, Accenture will continue to provide Nokia with the Symbian platform, and all related services.

Given Nokia’s strategic and operational shift to Windows Phone 7 as the main platform for its smartphone portfolio — and, importantly, viewing itself as a handset maker, not a software designer — it’s not a surprise that it is giving up on driving Symbian to the next stage of its life. It’s not giving up on Symbian altogether, though: Nokia intends to continue using Symbian at least until next year, and may even continue to use it in certain smartphones beyond then. After all, even if Symbian’s not worked out in some markets, like the U.S., it has a huge number of users and supporters elsewhere.

Nor is it a surprise that Nokia chose Accenture above other systems integrators when it decided to consider outsourcing: Accenture already manages part of the Symbian platform on behalf of the company. In 2009, it took over Nokia’s professional services unit, which provides Symbian engineering and support service providers (presumably when customising Symbian devices for particular, operator-specific services).

There is another connection, too: David Wood, one of Accenture’s senior consultants in its embedded mobility services division — where the current Symbian operations reside — was the EVP and head of research for Symbian until October 2009. He joined Accenture in May 2010, and it looks like he will be closely involved with Symbian again. “No longer need to sidestep questions about spending so much time in Finland,” he tweeted earlier today.

Layoffs: The company is targeting to lay off 4,000 employees by the end of 2012. The majority of reductions, it says, will be in the UK, Denmark and Finland, and consultations around this began today.

As part of this the company will also be restructuring its R&D, consolidating/refocussing some operations and closing others. No details on what exactly this will mean yet but will presumably mean more people placed on the project of integrating WP7 into the devices already planned for Nokia’s roadmap.

Nokia says employees can “stay on the Nokia payroll through the end of 2011.”

“At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones and future disruptions,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO, in the release. “However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia.”