The European Commission has formally revealed the concessions Google is offering to make in order to settle an antitrust investigation over its search practices. Interested parties have a month to comment. Read more »
Netflix won’t expand to another international market until the end of this or early next year, but the company is already looking for help to translate its site – giving us some interesting clues. Read more »
A British man has found some sympathy in the courts because Google did not delete false comments about him made on Blogger fast enough. Does his case open a backdoor to internet regulation? Read more »
The latest firmware update for Free’s set-top box adds a beta ad-blocking feature, which turns on by default when the user resets the device. If this was deliberate, it’s an interesting development for an ISP already embroiled in a net neutrality investigation. Read more »
Despite a new agreement with Google, Belgian media will launch their own shared user management and payment system, reducing the amount of free content on their sites. Read more »
Mail.ru is quitting its ambition of building a Russian Twitter, having failed to build sufficient scale. Instead, it’s aiming to consolidate its ownership of a leading social network. Read more »
It will soon become legal in the UK to copy music from a CD to an iPod, show copyrighted texts on an interactive whiteboard and use copyrighted works in a parody. In other words, this reform was sorely needed. Read more »
Sacrebleu! IPTV adoption in France is greater than anywhere in the world — and becoming more so. But that doesn’t mean the French consume the most internet video. Here is why its market is failing to take advantage. Read more »
Five years after its $280 million acquisition, the music service is still struggling to turn a profit for CBS, if latest efforts to tactically abandon and charge for royalty-incurring personalised radio are anything to go by. Read more »
The Danish firm has been building a platform for consumers to review independent online retailers. Now it wants to break America. But does Trustpilot need to work hard on improving its own visibility, or just syndicate its reviews to Google? Read more »
Consumers in Austria could be forced to pay rights holders for accessing cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, if an authors’ rights group has its way. The plan is being vehemently opposed by a group of CE makers and internet companies. Read more »
Apple’s ‘hobby’ of improving the TV-viewing experience has graduated to ‘intense interest’. But what chance does Cupertino have of working with broadcasters? More in Europe than at home, analysts say. Read more »
Music labels can expect prolonged life for the track download format to come from new overseas markets, as Apple launches iTunes Store in 56 more countries, introducing a legal store to fast-growth and difficult territories. Read more »
In a world of £9.99 tablet newspaper subscriptions, two UK red-tops are ditching their cover price entirely for their debut iPad editions. Does this free digital move point the way for the industry? Read more »
Russia’s new internet blacklist agency is busy naming “illegal” sites ISPs must block. But the government says search engines should not be blocked for pointing to those sites with excerpts of illegal content. Read more »
TV advertising remains healthy, but platform operators want a bigger slice of the pie. Next year, some will introduce targeted advertising to their set top boxes, promising greater granularity and more effectiveness to marketers. Read more »
Weblogs and social channels not affiliated with newspapers can breathe a sigh of relief. Tweets and blogs don’t have enough heft to be considered ‘news’ media like print, says the judge leading recommendations to heighten UK ‘press’ standards. Read more »
People don’t expect trustworthy online journalism like they do in print, says the judge making recommendations about British media. His view may seem antiquated to some, but it may see digital publishers dodge new regulation. Read more »
The nine-month-long inquiry in to British press standards says newspapers’ ethical standards have caused ‘havoc’, so a new self-regulator is required to hold them to better account. Read more »
Google exists because, by and large, it is allowed to excerpt web pages without being held liable as a publisher. Now moves in Germany and Australia threaten both of those core facts. Read more »
A U.S. election bump lifts the newspaper above the venerable broadcaster, as the two British news orgs vie for American readers. But closer inspection shows the BBC remains the more popular brand. Read more »
Russia’s new internet blacklist may not be the only force threatening available of Google’s business in the country. If new reports are to be believed, Mail.ru also wants to stop using Google’s search service. Read more »
Not even going online-only is enough. Reporting at the heart of Europe’s economic strife, FT Deutschland says its losses are now so big, it must shut down, leaving WSJ Deutschland to benefit. Read more »
As it launches a new weekly tech magazine on iPad, publisher Future puts some numbers on impressive tablet magazine gains, but overall revenue is slightly down. Read more »
Backed by Skype co-founder Janus Friis, Futureful is a content discovery tool that’s not dissimilar to StumbleUpon, only more heavily based on semantic tagging and machine learning. It’s due to launch in the U.S. in January. Read more »
Could a mobile app have rooted out #FakeSandy storm images that ruffled so many feathers? Scoopshot thinks it can, but others say editors must rely on human research to validate UGC photojournalism. Read more »
Should content owners sell through a subscription or on a piece-by-piece basis? That depends on the country they will be selling to, according to data that shows wildly varying patterns. Read more »
Another vendor hoping to provide a paid content mechanism to online publishers is raising money from backers including Apple’s former overseas lieutenant. Read more »
Browser maker Opera launches a music service in to a Russian market that badly needs legal options, whilst iTunes Store’s debut is reportedly shelved. Read more »
The European Commission wants to make it easier for digital services to offer content across the bloc’s national borders. Now research examines whether citizens want it as much as operators do. Read more »
Online video is hot. So the media vehicle run by News Corp’s former COO is now investing in Base 79, a company that populates online video channels and apps for content owners. Read more »
TV and tech folk nowadays talk the same language. But, as London’s eastern Tech City neighborhood gains attention, envious western broadcasters fight back with their own newly-named space. Read more »
Russian TV broadcasters are beginning to cooperate to ensure one site can become the go-to video portal. But Videomore doesn’t yet have 100 percent partner coverage. Read more »
Online earnings are falling despite booming audiences at leading UK news publisher Trinity Mirror, caught in a confluence of circumstances that prompt the big question — does content pay? Read more »
Virgin Media is the latest TV platform operator to launch on-the-go viewing and in-home remote controlling in a combined iPhone and iPad app. It’s a welcome and belated addition, but some features still depend on ye olde wires. Read more »
German publisher Axel Springer is buying heavily in to European classified sites to court digital and international growth. Snapping up Belgian property service Immoweb, it says the move will make up for a weakening print ad sector. Read more »
Indie travel publisher TRVL didn’t like the software it had to use to make its free, iPad-only magazine – so it built its own. Now TRVL is giving away PRSS, hoping to kickstart other would-be moguls, and make a buck of its own. Read more »
Central Europe’s Piano Media has tried to build nationwide shared “paywalls” for dozens of news sites. Now it is acquiring a technology startup to offer news meters that can’t be defeated by deleting cookies. Read more »
What happens in Belgium doesn’t necessarily stay in Belgium. Now Google News is facing a Brazilian boycott and France is threatening to copy a German-style tax on excerpting its newspapers. What’s an aggregator to do? Read more »
UK commercial broadcaster ITV has long funded its free shows with advertising. Three years after declaring its intention to charge online, it is now finally publicly testing a paid VOD service. Read more »
