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The US Federal Trade Commission is poised to serve Google with a civil subpoena as part of a wide-ranging antitrust investigation into its dominance, according to the Wall Street Journal. The civil probe represents the most serious threat yet to Google, though it may not lead to any allegations of wrongdoing against the 12-year-old company.
While Google has faced several antitrust probes in the past, the U.S. has always limited its investigations to reviews of the company’s mergers and acquisitions. This time, however, Google’s search-advertising business, its biggest money maker, will be examined. It isn’t illegal to have a monopoly, only to unlawfully acquire one or abuse it. While this makes Google a hard target for prosecution according to antitrust lawyers, it hasn’t stopped companies banding together to criticize Google and its tactics.
Fairsearch.org, a group representing the likes of Microsoft, Expedia and Kayak, says Google uses content without permission, deceptively displays search results, manipulates results to favor its products and buys up threats to its dominance.
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A video and pictures have emerged showing what appears to be Nokia’s first Windows phone, Engadget reports. Despite Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s request in the video for people to “put away their cameras†for the unveiling of something “super confidential†codenamed Sea Ray, pictures of what appears to be Nokia’s first Windows phone appeared online. A distinguishing LED on the back, along with the additional hardware button, shows the device to be new and unreleased. The phone is also shown to be running the Windows Phone 7 Mango OS.
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Twitter is looking into putting ads into user timelines, according to a report in the Financial Times citing people with direct knowledge of the plans. Twitter will reportedly place “promoted tweets†into the stream of user’s Twitter accounts and is also considering a local-deals option to rival Groupon. This would pull information for conversations and trends to offer limited-time offers.
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The hacking group LulzSec has released details of staff and correspondence from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and plans to release more classified documents, according to The Guardian. Since the attack, a number of DPS officers told the Associated Press they had been overwhelmed with calls to their homes and mobile phones from strangers. A DPS Spokesman confirmed that the agency’s computer system had been breached and that it was now taking additional security safeguards.
Meanwhile, FBI agents have flown to Britain to question 19-year-old Ryan Cleary, who was arrested on Monday for launching distributed denial of service attacks on a British crime agency among others. The agents’ arrival suggests Cleary may be charged with cyber attacks on American organizations and could face extradition to the United States. The FBI will reportedly access evidence collected by British police in Cleary’s family home before agents conduct their own questioning.
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Article source: http://blogs.forbes.com/parmyolson/2011/06/24/morning-tech-wrap-google-nokia-twitter/