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| | | September 28, 2003
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Sunday, September 28, 2003 |
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Microsoft pulls the plug on MSN Chat
Microsoft has decided to close nearly all of the chat rooms offered by its Internet service MSN. Citing excessive abuse by spammers and sex predators, the software giant is now scheduled to pull the plug on online discussions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and parts of Latin America. Child-support groups applauded the move as responsible behavior, but major Internet players harshly criticized the closures.
As of October 14, only U.S., Japanese, New Zealander and Brazilian MSN users will be able to participate in unmoderated chat rooms offered by the company. They will be required to provide a credit card number and pay a small monthly fee. A valid billing information will provide Microsoft with important personal details in case of criminal abuse.
Still, critics denounced Microsoft's decision as "irresponsible". Many pointed to free, anonymous online chatting as an indispensable phenomenon of the Internet age. Others described the move as driven by purely financial reasons. Microsoft denied financial considerations being part of the factors that led to the closures, but analysts noted MSN's chat rooms and attempts for moderation were a drain on the company's resources.
Microsoft urged its MSN chatters to move to MSN Messenger, which some expect to also become a paid service in the medium term. Instant messaging has become a tempting industry and has drawn other Internet giants, such as Yahoo! and America Online.
More from: BBC News | CNET News.com 1 2 | Computerworld | InternetNews.com | Reuters 1 2 |
VNUNET.com 1 2
IBM: SCO broke GPL, therefore infringed IBM's copyrights
IBM amended its counterclaims against SCO's multibillion-dollar lawsuit alleging The SCO Group infringed on the company's copyrights by violating the terms of GNU's General Public License (GPL), under which Linux is distributed. The computer giant is also asking a U.S. federal court to judge whether SCO can collect licensing fees for the Linux operating system.
In August, IBM filed a countersuit against SCO's claims that Linux's kernel contains illegally transferred intellectual property and charged the Utah-based company with violating its patents on a number of UNIX technologies.
More from: CNET News.com | Computerworld | VNUNET.com
VeriSign draws lawsuits, public ire... again
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) asked VeriSign Inc. to voluntarily suspend its controversial redirection web service. On September 15, the California-based web address registrar launched Site Finder, a dynamic web page that appears when Internet users misspell a particular URL. Site Finder, which VeriSign claims enhances surfing experience, includes web search, existing domain name suggestions and targeted text advertisements.
VeriSign's move drew public ire and condemnation, and the company was slapped with an antitrust lawsuit. This week, Go Daddy Software, a rival web registrar, also filed a suit, alleging Site Finder hurt its business.
Meanwhile, VeriSign announced it would not suspend the service, but that it would form a committee consisting of outside experts, which will review the service's technical ramifications. According to network administrators and software developers, Site Finder unethically 'hijacked' traffic, collected personal information and even confused anti-spam tools, looking for e-mails originating from non-existing domain names.
More from: ClickZ Today | CNET News.com | CRN | InternetNews.com 1 2 | ITworld.com | Reuters
In Other News...
 A security researcher was forced out of his job as Chief Technology Officer at @Stake, a Massachusetts-based security firm, after he and six of his colleagues released a controversial and severely critical report of Microsoft. In an independently financed and researched study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Daniel Geer found that Microsoft products' ubiquity at U.S. government computer systems and the giant's poor security record posed a threat to the national security of the United States.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) dropped a lawsuit against a 65-year-old woman, who was charged with sharing tens of hundreds of songs on the Kazaa file-swapping network. Sarah Ward denied the accusations by proving she owned only a Apple Macintosh computer, which cannot run the Kazaa application.
A newly proposed California state law taking aim at junk mailers includes harsh fines, going up to $1,000 per unsolicited message or $1 million per incident. Critics of the proposal, however, claim Internet's lack of state or national boundaries may make it useless and ineffective in clamping down on spam.
Symantec Corp. has agreed to acquire storage solutions developer PowerQuest for $150 million in cash. California-based Symantec will be integrating PowerQuest's technology into a full range of products for complete data lifecycle management, challenging competitors such as EMC and Hewlett-Packard. The deal is subject to regulatory and stockholder approval.
Antivirus software vendor Sophos acquired Canadian anti-spam and open-source developer ActiveState for $23 million in cash. Sophos is expected to be integrating ActiveState's technology for filtering unsolicited e-mail into its antivirus product line.
Apple Computer quietly withdrew a Mac OS X update just a day after its release, after a number of Power Mac G4 users complained of Ethernet networking connectivity problems after the installation of the patch.
IBM updated its Lotus Notes and Domino suite to version 6.5, adding additional collaboration functionality and integrating instant messaging capabilities.
Norway-based Opera Software ASA released its latest browser, Opera 7.20. The commercial browser maker contends the newest version offers faster web page rendering, improved JavaScript performance and support bidirectional languages. Two days later, Opera updated its browsing suite for Sony Ericsson P800 users.
Internet media giant Yahoo! launched its own product comparison search engine, further expanding its portfolio of specialized online searching tools. The service enters an increasingly competitive business environment as rival sites such as Shopping.com, MySimon and Google's Froogle vie to become the launchpad for the online shopper.
At the same time, leading online retailer Amazon.com will officially unveil a software development subsidiary in October this year. The Seattle-based shopping web site has begun to assemble the staff for its Palo Alto-based A9 unit, which will be developing e-commerce search technology for Amazon.com and other businesses.
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