Google faces new stand-off in Europe

9 September 2014 Last updated at 12:52

The European Commission is seeking fresh concessions from Google on how it displays search results on web pages.

The long-running investigation aims to settle concerns that the search giant has abused its dominant position in the European search market.

Competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia revealed that he could also open a probe into Google's mobile operating system Android.

Google said it continued to work with the commission to resolve the matter.

The dispute has been running since 2010, after rivals, including British price-comparison site Foundem, complained that the way Google displayed results was anti-competitive.

In Europe Google has a 90% share of the search market.

Toll road

In a deal hammered out in February, Google agreed to reserve space near the top of its European search pages for competitors, which would be open to rivals to bid for via an auction.

This auction could generate an extra income of up more than 300 million euros for Google, said rivals.

"Under the auction system Google would get another massive revenue stream. It's a bit like telling a robber than he can't rob any more but instead can set a toll on the High Street," said David Wood, a lawyer that represents iComp (Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace) of which Foundem and Microsoft are members.

"The real remedy is for Google to use the same algorithm for third-party sites that it applies to its own," he added.

He urged the European Commission to push this solution as part of its powers.

Writing on the Google Europe blog, executive chairman Eric Schmidt quoted Mr Almunia saying that imposing "strict equal treatment could mean returning to the old world of Google displaying only 10 undifferentiated search results".

"We're trying to get you direct answers to your queries because it's quicker and less hassle than the 10 blue links Google used to show," he said.

"Nor is it true that we are promoting our own products at the expense of the competition," he added.

Mr Almunia had previously indicated that he was happy with the changes but had changed his mind in the wake of "very, very negative" feedback from rivals such as Microsoft and Expedia, he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

"Some complainants have introduced new arguments, new data, new considerations. We now need to to analyse this and see if we can find solutions, Google can find solutions, to some of these concerns that we find justified," he told reporters.

This represents the third rejection of Google's solutions and experts think that it is now unlikely that an agreement will be reached during Mr Almunia's term in office, which finishes at the end of October.

If no agreement is reached, Google faces a heavy fine.

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Uber hires lobbyist after German ban

8 September 2014 Last updated at 13:58 By Kevin Rawlinson BBC News

The car pick-up firm Uber has strengthened its lobbying team after its service was banned in Germany.

The firm confirmed it has hired Mark MacGann as head of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

A Frankfurt court recently ruled that it was not operating its "low cost" UberPop service legally. Uber has also been the subject of protests across European cities, including London.

But Uber vowed to continue operating and fight the German ruling.

Mr MacGann, who has previously held senior jobs with the lobbying firms Weber Shandwick, Brunswick and FIPRA, would be tasked with pushing through Uber's planned European expansion, the company confirmed.

Battle

According to his own LinkedIn profile, Mr MacGann has specialised in "challenging incumbents to gain market access for innovative and disruptive industrial ventures".

The firm has faced stiff opposition from cab drivers across the continent, who have complained that it competes unfairly.

The firm, which is backed by Google and Goldman Sachs, often offers a lower cost service than local cabs do but has been accused of sidestepping much of the regulation involved.

It says it simply connects drivers with passengers and calculates the fare based on GPS. But cab drivers say it is a meter by any other name, which they need to be licensed to use.

In June this year, protests took place in many European cities, including Berlin, Paris and London. And, in August, a French court demanded that Uber change how its driver invoice system worked, to meet local rules.

That was followed by actions in the German courts, the most recent battle taking place in Frankfurt.

There, the judge issued a summary judgment, placing a ban on Uber pending a full hearing. The firm could face up to a 250,000 euro ($327,840; £198,342) fine per trip if it ignores the restriction - as it has said it intends to do.

Expansion

Uber has stated its desire for rapid expansion in Germany. Only days before the German ban was ordered, it said it expected to double its size in the country by the end of the year.

Despite protests in London, the British authorities have provided lesser opposition, deciding not to pursue a case against Uber in June.

Uber is not alone in employing lobbyists to present its interests on a multinational level. However, the appointment of a lobbyist of more than two decades' experience indicates how seriously it is taking the challenges it currently faces in Europe.

The firm said it would release a more substantial statement on the appointment later on Monday.

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Google mulls 'right to be forgotten'

8 September 2014 Last updated at 12:30

Google is holding seven public meetings across Europe to debate issues raised by the "right to be forgotten" ruling.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice lets people ask Google to remove some types of information about them from its search index.

Google opposes the ruling, which has led more than 90,000 people to apply for data about them to be scrubbed.

One privacy expert was sceptical about the meetings, saying they had more to do with PR than open discussion.

Data decisions

The first meeting takes place in Madrid on 9 September, with the other six due to be held in other European capitals before 4 November.

The meetings will be chaired and run by an advisory council Google set up in the wake of the ruling. The council includes Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales, former privacy officials and ex-judges.

Google is seeking input from experts to speak at the meetings, which it said were being held to discuss how "one person's right to be forgotten should be balanced with the public's right to information". The ruling only affects searches done in Europe.

It said the obligation to remove some information was a "new and difficult challenge" and it wanted help to guide its decisions about when to remove links to information and when to refuse.

Up to mid-July Google said it had received about 90,000 applications to remove data applicants considered to be "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant". The requests have involved criminal trials, embarrassing photographs, bullying and news articles that portray some people in a poor light. The search giant is believed to have acted on about half of these applications. Applicants can appeal if their request is refused.

The European Commission welcomed the meetings, spokesman Michele Cercone told Bloomberg, adding that exactly how the ruling should be enforced was the responsibility of national data protection regulators.

Google's meetings start just before a 15 September gathering at which European data protection regulators will hash out guidelines on the "right to be forgotten" for all search engines to ensure all requests to remove are treated consistently.

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of CNIL - France's data protection body - said the debates were more about getting good PR for Google.

"They want to be seen as being open and virtuous, but they handpicked the members of the council, will control who is in the audience, and what comes out of the meetings," she told Reuters.

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Twitter starts testing 'buy' button

8 September 2014 Last updated at 15:53

Micro-blogging service Twitter will soon start testing a "buy" button as it seeks to generate more cash from users.

The button will sit inside a tweet and allow people to click to buy an item directly from that message.

Tests with a "small percentage of US users" and a limited number of commercial partners are due to begin shortly, it said.

The trials marks a more serious attempt by Twitter to generate revenue by means other than advertising.

Before now, it has been possible to buy via Twitter but this has revolved around users sending public messages with a special hashtag in them to confirm purchase of an item.

By contrast, the buy button would be used alongside messages pushing a particular product or service, said Twitter in a blogpost.

Once users have clicked, they will be prompted to enter payment and shipping details. If a user is already known and registered with a service or merchant, they will be asked to tap the button again to confirm purchase.

Twitter said 19 partners had signed up to the tests, including pop singer Rihanna, non-profit group Nature Conservancy and fashion brand Burberry.

The first items to be sold via the button were likely to be time-limited, such as event tickets or other limited edition goods, said Nathan Hubbard, Twitter's ecommerce boss in an interview with the New York Times.

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Apple hires watch guru before launch

8 September 2014 Last updated at 18:59

Marc Newson has become the latest world-renowned designer to join Apple, it has been announced.

Mr Newson, who has designed watches in the past, has worked on designs with Apple recently, prompting further speculation the company is planning to move into new product areas.

He is close friends with Apple's chief designer, Jonathan Ive, who called him "extraordinarily talented".

Mr Newson said he was "enormously proud" to be joining Apple.

He is known for designing a wide range of products, including furniture, clothing and wristwatches. And a source suggested that there would be more to say following Apple's product launch event on Tuesday.

Mr Newson and Apple's senior vice-president of design, Mr Ive, have been working together over the past year. The news was originally reported by Vanity Fair on Friday.

"[Newson's] most relevant product would be the watches. That was before Ive was doing iPhones that made smartphones into jewellery," said Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum.

He said: "The thing about Marc Newson's work is that he has a slightly more hedonistic strand, it is more playful. Where Jonathan Ive is the roundhead, Marc Newson is the cavalier.

"Marc Newson got on to the map when he did a series of furniture pieces called the Lockheed Lounge. He took design to a different area. It was more high profile and sculptural."

Mr Ive said: "Marc is without question one of the most influential designers of this generation. He is extraordinarily talented. We are particularly excited to formalise our collaboration as we enjoy working together so much and have found our partnership so effective."

Mr Newson would be employed by Apple to work on special projects but would continue to undertake a number of independent projects outside of Apple through his design studio in the UK, his office said.

Mr Sudjic said the level of freedom he had been afforded represented a departure from Apple's standard procedure.

Mr Newson said: "I'm full of admiration and respect for the extraordinary design work that has been produced by Jonny and the team at Apple.

"My close friendship with Jonny has not only given me a unique insight into that process, but the opportunity to work together with him and the people that have been responsible. I am enormously proud to join them."

Mr Newson is the latest big name in the design world to join Apple. He follows:

• Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts
• Yves Saint Laurent's Paul Deneve
• Nike's Ben Shaffer

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Dixons Carphone sees revenues fall

9 September 2014 Last updated at 07:53

Dixons Carphone, the newly-merged electrical goods and mobile retailer, says it has made "a good start" in a first quarter trading statement.

Dixons Retail, the owner of Currys PC World, reported a 1% fall in year-on-year revenues, while Carphone Warehouse's revenues fell 17%.

Dixons Retail formally merged with the mobile phone retailer on 7 August, in a deal worth £3.8bn.

The new group will join the FTSE 100 on 22 September.

Sebastian James, group chief executive, said: "I am pleased to report a good start to the year and to our new shared enterprise.

"Dixons Carphone looks to be in excellent shape to tackle the perpetually shifting sands of the market and to achieve its goal of improving our customers' lives through technology."

Dixons Retail saw like-for-likes sales rise 4% in the UK and Ireland, 1% in Nordic countries, and 6% in Greece.

Sales were boosted by the football World Cup, the company said.

Carphone's like-for-like sales fell 6%, due in part to difficult trading conditions in Southern Europe.

"There is no doubt that the Spanish and Portuguese markets remain quite tough for our mobile businesses," said Mr James.

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Hackers take aim at iCloud users

9 September 2014 Last updated at 11:11

Cyber-thieves are exploiting the furore around iCloud by launching a phishing campaign that seeks to steal Apple IDs.

ICloud was at the centre of the stolen celebrity photo scandal last week as many of the images were grabbed by hackers that targeted the service.

Apple has responded by beefing up the security that notifies people when their iCloud account is accessed.

Attackers are now sending out bogus notification messages to trick people in to handing over login details.

The criminal gang behind the phishing email messages runs the Kelihos/Waledac botnet, said Symantec in a blogpost about the cyber-attack. A botnet is a large network of compromised computers used for a wide variety of cybercrimes, including sending out spam or mining victims' machines for saleable data.

The phishing campaign revolves around an email which appears to be from Apple and which claims that a song has been bought on iTunes via a person's Apple account. The message said the purchase was made from a device not previously used by that account and that the internet address used by whoever bought the track is in Volgograd, Russia.

Those receiving the bogus warning emails are asked to click on a link to verify their Apple ID. Clicking through to the page behind the link would put confidential data at risk, said the security firm.

"This page masquerades as an Apple website and asks the user to submit their Apple ID and password," it said. "If the victim does so, the attackers will presumably harvest their credentials for exploit or resale."

Symantec said users should be wary of any email claiming that online accounts need to be updated or changed. It also urged people to avoid clicking on links in messages and use security software that can spot or block phishing scams.

The campaign comes soon after Apple changed its iCloud notification system to do more to alert users about what is happening to their accounts. Alerts are now being sent when there is an attempt to change a password on iCloud accounts, when iCloud is used to download data to reset a device and when a login from a new device takes place.

In addition, noted the MacRumors website, Apple is now alerting people when iCloud accounts are accessed via a web browser.

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Home Depot admits hack attack

9 September 2014 Last updated at 11:19

US DIY store Home Depot has confirmed its payment systems have been hacked in what could turn out to be one of the biggest data breaches ever.

Home Depot has 2,200 stores in the US and Canada.

The company has not revealed how many people were affected, but said the hack of its systems dated back to April.

Security blogger Brian Krebs was the first to reveal the hack, which he said targeted credit and debit cards used on malware-infected cash registers.

In a press release, the firm apologised "for the frustration and anxiety this causes our customers".

"I want to thank them for their patience and support as we work through this issue," said chairman Frank Blake.

Personal information

Mr Krebs said a number of banks had told him about a steep increase in fraudulent ATM withdrawals on customers accounts since the hack was made public.

"Experts say the thieves who are perpetrating the debit card fraud are capitalising on a glut of card information stolen from Home Depot customers and being sold in cybercrime shops online," he wrote.

Card data from Home Depot customers is available for sale on underground crime shops such as Rescator.cc and includes both the information needed to counterfeit cards and the cardholder's full name and city, state and postcode of the store it was stolen from.

"The zip code data is important because it allows the bad guys to quickly and more accurately locate the social security number and data or birth of cardholders using criminal services in the underground that sell this information," said Mr Krebs.

Armed with this information, thieves can call automated bank systems and change the PIN on cards.

Mr Krebs also broke news of the Target breach, which saw up to 40 million debit and credit card numbers stolen and the personal information of up to 70 million customers potentially exposed.

According to the blogger, the Home Depot credit and debit card breach was aided by a new variant of the malicious software program that stole data from cash registers in Target stores around the US last December.

The malware, known as BlackPOS, siphoned data from cards when they were swiped at infected cash registers running Windows.

Security experts say the US is more vulnerable to credit card hacks than many other countries because it still relies on payment terminals that scan the magnetic stripe on the back of cards, giving malware an opportunity to copy the data.

Home Depot has said that it will begin using chip-and-pin and chip-and-sign systems by the end of the year.

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Paypal unit to 'embrace' Bitcoin

9 September 2014 Last updated at 12:10

Paypal subsidiary Braintree has started working on ways to process payments using the Bitcoin virtual currency.

The work is due to be completed within "the coming months", said Braintree boss Bill Ready in a conference speech.

It means that firms such as Uber and Airbnb, which use Braintree as a payment processor, will also be able to accept bitcoins.

So far, there is no indication that bitcoins will be accepted directly by Paypal and eBay.

Price crash

During his speech at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mr Ready said Braintree's work should be seen as its "first foray" into using bitcoins.

Braintree processes payments on mobiles and websites and said it would work with Bitcoin payments site Coinbase to process transactions carried out with the crypto-currency.

Bitcoins are a form of money that use unique numbers instead of notes and coins as a store of monetary value. In November 2013, the value of one bitcoin hit $1,000 (£620) but it has fallen sharply and now each one is worth about $470 (£290).

Braintree's work meant that tens of thousands of merchants would soon be able to accept the digital cash too, said Mr Ready.

Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg that Braintree's announcement was a "very substantial development". He added that it might also speed up adoption by Paypal which would mean "millions of retailers will de facto be accepting bitcoin overnight".

Paypal spent about $800m (£500m) in September 2013 to buy Braintree, largely because of its role in mobile payment systems.

Braintree's announcement comes as Wired reports on an attempt to unmask Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The tech news site said a hacker has claimed to have take control of an email account known to be used by the reclusive inventor who has never revealed their true identity.

The hacker said they would supply information that would lead to the identification of Mr Nakamoto if they were paid 25 bitcoins (£7,300). Wired was sceptical of the claim to have information about Mr Nakamoto as little evidence was provided by the hacker for his assertion.

An earlier attempt to unmask Mr Nakamoto was made by Newsweek which claimed an American called Dorian Prentice Nakamoto was the elusive inventor. He denied being the creator and interest in the claim led to the real Satoshi Nakamoto issuing a short statement refuting any link with Dorian Nakamoto.

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Woman seeks to crowd-fund abortion

9 September 2014 Last updated at 17:15

Crowd-funding website GoFundMe has removed a page from a woman seeking to finance her abortion.

Known only as Bailey, the 23-year-old had set up a page to ask for $2,500 (£1,550) to pay for the operation, saying she was having a "rough, unplanned and unexpected pregnancy".

Following complaints, the website said that it no longer wanted to be associated with her campaign.

It has raised questions about how crowd-funding websites should be used.

GoFundMe decided that using the platform to finance an abortion was a step too far and in an email to the woman, printed by the Daily Dot website, wrote: "GoFundMe reviews campaigns that have received a number of complaints on a case-by-case basis.

"In this particular case, your campaign contains subject matter that GoFundMe would rather not be associated with."

It said that money already raised would be forwarded to her. It is believed that more than 100 people had donated a total of $1,654.

Potato salad

In an interview with Vice magazine that was published before the page was removed, Bailey described herself and her boyfriend, who set up the page as "broke kids who really need to have this abortion".

The pregnancy, which she said was at about 20 weeks, was not going well, she said.

"Sometimes the pain is so bad that I can't get out of bed, and I can't go to the bathroom," she added.

In recent months the limits for what can be crowd-funded has been tested with projects such as Zach Brown's $55,492 raised to make a potato salad or Eric Estrada's attempt to crowd-fund his mortgage.

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