Intel Antitrust Suit Filed

Intel has been fighting an antitrust suit in Europe for years (recently getting hit with €1.06bn in fines) and now it must deal with essentially the same allegations in the United States.  According to the NY Times (found via Gizmodo, but there are more here), New York’s Attorney General–Andrew Cuomo–has filed a federal antitrust claim in the District of Delaware alleging that Intel “used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market.”

A copy of the 87-page complaint can be found here (PDF), and the first 77 pages or so lay out the alleged acts which led to the case being filed.   There are actually only four claims in the complaint, and only one of which is covered by the Sherman Act.  The other three claims involve New York state laws.  The Sherman Act claim alleges that Intel exercises monopoly powers, and by virtue of those powers, it “willfully maintained, and unless restrained by the Court may continue to willfully maintain, that power by anticompetitive and unreasonably exclusionary conduct.”

15 U.S.C. § 2 makes it a felony for a company or person to monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, any part of trade or commerce.  It’s punishable by up to ten years in prison, up to a million dollars in fines, or both.  But you’ll notice that this is a civil complaint, and not a criminal indictment.  This is because 15 U.S.C. § 15 gives an injured person the right to bring suit in federal court, and seek treble damages plus reasonable attorneys fees.

Naturally, Intel disputes the claims and promises to defend itself against the allegations.  (Link)

By nook or by Crook

Barnes & Noble’s new ebook reader, the nook, is widely considered a Kindle killer.  (Full disclosure: I was once an employee of Barnes & Noble, but that has nothing to do with this post.)  But a California-based company is suing Barnes & Noble, claiming the publishing and retail giant stole its ideas to make the nook.  (Source)

This company is called Spring Design, and it alleges that it met with Barnes & Noble in February of this year to show the company a product they called “Alex.”  This meeting occurred 5 days after a nondisclosure agreement was allegedly negotiated.  And it is alleged, through the filings, that the features found in the nook were all things envisioned by Spring Design.  So Spring is suing for “breaching the non-disclosure agreement, misappropriating trade secrets, and violating unfair competition laws.”  In addition, Spring would like production of the nook to be ceased.

We’ll see.

Where’s the Map for That?

It appears that at&t doesn’t like Verizon’s snarky “There’s a Map for That” commercials.  You know, the ones that somewhat inaccurately equate Apple’s “There’s an App for That” slogan with at&t’s native 3G service.  (Kinda shows you just how important the iPhone is to at&t’s viability, doesn’t it? Once that exclusivity is gone, I wonder what will happen to at&t…)

Anyway, at&t has filed suit against Verizon, in Georgia of all places, alleging false and deceptive trade practices. (source)  The ads are pretty aggressive, really, showing that at&t has pretty anemic 3G coverage while Verizon’s is quite extensive.  What at&t doesn’t like is the insinuation that somehow at&t customers aren’t able to access voice and data in the areas not covered by the 3G map.  at&t’s 3G implementation isn’t quite as robust as Verizon’s, but it does have the EDGE network in many places, so at&t customers get a sort of half-fast data network in the places where 3G isn’t available.

That’s why at&t is suing Verizon, because it feels that Verizon is insinuating that at&t customers don’t get any service in the areas where 3G has not been implemented.  Verizon is having none of it, saying that the ads are accurate because they clearly state that they are talking about 3G technology and that at&t data and voice access are still available in many places.

What’s funny is that the whole case has the potential to be completely moot if it actually goes to trial.  By the time that happens, 4G will be the new standard, and 3G probably won’t matter one whit.

Google Maps Navigation on Android 2.0

It was only a matter of time, really, before Google Maps became a turn-by-turn mobile application.  And now it has.  Gizmodo has a good write-up on its features and abilities, and of course it looks polished even in beta form.  (What isn’t beta in Google-land, besides GMail?  Oh.  Google Apps, actually, and a few other things.  Drat.  It was always fun to joke about how long things stayed in beta with Google.  Oh well, I guess I’ll have to fall back on making jokes about how no one knows you’re a dog on the internet.)  For right now, the application is available only to Android 2.0 users, but there are plans afoot to get it on the iPhone.

Anyway, what surprised me about the Gizmodo review of the application is this:

My fears on zero pricing, for the long term: If Google sells this in the App Store for zero dollars, those millions of bucks Apple makes off of GPS app sales will likely disappear. It’s not for us to worry about until there’s no more GPS competition except Google, and we’re dependent on their pace of progress, but no competition is a bad thing. And it’s a little strange that Google’s search money is going to pay for a free map app that is competitive with stuff that costs $100 a year from full-time GPS makers like TomTom. Unfair is the word that comes to mind. But I can’t say I don’t want this app.

I’ve written about my concerns regarding the freeconomy before, and this Engadget link essentially proves the point.  TomTom’s shares are down about 20% as of the time of this writing, and Garmin isn’t faring much better, down about 15%.  Free is nice and all, but it does have a cost.

(Sure, yeah, fine, in the long run all the buggy-whip manufacturers eventually ended up making something else, right?)

No Suit for You!

I mentioned a while ago that ASCAP was suing AT&T over ringtones, saying that royalties were owed every time someone’s phone rang.  Public performance and all that.  Well, in addition to suing AT&T, ASCAP sued Verizon for the same thing, and PC World (via Yahoo!) is reporting that District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York has tossed the suit against Verizon.

Judge Cote’s reasoning is refreshing:

“Despite the accusation that Verizon enjoys revenue from publicly played ringtones, Verizon makes no revenue from the playing of ringtones, in public or elsewhere,” Cote wrote. “It makes revenue from selling ringtones, and it already pays a mechanical licensing fee in connection with those sales.”

The Center for Democracy and Technology, which is hosting a copy of the Order, also notes that the Court relied partly on common sense in making its ruling.  It always seemed somewhat strained to argue that Verizon should be liable for a public performance (even to the extent that a ringtone could constitute a public performance) when it had no control over when or how that public performance would occur.

And the Cloud Goes Poof!

Not really, because there are an awful lot of people committed to making sure that you do your computing remotely, but halfway reading this PC Magazine article (via Yahoo! News), I started thinking, “hey, this sounds like Dvorak.”  No surprise, it was written by him.  He’s been very, and loudly, critical of the Cloud over the years, and the Mass Sidekick Annihilation of 2009 is the perfect opportunity for him to take another swipe at it.  As I am on the record as being pretty anti-Cloud, I of course like the article.  But this post isn’t about his article (which even takes EULAs to task), but about the damned Cloud.

Biometrics and the TSA

Airline travelers are quite used to metal detectors and x-ray machines by now.  And they may be getting used to what I call “the puffing thing,” but is referred to as a trace portal machine by the TSA.  (That’s the device that you walk into, and it puffs air at you, analyzes bits of debris it has dislodged, and lets you go on your merry way.)   Travelers are probably not yet used to the millimeter wave scanner, which I experienced over the weekend in DC.

New Deadline for Google Books

Just a quickie: United States District Judge Denny Chin has set a new deadline for getting the Google Books settlement done.  The new date is November 9, 2009.  (Source)

New Life for Old Books, but a Question Arises…

As the parties in the Google Books case get back to the drafting table (this time with very special guest, the United States Department of Justice), one of the stated benefits of Google’s massive scanning undertaking seems to be taking root.  According to the AP (via the Daily Journal Online), Google has allowed 2 million of the out-of-copyright books to be published by On Demand Books.  Before I get to the somewhat boggling bits, the report states that On Demand, the maker of the Espresso Book Machine can print a 300-page book in about five minutes, and the prices will be around $8.00 per book, with On Demand keeping $1.00 and Google getting $1.00.  Presumably the balance is comprised of materials cost? (Apparently Google will be donating it’s share to charity…)

Okay, here’s the part where it gets a little weird:  “Neller of On Demand Books is thrilled just to have the right to publish selections from Google’s digital library of public domain books.”  If the books are in the public domain, it would seem that On Demand would not need permission to print them.  And yet Google has placed restrictions on what one can do with the PDFs:

• Don’t engage in large scale redistribution or rehosting of the files
• Don’t sell digital or physical copies, or help other people buy and sell them
• Don’t send automated queries to Google’s system
• Don’t remove the Google “watermark” you see on each file
• Respect the Google Terms of Service

Well, they’re guidelines more than requirements:  each of those bullets is preceded by “Please,” which is a really fudgy word, and the whole entry is prefaced with a “we ask that you follow some basic guidelines.”  I get that Google is probably trying to be approachable and not a content tyrant, which is appreciated.  And I get that there are transaction costs that are avoided by On Demand using Google as its storehouse of content, but doesn’t it seem odd that someone is getting the “right” to make copies of works that are no longer in copyright?  And isn’t that, in some way, already the concern about Google doing all this in the first place?

Anyway, I’ll admit that copyright is a thorny, complicated issue that is probably better suited to an article or book (hey, there’s an idea!) but I just wanted to point out that not all is crystal-clear in Google Books land.  This isn’t to say that there is necessarily anything inherently wrong in what On Demand and Google have agreed to do, but something about it strikes me as odd.

“Politically Charged” App Apparently Approved

Ooooh, look at that consonance!  Anyway, it looks like iSinglePayer has been approved after all, sayeth Engadget.