Image via CrunchBaseFacebook has just admitted that it was attempting to spreading rumors against its rival company, Google, for criticism over their privacy practices. A public-relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, had attempted several times to make USA Today and other media outlets to publish their written stories which speak low of Google's Social Circle, which is a feature of Gmail claimed to be violating the privacy of its users. This story against Google was being insisted be published by the former CNBC news anchor, Jim Goldman, and former political columnist, John Mercurio, who are both the employees of Burson-Marsteller. This sotry was so critical that it went on asserting that Social Circle is also in dilatation of the terms of Federal Trade Commission regulations. Mercurio was actually the one who approached a former FTC Researcher, Christopher Soghoian, to publish this highly opinionated article under his own name. Whike USA Today also came forward and informed regarding Goldman, who appraoced them to write a story criticizing the practices of Google Inc.
Google is pretty upset regarding the new amendment in the Internet regulations of the India, which were revised very recently. These new rules put in effect just last month, ask all the websites providing services in India to be sure of removing any objectionable material which their website may contain. The memo elaborated that the objectionable material includes anything which could be referred as "grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous," "ethnically objectionable," "disparaging" and the list went on listing any material impersonating someone else. In order to ensure the implementation of its new rules, it gave the responsibility and instructed to all the Internet Service Providers and social networks to restrict any content, which falls under the categories mentioned above, within their terms of service contracts with all their existing and new users. Additionally it gave all the websites the time limit of 36 hours, for removing any such material they have on their websites which can be identified as objectionable.
Image via CrunchBase This memo was penned actually in February, and was apparently only reviewed by the WSJ on Wednesday, which did not actually publish this memo. The review of Wall Street Journal mention that the tone used in the memo was "too prescriptive" and could be used as an excuse to restrict any material, as they would consider it illegal in India, even when it is not.
Image via CrunchBaseIntel Corp. has once again made a huge financial leap this quarter, as its dividend raise over expectation to 16 percent, growing further from which was already one highest-yielding shareholder payouts in the tech-word. This Wednesday it reached its peak, highlight the strong hold and base of Intel in the market of personal computer, which is still growing better than ever regardless of the threats from its rivals like tablet computers of companies like Apple. Paul Otellini, the C.E.O. of Intel, asserted that this immense growth is not temporary; he claimed that the demand of computer has spread the computing market worldwide and thanks to that, the company has a long track of increasing revenue, which has grown more than 20 percent over last year's $43.6 billion.It was quoted that more than 1 million PCs are being sold daily in the market, out of which almost 80 percent contain these Intel microprocessors, acting as if the "brains" of those computers. This immensely high demand lead to the dividend increase is welcomed second time by Intel' in past six months, whereas considered overall it was the 16th.
This Wednesday, Malaysian authorities have declared that they will soon begin a large-scale major crackdown to bring down the local criminal gangs using the highly popular social networking websites, like Facebook and Twitter, which are being used to actually recruit teenager as their "street fighters." Star Daily, a local source reported that Hishammuddin Hussein, the Malaysian home minister, has said that the government will be launching these crackdowns after observing extra ordinary growth of the online recruitment pages in recent months.
Image via Wikipedia Hishammuddin also stated that "The ministries, including the Information, Communications, and Culture Ministry, the (multimedia) commission and the police will be brought in to tackle the issue." "They all have their own expertise and it is just a matter of coordinating them to achieve the goal," he added. He announced that since this will be a very large crackdown; the authorities will not at all be lenient, he declared that in this crackdown even crime like money laundering to drug trafficking will be considered as the same level of crime as terrorism, and the authorities will aim to bring down all types of organized crime. He ended his words stating that "They are all related and are a serious threat not only at the national level but also the international level." Obviously no further descriptive details about the crackdown were shared.
