Canning the spam

Unsolicited email has long been the bane of every inbox, and has prompted 16 companies to form an industry coalition to come up with standards that address users' concerns while resisting a regulatory body. The coalition, which includes online advertisers DoubleClick and 24/7 Media, met together over the summer, the results of which are expected to be made public at a marketing conference in Boston later this month. Recommendations are likely to include ways in which consumers can gain more control over the amount of unsolicited advertisements they receive via email. ...more

Vodafone breaks through 200 million customers

Against the backdrop of year-on-year revenue growth of more than five per cent, the mobile giant now boasts a customer base of more than 200 million. Vodafone yesterday announced that it added an extra 8.7 million customers to its books in the last three months of 2006, helping its overall customer base to swell to more than 200 million users. ...more

Dr Brilliant searches for Google philanthropy

Larry Page and Sergey Brin have chosen the man to run Google's philanthropic activities. Dr. Brilliant will become executive director of Google. ...more

The Napster monster won't lie down

Napster's efforts to filter out copyright material from its song-swapping service have infuriated Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who gave the order, describing it as "disgraceful". Lawyers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that 84 per cent of material that the five major record labels asked to be blocked was still available. Napster complained that it had done everything possible and that the labels had presented it with confusing lists of songs. ...more

SCO to offer way out of Linux

SCO's next prong of attack is to persuade companies out of using Linux. SCO's SEC filing relating to the $50mn investment in SCO convertible stock details the company's future plans, which include introducing incentives for 'switching back to Unix'. 'We will help them migrate to another operating system with a stronger IP foundation,' we were told. ...more