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Hybrid Windows/Linux OS Offers Preview of Future - Lindows.com says the official release of the OS later this year will run Windows applications and will be accompanied by the source code, as required by the Linux GPL.
Undaunted by a continuing legal battle with Microsoft over its name, San Diego, California-based Lindows.com offered a new sneak preview of its Linux OS designed to run Windows applications. Lindows touted two new features with its latest sneak preview: Click-N-Run, which gives LindowsOS users access to a "warehouse" of software titles via the Lindows.com site, and an enhancement that gives users the ability to view and print major file formats -- including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- without purchasing additional software.
Go to article by Jay Lyman at NewsFactor Network
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European Parliament says no to Web site blocking
The European Parliament has voted against blocking access to Web sites as a way of regulating content on the Internet, instead pushing self-regulation and filter and rating systems. The vote was 460-0, with three abstentions, to adopt a report on the protection of minors and to respect human dignity that addresses many media, including the Internet. The European Parliament's report isn't a legislative document but is in response to a previous evaluation report by the European Commission. The European Parliament's decision was applauded by the European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA), which has always supported self-regulation. In a statement Thursday, EuroISPA called blocking a "technically disastrous solution" that also creates "free speech and democratic concerns."
Go to article by Joris Evers at Computer World

Rising Costs of Free Web E-Mail
Free Web-based e-mail services can be slow, clunky, sometimes unreliable and often glutted with messages from persistent Nigerian government ministers urgently seeking your aid. But you get what you pay for, and for all their imperfections, free services have become hugely popular for the obvious reason that they cost nothing. That main reason for sticking with the free mailers is quickly vanishing, though, as Yahoo and Hotmail, the two largest free e-mail services, have started to not-so-gently nudge users to pay for "premium" features.
Go to article by Farhad Manjoo at Wired News

Seeking Profits, Internet Companies Alter Privacy Policy
Pressed for profits, Internet companies are increasingly selling access to their users' postal mail addresses and telephone numbers, in addition to flooding their e-mail boxes with junk mail. Yahoo, the vast Internet portal, just changed its privacy policy to make it clear that it has the right to send mail and make sales calls to tens of millions of its registered users. And it has given itself permission to send users e-mail marketing messages on behalf of its own growing family of services, even if those users had previously asked not to receive any marketing from Yahoo. Users have 60 days to go to a page on Yahoo's Web site where they can record a choice not to receive telephone, postal or e-mail messages in various categories. Similarly, when Excite, another big Internet portal, was sold in bankruptcy court late last year, the new owner asked Excite users to accept a privacy policy that explicitly allows it to rent their names and phone numbers to marketing companies. (Those users, too, could check a box on the site to opt out of such programs, if they had not already done so on the old Excite.)
Go to article by Saul Hansell at NY Times

Will AOL and Yahoo Trade Places?
As the media giant's shares fall and those of its Net portal rival's rise, you gotta wonder: What's going on? With AOL Time Warner's stock down 31% this year, how can investors know for sure when it has bottomed out? One clue might be if and when the shares fall below those of AOL's former archrival, Yahoo! -- something that hasn't happened since late 2000. With Yahoo at $18 and change, up more than double from its 52-week low, and AOL at $21 or so, virtually at the bottom of its 52-week trough, the two stocks are perilously close to meeting. And with the announcement on Apr. 9 that Barry Schuler, chief executive of the AOL service, is being demoted, investors might sense that AOL's first-quarter earnings report, due on Apr. 24, could deliver another disappointment.
Go to article by David Shook at BusinessWeek

Surfers Swindled Out of Millions - Internet fraud cost $17.8 million in 2001, with auction fraud and the Nigerian e-mail scam hitting the hardest.
According to the report, 42.8 percent of the 16,775 complaints the IFCC received last year concerned auction fraud, with the average loss for auction fraud victims pegged at $395. However, the highest per incident loss was $5,575 for victims of the Nigerian e-mail fraud. According to the report, just .6 percent of the 9,864 people who reported a monetary loss, or 59 people, admitted losing money to that particular scam. The government of Nigeria recently set up a Web site to combat the scam. But the site has since been taken down, and attempts to reach government officials there have been unsuccessful.
Go to article by Brian Sullivan at PC World

Tech Firm Pays $1M Penalty In MP3 Sharing CaseB - A company that allegedly operated a music server has agreed to pay up rather than face a lawsuit.
According to the RIAA, technology consulting firm Integrated Information Systems Inc. was running a dedicated server containing thousands of MP3 files on its network, allowing all employees access to the music. In August, acting on an E-mail tip, the RIAA sent a letter to the Arizona company telling it to deactivate the server and threatening to sue for copyright infringement. Negotiations to settle the case began soon after that, with IIS eventually agreeing to pay a penalty.
Go to article by David M. Ewalt at Information Week

Online ads may soon take over your browser
Beware, Web surfers. Soon not even that dull, gray toolbar at the top of your Internet browser will be safe from advertisers. A New York online ad technology firm, United Virtualities, is preparing to introduce a product that will allow advertisers to automatically change the appearance of Web browsers, usurping some of the functions built into popular browsers designed by Microsoft and Netscape Communications, a unit of AOL Time Warner. Weather.com, a unit of Atlanta-based Weather Channel Enterprises, is considering using the new technology on its Web site within the next month, said Paul Iaffaldano, chief revenue officer. The Web site is testing the new product but hasn't yet committed to using it, he added.
Go to article at USA Today

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