Business

Attorneys General from 36 states have written to Google CEO Larry Page expressing deep concerns over the company's privacy terms. Google's new privacy policy, which permits greater information sharing among its products, should allow consumers to opt in, the attorneys general maintain. Besides lacki...

T-Mobile plans to invest $4 billion in improving its wireless network to expand existing coverage and launch 4G LTE service. The "network modernization" strategy will also include improvements to voice and data coverage, an expansion of the company's sales force, retail store remodeling, an aggressi...

The global marketplace for broadband services is dynamic and growing. At the end of 2011, approximately 660 million households subscribed to an Internet service, and about 580 million -- 32 percent of all global households -- received broadband service. The populous countries in Western Europe have ...

Microsoft has filed a formal complaint with European Union antitrust authorities alleging that Motorola Mobility -- and hence, Google -- is improperly restricting the use of certain patented technologies. The complaint comes a week after the European Commission approved Google's $12.5 billion acquis...

Top mobile app providers like Apple and Google have sided with California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris to increase privacy protections on mobile apps by providing consumers with more information about the personal data the apps collect. The effort was spearheaded by the California AG in an effo...

A few weeks ago I visited C Spire Wireless in Ridgeland, Miss. I didn't know what to expect. It's gone through quite a few changes recently; however, I have to say it was a delightful surprise. They were impressive and friendly. I met with the senior executives, they showed me around, we toured a re...

Barnes & Noble released a new Nook Tablet Tuesday, shaving US$50 off the price and reducing the storage by half. The new price, $199, matches Amazon's Kindle Fire. The new Nook emulates the Fire on a number of fronts -- price and 8 GB storage. The new Nook comes with a 1 GHz dual-core processor ...

Yelp, the online local review service, expects to sell 7.15 million shares in its IPO, at US$12 to $14 each. The total potential take is $100 million. The company will list its stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "YELP." Yelp's price target values the company at roughly $778 millio...

Amazon's Kindle Fire was second in tablet market share only to Apple's iPad in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a report from IHS iSuppli. Amazon didn't release official sales figures when it reported its quarterly earnings for the end of 2011 recently, but the iSuppli report states the comp...

A Morgan Stanley analyst has cut his rating on Amazon to equal weight from overweight. The reason? Mounting near-term challenges that mean 2012 will be a year of transition for the stock. Generally, the company is a long-term supporter of Amazon, Scott Devitt wrote, and it remains a long-term suppor...

The European Union Court of Justice has rejected a call for Internet platforms to filter and block unauthorized copyrighted material. The suit was brought by music industry group SABAM against Netlog, an online social networking platform that lets users share content through profiles. SABAM objected...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has put in place tougher restrictions regarding prerecorded telemarketing calls, aka "robocalls." In a 3-0 vote, the commissioners agreed on four ways to limit the automated marketing calls, which often irritate users of residential and cellphone lines. The...

The word "terminal," before the computer revolution, had several meanings, one of which described it as either end of a carrier line containing facilities for freight and passengers. Nowadays, in the computer age, it can mean the end point of a carrier line containing data "floating" in a cloud and ...

The FCC indicated it will not approve LightSquared's network, as it would interfere with GPS signals used by planes, boats and cars throughout the U.S. The FCC's approval of LightSquared's plans was conditional on resolving those interference issues. LightSquared's high-speed network would have ser...

Online game maker Zynga reported a net loss during its first quarter as a publicly traded company, due mostly to heavy stock compensation from its IPO and an increase in research and development costs. Revenue at Zynga, however, was up 59 percent during the last three months of 2011. The company bro...