Steve Bryant

By now the Digg user revolt story over DRM circumvention is so widespread that writing an analysis piece seems like an ironic exercise in meme replication. The story began with AACS LAs wish to keep their hex code secret, and ends with the publication of that code on an inestimable amount of blog posts, forum […]

Google filed today its response to Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit, which alleges unauthorized use of Viacom’s copyrighted video, Google Watch has learned. Google’s response is available for download here. Viacom’s complaint, filed in New York federal court March 13, accuses Google and YouTube of “massive intentional copyright infringement” and seeks an injunction against further violations. […]

In an attempt t make more government documents accessible to the browsing public, Google has partnered with four states to help make tens of thousands of public records searchable. Google has partnered with four states — Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia — to remove technical barriers that had prevented Google, Microsoft and Yahoo from accessing […]

Yahoo spent $680 million in cash and stock to acquire Right Media, but the synergy from that acquisition won’t be seen until 2008, according to Yahoo VP Sue Decker. CEO Terry Semel explained that long-term view as part of a strategy dedicated to fostering openness and transparency in an advertising marketplace. “We took…that original 20 […]

Popular sexual lubricant manufacturer Astroglide is blaming Google for indexing a partial customer list that Astroglide accidentally surfaced on the Web. The pages were removed by Astroglide, but not before Google indexed them in their cache. “We received a call from someone who had looked up his own name on Google and found, among other […]

Google outstripped Microsoft in March to become the world’s most visited Web site. The new ranking from Comscore comes in the same week that a British marketing firm named Google the #1 brand, beating out Coca-Cola for the top spot. Google had 528 million unique visitors in March, up 5 percent from February, according to […]

Tony Blair became the first British Prime Minister to answer questions from YouTube users, appearing in a video on the site as part of his governing Labour Party’s move to attract younger voters.Author John O’Farrell, a Labour supporter who wrote the 1998 book Things Can Only Better about the party’s decade out of power, interviewed […]

Video fingerprinting won’t stop piracy. It won’t even be able to contain it. Anybody who tells you different is selling something. Probably fingerprinting software. The reasons are simple: The technology isn’t perfect; users will upload somewhere else; and users will find pirated content on P2P networks, darknets, foreign servers, etc ad infinitum. That’s the worrisome […]

The United States does not allow Google Earth downloads in Sudan, says Ogle Earth. The reason: U.S. export controls and economic sanctions. The news comes only a few days after Google added a new layer to Google Earth illustrating conflict areas in Sudan.

Some good advice from Chris Pirillo today: Don’t store your passwords in public Google Calendar listings. “More importantly, the last thing you want to do is set a reminder for yourself in Google Calendar and leave the login credentials in the reminder AND set it for public viewing. Dude. Seriously.“ So not a security problem […]