A major takeover was announced last night, which is difficult to ignore.

AT&T said Sunday it will acquire fellow phone company BellSouth in a stock deal worth $67 billion, creating a telecommunications giant that dwarfs its nearest competitor, Verizon Communications.

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Other takeovers and acquisitions: Adobe-Macromedia, eBay-Skype.

Recent partnerships, mended or broken: Google joins forced with AOL whereas Microsoft drifts away from NBC.

Backed by an ambitious contention, one Web site calls for the halt of Web privatisation.

You think the Internet will always be the great freewheeling information superhighway you’ve grown to love? Well, think again. Media giants want to privatize our Internet.

As one among several threats, consider Google Groups. Under the magnifying glass is accumulation of over 20 years worth of forums conversations (full names included). To make matters worse, consider the practice of appending “Copyright Google Groups” to each of these pages. Then comes the contribution (or lack therefore) from those who post from Google Groups without quoting, which merely leads to clutter in UseNet. It sometimes seems as though UseNet has evolved into ‘Google Chat’, which is worrisome.

Another matter to consider is charging for E-mail traffic, as means of crippling spam. It comes to show that corporations can instate and manipulate ‘Net politics’.

Beyond these facts, rumours are formed and echoed as regards a Google Web or even the newly-proposed ‘Chinese Web’. Then, of course, there is the issue of censorship, aimed to better suit the interest of governments– either through blocking of sites or filtering of search results.

The future of the Web looks not bright. Given present trends, the outlook is rather grim.

OOGLE has set itself some high goals, characterised by the aspiration to reach gigantic worth. After its initial public offering (IPO) a few years back, Google’s stocks (and thus perceived value) has gone through the roof, almost as though it was still a start-up company.

More recently, Google’s stock suffered two consecutive slams, but stocks recovered yesterday. The initial reactions were probably due to fear, energised by impbalance and slowed growth, as confirmed by Google themselves. Nonetheless, encouraging news continue to flow:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Web search leader Google Inc. aims to become a $100 billion company and said on Thursday that it plans to put systems in place to help reach that scale during 2006.

The Wall Street Journal has taken an overview on per-for-use campaigns, which have become the norm among search engines.

Microsoft Corp. launched a campaign last week
offering $1 million in prizes…
…to users of its MSN search engine

…roughly a cent to a charity of the user’s
choice every time a search is conducted on
its Yahoo-based search engine…

…Amazon.com Inc. offers regular users of
its A9 search engine a 1.57% discount on
most Amazon.com purchases…

… Blingo.com, powered by Google, gives
away prizes like iPods and movie tickets
to lucky users who happen to search at
random times…

Users are getting paid to get served (and absorb advertisements in the process). In due time, this builds up loyalty and dependency. Yahoo offer many other benefits, which are not mentioned in this article. Google rewards people for using Firefox, which is a separate-yet-related matter altogether.

The Oracle predicts Open Source abundance

In the headlines:

“SAN FRANCISCO–Oracle tried to acquire open-source database maker MySQL, an indication of the profound changes the software giant is willing to make as it adapts to the increasingly significant collaborative programming philosophy.”

Source: CNET

Many questions spring to mind. Among them: are Oracle out of their mind??? They have kept buying Open Source companies ever since that ground-braking statement from Larry Ellion, which called for an Open Source strategy. That recent move probably had many employees sacked, yet it can also be attributed to (or blamed on) a large merger. I personally think it would be interesting to see if Oracle transformed into a new type of company, which heavily relies on Open Source, even more than IBM do.

Oracle databases were lately shown to be poorer in terms of performance when compared against MySQL. Other commercial software fails to keep up with Open Source, so it is one example among several. Will companies like IBM, Red Hat and Novell, who make money out of Open Source, ever become the stalk of a new trend? Is it truly a commercialisation of Open Source, which only Google passionately avoid for the time being? Is it at all acceptable?

CCASIONALLY I feel like as though we are witness to an ethical corruption. There is a thriving industry out there that takes advantage of people being drunk or stranded. In other circumstances, social weaknesses are to be blamed, in what can only be described as ‘cattle effect. I’ll present a couple of examples.

Airports charge a lot for food from hungry people whose access to outside shops is fictional at best. These foods can have their price elevated beyond the standard rates. This includes large chains of junk food, whose price should be moderated and remain relatively consistent. Yet, their price can sometimes match that of a fine restaurant in an airport and the same rules apply to other ‘exotic’ locations like pricy resorts. Such obscene prices are tolerated owing to the lack of alternatives; the lack of choice.

Cash machines are another example. Some of them charge extra fees for withdrawals (commission) and that often exploits nights out and ‘alcohol sprees’. This extra fee is reminiscent of the existence of gambling machines that benefit from the state of one’s mind, which is possibly under the influence of alcohol.

Lastly, and on to a point which is equally important, there are example which could become generic examples in their own rights. Fashion continously changes to encourage people to buy new clothes and replace the old ones. Showing and boasting the ‘hip effect’ culture (okay, I’ll use the word “cool”) in reference to cars, lifestyle et cetera is another factor. It urges people to expend money on a variety of unneeded luxuries. Christmas is finally said to be more of a necessity to motion in industry than it is a religious holiday. But on we live, and on we spend. Industry is led to a state of contentment.

Trademarks bastardised

HERE is something about wealthy companies that simply begs for lawsuits. This story, which involves a complaint against Google, is nothing out of the ordinary. Dissatisfaction with the search engine giant has now emerged due to inclusion of competitive ads, which are said to violate trademarks.

The company behind US cash-advance firm Check ‘n Go has sued Google for selling its trademarks as keywords in search advertising, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Such sales do not breach Google’s own policy for the US and Canada.

Put in simple terms, when you search for a particular company or product name, you might have its competition among the sponsored links, which can be rather obtrusive. Some months ago, sponsored links started to appear ‘in-line’, i.e. enclosed in dividers among the search results. This serves the interest of the rivals that can simply pay to appear in page 1 of the results.

One wonders if a need for ad relevance is at all required. Trademark protection is a whole new matter. If there are no stern rules and policies, one could search for ‘linux’ and get Windows links in return; or search for ‘democrat party’ and get links to the Republican party, I suppose.

I used to have Microsoft’s anti-Linux propaganda show up in my Linux pages. It was courtesy of Google AdSense, to whom I rent some space. It was then that I blocked all advertisements that came from or pointed at msn.com or microsoft.com, so the trademark factor ought to come into play.