For a decade, West Africa’s main connection to the Internet has been a single fiber-optic cable in the Atlantic, a tenuous and
expensive link for one of the poorest areas of the planet.
But this summer, a …
Google has proposed paying $8.5m (£5.5m) to settle a lawsuit brought over its Buzz social network.
Google Buzz was widely criticised when it first launched.
Launched in February, Buzz enrolled all Gmail users into a social network based around their contacts.
The service was criticised because users initially had relatively little control over who could see their network of contacts.
Several Gmail users took Google to court over Buzz saying the network violated personal privacy.
The lump sum is at the centre of Google’s proposed settlement of the legal case, of which 30% will be used to pay legal fees, the seven Gmail users who brought the case will get $2,500 each and the remainder will be shared among organisations that promote online privacy.
The settlement also requires Google to do more to educate people about the privacy aspects of Buzz. The settlement has yet to win approval from the federal judge overseeing the case.
The initial rash of complaints about Buzz forced Google to bring in changes that made it an opt-in service and gave users control over who they maintain contact with.
Search suit
In a separate development, Google is facing an investigation by the attorney general of Texas into how it manipulates search results.
The investigation started in July and aims to find out if the way Google treats search results violates the state’s anti-trust laws.
Complaints by three firms – Foundem, SourceTool and MyTriggers – are thought to have kick-started investigation.
Don Harrison, deputy general counsel at Google, wrote on the company blog that the company was “looking forward” to working with the attorney general’s office as it was “confident” it was acting in the best interests of users.
Mr Harrison also suggested that arch-rival Microsoft was providing help and financing to the search firms making complaints.
Source: BBC
American net users are being asked to help decide what ISPs can
do to the web traffic flowing over their networks.
It is the latest step in an ongoing row over the code of conduct for …
The global disparity in fixed broadband access and cost has been revealed by UN figures.
The Central African Republic is the most expensive place to get a fixed broadband connection, costing nearly 40 times the average …
The co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, is suing several high-tech giants for infringing patents held by a firm he founded in the 1990s.
The legal action against Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Google and eBay, as …
India has toughened its scrutiny of telecoms firms with a directive demanding “access to everything”.
An Indian Home Ministry official told the BBC that “any company with a telecoms network should be accessible”.
“It could be Google …
Ghana’s Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) will focus on extending improved ICT access to rural areas, says Kofi Attor, the fund’s CEO.
Attor was speaking at a recent Commonwealth African Rural Connectivity Initiative (COMARCI) …
Our phones are capable of doing so many things, many of which we haven’t a clue about because we haven’t worked that out yet. If we really sat down and thought about …
Ghana’s 2010 financial directory, a one-stock-shop information data book for businesses, traders, investors, insurance entities and shareholders was launched on Friday.
The 280 page book focuses on financial administration regulation; insurance companies; insurance …
As computer power gets cheaper it gets easier to crack passwords, suggests research.
The growing use of graphics cards as surrogate supercomputers could spell trouble for users of short passwords. Researchers say the growing number of …
With a population of one billion, Africa hosts 86 millions of Internet users. The penetration rate is 8.7% which is rather good compared to the world average of 26.9%.
DotAfrica is that specific Internet namespace for …
Google is waving goodbye to Wave, a product which the company said would transform the way people communicate online.
It blamed poor take-up by users of the service, which was launched to great fanfare just one …