Hidden charges are a philfy practice

First there was phishing, then wilfing and now a new term has entered the Internet lexicon: philfing. Standing for 'purposely hiding what I'm looking for' the word describes the practice of websites that hide extra charges for delivery, credit cards, baggage and insurance. Ninety-three per cent of UK online shoppers have been 'annoyed' by hidden charges and almost two-thirds said they had decided no to buy as a result, according to a survey of more than 2,400 Net users by MoreComputers. ...more

UPDATED: BenQ to ship low cost Blu-Ray recorder to Europe

Taiwanese manufacturer BenQ has announced that it is to begin shipping its Blu-Ray blue laser DVD recorder to Europe for sale in August. The price has been announced at €799 (approximately ?533) including VAT although no official UK price has been confirmed. The launch puts the company ahead of the format's founders Sony and Philips who have yet to announce their own releases in Europe. ...more

MSN gets a little bit political with Tony Blair

Tony Blair has a reputation for favouring the Richard & Judy end of the political interviewing spectrum, rather than tackling the likes of Paxman or Humphrys. But how hard could public questioning over MSN be? We will find out when the Prime Minister makes himself available on Microsoft's MSN Messenger service. Microsoft UK has launched a competition to give ten people the chance to put questions live to the PM at 10 Downing Street, with details available at www. ...more

US tech companies snub China talks

Efforts in the US Congress to agree on ways to halt the ease with which the country's tech companies bend to the demands of Chinese authorities ran aground today, when four of the biggest names turned down an invitation to discuss how best to go about it. Red Herring reports that the Congressional Human Rights Caucus interest group had set up a briefing on how to deal with human rights and Internet issues in China and invited Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Cisco among others. However, all four said they were unable to attend despite the poor image this sends out at a time when these companies claim to be thinking long and hard about how to deal with these very issues as they march into China. ...more

Verizon sues Vonage over VoIP

You know that a technology is about to take off in a big way when the patent lawsuits start to fly. So it is with VoIP. Vonage Holdings has admitted that it has been served with a patent infringement lawsuit, along with its wholly owned subsidiary, Vonage America, filed by Verizon Services and Verizon Laboratories relating to VoIP technologies. ...more