Old order restored at AOL Time Warner

AOL Time Warner has elected Dick Parsons to become Chairman of the company. He is already the CEO of the new-media/old-media conglomerate. He follows Steve Case into the job, the former boss of AOL who stepped down on Sunday. ...more

Disney to launch mobile phone service in UK

The Disney Corporation has announced plans to run its own phone service in Britain later this year. The move follows a similar launch in the US earlier this year. Disney plans to offer a 'family oriented' phone service, which will enable parents to control their children's access to unsuitable material. ...more

New offensive against 'piracy'

'Anti-piracy' bodies have reached agreement on a set of principles designed to co-ordinate action to prevent the 'illegal' copying of music and computer software. The Business Software Alliance (BSA), Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have issued seven joint policy principles. Some of the principles seem harmless enough. ...more

Let'sbuyit buys time

The road to bankruptcy for Letsbuyit.com has been made that bit longer with the news that it had raised the €4m needed to cover the costs of trustees. It said the funds came from existing investors and German venture capitalist Kimvestor, which may also grant a further €50m by the end of February. ...more

Bloggers discover hole in Google's Chinese wall

Enterprising bloggers have already found workarounds to Google's attempts at censorship for its Chinese version. Paul Boutin says that he and Allan Schaffer discovered that while Google may have successfully filtered out any results that the Chinese authorities might deem controversial for certain keywords, it has been done on the understanding that the search terms were spelled correctly. However, it turns out that for incorrectly spelled searches, clever Google knows what you really meant and serves up the results without applying the filtering. ...more