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A startup developer of technology that helps publishers better connect sales with affiliate marketers has closed on seed funding from First Round Capital, Google Ventures, and such individual investors as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. The financing for the company, VigLink, will be used to take the...

Microsoft is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a rehearing of its affirmation in December of a lower court's jury verdict that Microsoft infringed on patents held by a Toronto-based company, i4i. While awaiting the court's decision, though, Microsoft has scrambled to compl...

France's Ministry of Culture has issued a report that recommends taxing Internet advertising revenue earned by such companies as Google, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft, based on the use of their services in France. France would then use those supplemental tax receipts to support local online cul...

During its glory days in the 1990s, Motorola was the No. 1 mobile phone manufacturer in the world. Then Nokia overtook it, and ever since, Motorola has been trying to regain its lost footing. There was a glimmer of hope that it might be headed for a comeback in the mid-2000s with the success of the ...

Amazon plans to start selling an international version of the Kindle DX -- its larger-sized e-reader device -- in more than 100 countries. The e-tailer began offering an international version of its standard Kindle last October. It will start shipping the $489 international DX to consumers in Italy,...

Apple is acquiring mobile ad company Quattro Wireless for an undisclosed amount, Andy Miller, Quattro's vice president, mobile advertising, said in a statement on the company's Web site. Apple, of course, has a rich array of products, including the iPhone and iPod touch lines. What it doesn't have i...

Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $22.6 billion in November -- a 3.7 percent increase from October when sales were $21.8 billion, according to new statistics from the Semiconductor Industry Association. Sales for November 2009 were 8.5 percent higher than November 2008's $20.9 billion total ...

Google's plan to acquire mobile ad network AdMob in a $750 million deal announced last month is under fire from two consumer groups, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy. The two have asked the Federal Trade Commission to block the deal, arguing that it would substantially lessen c...

Amazon's Kindle is on a roll: On Christmas day, Customers purchased more e-books than physical books for the first time ever, according to the e-tailer. November marked the Kindle's best sales month ever, according to the company, which announced that milestone even before Cyber Monday purchases wer...

Google is in talks to acquire Yelp, an online local search and business review provider, in a deal that could be worth more than $500 million, according to unconfirmed accounts. The rumor has credence among tech watchers, as the two companies have flirted with an acquisition in the past. In recent ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that centers on text-messaging privacy policies for employees in the workplace. The Court could reinforce employees' rights, prompting employers to issue ever more stringent policies on workplace communications, including stepped-up monitoring in ord...

Oracle has pledged it will not assert copyright claims over MySQL and that it will extend terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses of the database for five years in the hope that the European Commission will approve its $7.4 billion pending acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The EC has ind...

Despite plunging revenues due to the resistance of European regulators to its pending acquisition by Oracle, Sun Microsystems has rolled out enhancements to three key products in its Java platform. The upgrades focus on providing more flexibility to developers. Much of the new functionality has like...

Vevo, an online music video site seeded with close to 15,000 videos from 5,000 artists, has launched. Unlike other online video sites -- Joost, for example -- Vevo is launching with impressive backers: Google and Universal Music Group, its original founders; Sony Music Entertainment, which joined la...

Yahoo has joined the growing number of companies updating their privacy policies with new tools to better manage the data that is collected about consumers. The company has launched a beta tool called "Ad Interest Manager" that shows users what interests Yahoo thinks they have based on their online ...

Verizon Wireless and AT&T may have settled their differences over Verizon's advertising messages in the courtroom, but there is little sign Verizon is pulling its punches elsewhere. With its latest ad, though, Verizon may have toed over a line by invoking gender stereotypes. The ad depicts the i...

It's official: Comcast has engineered what appears to be the biggest media joint venture of the year -- a multibillion-dollar merger that will combine General Electric's NBC Universal with Comcast's own cable networks. Once complete, Comcast will take majority ownership of NBC, ending GE's 20 year c...

Amazon's e-reader device, the Kindle, experienced its best sales month ever in November, according to the company, which made the announcement even before Cyber Monday purchases were tallied. Amazon did not release any actual numbers to back up its claim, however. It is unclear whether Amazon was ta...

Fifty-nine U.S. senators are asking European antitrust regulators to conclude their review of the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The move, led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is an unusual one for the U.S. legislative body. It follows a similar action by the Depar...

Google is amping up its display ad capabilities with the acquisition of startup Teracent, which has developed machine-learning algorithms that can create and customize an ad in real-time, based on user preferences and other characteristics. There are thousand of such "creative elements" that can be ...