DoJ’s inquiry at Apple purportedly expanding beyond iTunes practices

Take this for whatever it’s worth (which isn’t a whole heck of a lot without any official confirmation from any of the parties involved), but the New York Post has it that the Justice Department’s inquiry into Apple ’s iTunes practices may in fact be growing. ‘Course, it’s not exactly surprising to hear that authorities are now investigating every nook and cranny of Apple’s tactics thanks to Steve Jobs’ public thrashing of Flash and his sly insistence that the world shun Adobe while hugging HTML5, but we’ve still yet to hear from the DoJ and Apple about what exactly is going on within Cupertino

DoJ’s inquiry at Apple purportedly expanding beyond iTunes practices

Take this for whatever it’s worth (which isn’t a whole heck of a lot without any official confirmation from any of the parties involved), but the New York Post has it that the Justice Department’s inquiry into Apple ’s iTunes practices may in fact be growing.

DoJ making preliminary inquiries into Apple’s music endeavors while iTunes dominance continues

It’s all just noise right now, but the United States Justice Department is purportedly having a “very preliminary conversation” with Apple regarding the company’s music business, wondering in particular if anything it’s doing (or has done) would violate antitrust legislation. According to unnamed sources familiar with the situation, DoJ staff seem most interested in whether or not Apple’s dominance in the market enabled it to unfairly prevent Amazon’s music service from exclusively debuting new songs.

Apple, Siemens and Sisvel patent infringement leads to CeBIT booth raid

Mama always said that some folks just never learn , and we reckon there’s plenty of wisdom to be had from that very statement.

Windows 7 Activation Technologies Update now live, ready to be dodged

Remember that polarizing Windows 7 Activation Technologies Update we told you about? You know, the one that helps you to “verify that the copy of Windows 7 that is running on your computer is activated correctly and is genuine?” It’s available for download now through Windows Update, and it’s not particularly easy to spot.

Windows 7 Activation Technologies Update coming down the pike, will tell you things you (should) already know

Wondering why your PC has been infested with malware, random popups, intermittent shut downs and all sorts of other atypical garbage since the day you installed that downloaded copy of Windows 7 ? In case you aren’t capable of determining that your copy of Windows isn’t genuine (as in, you didn’t buy it from a legitimate source), Microsoft is about to lend you a serious hand. In the “coming days,” the software behemoth will be pushing out a new update for Windows Activation Technologies, which will look for over “70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits.” It sounds as if the update is intended to alert folks who purchased complete PCs from the back of their local White Van that they may have gotten ripped off, but either way, we’re not particularly stoked about having yet another item running in the background, consuming system resources and telling us that we’ve been naughty

LCD price fixing investigation reaches $860 million in total fines, Chi Mei latest to ‘fess up

It’s not every day we get to cite an official US Department of Justice news release, so it’s with a certain glee that we can announce the US taxpayer was last week enriched by another $220 million courtesy of the not-so-fine folks who swindled him out of that money in the first place. Joining the ignominious ranks of LG, Sharp , Hitachi and Chungwa Picture Tube , Taiwanese manufacturer Chi Mei is refunding the US state for the pecuniary impact of its collusive practices, which were primarily related to keeping prices artificially high and profits proportionately inflated. US companies directly affected by these ignoble activities include HP, Dell and Apple, but don’t you worry, AT&T has already started the inter-corporation scuffle, with Nokia piling on for good measure.

UK T-Mobile customer data sold to cold callers, responsible staff to be prosecuted

Let’s be honest, who here is actually surprised that underpaid and overworked data workers would sell on our details for a few extra quid? Given the number of uninvited calls to our unlisted phone numbers, we know for a fact that somebody has been dishing our personal contacts to those Nigerian princes and caring loan consolidators, so it’s no shock to learn that T-Mobile employees have been fingered for committing the deed and are now facing prosecution. We’re told that inappropriately leaked information made its way into the hands of brokers, who then “cold-called the customers as their contracts were due to expire” without T-Mob’s knowledge

RealDVD ripping software heads to court, fair use advocates on pins and needles

Let’s face it — quite a lot is resting on the outcome of this case. For months now, RealNetworks has been unable to legally sell its RealDVD movie ripping software after a court issued a temporary restraining order that remains valid until it’s decided if the application violates the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

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