Digital Media

The lawsuit filed by a San Francisco chiropractor against a patient who wrote a negative review of him on Yelp was settled on Friday, according to the attorney for the defendant.

Christopher Norberg reached a settlement with the chiropractor who sued him for libel over a negative Yelp review.

(Credit: Christopher Norberg)

"This case was settled with the mutual satisfaction of both parties," said Michael Blacksburg, who represented Christopher Norberg. The terms of the settlement agreement are confidential and the March trial date will be cancelled, he said.

The case had spurred debate over how to best balance the rights of consumers to express themselves on community forum sites with the rights of businesses to protect their reputation.

Shortly after the court-required mediation hearing was completed Friday afternoon, Norberg replaced an earlier Yelp posting in which he said he had been sued by chiropractor Steven Biegel with a short posting that reads:

"A misunderstanding between both parties led us to act out of hand. I chose to ignore Dr. Biegel's initial request to discuss my posting. In hindsight, I should have remained open to his concerns. Both Dr. Biegel and I strongly believe in a person's right to express their opinions in a public forum. We both encourage the Internet community to act responsibly."

Norberg was advised by his attorney to refer all requests for comment to his lawyer. Calls to Biegel and his lawyer, Eric Nordskog, were not immediately returned on Friday.

"I'm really glad for both of them that they can put this dispute behind them," said Blacksburg. "I hope this begins the public conversation on how to communicate using the resources of the Internet."

Biegel sued Norberg for defamation nearly a year ago over a posting in which Norberg had suggested that Biegel's billing practices were dishonest because he had billed Norberg's insurance company an amount that was four times what he had quoted to Norberg for two office visits in 2006, according to court documents. Biegel had allegedly told Norberg that the price differential was due to the additional time and effort his office spends dealing with the insurers.

Biegel's lawyer contended that Norberg's comments on Yelp were statements of fact and thus libelous. Blacksburg maintained that the comments were opinion and therefore were constitutionally protected speech.

Norberg replaced an earlier review on Yelp with this posting after he and his former chiropractor settled the defamation lawsuit.

(Credit: Yelp)

Russian-language Firefox users will see a new default search provider soon: Google rival Yandex.

Mozilla currently has Google set to be the default search engine in Russian Firefox, but it concluded that Yandex was the better choice, according to a blog post by Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson on Friday.

"Over the past few months, we have listened to feedback, talked with our localizers, studied the trends of our Firefox Yandex builds, and reviewed the Yandex user experience. All this activity led us to the conclusion that our Russian users really wanted direct access to the Yandex search services in official Firefox RU builds," Anderson said.

"As a result, we're planning on setting Yandex as the default search provider for the Firefox 3.1 Russian locale builds," he said. Version 3.1 is due in coming weeks, after a third beta version is released and tested.

Mozilla gets the vast majority of its revenue through a partnership under which Google shares revenue from search ads. In 2007, that was $66 million of Mozilla's $75 million total revenue.

Details on the change can be seen in the Mozilla bug tracker, which specifically refers to "the new business arrangement between Mozilla and Yandex in Russia."

Video of the shooting taken from a train.

(Credit: KTVU Channel 2)

More than 100 people were arrested in downtown Oakland on Wednesday night when a protest turned violent, fueled at least in part by videos that quickly spread online of a subway policeman fatally shooting an unarmed man while he was lying on the ground restrained by another officer.

The case--and the overall intense community response to it--highlights the impact technology can have on news events. The devices people carry in their pockets give them the ability to turn what would normally be a case played out in the courtroom into one in which anyone with an Internet connection can serve as virtual judge and jury.

BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, allegedly shot Oscar Grant, 22, early on New Year's Day after Grant was pulled off a BART train following a scuffle among riders. Outrage over the incident spread quickly after videos--taken by onlookers with their cell phone cameras--started appearing on TV and the Internet.

In this video of the shooting the officer's gun appears to be visible.

(Credit: KTVU)

Links to videos of the incident quickly circulated via e-mail. One of the first videos posted on YouTube was a KTVU Channel 2 news broadcast, which includes live video clips and an interview with a woman who took some of the video. (Note: We included YouTube links because of compatibility issues.)

This video, also from a KTVU broadcast, was later posted on YouTube. It appears to show the gun. Another video shows the scene from a different angle.

Much of the video is grainy and views of the scene are sometimes obscured by people moving in front of the camera. However, there is no mistaking that the victim was on the ground, subdued by officers and not appearing threatening to anyone.

"When you watch that video your stomach just drops out from underneath you when you hear that gunshot because you know what the end result is," BART Chief Spokesman Linton Johnson told Channel 7.

This video from a third angle show the scene right after the gun was fired.

(Credit: Karina Vargas)

What started Wednesday as a peaceful protest against the shooting and the way it was handled by authorities, turned into a near riot with protesters setting fire to trash cans and cars, including a police cruiser, and breaking store windows. There appeared to be no injuries, but about 105 people were arrested.

Exacerbating the anger among citizens was the fact that the shooting officer had resigned earlier on Wednesday, before authorities questioned him for an internal investigation. With no word from the officer explaining what happened, people have been left to speculate about the cause of the shooting (one theory is that the officer mistook his gun for a taser gun) and the mystery has undoubtedly driven even more people to view the videos.

The raw video on the Web site of KTVU Channel 2, based in Oakland, has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since it was posted on Monday, said Ed Chapuis, news director at the station.

The videos have played a critical role in the public interest in the incident, he said. "You have the incident in question actually on tape. You've got multiple views of it," he said. "That's what's different and unusual about the case."

Before broadcasting the video, KTVU officials debated whether or not it was appropriate to do so and decided that because there were so many questions raised about the sequence of events during the shooting, there was a strong journalistic reason to share the video with the public, according to Chapuis.

"This is a tragedy and there was nothing good about what happened," he said. "That is what we as journalists should be focusing on."

In the aftermath of the protest, people are again turning to technology as East Bay residents turn to microblogging site Twitter to get updated information about the investigation and subsequent protest activities.

It should also be noted that the victim's family on Wednesday publicly decried the Wednesday night violence, calling it an affront to his memory.

Twitter users were using the site to post and get information about the Oakland shooting and additional protests.

(Credit: Twitter)

Ever since Amazon began selling digital music and offering lower prices than rival Apple, the suspicion by many iTunes fans is that the music industry was in cahoots with Amazon.

In the comments section of our scoop Monday on Apple's MacWorld announcement that it was doing away with copy-protection software and changing its pricing policy, many iTunes fans asserted the often repeated allegation that the four largest recording companies were giving Amazon a price break.

Not so, according to two of my music industry insiders with knowledge of the negotiations.

The suspicion has long been that the record labels want to help Amazon's fledgling music service compete against the Apple juggernaut. The labels have hoped that an iTunes alternative would emerge and dilute some of Apple's control over digital music sales. The reality is, say my sources, that Amazon, Wal-Mart and everybody else selling downloads is paying the same wholesale price as Apple.

"As long as a retailer pays the label's price they can sell songs for whatever they want," said one of the sources.

What this means is that Amazon, which offers many songs for 10 cents less than Apple's former standard price of 99 cents, has likely chosen to lose money on music sales, say the sources. It's generally believed that Apple's profit margin is just a few pennies per song.

Amazon's motivation is obvious. The company is battling the country's largest music retailer and the maker of the best selling music player. Amazon needs a competitive advantage.

That's going to be tougher to find now. Apple's announcement Tuesday that it will remove digital rights management from songs and offer more price flexibility, including the slashing of catalog titles or older music to 69 cents, is bad news for competitors--especially Amazon. Amazon representatives did not respond to an interview request.

I've been hard on iTunes recently for failing to provide customers with DRM-free music and over-the-air downloads. But the reasons to shop for music at any other Web store are quickly dwindling.

Amazon launched an MP3 store in September 2007 and tried to play up the fact that fans could get cheaper music at a higher quality and free of DRM?

While iTunes raised the price of hit songs 30 cents to ($1.29), catalog titles were reduced by 30 cents. And there are a lot more songs in the catalog category. Apple can now make the claim that iTunes is cheaper than Amazon on most songs.

At iTunes plus, music buyers can get DRM-free music at 256kpbs, the same quality that Amazon offers. And Apple took the extra step of enabling people to go back and scrub DRM from their existing libraries--although they must pay a 30-cent fee per song.

Let's face it, there's little to indicate that providing DRM-free music or offering songs for 10 cents less were competitive advantages anyway.

"This whole David and Goliath story has been a bit overblown," said Russ Crupnick, NPD's senior industry analyst. "What we've seen in the year we've been tracking Amazon is that there is very little overlap between (Amazon and Apple's customers). There is very little evidence that Amazon came in and cannibalized Apple's business."

Crupnick said that this appears to mean that to compete with iTunes, a store is going to have to offer more than discounted songs.

"I don't think price has been the issue so far," Crupnick said. "The reality is that Apple and Amazon are both providing good value. Apple has a very sticky customer base. They are using the iPod and iTunes. Even people who aren't buying music from iTunes use it to manage their libraries. What we've seen is for people who want to hear the latest Akon single, there isn't going to be much resistance to buy that track at $1.29. And at the lower end, Apple can start to do more bundling and packaging.

"Let me put this way," Crupnick continued, "if a dime would have made a difference, we would have seen a larger migration to Amazon a year ago."

So is Apple destined to continue to reign supreme over digital music?

The only potential competitor I can see possibly mounting a challenge is MySpace Music. I would say that the site founded by the top music labels and News Corp. represents the last hope that social networking is fertile ground for music sales.

What MySpace has going for it against Apple is the opportunity to market music to more than 100 million unique worldwide visitors, and a reputation as a music hub. The service also offers free song streams to PCs and will sell merchandise and concert tickets. The service bills itself as a one-stop shop for everything music.

Still, digital music stores are like banks. People are unlikely to switch unless they have an overwhelming reason. I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy in any way but there's nothing compelling enough out there for me to bother switching.

Sure, I wish iTunes was better at helping me to discover new music and I wish the sound quality was better, but for everyday tasks, such as managing my library and working with my iPhone, Apple is the clear winner.

Yahoo is said to be wrapping up its search for a new chief executive, and a decision could come as early as next week, according to a report late Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, citing people close to the search pioneer.

Yahoo's board is reportedly leaning toward a candidate from outside the company, the newspaper reported. Carol Bartz, former chief executive officer of engineering software company Autodesk, is considered a candidate, the Journal reported.

From inside the company, Yahoo President Sue Decker is considered a strong candidate for the position, people familiar with executive search say. Decker has undergone two full rounds of in-depth interviews with Yahoo's board, according to sources.

At least one influential Microsoft source noted that Decker is well regarded at the software giant, even though the two companies weren't able to strike a full buyout deal or a partial one for just the search business.

For Yahoo, naming Decker as CEO could potentially bode well for its efforts to quickly reignite takeover talks with Microsoft, given that an outside hire would need time to analyze the various aspects of Yahoo's businesses before holding discussions to potentially sell off parts of the company.

Other outside candidates have reportedly included former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, whose expertise with the carrier could have come in handy in righting Yahoo's failed effort to win the Verizon search business. But Sarin is reportedly no longer interested in being Yahoo's CEO.

Yahoo announced on November 17 that co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang would step down and resume the role of chief Yahoo once a new CEO is selected. In the meantime, Yahoo is nearing its two-month mark in its search.

LimeWire 5.0 allows users to share files with friends on any Jabber-compatible system, as well as to have search results incorporate files from the LimeWire store.

(Credit: Lime Wire)

LAS VEGAS--Get ready for the collision of social networking and peer-to-peer file sharing.

With the beta release of LimeWire 5.0 (download for Windows| Mac), which was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show here, the popular P2P service is incorporating a social element that will enable people using Jabber-compatible services like Gmail to share files with friends on their buddy lists. Lime Wire calls this a "personal sharing network."

The idea, said Lime Wire CEO George Searle, is to add trusted context to user searches for content, given that people are more likely to want--and feel comfortable with--content from people they know.

Additionally, Searle explained that the new social features of LimeWire--which has 70 million monthly unique users and more than 5 billion queries a month--will enable people to choose whether to make files available to the public at large, or just to their friends and family.

In many ways, this is much like many other content-sharing systems. But to Searle, adding a social component to LimeWire means making what is already an extremely popular service more personal to many users.

Essentially, the way the new feature works is that users will be able to decide whether to make files--photographs, for example--available to anyone on LimeWire, or just to people on their buddy lists. Similarly, users will be able to search for files from their friends. And this will take advantage of a sharing system that tens of millions of people already use, something that Lime Wire hopes will encourage many on the service to adopt the social elements.

Searle said he hopes that the social feature will allow users to trust the sources of the content they share across the system in a way that's not really possible when sharing with strangers.

This post was updated at 1:39 p.m. PST with Yahoo declining to comment.

Yahoo may have fallen out of favor with Wall Street after the failed Microsoft buyout bid, but that doesn't mean you can count Yahoo President Sue Decker out of the running for CEO, people familiar with executive search say.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Decker has undergone two full rounds of in-depth interviews with Yahoo's board, according to sources.

And, in executive recruiting circles, more than one in-depth interview with an internal candidate signals a strong contender, said David Nosal, CEO of executive recruiting firm Nosal Partners.

"If she has gone through two rounds of full interviews with the board, it sends the signal that she is being given strong consideration," Nosal said. "Rarely do boards go through a second round of full interviews, unless there is something significant they see there, whether it's for an internal or external candidate."

A number of industry players and major Yahoo investors had discounted Decker as a viable CEO candidate for the struggling Internet search pioneer, following Microsoft's failed buyout bid of $33 a share for the company. Yahoo, which had traded at roughly $19 a share before the initial bid became public last January, closed Wednesday at $12.71 a share.

But one source familiar with the search noted: "She has always been a strong candidate."

And at least one influential Microsoft source noted that Decker is well regarded at the software giant, even though the companies weren't able to strike a buyout, or partial deal for just the search business.

For Yahoo, naming Decker as CEO could potentially bode well for its efforts to quickly reignite talks with Microsoft, given that an outside hire would need time to analyze the different aspects of Yahoo's businesses before holding discussions to potentially sell off parts of the company.

Meanwhile, strong outside candidates have reportedly included former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, whose expertise with the carrier could have come in handy in righting Yahoo's failed effort to win the Verizon search business. Sarin is reportedly no longer interested in the Yahoo CEO gig.

And an All Things Digital post Wednesday notes Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz is another serious contender for the post.

Although sources familiar with the search say there is no deadline for naming a CEO and that it's hoped one could be selected by the end of the quarter, executive recruiters say there is an artificial deadline.

"A search of this magnitude you can never rush, but since it's one of the most high-profile CEO searches, there are any number of people who have made it be known in, or outside, the U.S. that they are interested in the job. I would imagine that Yahoo would be into its second or even third round of interviews with a short list of candidates," Nosal said.

He added he would be "surprised, if not disappointed," if Yahoo does not name a CEO within the next 30 to 45 days.

Executive recruiter Jon Holman of the Holman Group noted that if a CEO is not found within a four-month period after launching a search, the process "begins to grow hair."

"If six months go by, you know that the board has seen a bunch of people and you begin to think that the board doesn't know what it wants, or the board is looking for a Superman that doesn't exist, or no one wants the job," Holman said. "All those alternatives are bad. You don't want the company to look like damaged goods."

Yahoo announced on November 17 that its founder and CEO Jerry Yang would step down and resume the role of chief Yahoo once a new CEO was selected. In the meantime, Yahoo is nearing its two-month mark in its search.

Yahoo declined to comment on Decker and the CEO search.

Anybody else sort of see this one coming?

It's a matter of weeks before the U.S. cuts out analog television signals entirely, switching to an all-digital market, but the fund established by the government to provide $40 subsidies to people who need to purchase digital converter boxes is out of money and has established a wait list. More than 100,000 people had already been wait-listed as of Monday, USA Today reported.

So, if you rely on "rabbit ears" and are still in need of that coupon, here's what to do. The application process on the TV converter box Web site is still the same, but now, you'll be put in line for the first-come, first-served waiting list as more funds become available. You'll also be given a reference number, much like a package-tracking number, that you can input into the Web site to check up on the status and check up on your estimated mailing date.

The all-digital transition is set for February 17, which means that more than 70 million analog televisions in the U.S. will be rendered useless unless they have the proper converter boxes to work with their indoor ("rabbit ears") or outdoor antennae. USA Today reported that the Department of Commerce's National Television and Information Administration isn't sure when more funds will be available, and attributed the shortage to a surge in coupon requests late in 2008 that exceeded expectations.

One option for the government is to delay the analog-to-digital transition--again. In the meantime, the Web site recommends some pricier alternatives: buy a converter box without the coupon, buy a digital TV, or subscribe to cable or satellite programming.

Or you could just ditch your TV and just go outside instead. The digital TV transition Web site, however, does not suggest that.

Massachusetts police used cell phone tracing via GPS and Google Maps to track down a 9-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported on Wednesday.

Police arrested the 52-year-old grandmother at a motel in Natural Bridge, Va., on Tuesday after she allegedly failed to return her granddaughter to the home of her legal guardians in Athol, Mass., the report said. The grandmother had picked up the child for a weekend visit on Saturday and allegedly threatened to not return her, according to the report.

With help from the cell phone provider, authorities were able to trace the location of the child's cell phone and followed the journey of the grandmother and granddaughter by using GPS coordinates that updated every time the phone was used.

They were able to track the phone to an intersection on Virginia Route 11 in Natural Bridge and then used Google Street View to view the intersection, where they saw a building with a red roof that looked like a motel. Then they searched on Google maps for motels in the town and located the Budget Inn-Natural Bridge and confirmed the location using Google's satellite view on the map, the report said.

The case is "an interesting first (at least as far as we're aware)," Pablo Chavez, Google senior policy counsel, wrote in a blog post.

The Google Street View of the Virginia motel where a missing Massachusetts girl was found with her grandmother.

(Credit: Google)

Update January 8 at 12:44 p.m. PST: Added Yahoo's response.

A group of investors are reportedly putting together a buyout deal for Yahoo, which would call for Microsoft's financial backing, according to a report in TechCrunch.

Such an arrangement would call for the investment group to pay a premium of approximately 20 percent to Yahoo's current share price, which closed Wednesday at $13 a share, for the entire company.

The investment group would take Yahoo, which would have a $20 billion market cap under those terms, and simultaneously sell its search and marketing business to Microsoft under its previous terms presented in June, according to the report.

The software giant would not only buy these businesses from the investment group, but also provide much of the upfront financing the investors group would need to make the initial purchase. Microsoft would treat the funding as a loan to the investment group, which in turn would provide a fixed payment based on Yahoo's future cash flow, according to TechCrunch.

The report notes, however, that Microsoft has yet to agree to such a proposal.

Yahoo declined to comment on speculation about the deal.