“Advanced Micro Devices has fired off a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel, claiming that its rival has a monopolistic grip on the PC industry.”
“The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, details alleged scare tactics and coercion that AMD claims Intel imposed on 38 companies, including large-scale computer makers, small system builders, wholesale distributors and retailers.” Read more…

Here is AMD’s view of their antitrust suit.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for AMD. Not just because they are the plucky underdog, it is more about the fact that they have far superior technology at a better price. I love competition but I guess Intel’s approach is if you can’t beat them with technology, beat them with a club.

If Intel is truly guilty of this charge, they ought to face very serious consequences. Not that this will actually happen. Take Microsoft for example. Even when they lose it means nothing because our judiciary doesn’t have the guts to hold anybodys feet to the fire.

“We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,” wrote Justice David Souter. Read more…

This one isn’t even close to being over folks. The fact is there is very substantial legitimate use for P2P networks. That pesky 1984 Betamax case ruling is still out there which asserted that devices capable of substantial non-copyright infringing uses were legal, even if they could be used to violate copyright. What we don’t know, however, is if Grokster was indeed “fanning the flames” of copyright abuse on their network.

“With roughly 150 million registered users, eBay Inc. ranks among the world’s most powerful companies, online or otherwise. It had more than 1.4 billion items listed last year. For every $100 spent online worldwide, $14 was spent on eBay. But some say eBay’s blockbuster growth has engendered arrogance.” Read more…

eBay has 14% of the worldwide online market? Unbelievable! Our company got it’s accidental start on eBay a number of years ago. We soon realized online auctions can be very time consuming and we quickly developed our own websites and haven’t looked back. But we still have a warm fuzzy for eBay and often buy personal items there.

eBay is a great place to go if you are a consumer but if you are a seller there are other good auction sites that will treat you much better. Only time will tell if eBay is getting too big and arrogant. If they start hemorrhaging smaller sellers it will be an obvious sign and that will be interesting to watch play out.

AP Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Tuesday that Google has an electronic payment product is in the works, but he denied recent reports that it is preparing to directly compete with eBay’s PayPal payment service, reports the Associated Press. “We do not intend to offer a person-to-person, stored-value payments system,” Schmidt told the AP. Read more…

Well, we will see. Their initial aim may not be in the direction of Paypal but I would bet they have their eye on it. It would seem that big $$ are in the person-to-person transactions. I still say Google will acquire eBay or maybe it will eBay that buys Google.

Online search-engine leader Google Inc. is preparing to introduce an electronic payment system later this year in a move that would pose a financial threat to one of its biggest advertisers, Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. Read more…

It will be interesting to see how this affects Adwords revenue. Of course, it is possible Google may buy eBay and end up with all the revenue anyway.

MarketingVOX references an AP story today about a California court ruling regarding taxing online sales.

“An appeals court in California ruled against Borders Group, setting a precedent that could enable California to compel internet retailers, including Barnes & Noble and Amazon, to start paying state sales tax for goods they sell online to state residents, the AP reports. The ruling was welcomed by bricks-and-mortar retailer firms, which hope that it will be used to eliminate what they view as the internet-based competition’s unfair advantage.” Read More…

Most savvy online retailers have seen this type of thing on the horizon for many years. The feds have placed a bit of a moratorium on taxing online sales but this is just to let the online sales channel incubate for a few more years. Those in Washington D.C. are salivating over the possibilities here, I guarantee it. They are just waiting for the fruit to ripen a bit more.

Some brick & mortar stores see this as a big win. It isn’t. The majority of those who shop online do so mostly out of convenience. They don’t do it to save on sales tax or to find the lowest price. The B&M retailers are going to be in for a big surprise in the next decade unless they figure this one out.

Google is developing a new way for webmasters to get their new/updated pages crawled more quickly. This one will be interesting to watch over time…

Read more here…

Some interesting information over at Henk van Ess’s Search Bistro It appears big G is using humans to evaluate search results. Take a read at Search Bistro