A quick burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Africa's cascade of Internet censorship >> Al Jazeera English
"Despite much attention paid to Egypt and Libya's Internet shutdowns, Tunisia's pervasive Internet filtering, and Morocco's arrests of bloggers, little attention has been given to Internet censorship issues throughout the rest of the African continent. Events in recent weeks, however, have brought the region's online troubles into sharp focus."
LimeWire to pay record labels $105 million, ends suit >> Reuters
"The operators of LimeWire agreed to pay record companies $105 million, ending a federal trial over copyright infringement damages owed by the once popular but now defunct file-sharing service."
Blogger Outage Leaves Posts and Comments Missing >> AllThingsD
Curious: "Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011, removed."
How Google controls Android: digging deep into the Skyhook filings >> This is my next...
"At the very least, it's now extremely clear that Google plays a major role in Android device development, to the point where Andy Rubin himself approves and denies requests from OEMs. It's also clear that Google places tremendous value on collecting location data, and it acted swiftly when it determined Skyhook's deal with Motorola might threaten its ability to collect that data."
The Ballmer Days Are Over >> The Brooks Review
Required reading. In sum: "Microsoft isn't dead yet, nor will it be soon. It is however in the early stages of death and Ballmer isn't going to the hospital -- he's running to go party some more. Microsoft needs a swift kick in the ass."
Google Near DOJ Settlement Over Online Drug Ads >> WSJ.com
"Google Inc. is close to settling a U.S. criminal investigation into allegations it made hundreds of millions of dollars by accepting ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws, according to people familiar with the matter."
Examining Facebook's "Smear Campaign" Concerns About Google Social Circles >> Search Engine Land
Danny Sullivan does due diligence on Facebook's dirty tricks campaign against Google. Did the social network have a point? "I can't see that Google is using any information in Google Social Search from Facebook," he says. Over to you, Facebook.
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