Week in Review: Poor Google

Bad news for Google

No firm can be successful without angering a few along the way, and Google is no exception. The backlash continued this week, with an Italian court finding Google executives guilty in a YouTube bullying case.

Xerox is to sue the search giant over patent infringement. Microsoft came out on top of a brand survey, pushing Google out of the top spot. And Google said its much derided Buzz social networking system won't be competing with Facebook and Twitter, but trying to forge a new path of its own instead.

A trio of firms - including one associated with Microsoft's Bing - have complained to the EU about Google's search tactics, while members of a working party at the regulator have called on Google to cut the length of time Street View holds data.

Given all of the above - in just one week - any bets on how long it takes for the EU to launch a formal investigation into Google?

Broadband battle

The battle for Britain's broadband hotted up this week, with a group of MPs slamming the broadband tax plans and questioning the 2Mbps promise in the Digital Economy Bill.

The Government sort of did and sort of didn't backtrack on plans in that bill to disconnect persistent illegal file sharers, saying connections would merely be suspended, rather than cut off permanently.

Meanwhile, Ofcom said it would again investigate broadband speeds, to find out what we're all actually getting.

But while the Government is seemingly faffing around trying to decide what providing a minimum 2Mbps connection actually means, the industry has stepped up to deliver real super-fast broadband. Virgin Media said it would roll out 100Mbps service this year, while three ISPs in Bournemouth are to offer 100Mbps - with bursts of up to 1Gbps.

Best of the rest...

Also this week, Sport Relief heads to the cloud, iTunes hits 10 billion downloads, and Microsoft gets court approval to take out a botnet.

There was also a warning from the British Library that copyright laws are preventing it from archiving webpages for future study. For the record, we give the good folks at the library full permission to save IT PRO for future study...