The National Archives and Google are teaming up to allow unprecedented access to historical film properties for free with just the click of a mouse.

Through a pilot program, U.S. archivist Allen Weinstein has collaborated with Google Video to compile an online library of 103 films, including movies, documentaries and other cinematic creations formerly unavailable to those who can’t make the trip to Washington, D.C.

“This is an important step to achieve our goal to become an archive without walls,” Weinstein said. “For the first time, the public will be able to view this collection of rare and unusual films on the Internet emphasizing the importance of providing access to records anytime, anywhere.”

The diverse assemblage of titles can be accessed via Google Video as well as the National Archives Web site. They range from U.S. government newsreels documenting World War II to NASA-produced documentaries on the history of the space program. The earliest film preserved in the archives, 1894’s “Carmencita — Spanish Dance” featuring the famous Spanish gypsy dancer, also is included.

“Whether in San Francisco or Bangladesh, students and researchers can watch remarkable video such as World War II newsreels and the story of Apollo 11 — the historic first landing on the Moon,” said Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of technology at Google.

Other historic films in the collection include documentaries from the 1930s showing the founding of the national and state park system in America and the creation of Boulder Dam.

Formed in 1934, the National Archives and Records Administration is an independent federal agency serving as the nation’s record keeper.

The project is part of a more expansive effort by the search engine Google to make written and multimedia works from public and private libraries available online. The films join the increasing number of titles available on Google Video including CBS television shows, Charlie Rose interviews and NBA games.

U.S. regulators last week charged the owner of 12dailypro.com and her two companies with fraud for running a $50 million Ponzi scheme, according to a statement released on Monday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Charis Johnson, 33, raised more than $50 million from more than 300,000 investors by convincing visitors to the Web site that they could earn a 44 percent return on their investments in 12 days by looking at Internet advertisements.

The scheme, which the SEC calls “paid auto-surf,” required users to buy $6 “units” — up to a maximum of 1,000 units — and to view advertisements from what were described as paying advertisers.

While investors were led to believe that their returns would be generated by advertising revenue, payments were made almost entirely from cash generated by other unit buyers in a classic Ponzi scheme, the SEC alleged.

Johnson and her companies, 12daily Pro and LifeClicks LLC, agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying guilt.

As part of the settlement, Johnson and her companies agreed to stop seeking further investors, to freeze assets and to accept a court appointed receiver over corporate assets.

The commission is also seeking the repayment of ill-gotten gains and further fines. The complaint alleged that Johnson transferred about $1.9 million to her own accounts.

According to Johnson’s attorney, Noell Tin, a Clarksville, Tennessee, credit card payment processor called StormPay.com “is holding about $50 million of 12dailypro.com’s money.”

“That’s where the money is to get folks repaid,” Tin said, adding that “they (StormPay.com) are definitely going to be giving it to the receiver.”

Follow the money

According to a February 7 Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee statement, however, StormPay.com “generated more complaints to the BBB than any other Middle Tennessee or Southern Kentucky business” in the first six weeks of 2006.

The consumer protection group said it sought the assistance of federal authorities after receiving 18,926 inquiries checking on the reliability of StormPay.com in the 7 days prior to February 7.

The majority of complaints filed with bureau were related to “auto-surfing” programs, the BBB statement said.

According to Tin, 12daily Pro and Johnson are completely independent of one another.

Calls to StormPay.com’s headquarters were unanswered.

The SEC also declined to comment.

Asked if the $50 million he believes StormPay.com is holding is enough to cover investor losses, Tin said, “I don’t know. What I do know is that there is a substantial sum of money sitting there.”

As for the $1.9 million Johnson allegedly moved to her accounts, Tin says his client has already returned $1.4 million to 12dailypro.com members.

The SEC also released a general warning on paid auto-surf schemes on Monday at http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/autosurf.htm.

12dailypro.com was the 352nd most highly visited site on the Internet, according to the SEC.

Source-Reuters

American investors who funnel billions of dollars into retirement and college savings accounts every year said Fidelity Investments is their favorite place to pick investments in cyberspace, a new report shows.

Boston-based Fidelity’s green-and-blue Web site earned top marks for convenient features, including links to other sites in the fourth quarter of 2005, from investors quizzed quarterly on their Web site preferences by research firm Dalbar Inc.

Fidelity, which manages over $1.1 trillion, beat out American Century’s site for first place among investors, according to data released on Monday.

Individual investors also liked the Vanguard Group, Lincoln Financial and Franklin Templeton sites, among others. Franklin Templeton’s parent is Franklin Resources Inc..

Financial planners ranked Lincoln Financial’s as the best Web site in the $8.8 trillion industry ahead of OppenheimerFunds Inc., which came in second. Lincoln Financial is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corp..

The loyal butler is gone.

AskJeeves.com said on Monday that it has retired Jeeves, its mascot servant, and will now answer the door simply as Ask.com, adopting a self-service approach for users looking for a focused way to search the Web beyond guessing keywords.

The new Ask.com features a slick, do-it-yourself toolbox that helps users refine more types of searches with the first click of their computer mouse for maps, images, dictionaries, weather, local info or documents stored on their computers.

Users can select from up to 20 different types of specialized search tools Ask.com has developed. Later this year, Ask will encourage outside developers to build tools to perform more specialized searches, the company said.

More popular rival search sites from Google, Yahoo or MSN require multiple clicks to reach such specialized information.

“Other engines just do 10 blue links and ads around them. We have really gone a lot further,” Jim Lanzone, general manager of Ask.com, said in an interview.

“Users are going to experience a search engine that does more for them faster than any other search engine they use.”

AskJeeves, the fourth most popular U.S. Internet search site, started out in 1996 by promising concrete answers to questions posed by Web users. Jeeves, the butler character, was meant to symbolize this theoretically better form of service.

A novelty for many Web users at first, AskJeeves struggled to attract a regular following. Having computers answer questions proved harder than many users first hoped.

“It was a place that overpromised and underdelivered during the dot-com days,” Lanzone said. “To the majority of consumers AskJeeves is still a place for questions and answers.”

Google arrived in 1998 with a page-ranking system based on the idea that credible answers typically come from sites that rank highest in terms of links from other sites. AskJeeves and other search sites have struggled to stand out ever since.

Barry Diller acquired AskJeeves last year and is working to make the search site the centerpiece of his IAC/InterActiveCorp Internet conglomerate of sites.

Ask’s rebranding follows years of improvements to the underlying search algorithms that have drawn praise from search experts but have not been recognized by many Web users.

Among the new features are the latest technology for mapping that allows the user not only to search for a map based on an address or postal code but build an itinerary with up to 10 different locations. Users also can rapidly pinpoint locations without knowing an exact address to create driving or walking directions based on overhead aerial maps.

Lanzone said the site should encourage loyal Jeeves fans to stay longer while attracting new users, building on momentum the site has enjoyed since August, when it cut back advertising clutter, making it less outwardly commercial than rivals.

ComScore data shows the number of searches being performed on AskJeeves growing at better than 20 percent over the past year, with its fourth-quarter share of the U.S. search market totaling 6.5 percent, up from 5.4 percent a year ago.

That’s a far faster increase than Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s MSN or Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, albeit off a smaller base.

“We are starting to see some genuine differentiation between the major players,” said analyst Chris Sherman, president of Searchwise, the author of several books on the subject, who is based in Boulder, Colorado.

“The big challenge that Ask and Yahoo and others have is that many people are so habitually using Google to search that even if Ask has something better it may not matter,” he said.

Troubled Japanese Internet company Livedoor Co. is not in any specific talks about potential partnerships and aims to keep operating with the focus on media, finance and business services, its new president said on Friday.

Kozo Hiramatsu, who was named president a month ago following the arrest of several top executives, said decisions will be made later on the fate of group companies that do not fall under the three business categories.

“We are not in any specific discussions with other companies right now,” said Hiramatsu, a U.S.-educated executive who has worked for companies such as Sony Corp. and American Express Co.’s Japan operations.

Comparing his sudden appointment to a baseball pitcher who sent to the mound before having chance to warm up, Hiramatsu, who came to Livedoor about a year ago, admitted it took time for him to get used to the idea of leading the effort to re-build Livedoor.

“I’ve now gotten used to 16-hour work days, seven days a week,” he quipped, adding more seriously: “Livedoor can regain society’s trust if we work as a team in managing the company responsibly.”

Livedoor’s founder and former chief executive, Takafumi Horie, and several other top executives have been arrested on suspicion of violating a securities law by falsifying accounts, spreading false information and submitting false financial statements.

The Internet firm is currently listed on the TSE Mothers market for start-ups, but the Tokyo bourse last month moved Livedoor shares to a monitoring status, bringing the firm closer to a possible delisting.

Asked about the possibility of delisting, Hiramatsu called the exchange’s actions “uncontrollable”, and said he would focus on things that he could control.

Hiramatsu said the company intended to call an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting before June.

He also said it would take steps to tighten corporate governance in line with recommendations outlined by a compliance committee.

“I’m going to get rid of festering wounds completely even if it means taking disciplinary action against current executives,” Hiramatsu said, adding that Horie would not return to the company regardless of the outcome of the criminal case against him.

Source-Reuters

Online auction company eBay Inc said it expects the number of Asia-Pacific users trading on its site to eventually outstrip that for the U.S. and Europe as Internet penetration grows, but it also predicts imminent competition.

More than 30 million of the company’s 181 million registered users worldwide are in the Asia-Pacific region, chief executive Meg Whitman said on Thursday.

“These are still small markets but as Internet usage and broadband penetration increase we see these markets growing bigger than our top markets currently,” she said.

And in markets like India, the company has seen a rise in high-value transactions and encouraging growth in smaller towns.

“Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing user region with markets like India, China and Korea leading the pack as Internet and broadband penetration rise,” Whitman told reporters.

“But we do foresee competition, as e-commerce is a growth area and we see a lot of venture capital money coming,” she said.

Rediff.com, the Times Group’s indiatimes.com, and New Delhi Television’s ndtv.com are among India’s biggest e-commerce sites, and there has been a string of investments recently in online travel sites.

California-based eBay bought Indian online auction company baazee.com in 2004 for about $50 million. eBay India, the wholly-owned subsidiary, has 2 million users.

“India is still a small fraction of our global revenues, but in 5, 10, 15 years we hope India will be among our top markets,” Whitman said.

PRAYER WHEELS

India has nearly 39 million Internet users, according to industry estimates, just a fraction of its billion-plus population, and equal to less than half its mobile phone user base of more than 81 million. Credit card holders number just 15 million.

About 45-50 percent of eBay India’s current turnover comes from the top six cities, but smaller towns are also driving growth due to a lack of modern retailing, said Gautam Thakar, country manager of eBay India.

“I was stunned to learn that jewelry is sold every five minutes on the site — and this is diamond jewelry,” he said. Ethnic products like bell anklets, Tibetan prayer wheels and hookah water-pipes have also found buyers, he said.

On eBay India, a mobile handset sells every seven minutes, a digital camera sells every 46 minutes, and a car or motorcycle sells every nine hours. The western state of Maharashtra, India’s richest state, makes up 28 percent of its users.

Whitman defended the company’s conservative earnings estimate for 2006, which has raised concerns that its growth is slowing as it matures.

“We have a record of meeting our estimates, and we’ve had a remarkable Q4, so we wanted to give Wall Street an estimate that we’re comfortable with,” she said.

eBay has forecast revenue will grow to between $5.7 billion and $5.9 billion in 2006, which is at the lower end of Wall Street expectations. The average revenue estimate is $5.9 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Microsoft said it was posting on the Web confidential documents used in its defense as it fought the threat of European Commission antitrust fines reaching up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) a day.

The U.S. software giant planned to post the documents at 1800 GMT on Thursday at www.microsoft.com/presspass/legalnews.mspx, including an exchange of letters between its chief executive, Steve Ballmer, and EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.

“Transparency is vitally important in what can be a very opaque process in Brussels. We’ve decided to open this up so people can understand the issues,” said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s European associate general counsel.

The Commission says Microsoft failed to comply with remedies it imposed in 2004 for the company’s violation of antitrust rules. Specifically, the Commission says Microsoft failed to produce required documentation in a form that worked.

“Microsoft has … supplied this documentation in a usable form in accord with industry practice,” the company said in the introduction to its documents.

Microsoft is opening defense documents it sent in response to a statement of objections from the Commission, minus business secrets, but has no plans to post the Commission’s objections.

The Commission considers those objections confidential and had little to say.

COMMISSION SAYS LITTLE

“We are carefully analyzing (Microsoft’s) reply and after they have had the opportunity to present their arguments at the oral hearing we will decide whether or not to impose a daily fine,” Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said.

The hearing, as yet unscheduled, will be closed.

The Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used the dominance of its Windows operating system to damage rival makers of work group server software, used to run printers, password sign-ins and file access for small groups of connected computers.

Microsoft was fined 497 million euros and ordered to provide interconnections so competitors could get their server software to work as well as Microsoft’s own with Windows desktop machines.

Microsoft appealed — that case will be heard by an EU court in Luxembourg in April — but in the meantime the Commission said the company had not carried out the sanctions.

Microsoft’s reply covers a lot of ground, focusing on questions of timing, dealing with criticisms and suggesting an alternative way of approaching the problem.

At least one other lawyer has posted documents to the Web in a case involving the Commission. In 2000, lawyer Stephen Kinsella posted a statement of objections for the International Motoring Federation.

“I took the view that any confidentiality was for the protection of my client. Therefore they could choose to waive that confidentiality. That decision was not challenged by the Commission,” Kinsella said.

Kinsella, whose firm Sidley Austin represents an organization that has intervened on the side of Microsoft, said when a case had intense interest it might make sense to provide full access to avoid the danger of selective quotes and leaks.

Microsoft says the Commission’s instructions were unclear.

“The Commission went more than nine months without suggesting to Microsoft that the scope of the interoperability information provided was too narrow,” the company said, adding that its staff spent 8,000 to 9,000 hours putting it together.

“Microsoft has never refused to supply technical documentation that the Commission has requested,” the company said, calling the charges “false, misleading and unfair”.

But a Commission monitoring trustee, one of several nominated by Microsoft, as well as competitors and a technical review committee gave Microsoft’s documentation scathing reviews. The trustee called it “fundamentally flawed”.

The company relied in part on consultant reports to respond.

Imperial College Consultants said neither the trustee nor competitors — including Sun Microsystems and IBM — had “devoted sufficient effort” to a sound evaluation of the documentation.

“All the competitors state that they are unable to perform a proper evaluation, before going on to opine of the matter of completeness and accuracy,” the consultant said.

More broadly, the company suggested the Commission could look at the process used in the United States, where a court also found that Microsoft had violated antitrust law.

There, a settlement was reached and Microsoft now has 28 licensees. Each month a judge reviews the process, at the same time that both sides work with the Justice Department.

“A similar process could wisely be followed under the (European Commission) 2004 decision as well,” the company said.

Porn star Jenna Jameson will lend her voice to an animated series produced by Viacom’s Comedy Central that will be delivered to mobile phone users, the network said on Wednesday.

The show, called “Samurai Love God”, is the first original animated mobile video series from Comedy Central, a unit owned by Viacom Inc., and will also star ‘The Daily Show’ correspondent Ed Helms,

The series has eight 2-1/2 minute episodes and will premiere this quarter across three cellular carriers, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and Amp’d. It will be available to all subscribers of the carriers’ standard video service.

‘Samurai Love God’ follows Comedy Central’s launch of its broadband video clip service, MotherLoad, which includes original content and is already available on mobile phones.

The network has plans to roll out other original shows, it said.

“Even though it’s still really early with just 2 percent of the market with videophones to watch, these services are very important to the operators and content providers. But consumers are still not aware of them though young people are starting to take them up,” said Linda Barrabee, analyst at Yankee Group.

Viacom Chief Executive Officer Tom Freston in a presentation to investors earlier this month emphasized the growing importance of digital content to the future of the company.

“It’s about scale and distribution. Outside our own properties we need to make sure we are accessible everywhere to consumers - beyond our own destinations, which presents a huge upside,” Freston had said.

Google Inc.’s image search service violates the copyrights of adult magazine and Web publisher Perfect 10 Inc. by displaying thumbnail-sized photographs, a federal judge has ruled.

However, Google is likely not responsible for displaying the underlying images from Perfect 10’s Web site, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said in a ruling last week that was made public on Tuesday.

The order could effectively bar Google from featuring thumbnail pictures — small versions of photos that are linked to a bigger version of the same picture — but not limit Google from linking to actual photos which exist on other Web sites.

The judge accepted that people who click on full-size images from Perfect 10 are not viewing images that Google has stored or served up on its computers but links to other sites.

Google argued that its thumbnails constitute fair use.

U.S. District Court Judge A. Howard Matz ordered Google and Perfect 10 to develop a preliminary injunction that reflects both factors. His ruling was issued on Friday and released to the public on Tuesday.

“The court now concludes that Google’s creation and display of ‘thumbnails’ likely do directly infringe P10’s (Perfect 10’s) copyrights,” he wrote in the ruling.

Google expects to appeal an injunction if the judge issues one, the Mountain View, California-based company’s litigation counsel Michael Kwun said in a statement.

“We anticipate that any preliminary injunction will have no effect on the vast majority of image searches, and will affect only searches related to Perfect 10,” Kwun said.

Perfect 10 plans to appear at a court hearing on Wednesday to seek additional evidence to support its claims against Google, said company attorney Daniel Cooper.

“Everything that we tried to sell for a living, they were displaying for free,” Cooper said.

Cooper said Perfect 10 is considering whether to appeal the judge’s decision on Google and third-party sites.

Perfect 10 first sued Google and Amazon.com Inc., which runs the A9 Internet search engine and uses Google technology, in 2004. Matz said he would issue a separate order for Amazon.

In his ruling, the judge notes the value of Google image searches in simplifying and expediting access to information, but agrees that Google’s use of thumbnails makes it a commercial consumer of Perfect 10’s images. In particular, the Google-created thumbnails hurt Perfect 10’s efforts to sell small images to mobile phone users, the judge ruled.

Beverly Hills, California-based Perfect 10 publishes photos of nude women in a magazine that sells for $7.99 per issue and at a subscription-based Web site that costs $25.50 per month.

Swiss and Belgian police have shut down a major component of the eDonkey file-sharing network, used mainly to trade copies of copyrighted movies and music, the Motion Picture Association said on Wednesday.

Razorback 2 was the biggest server on the eDonkey peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which transfers data from user to user. Music companies have blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales, and Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business.

“Swiss authorities arrested the site’s operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home,” the MPA said in a statement. “At the same time, on the authority of a local magistrate, Belgian police seized the site’s servers located at an Internet hosting center in Zaventem near Brussels.”

As of last year, eDonkey was estimated to have up to 3 million users spread over 100 to 200 servers. Razorback2 was the most popular server, used by about 1 million users.

While the music and movie industry have had a string of successes in their fight against online piracy in the last year, raiding P2P servers and winning judgements in court, in many cases users merely migrate to a different network — a pattern than has happened many times since the original Napster service was shut down.

Source-Reuters