Apple, publishers offer to settle European Union case: Apple and four major publishers have offered a settlement offer to the European Commission over antitrust charges related to e-books, the commission announced Wednesday.
According to a statement describing the proposed commitments, Apple, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette and Holtzbrinck have offered to stop the “agency model” of agreements and to eliminate the most-favored nation pricing clauses for five years.
If publishers enter into new agency agreements, retailers will be free to set the retail price of e-books for two years, as long as discounts don’t exceed the annual amount of the commission retailers get from the publishers.
T-Mobile names new CEO: T-Mobile USA has named a new chief executive officer, John Legere, formerly of Global Crossing.
He has also previously worked at Dell and AT&T. He began his career at New England Telephone in 1980, according to a news release from the company.
Jim Alling, who has served as the company’s interim chief executive, will return to his previous role as its chief operating officer.
Internet lobbying group: Facebook, Google, Amazon and Yahoo said Wednesday they will form a new lobbying association aimed at combating efforts to impose more federal regulation on Internet firms.
The group, called The Internet Association, will be led by Michael Beckerman, the former deputy staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The group, as The Washington Post reported, will also include IAC, LinkedIn and Zynga. Microsoft and Apple are not members of the group, the report said.
Nokia, Oracle, Allegro Group join FairSearch: Nokia, Oracle and Allegro Group have joined FairSearch, a group that’s focused on raising awareness of what they say is anti-competitive search practices by Google.
Of the new members, E.U. counsel to FairSearch Thomas Vinje said, “Their addition is emblematic of the global scope of Google’s anti-competitive search and business practices, which harm consumers by curbing innovation and choice, not just in Web services, but also in mobile, and any platform where Google abuses its dominant position.”
Technology and private spaces: Mitt Romney’s leaked speech to donors shows that the boundaries of private space are getting smaller and smaller, The Washington Post reported, as video technology makes it easy to give anyone access to information that politicians and others would rather keep among friends.
“There is a total collapse of the notion of private space,” Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, told the Post. “Increasingly, politicians who say one thing behind closed doors and another to the public get caught doing it.”
Psychologist Kelly E. Caine has coined her own phrase for moments like this — “misclosure,” a play on the word “disclosure,” when the utterance is intended, but the audience it reaches isn’t.
No-text day: The Department of Transportation, the Federal Communications Commission and George Washington University, along with AT&T are commemorating “No Text on Board” day, part of the carrier’s “It Can Wait” campaign to cut down on texting and driving.
At an event on the GW campus Wednesday, the groups are running a texting while driving simulator meant to show the hazards of the practice.
The DOT has been trying to crack down on texting and driving, particularly for younger drivers. The DOT and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that, due to use of distracting devices such as cellphones, younger drivers are four times more likely to crash than older drivers.
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