SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google on Tuesday announced that freshly-acquired DoubleClick will be used to weave video ads into NBC's online coverage of the Olympics in Beijing.

The advertising coup stems from DoubleClick technology newly adapted to work with Silverlight 2 video platform software made through Microsoft, an arch-rival of Google.

"We're pleased to see the investment DoubleClick has made to enable customers such as NBCOlympics.com to take advantage of Silverlight to bid compelling packages to their advertisers," Scott Guthrie, a vice president in Microsoft's .NET Developer Division, said in a release.

"Microsoft has always had a strong commitment to working closely with partners and the industry to enable them to leverage our tools and platform to deliver great user experiences."

NBC Universal Digital Media choose be among the capital Silverlight 2 users to stream targeted video advertising to people watching shows on the Internet.

"by hundreds of advertisers, multiple platforms and large site traffic spikes, we needed to work with a partner that could afford an integrated, scalable, robust solution," said NBC digital media laxity president Steven Gold.

DoubleClick already integrates ads into video watched online using Flash, Real Media, and Windows Media software.

"By expanding DoubleClick to work with Silverlight 2, we can make it possible for clients to create unique entertainment and advertising experiences without increasing their workload or creating new complex processes, said Google product manager Ari Paparo.

Google expanded its power in online advertising in March with the completion of its takeover of online ad-targeting titan DoubleClick.

The merger of the world's top online search firm with the activity leader in matching ads to people's Internet activities came after European regulators signed off on the deal, and strengthened Google's domination of the lucrative online ad business.

Asia's leading social network may be getting ready to give its U.S. competitors a follow for the money. Friendster, the ninth largest Web site in the globe based on traffic, has received $20 million in funding and hired a Google veteran in the manner that CEO.

On Tuesday, Friendster announced Robert Kimber at the same time that its new CEO to lead Friendster's global business and guide operations in Asia and the U.S.

Most recently, Kimber was the regional prudent director for South Asia at Google, where he led business operations and strategic partnerships across the region. He helped increase Google's revenue in the Asia-Pacific region, opening offices in Singapore and Auckland, and rapidly growing Google's Australian and Korean businesses.

"Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia-Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is in part for the cause that the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become some of the greatest liberators of our time," Kimber related. "With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and potent focus on Asia."

Friendster's Windfall

Friendster has money to back up Kimber. The company raised $20 million in financing led by new investor IDG Ventures. Joining Friendster's board from IDG is Butch Reddy, a general partner.

"With the addition of Richard, Butch and the new funding, Friendster will continue to expand its worldwide footprint and take advantage of its direction position in Asia-Pacific," said Russ Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, an investor in Friendster, and chair of the board for Friendster.

Friendster plans to use the new funds to focus on user growth, user engagement, and monetization through new features, new offerings, localization and marketing, Siegelman said.

Fast Growth

In the last two years, Friendster has achieved triple-digit annual growth. According to comScore Media Metrix, Friendster ranks in the Top 50 in the world versus all Web properties in four key metrics: ninth in total traffic (22.1 billion page views), ninth in total time spent (eight billion minutes), ninth in user engagement (215 minutes per visitor per month), and 47th in monthly unique visitors (37.1 million).

Friendster is the number-one social network in Asia, with more than 55 million registered users and 33 million monthly unique visitors from Asia, comScore reports. In Asia, Friendster is almost twice the size of any other social network.

Friendster is the third largest social network in the world and first in user engagement among the top five global social networks.

A U.S. Comeback?

"Friendster has kept growing. The site malign from grace and everybody gave it up for dead, but the Asian markets have kept it alive," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Now being of the class who the leading social network in some of those countries, it has a real shot at revenues and perhaps acquisition."

While Friendster is not likely to make a significant comeback in the U.S. to challenge Facebook or MySpace, Sterling said he's not willing to rule out a resurgence stateside. Still, it would be a long-term battle, he said, with Facebook and MySpace cementing their positions.

"In a certain way it doesn't matter if Friendster's users are in U.S. or Europe or Asia," Sterling said. "If you've got scale in a big market, there is a lot of potential. The advertising markets aren't quite as developed in Asian nations, but long-term it could be a good opportunity."

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) announced Monday that three U.S. Internet companies have agreed to an Internet code of conduct for doing business with repressive regimes like China. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo worked by dint of. human-rights organizations and other nongovernment groups to hammer out the framing.

The agreement, enslave to final approval of the terms, comes after intense hearings in 2006 before the Senate Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee chaired by Durbin. On July 21 Durbin said the subcommittee would like to consider progress, and the companies appear to have delivered.

"This code of conduct would be one important step toward our shared goals of promoting freedom of expression and protecting the privacy of Internet users around the world," Durbin said. "I look forward to learning more about the details of this agreement and whether it will adequately regulate American companies operating in Internet-restricting countries."

A Dark Past

The 2006 hearings and subsequent pressure from organizations such as Amnesty International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation demanded that U.S. companies take a stand against online censorship, blocking way of approach to information, and covert spying on Internet users. In the past, some U.S. companies have even provided technical equipment to help countries restrict access to the Internet.

The controversy accelerated last week after China attempted to limit Internet usage for Olympic visitors and amid concerns that activity on the Internet may be monitored by the Chinese government.

Initial reports are that the companies be obliged agreed to protect identities, liberties and access to complaint. Provisions for the protection of data will moreover be a share of the final agreement.

All Bark, or is There Bite?

How they intend to implement such measures on foreign soil may be tricky, but it beats the cooperation Google and Yahoo provided to the Chinese government. When news of U.S. companies capitulating to foreign censorship came to light in the Senate hearings in 2006, pressure mounted and the agreement is an answer to that criticism.

Some observers are speculating that the agreement may include enforcement language, making it more than a statement of administration. How provisions could be enforced is not clear, but according to the LA Times, Yahoo has company up an international fund to help dissidents and their families.

Amnesty International reports that censorship and restrictions are a problem worldwide. Besides China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea are actively engaged in restricting Internet freedoms.

NEW YORK - Priceline.com Inc. said Tuesday that second-quarter proceeds surged 56 percent, however the online travel company noted some weakness in its international bookings and rental car business and shares dropped in after-hours trading.

Shares plunged $22.20, or 18.9 percent, to $95, in aftermarket electronic trading, after gaining $5.48, or 4.9 percent, to close at $117.20 in the regular session. The stock has traded between $59.50 and $144.34 during the past 52 weeks.

proceeds for the three months ended June 30 rose to $54.1 million, or $1.08 per share, from $34.6 very great number, or 79 cents per share, in the year-ago time. Excluding special items, earnings totaled $78.5 million, or $1.55 per share.

Revenue grew 44 percent to $514 very great number, from $355.9 million last year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who generally exclude special items, forecast earnings of $1.41 on revenue of $495.7 million.

Although the overall results topped forecasts, Goldman Sachs analyst Jennifer Watson said investors may initially focus on the weaker-than-expected international bookings, particularly because that segment “has been the primary topline and profit growing driver.”

Quarterly gross travel bookings gained 71 percent, but international bookings grew at the low end of Priceline’s 80 percent to 90 percent guidance range. Meanwhile, the company’s domestic business slightly beat the high end of expectations.

Gross travel bookings refers to the total dollar value of all travel services purchased by consumers.

In a conference call with investors, Priceline’s management attributed the soft international performance in part to the earlier Easter holiday, which fell in the first quarter this year.

Priceline also said hotel room night one sales may have been “artificially depressed” in June as a conclusion of the EURO cup soccer tournament. The company said weakening economic conditions may also be a factor.

Priceline also told investors that it is seeing “significant headwinds” in its rental car business as suppliers reduce their fleets.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based company boosted its full-year earnings outlook to between $5.50 to $5.85 per share, from its previous guidance range of $5.25 to $5.65 per share.

Analysts expect 2008 income of $5.54 per share.

Priceline expects third-quarter earnings between $2 and $2.15 per share, compared with analysts’ consensus estimate of $2.05. The company expects quarterly gross travel bookings to increase from 44 percent to 54 percent, with international bookings growing 58 percent to 68 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO - A giant vulnerability in the Internet’s design is allowing criminals to silently redirect traffic to Web sites under their control. The problem is being fixed, but its extent remains unknown and many people are still at risk.

The gaping security hole enables a scam that targets ordinary people typing in a legitimate Web address. It happens because hackers are now able to manipulate the machines that help computers find Web sites. If the trick is done properly, computer users are unlikely to detect whether they’ve landed at a legitimate site or an evil double maintained by someone bent on fraud.

Security experts fear an open season for venom attacks and identity-fraud scams.

“It’s kind of probably saying, `There’s a bunch of money on the street. If you can get over there soon enough, you can get it,’” said Ken Silva, chief technology officer for VeriSign Inc., which manages the “.com” and “.net” directories of Internet addresses. “It’s something the industry is taking seriously. You’d be in a bad place if you weren’t doing something about it.”

The bug’s existence was revealed intimately a month ago. Since in consequence, criminals have pulled off at least one successful attack, directing some AT&T Inc. Internet customers in Texas to a fake Google site. The phony boy-servant was accompanied by three programs that automatically clicked on ads, with the profits in the place of those clicks flowing back to the hackers.

There are likely worse scams happening that haven’t been discovered or publicly disclosed by Internet service providers. “You can bet that the (Internet providers) are going to stay tightlipped about any attacks on their networks,” said HD Moore, a security researcher.

The AT&T attack probably would have stayed quiet had it not affected the Internet service of Austin, Texas-based BreakingPoint Systems Inc., which makes machines for testing networking equipment and has Moore as its labs director. He disclosed the incident in hopes it would help open more breaches.

The underlying flaw is in the Domain Name System (DNS), a network of millions of servers that translate words typed into Web browsers into numerical codes that computers can understand.

Getting from one place to another on the Internet typically requires a trip through several DNS servers, including some that accept incoming data and store parts of it. That opens them up for potential attack.

What this means is that a computer user in say, San Francisco, might type http://www.yahoo.com and head straight to the real Yahoo site, while at the same moment, a user in New York — whose traffic is routed through contrasted DNS servers — might type that same Web address and end up on a phony duplicate site.

Scant details have been available about how the vulnerability works.

The researcher who discovered it, Dan Kaminsky of Seattle-based computer security consultant IOActive Inc., announced July 8 that he’d found a major weakness in DNS. But he kept the rest secret because he wanted to bestow companies that run vulnerable servers a month to lay upon patches — software tweaks that cover the security cavern. He coordinated with Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and other major vendors to simultaneously issue patches.

He got two weeks before bad guys and richness guys alike accurately guessed the basics of that which Kaminsky discovered.

It is this: By adding bad information to the packets of premises zooming in and out of certain DNS servers, hackers can swap out the address of a legitimate Web station and insert the address of their malicious Web site instead.

A compromised server believes it’s sending people to the authentic site. And if the bogus site is designed well sufficiency, users don’t know the difference, unless the site starts behaving weirdly. Some clues might come if a page, like a banking Web site, is usually protected with Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, which verifies a site’s possessor and shows a padlock icon or a green address bar inside the Web browser. The padlocks in particular, however, are not always foolproof, because scammers can spoof them.

Just how widespread the attacks have been is hard to tell. The evidence of tampering can disappear before an Internet provider even learns there’s a point in dispute.

The patching of DNS servers has accelerated. Kaminsky said 84 percent of the servers he tested at the beginning of the process were vulnerable. That has dropped to around 31 percent.

Still, Kaminsky said more administrators of computer networks might not patch their machines until they come under attack. Others didn’t patch immediately because they had to spend days or weeks testing the repairs.

That was the case with AT&T, which said the breach affected just person of its servers, a machine that was scheduled to be taken off course anyway. AT&T says it has fixed the problem.

More details about the vulnerability are expected to emerge Wednesday, when Kaminsky speaks at the Black Hat computer security parley in Las Vegas. The conference and its sister event, DefCon, draw researchers, government investigators and corporate executives eager to learn about new vulnerabilities and how to protect against them.

“There might be one or two things that haven’t leaked yet,” Kaminsky said with a snicker. “No one should likewise think they know the bring under rule of the talk.”

DNS attacks aren’t new. But Kaminsky discovered a way to link together some widely known weaknesses in the classification, so that an attack that would have taken hours or days can now take only seconds.

“Quite frankly, all the pieces of this have been staring us in the face for decades, and not the least portion of us by-word it until Dan put it all together,” said Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Systems Consortium, a nonprofit that publishes the software inside most of the world’s DNS servers.

“This is the mother lode all right, from the point of view of Internet criminals looking for easier access to other people’s money and secrets.”

Q. How do I tell whether a Web site is legitimate and who’s behind it?

A. Caution is indeed wise, given that setting up a Web site takes no more than a credit card. It’s easy for a scammer or prankster to circulate fraudulent information, and even a well-intentioned individual can unfurl inaccuracies online.

The best way to protect yourself is to type in the Web address of a known, trusted site. Don’t rely on links embedded in other Web sites or e-mailed to you. Those can subsist made to falsely appear warranted.

When you encounter a situation for the first time, don’t rely strictly on its Web address — its domain name — or the name of the organization listed there.

A good example is GATT.org. You efficacy think it belongs to the World Trade Organization, the follower to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The site has the World Trade Organization’s name and logo, but it is run by its critics, who beat the real WTO to the domain name. (The real WTO does have WTO.org).

There’s no surefire way to know whether a place is as it claims to be, but there are telltale signs. Look according to contact information, such as a name, physical address and phone number. Read about the site’s mission. Sites that aren’t forthcoming may have something to be concealed.

You can try to dig deeper by checking Whois, a set of databases listing names, phone numbers, postal and e-mail addresses and other information on the companies and individuals who register domain names. BetterWhois.com and other sites let you access all or qualities of the Whois data for free.

If you typed in GATT.org, you’d find the site registered to an individual in a nonexistent burgh in New York and a contact listing for The Yes Men, whose Web site describes the group’s mission as “impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them.” Nowhere in the registration is a reference to the WTO or its Geneva headquarters.

Of course, the registration database cannot be fully trusted, either.

Although accurate advice is sought, it’s rarely checked in the same manner with long as your credit card works when you sign up at one of the hundreds of registration companies. Some of these registrars are better than others in screening customers. Same goes for the companies that provide Web hosting. In fact, people repeatedly use the same company for both.

lower classes routinely provide false information or leave out data to remain anonymous in Whois listings. Many registrars also let users mask their contact information for a fee — like to an unlisted phone number.

In the case of the real WTO.org site, the Whois file doesn’t mention the WTO, but it at least palaestra an address at the United Nations in Geneva.

At best, Whois and other techniques have power to help you refute a site’s legitimacy but not necessarily confirm it. Sometimes you might have to go further: Look on account of contact information on a site and vet the responses you get to your questions.

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. is recounting the shareholder vote for its board of directors afterwards discovering that a tabulating firm failed to register the opposition of a major investor.

The revision, expected to be announced later Tuesday, won’t change the outcome of Friday’s election, which retained Yahoo’s incumbent directors despite shareholder anger about the board’s handling of a now-withdrawn $47.5 billion takeover bid from Microsoft Corp.

But the change will add a little more punch to the protest to counterbalance the Yahoo board. The directors re-elected last week had been supported by at least 78 percent of the votes cast, based in continuance the original results.

“It’s important for Yahoo’s board to understand there is still pressure on them,” uttered Eric Jackson, a hedge fund manager who represents a group of stockholders with about 3.2 million Yahoo shares. “I thought Yahoo’s board was humane of let off the hook endure week when they didn’t absolutely deserve to be.”

Capital Research Global Investors, which owns a 6.2 percent stake in Yahoo, lodged the inquiry Monday that resulted in the preference recount. Convinced that its opposition to Yahoo’s board wasn’t reflected in last week’s vote, Capital Research demanded an audit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, the processing firm responsible for casting its ballot.

Broadridge acknowledged Tuesday that a printing mix-up caused it to understate the number of shares that Capital Research intended to cast against some of Yahoo’s directors. At least 100 million shares were inaccurately voted, according to Broadridge’s statement, but not any further specifics were provided.

Broadridge processes votes in about 14,000 annual meetings harvested land year, but hasn’t found any similar mistakes in a review covering the past 18 months, said Chuck Callan, the Lake Success, N.Y.-based company’s senior vice president of regulatory affairs. “This was a unique, isolated incident,” he said.

Capital Research spokesman Chuck Freadhoff declined comment Tuesday.

Capital Research’s fund manager, Gordon Crawford, has sharply criticized Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock for their tactics in the Microsoft talks. Microsoft withdrew its takeover offer, valued at $33 per share, three months ago after Yang demanded $37 per share with Bostock’s backing.

Since Microsoft walked away, Yahoo shares have plunged more than 30 percent to leave the company’s market value nearly $20 billion below the last takeover offer. Yahoo’s stock gained 42 cents to $19.80 in Tuesday’s late afternoon trading.

Yang was backed by 85 percent of the shareholder votes counted in the results announced last week, while Bostock received support from nearly 80 percent of the ballots.

The board is about to be expanded to 11 people, to include activist investor Carl Icahn and two of his allies. Icahn hopes to revive talks with Microsoft.

Google's DoubleClick technology now can be used to deliver video advertising shown with Microsoft's Silverlight technology, and it will be used for that purpose by the Olympics video that NBC Universal plans to show online using a player based on Silverlight 2.

Google announced the Silverlight ad capability, called DoubleClick In-Stream, on Tuesday. It already could be used to deliver video ads using Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media technology. In-Stream also can show static ads within video, which Microsoft and NBC concluded was the best approach for live video.

NBC Universal, already a DoubleClick customer, was bullish about the Sliverlight support. "Thanks to DoubleClick, In-Stream's new support for Silverlight 2, we are able to monetize our groundbreaking online-video coverage on the same platform we already use for display and mobile advertising. This lets our sales and operations teams work together really efficiently," Steven Gold, vice president of sales planning and operations at NBC Universal Digital Media, said in a statement.

Microsoft is betting on the Olympics to help spur adoption of Silverlight, a browser plug-in technology that competes with Adobe Systems' Flash for bringing multimedia, animation, and other rich make easy to the Web. Distributing the Olympics online coverage, both prepackaged and live, is a technologically complicated task given how popular the sporting event is among viewers.

DoubleClick In-Stream is integrated with Google's DART technology for letting publishers serve ads over the Internet as well as target ads at specific categories of users, track ad campaign success, and create ad forecasts.

Apple's iTunes store remained the number one music retailer in the first half of 2008, but the launch of Amazon's mp3 store has helped it jump one spot to number four, according to a Tuesday report from NPD Group.

The top five music retailers, according to NPD, are iTunes, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon, and Target.

The launch of Amazon's mp3 store helped it overtake Target this year, but also assisting the online retailer was the fact that people usually procure actual CDs online more than they do at brick and mortar stores, NPD said.

"Amazon's CD buyers tend to be older, so they haven't abandoned the CD format to the extent seen in the average music buyer," Russ Crupnick, NPD entertainment industry analyst, said in a statement. "Plus Amazon's successful introduction of its digital download store will help the troop improve its position in the future."

NPD expects that Apple "pleasure consolidate its lead in the retail music market, as CD sales continue to slow," Crupnick said.

NPD surveyed U.S. consumers 13 and older who purchased music from physical stores and digital music stores through the song or by album. The group's agree does not embrace consumer who have subscriptions to services like eMusic, Rhapsody, or Napster.

In April, Crupnick released a report that said gains for Amazon's MP3 service had not significantly affected Apple iTunes sales, due largely to the different demographics the two services attract.

Are you familiar by Robb Topolski? He's the guy who originally figured out Comcast was 'playing' with BitTorrent streams. Though scores of people were affected, it took a real propeller head geek to understand what was going on and misfortune the (Cap'n Crunch) whistle.¹. Robb will not be on the Comcast Christmas card list this year.

As of today the Electronic Freedom Foundation has begun to democratize Robb's act. EFF calls it the Switzerland Network Testing Tool, named after the politically mediocre nation of Switzerland. Though currently a command line tool (only the geekiest need apply), soon any halfwit with a PC will be able to see if his packets are fettered or unfettered.

"Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Switzerland is an open source software tool for testing the honesty of data communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls. It will spot IP packets which are forged or modified between clients, inform you, and give you copies of the modified packets."

Though Comcast's work using Sandvine is the best known example of this packet modification scheme, Switzerland should be able to spot the Great Firewall of China at work as well as advertising injection schemes–current or future. The program itself is neutral when it comes to sniffing out what's being hidden from you.

Switzerland is free/open fountain software licensed under the GPL and hosted on Sourceforge. Like many GPL licensed programs it's expected users will make modifications and improvements to avail the sum total community. Let the bits fall where they may.

¹ - If you get the Cap'n Crunch whistle reference, hats off to you! Aren't you too old to be public recital this (or writing it)?

Originally posted on AppScout.