SBC Communications, the second-largest U.S. telecommunications company, plans to slash its price for high-speed Internet service by 25 percent, upping the ante in its rivalry with cable competitors.

As part of its mounting U.S. rollout of content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is testing technology solutions that bar consumers from making additional copies of burned CD-R discs. Since March the company has released at least 10 commercial titles -- more than 1 million discs in total -- featuring technology from U.K. anti-piracy specialist First4Internet that allows consumers to make limited copies of protected discs, but blocks users from making copies of the copies.

Over the weekend, Chris Gaither wrote an interesting and entertaining piece in the LA Times about the role of the Google Maximizers. These are the folks who help (mostly large) advertisers improve their campaigns and CTRs on Google. At the SME end of the spectrum is Google's Jumpstart (beta) program, which hasn't really been promoted. Taken together, among other things, it appears that Google has or is building the internal resources to be, effectively, an agency for both its large and, potentially, small advertisers.