AOL has finally caved, writes The Wall Street Journal--and is now considering offering its services for free to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection. That marks a big change for the company that's become famous for bleeding subscribers. AOL Chief Jonathan Miller is said to have presented the idea to top Time Warner executives in New York last week. Under the proposal, it would stop charging a subscription fee to those who already pay for Internet service from another provider. This would include free e-mail; many subscribers maintain their AOL accounts simply to avoid dealing with the hassle of parting …

With the exception of Google, it has been a tepid year so far for Net stocks, writes Bambi Francisco of MarketWatch. There's been little M&A activity, and even fewer IPOs. Vonage, of course, comes to mind--but for all the wrong reasons. But if News Corp.'s MySpace were its own company, Francisco says, it would likely be "the hottest kind of stock--one that every sell-side analyst would gladly hawk." Perhaps. MySpace may make $50 million a quarter in advertising revenue, but it is also kind of stuck in a rut. Most advertisers still don't know what to do with the world's …

Business Week says rumors that computer chip maker Intel was planning to dump its WiMax business were just dashed as the company yesterday announced a $600 million investment into WiMax provider Clearwire. The business journal says the deal means Intel is serious about enhancing wireless technology, and says its ultimate goal is to build a nationwide service that equips notebook PCs with fast Web access and voice-over-Internet calling service. WiMax is a technology that outfits large areas with wireless broadband. "The U.S. is now going to get a high-speed wireless broadband network sooner than it would have," Intel Executive Vice …

Time once again to check in with Vonage, the Internet telephony company that recently completed one of the most disastrous IPOs in recent history. A new report from Piper Jaffray points to a list of potential competitive pitfalls for the VoIP provider. Cable operators, regional phone companies, and other alternative service providers are all trying to enter the same market. The investment firm says all of this bodes poorly for Vonage, which will likely face declining margins due to customer defection and increased pricing pressure. Piper Jaffray issued the stock a "market perform" rating and a $9 target price, saying …

Google has vowed to flex its legal muscle if high-speed Internet providers abuse the market power they appear set to receive from U.S. legislators. Last week, the Senate approved sweeping telecom legislation reform--but narrowly defeated attempts by lawmakers and lobbyists to push Net Neutrality, which would force telecom companies to charge content providers the same price for unfettered access to their networks. It was a loss for the likes of Google and MSN, but the issue is not dead yet. Google Vice President Vint Cerf--one of the pioneers of the Internet--told a news conference that if Net Neutrality does not …

Last year, Internet advertisers lost $800 million to bogus clicks on their marketing messages on sites like Google and Yahoo, according to new research from Outsell, a market research firm. That would make click fraud a huge problem--perhaps the most immediate problem facing the online advertising industry. Advertisers have complained that the search engines they pay to advertise with don't do enough to combat the problem--or at least, disclose the extent of it. Click fraud occurs when companies deploy software programs to perform repeated searches that click on competitor's ads with the intent of depleting their budgets. The report, released …

Yahoo is being sued by the world's largest music companies for perpetuating copyright infringement on its China-based portal. "Yahoo China has been blatantly infringing our members' rights. We have started the process and as far as we're concerned we're on the track to litigation," said John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the music industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Kennedy said the group would listen to negotiation, but could not promise that this would solve the dispute. Yahoo China is a joint partnership between Yahoo, which owns 40 percent of the entity, and Alibaba.com. The …

As analysts wait for Apple Computer's response to the law passed by France that would force the company to open up its iPod music player, The Washington Post points out that the bill that recently passed is a slightly watered-down version that includes a loophole allowing Apple to seek permission from artists, record labels, and publishers for exclusive access to their content. In that instance, Apple could impose its digital rights management software on the downloadable music tracks for which it received exclusive rights. Apple has kept mum about how the new bill will affect its business in France; the …

YouTube has a challenger: eefoof.com, a site that promises to return a share of earned revenue to users who upload video clips that attract large audiences. Saturday saw the launch of eefoof.com, a new video-sharing site that has emerged at a time when most video-sharing sites are trying to figure out their business model. Video sharing has become one of the hottest trends in media; every day, people from all over the world post homemade video clips at one of more than 150 sites. Even if these video clips attract large audiences, producers are not compensated. But they should be, …

As thousands of gamblers spend significant money on the World Cup this month, teams of lobbyists representing casinos and anti-gambling coalitions alike are battling on Capitol Hill over how to deal with the proliferation of online wagering. Congress is currently looking over several bills that would impose stricter laws on those who engage in online betting, which is illegal. Even so, Internet betting is an estimated $12 billion-a-year business worldwide, with more than half of spending estimated to have come out of the United States. National sports leagues like Major League Baseball want to make sure that stricter measures don't …