Open Internet, open source, open everything types believe the FCC"s recent recommendation against Net neutrality is bad, but Icann, the California-based organization that registers Internet domain names, is a much bigger fish for open source advocates to fry. Should a U.S.-based organization be in charge of assigning domain names and Internet Protocol addresses? Icann, which stands for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has had a troubled past. It demonstrated a closed-door attitude with respect to its practices--which has been ill-received in international circles, particularly the UN-run Internet Governance Forum. A recent example of its controversial …

Google on Tuesday made yet another acquisition, adding GrandCentral Communications to its growing empire of Web services. GrandCentral makes a VoIP technology that lets users manage their various phone numbers and mailboxes from a single account. The idea is to make your phone number tied to you rather than a given location. Add that to BlackBerry functionality and it would give cell phone users a truly single point of access. Of course that would require that cell phones operate on a wireless Web, technology which is still several years away. Grand Central of Fremont, California is one of several …

As Apple unveiled its iPhone on Friday, Steve Jobs and co. over the weekend were handed a fresh headache. Universal Music Group, the biggest contributor to Apple's iTunes, will not be renewing its annual contract to sell music through the media store. Instead, if the two parties cannot agree on pricing and other terms, UMG wants to market its music to Apple at will, which would allow the record label to remove songs from iTunes on short notice, giving it far more control in dealing with distributors like Apple. The electronics giant and Big Music have had a tenuous …

A slow cellular network and expected first-generation bugs are two things that kept many from buying Apple's iPhone. There were also activation problems for several new iPhone owners this weekend. Most of the complaints came from AT&T business customers who were unable to quickly transfer there new phones to a business account. Other complaints came from those switching carriers. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the overwhelming majority of customers could activate service "within minutes." Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates that Apple sold a half a million iPhones over the weekend. That amounts to between $250 million …

iLike, the fastest-growing digital music service on the planet, owes its surging popularity to Facebook. After integrating its music-sharing service into Facebook, iLike is now growing at a rate of 1 million new registered users per week. The social music site is also being taken far more seriously by record labels, who've opened discussion with it. Indeed, for some developers of Web-based software programs, Facebook is making all the difference. Once a niche social networking site for college students, it first opened its doors to the greater Web in September and then opened its technology platform to software …

It's not surprising to hear that the social-networking generation prefers to choose their own marketing messages rather than receive random banner ads from marketers. A study of more than 1,200 kids ages 9 to 17 and about 1,000 parents across the country, finds that many consumers enjoy playing with ad-related features of their choosing on their personal profile pages. These findings are "likely to fuel a push by digital ad agencies to get marketers to experiment with new ways to advertise on social-networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace." So-called "widgets", downloadable software programs that can display anything …