Facebook, wanting to steer clear of the legal wrath of the Viacoms and News Corps. of the music world, shut down a program called Facebook Audio, which enabled members to trade music files. Audio allowed users to upload music playlists that friends could listen to on a streaming basis, but not download. The free product was not licensed from music labels and publishers. Analysts said it was only a matter of time before Audio lead to more litigation headaches for Facebook. Indeed, Facebook's legal woes are mounting. The social network is currently being sued by former classmates of Mark …

The rules are yet to be published, but the consensus in the technology press is that Google and other proponents of more consumer choice in wireless services only received a partial victory on Tuesday after the Federal Communications Commission released its rules for its next spectrum auction, set for January 2008. As expected, the auction winner of one-third of the 700 MHz spectrum will be required to open it to any wireless service provider, accessible to the owners of any handset, regardless of the carrier. Google, the open initiative's biggest lobbyist, received just two of the four conditions …

Wall Street may have learned a lesson on Monday after the ad network ValueClick missed its earnings: not all advertising companies are created equal. Google (DoubleClick), Yahoo (Right Media), Microsoft (aQuantive and AdECN), WPP Group (24/7 Real Media) and AOL (Tacoda) may have all made big-money online advertising purchases, but that doesn't guarantee that ad network leftovers like ValueClick--at one time linked with a move to several of the companies mentioned above--are going to crush earnings. Quite the contrary: ValueClick stock dropped off 19% on Monday after the company's under-delivered in the second quarter. The culprit was its controversial …

Time Warner's second quarter earnings received a neutral reaction from Wall Street, despite AOL's failure to deliver. The Internet division reported a revenue loss of 38% to $1.25 billion--mostly due to the company ditching its dial-up subscription business last year. Ad revenue grew a tepid 16%. Most analysts expected growth to be twice that; the rise was far less than the company reported in recent quarters. Earnings increased 9.4%. As for the parent company, another year, another Time Warner buyback. The media said it would repurchase $5 billion of its stock during the earnings call.The plan comes on the …