In anticipation of next week's launch of Hulu, the joint online media venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal, NBC on Monday removed content from Google's YouTube, including licensed video clips and a promotional channel that were part of a deal signed by the companies almost nine months ago. A company spokesperson confirmed that NBC was removing its content from YouTube, but said the decision was intended to provide a boost to Hulu, not to spite Google or YouTube. YouTube, meanwhile, isn't taking the decision personally. NBC was one of the few media companies to agree …

Microsoft has decided not to appeal last month's European Union commission antitrust ruling, ending a nine-year fight with EU regulators that has cost the software giant hundreds of millions in fines. Defeat means that Microsoft now has to license information to competitors to make their software work better with Windows. It also needs to "tread carefully" when it comes to bundling products and features into sales of the operating system. Microsoft long maintained that licensing its server software information to competitors would compromise its intellectual property, but EU regulators ruled that doing so prevented competition and perpetuated a monopoly. …

It is a great irony of the so-called "most measurable advertising medium" that the discrepancy between those who count Web traffic is so vast. Publishers count the number of visitors to their sites, while advertisers and ad-serving firms collect data on those sites they do business with. All rely on third-party measurers like Nielsen/NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix when it comes to doing business. Big-time money is changing hands here, which makes the discrepancy between the interested parties so troubling. Publishers claim that panel-based ratings firms undercount those accessing Web sites from work, for example, particularly those operating …

The complex relationships tying products and services together in the mobile wireless industry confounds most consumers. If I decide to buy an HP notebook to replace a Dell, I'm not suddenly tied to a particular Web browser or Internet service provider; so why, if I'm a T-Mobile customer, can't I buy an iPhone? Simply put, network providers control the cell phone market, forcing handset makers to strike lucrative deals for access to their customers. But nobody controls the Internet. The free ISP-PC relationship is the way digital capitalism should work, and, in the case of the mass-market personal-computer …

Google, possibly on the verge of failing to receive approval for its $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition, made concessions to the European Union to extend its review of the merger for a possible violation of antitrust law. Antitrust regulators agreed to extend their review--and possibly clear the merger--on the basis of the steps taken by Google. Google has been fighting for the right to acquire ad-serving giant DoubleClick since April. The merger raised antitrust flags all over the Web industry, as advertisers, competitors and industry watchdog groups expressed their concern that the combined company would have far too much …

The defection of talent can be a major problem for big companies, particularly tech companies, as innovative entrepreneurials often feel stifled by the large corporate environment. The same problem has plagued Microsoft and Yahoo, but it's now plaguing Google--once the destination for top industry talent, too. At last week's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, former employees of the search giant opened up about why they left the company. Some said they simply "wanted to go on my own path" and have started their own companies or work at venture capital firms. "The financial incentives are important," …

News Corp.'s Fox Interactive, in its continued effort to become a major force in Internet media, unveiled its first Web-only series Sunday for MySpace, called "Roomates." The show, which debuts on MySpace TV tonight, follows the lives of four women in their early 20s living together in L.A. Shows come in three-minute installments, uploaded Monday through Friday at 4 PM EST. Taking a page from the book of LonelyGirl15 and KateModern's creators, "Roomates" will be an interactive experience, allowing MySpace users to communicate with characters' profiles and influence the plot by posting their ideas. There's also an ongoing …

AOL is in trouble again (or rather, still), but this time, it's worse: 1,200 layoffs and reports that more than a dozen AOL products are going to be shut down. What's the future of the Time Warner company? The result is the dissolution of the AOL brand as we know it. AOL CEO Randy Falco says the fault of the former regime was to turn AOL.com into a Web version of "the all-in-one" service the company tried to provide in its former iteration. The Web portal strategy at large has failed with the rise of blogging, user-generated content and …

Social networks, focusing instead on email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, have started encroaching on the territory of MySpace and Facebook. If social networking is all about loyalty and personalization, then email and instant messaging are--in theory--the perfect place to mine that data. So why not combine all these services and let users stick a profile on their account? Google's Gmail, it seems, is already headed in that direction, allowing its users to chat with contacts from inside their in-boxes. But social networks are headed in the same direction. Many Facebook users claim the social network has …

A new fad has taken hold in Silicon Valley, but it lacks substance. We're not necessarily talking about the astronomical valuations placed on companies that don't warrant them--we are, but only indirectly. It's the open platform and the social graph, two ideas popularized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg when he announced in May that third-party developers could create programs for his site. Silicon Valley seems to be most taken with the latter. In some tech circles, geeks and venture capitalists alike refer to the social graph as a kind of advertising Holy Grail: think of a gigantic graph with …