The Silicon Alley Insider reports that Facebook has pulled the plug on Scrabulous, at least for the time being. If you try and access the app, you now get the following message: "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice." The message then asks you to enter your email address if you'd like to be informed about developments in the matter. Last week, Hasbro, manufacturer of the board game Scrabble, filed a lawsuit against developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, who founded the popular Facebook app two weeks ago. SAI's Michael Learmonth says that a DMCA takedown notice …

Warner Bros. launched an unprecedented campaign to keep pirated copies of its summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight" from making their way onto the worldwide Web before the film's official release a few weeks ago. This was a considerable challenge, considering that the Batman movie's core audience of superhero geeks is same group of young men attracted to file-sharing communities. Because of this, Warner Bros. spent six months developing its anti-piracy strategy, locking down the film with a "chain of custody" that listed who had access to the film at any given moment as it moved from production to post-production …

Despite a slumping economy, the future for Web advertising looks bright -- if the flow of investment dollars is any indication. But Ad Age reminds us that the overall advertising pot is far from bottomless. Money may be flowing online from the likes of TV and print, but it certainly isn't an endless flow. "The inconvenient truth" is that ad budgets are freezing while large clients decide to spend their available dollars on Web development, public relations and database marketing at the expense of paid advertising. After all, ad spending among the top 100 U.S. advertisers last year grew …

Let's not underestimate the significance of the botched Microhoo deal on the future of Microsoft's business, says Ars Technica contributor Don Reisinger. Microsoft thinks its future is online, but without Yahoo, the software giant has very little to stand on, on the Web. It's a pitiful third in search advertising, with just a 9% share, and its overall online business operated at a deficit of $1.2 billion this year. Now, how can Microsoft move forward when it's back to square one? Still, CEO Steve Ballmer pipes on: "There is this huge, huge, huge new opportunity around the Internet and …

It's not going to be nearly as interesting if Carl Icahn hadn't settled with Yahoo last week, but Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting this Friday may yet serve up some surprises. Who will take the two open board seats? Kara Swisher reminds us that Icahn had previously nominated a slate of nine replacements, including Lucian Bebchuk, Frank Biondi, Jr., John Chapple, Mark Cuban, Adam Dell, Keith Meister, Edward H. Meyer, Brian S. Posner, and former AOL chief Jon Miller. Per last week's agreement, Icahn will now occupy one board seat, and both he and the board will choose two others from …

New numbers from chip maker Intel claim that the mobile phone market is set to explode in the next four years, as net-enabled devices grow to 1.2 billion by 2012. Intel also projected that 100 million households would be watching Internet-based television by 2011. The Intel study was released in conjunction with the launch of a series of chips designed for portable Web-enabled devices. "The fact that people want to be on the internet all the time means they will be looking for the ability they have today say at their desk and to have that anytime and anywhere," said …