Staking their claims to the big business of Web measurement, The Nielsen Company has filed a lawsuit against comScorefor violating five patents relating to the collection, analysis and reporting of Web-related information. "As the measurement of Internet traffic holds greater sway over the decisions of advertisers and marketers, two of the larger companies in the business are now vying with each other over valuable intellectual property," The Hollywood Reporter writes.  On the news, Time's Techland blog asks: "Who watches the men that watch the world wide Web? Apparently, the answer is "each other." "At stake …

Pretty soon, The New York Times is going to need more compliance officers (Web watchdogs?) than reporters. The august publisher has yet to debut the domestic version of its metered pay wall, but breaches already abound. Under the new terms, users are only allowed 20 page views a month before the wall kicks in, but visits to the site via social media links are unlimited. "As I predicted, this was an inducement for someone to simply tweet a link to every single story on the site," writes Forbes' Jeff Bercovici. In the latest instance, a Web developer used …

Facebook admits that about 20,000 children are kicked off Facebook every day for lying about their age, The Daily Telegraph reports. "Despite efforts to enforce the strict 13 years or older age limit some children still slip through the checks," explains the Australian publisher. Facebook's chief privacy adviser Mozelle Thompson told Federal Parliament's cyber-safety committee: "There are people who lie. There are people who are under 13 [accessing Facebook] ... Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage." While the world's top social network has mechanisms to detect liars, Thompson admitted: "It's not perfect." Australia's Labor …

Foursquare is working on a new algorithm called Explore that will recommend new places for users to check out based on their history, as well as the history of people they "like." Writes Business Insider: "This is a big deal, because the promise of Foursquare has always been not just to help you share your location but to use that data to make recommendations and affect what people do." "It's also got great potential business -- if Explore works, we're sure plenty of restaurants and bars would pay to be at the top, just like they might pay …

Groupon president and COO Rob Solomon is stepping down, BoomTown's Kara Swisher first reported on Tuesday. "It's not clear what the reasons for Solomon's departure are, but the move seems to be sudden," writes Swisher. "It is also unusual given the fast-track trajectory of Groupon, which is currently considering an IPO at gigantic badillion-dollar valuations." Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on Tuesday sent an internal email to staff about Solomon's departure. In the email, sources tell Swisher, Mason said Solomon was moving back to "'God's Country' in Woodside, CA" from Chicago, where Groupon is based. Solomon joined Groupon about …

Facebook users can now check in to Facebook Events they're currently attending through the touch.facebook.com site and soon through the Facebook for iPhone app. "When users are in geographic proximity to the address of an Event during its run-time, they'll see a 'Check In' button that publishes a news feed story to their friends stating "[Name] is at [Event],'" writes Inside Facebook. As such, users will no longer have to create a new Places page or add the name of an Event to a check-in's description when they want to tell friends they're at a specific event. "By …

Condé Nast is considering spinning off social news site Reddit, MediaMemo is reporting. The publisher would continue to own the site, which it bought five years ago, "but it's talking to investors about selling a stake," reports MediaMemo's Peter Kafka. "Sources tell me it is floating a $200 million valuation," Kafka writes. Last summer, Reddit was doing more than 400 million page views a month, but has since shot up to 1 billion. The theory, according to Kafka, is that "Taking Reddit outside of Condé Nast's corporate structure would make the site that much more valuable, and would …

Let the leaks begin! As The New York Times prepares to launch its metered pay wall, the Web is abuzz with alternatives for subscription-averse readers. Referring to code that will block cart blanch access to NYTimes.com, Nieman Journalism Lab writes: "Unfortunately for the Times, there are plenty of popular (or popular-among-nerds) tools that tactically remove little bits of CSS and Javascript." In one instance, Canadian coder David Hayes just released NYClean, a "bookmarklet," which, in one click, tears down The Times' pay wall. In what he calls an "obligatory note," Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton says he thinks the …

Apple is suing Amazon.com on the claim that the online retailer is improperly using Apple's "App Store" trademark for a mobile software developer program. In a complaint filed on March 18 in California, Apple accused Amazon.com of trademark infringement and unfair competition and asked for a court order to prevent the company from using the "App Store" name, as well as for unspecified damages, Bloomberg reports. "Amazon has begun improperly using Apple's App Store mark in connection with Amazon's mobile software developer program," Apple said in the complaint cited by Bloomberg. "Amazon also plans to use the name …

Waging what some are calling a frivolous proxy war against Google and its Android mobile operating system, Microsoft is suing Barnes and Noble -- claiming that Android-powered Nook devices infringe on Microsoft patents. Regarding the move, TechCrunch's headline says it all: "Drunk On Licensing Fees And Patents, Microsoft Has Become A Joke." Put another way, "It's all a bunch of bullshit." "After reading the Microsoft blog post with examples of the alleged patent infringement ... you'd think that Microsoft built the leading mobile user interface and should be the king of all things mobile," GigaOm mocks. "The …