Those anti-monopoly laws are serious business. When Microsoft complained that Google selling ads on Yahoo’s ad space was akin to a search monopoly, they obviously consulted their army of lawyers who said that the deal has a big probability of failing.

According to WSJ (link behind a paywall), this probability is very high right now, and the companies might walk away from the deal by the middle of next week. You can’t really go around the fact that Google and Yahoo own over 80 percent of the web search market, and it seems that Google and Yahoo can’t convince the U.S. Department of Justice that it’s not a monopoly.

Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler has given Reuters the usual PR drizzle; Yahoo, as she says, believes strongly “that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo marketplace for their advertisers, publishers and users.”

Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said even less: “We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process.”

Therefore, the deal may not yet be completely dead yet, but the Wall Street Journal claims that the talks both companies had with the Department of Justice on Thursday weren’t going too well.

If the deal doesn’t go through, it will only be a minor nuisance for Google. As far as Yahoo goes, the company is still nowhere: they’re looking at the possibility of merging with Time-Warner; this search deal with Google was part of the tactic to scare Microsoft away from trying a hostile takeover, so it’s doubtful that it’s a good idea in the first place, and their stock has been pretty much free falling ever since Microsoft said that the takeover offer is off the table. Things aren’t looking too bright for Yahoo shareholders.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Yahoo Starts Layoffs While Deciding What To Do NextYahoo May Consider Letting Google Handle Paid SearchYahoo-Google Deal Looking Good; Common Sense Packs Up And LeavesComcast Chooses Yahoo…Google Kicked in the Nuts?Yahoo Gets Better Consumer Rating than GoogleBebo Partners with Yahoo Search: Acquisition Imminent?MASSIVE: Microsoft May Acquire Yahoo for $50 Billion

Source:Mashable!

A while ago I laid down a theory that a significant number of users are using YouTube to share data that isn’t videos. Most often, it’s music, and therefore there are a lot of videos on YouTube that consist of a music track and some images slapped together just to make them videos. In a way, it’s untapped potential, because YouTube isn’t doing much to make it easier for users to share music that doesn’t necessarily have an (official) video attached to it.

Enter StreamDrag, a simple music search engine that draws its collection from YouTube’s massive database, although it’s not really transparent - or important - to the end user, who doesn’t see the video at all, he just listens to the song. Titles of songs such as “Tool - Sober (HQ Fullscreen)” can be a bit misleading, but it’s a minor point as long as you’re in it just to hear the music.

A nice option is the playlist; stack a bunch of tracks together and you’ve got yourself a party. This can be done in YouTube and other third party tools, but it’s extremely simple in StreamDrag; click on the “+” icon next to the song and it’s added to the playlist (to return to the search results, just click on “playlist” again). Everything else on the site is very straightforward: you’ve got play/pause, stop, rwd and ffwd buttons, as well as a repeat and sound on/off switches. I like it: by removing everything else and focusing on the music, StreamDrag is actually much more enjoyable (and faster) to use than many other similar services (including YouTube itself).

StreamDrag is a direct competitor to services such as Songza. The developer behind StreamDrag, David Lorenz, claims that the simplicity of his application is the key difference here, as well as some features that enhance the user experience such as looping a single track. I’m not convinced that this is enough to beat the competition, but I do admit that using StreamDrag could not be simpler, which is always a good thing.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Last.fm Still Growing. Thanks, Free Music.YouTube Strikes Deal with EMIYouTube Pens Deal with UK Music Royalties AllianceYouTube is the Ultimate Sharing Site and Google Needs to Capitalize on ThatDailyMotion Partners with Warner MusicLast.fm Partners with The Orchard…Mashable Readers Fall AsleepYouTube To Host Music Videos

Source:Mashable!

Yoono, the browser-based social aggregator, has announced a new release that includes features such as support for Internet Explorer, MySpace and imeem integration, and the biggest news of all, a shopping widget.

This new shopping widget for social aggregation will generate product recommendations and pricing comparisons based on the products displayed during a browsing session. The widget will work with some of the largest ecommerce sites such as eBay, Buy.com, Amazon.com and Shopping.com. While you search for products, Yoono will make recommendations for similar items with better pricing. These products can be bookmarked and shared with friends and purchased. The widget is scheduled to be released around Thanksgiving, just in time for the holiday season.

“This is a major change in the way the industry thinks about social aggregation,” said Pascal Josselin, CEO of Yoono. “We listened to our users and they want to do more than just watch and occasionally contribute to social networks. They want to have two-way interaction in a way that matches the things they are doing on the Web. With this launch we achieve more than watching the stream. We give users a way to get what they want, whether that is a conversation, a video, music or a new product.”

Yoono’s 1.8 millon users will now be able to connect to their friends on imeem and MySpace, in addition to those on Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Twitter, Gmail, Piczo and several IM clients, all through a single sidebar. Yoono has also enhanced their User Interface to improve functionality.

The social aggregation space is extremely crowded with players like Friendfeed, Plaxo Pulse, Profilactic, socialthing and many more. By incorporating shopping cart technology and an intelligent recommendation system, Yoono might start a new trend. We might see others following suit if they are successful in their efforts to monetize social aggregation. In the long run, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing because everyone wins if this experiment works. We the users benefit from improved shopping experience, the vendors selling merchandise benefit from the sales as does the mediator, the social aggregator, in this case, Yoono. We shall soon find out.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Yoono Raises Another $4M, Public Beta Launch TodayYoono Takes on Clipmarks with “Buzz It”Mobio Launches New Digital Widget PackGet Warmed Up for SummerMash Seattle with Yoono’s Social Media CampsWidgetBucks Giving You $25 to RegisterKaboodle Adds MySpace SlideshowsQponix Provides a Coupon Widget for Retailers [The Startup Review]

Even though the drama surrounding Microsoft’s Yahoo acquisition has subsided, it looks like there’s still some bad blood.

A tipster yesterday sent us a screen shot of Yahoo’s front page running on Internet Explorer with a Firefox recommendation sitting atop the page. “Yahoo recommends upgrading to the NEW safer, faster Firefox 3,” the ad says.

Source:Valleywag

Have you ever wanted to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit that generates multibillion-dollar valuations? Do you dream of becoming a Silicon Valley icon? Crave the street cred that lets you get away with wearing Adidas Adissage sandals to formal events, to nicely complement your suit? Well sirs and madams, you can’t. But wouldn’t it be awesome if you could pretend to do all that while drinking sugar water laced with caffeine? Telephony company Jajah already has its own energy drink — as do celebrities as shameless as Steven Segal. Obviously there’s a market that Web entrepreneurs aren’t capitalizing — and it’s too bad for them we’re beating them to it.

Facefuel — Monetize Your Thirst!!! Sipping a beverage without any returns? Grab hold of a Facefuel, the only way to add a Super Poke to your day. It’s guaranteed to blur the line between your friends and enemies, and prep you for a day’s worth of negotiations with heavy hitters like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. Mark Zuckerberg’s secret formula — which for you busybodies is markedly different from ConnectU’s recipe — boils down all those worthless applications into liquid hope, seasons them with remnant banner impressions, adds a few drops of Zuckerberg sandal sweat, and stir in nine fragments of source code to create a refreshing beverage that is more than 100 percent compatible with the API of your thirst. With this kind of ecosystem, how can you afford not to Monetize Your Thirst?

Source:Valleywag

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit behind Firefox, just released their 2006 financial statement. It turns out Moz’s for-profit arm is making millions from a deal with Google. 85 percent of its revenue — some $56 million — came from the Google search box that is the default on every Firefox install. Google also provides users for Firefox via a pay-to-download program with Google’s AdSense program and the Google Pack — a collection of apps including Google Earth, Adobe Reader, Skype and Firefox. Firefox is generally posited as David against Goliath — Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But really, Firefox is more of the slingshot, wielded by the David of Mountain View as Google and Microsoft fight Browser Wars 2.0. The latest data marks Firefox at 14.9 percent market share against IE’s still-dominant 77.9 percent.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, and the American Medical Association, using a program like SugarStats will reduce the complications associated with diabetes by as much as 40%.

Volcano, Hawaii - Marston Alfred, founder and chief architect of SugarStats.com, himself a diabetic since he was 9 years old, has developed a web based self-management application in which users can track, manage and monitor the most essential and important of their diabetic information online. Through a user-friendly web interface using the latest in web and information technology, SugarStats.com also enables the Diabetic to selectively provide friends, family, educators and health care professionals ‘read only’ access to their statistics. Primary elements affecting blood sugar levels including medication, food intake and physical activity are addressed in a manner that is not overly complex or too feature rich, enabling the end user to expediently self-manage via the Internet and Internet-enabled mobile devices. The core of this system will be available free to the public.

20.8 million people, approximately 7.0% of the U.S. population, have diabetes. Diabetes was the sixth leading cause of death listed on U.S. death certificates in 2002. The prevalence of diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate, as are the associated personal and societal costs, including long-term complications such as blindness, kidney damage, cardiovascular disease and lower-limb amputations. Further studies show diabetes and its complications cause substantial loss in quality of life, are the fourth most frequent reason for ambulatory physician visits, and incur $132 billion dollars in U.S. health care expenditures, directly and indirectly annually. There is now abundant evidence that complications of diabetes are preventable.

According to Dr. IM Stratton, Al Adler, HA Neil, et al, management of glycemia in diabetes is crucially important to the prevention of both acute and long-term complications. In general, every percentage point drop in A1C blood test results (e.g., from 8.0% to 7.0%) reduces the risk of micro-vascular complications (eye, kidney, and nerve diseases) by 40%. When programs like SugarStats were used regularly by the diabetic, they showed an average of a 1 point drop in the A1C levels.

Web-based tools have been emerging as effective methods for lowering HbA1C levels and several other key health markers in diabetics such as blood pressure however, to date, none have been available to the public. SugarStats.com provides a proven means to substantially lower these important health markers while also supporting the important opportunity to shift the focus of diabetes management toward patient self-management.

Alfred was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes as a child. He always felt dissatisfied and uninspired with the various ways to monitor and track his blood sugar levels and trends, finding them either over complicated and involved, or pedantic and & ‘boring’. Now 24 years old, Alfred’s professional expertise in the field of computers, networking and Internet technology/programming provided the foundation from which he developed for himself an engaging, informative, time saving and means to effectively address his diabetic management needs. From his personal quest, SugarStats.com has now emerged to support Internet-accessible diabetics the world over an alternative means to effectively address, control and ultimately improve their health.

Alternate Contact: Daerick Lanakila at dlanakila [@] sugarstats.com SugarStats POB 909 Volcano, HI 96785

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Journalists, newsletter publishers, bloggers and others: You may reprint anything in this article as long as you include a link to our website and email.

Need a screenshot of what a diabetic would see on their personal SugarStats page along with more info regarding SugarStats is available at http://www.sugarstats.com/tour

CONTACT: Marston Alfred at 619-573-4071
SugarStats
PO Box 909
Volcano, HI 96785
http://www.sugarstats.com

About This Release: If you have any questions regarding information in these press releases please contact the organization listed in the press release. Issuers of press releases and not PR Leap are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

With the "early adopters" generally using non-ie browsers, this will certainly hurt their ability for this to succeed. I hope this is only temporary. I am sure Netflix and iTunes must be loving this. Today any "f-up" is immediately spread across the web in mere minutes. I would have liked to see a message from Walmart that says this: We understand that there are some issues using our download service in browsers other than Internet Explorer. We are quickly working on resolving the issues and appreciate your patience. Enter your email address and we will notify you once the service is functional in the other browsers and we will include a free download coupon for the trouble. Thank you for your interest in Walmart.

Updated 5pm: appears they are blocking apple completely — from walmart customer service:

And Walmart video download service does not support the Macintosh Operating Systems as the video that you download requires Digital Rights Management 10 (DRM 10) software, which is not compatible with the Macintosh operating system.

A security company has reported two new flaws in the Mozilla Firefox browser that may leave locally saved files vulnerable to outside attacks.

Both flaws were announced by SecuriTeam, a division of Beyond Security, this week. The first flaw lies in Firefox’s pop-up blocker feature, according to a SecuriTeam statement on Monday. The browser typically does not allow Web sites to access files that are stored locally, according to the official report, but this URL permission check is superseded when a Firefox user has turned off pop-up windows manually. As a result, an attacker could use this flaw to steal locally stored files and personal information that might be stored in them.

A possible scenario for such an attack would involve the user clicking on a malicious link that would furtively plant a target file equipped with an exploit code on the computer’s hard drive. Then it would display a prompt asking the user to allow a pop-up to appear in order to play a video file or download. The attacker-supplied file would then be loaded thanks to the browser flaw, which could give the attacker local file read privileges.

It appears that this flaw may only apply to older versions of Firefox, prior to the current 2.0 release, but Beyond Security was unavailable for comment on the matter.

The second flaw, announced by SecuriTeam on Wednesday, concerns Firefox’s phishing protection feature. With this vulnerability, an adept phisher could fool the browser into believing that a fraudulent site is actually secure by adding particular characters into the URL of its Web site.

The phishing flaw does appear to apply to the current 2.0.0.1 version of Firefox.

Mozilla was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.

Microsoft has quietly flipped the switch on a new feature in Internet Explorer 7 meant to combat phishing scams.

The software giant in early January made a change on its computer systems that allowed Web sites fitted with a new type of security certificate to display a green-filled address bar in IE 7, Markellos Diorinos, a product manager for Windows at Microsoft, said in an interview. “We have rolled out many of the parts that are required to get it working. We’re coming close to the point where all the moving parts are in place,” Diorinos said. Microsoft plans to promote the green bar at next week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, an annual security confab kicked off by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

The colored address bar, a new weapon in the fight against phishing scams, is meant as a sign that a site can be trusted, giving Web surfers the green light to carry out transactions there. The green bar already appears on the secured sites of Overstock.com and VeriSign. VeriSign has about 300 customers, including online retailer Overstock.com, that have signed up for the green bar certification process, said Spiros Theodossiou, a senior product manager at VeriSign. The company plans to unveil the names of more participating Web sites at the RSA Conference, he said.

Phishing is a prevalent online scam that uses faked Web sites to trick people into giving up personal information. The scams cost businesses millions of dollars and hurt consumer trust in the Internet. Nearly $2 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales were lost in 2006 due to security concerns, a recent Gartner survey estimated.

“We want users to build up their confidence and feel safe again about transacting online,” Diorinos said. “EV (extended validation) is one of many things we’re doing to achieve that.”

SSL price hike
IE 7, Microsoft’s newest Web browser, will show a green address bar only when displaying a Web site that has an “extended validation certificate,” or EV SSL. This is a new type of security certificate being sold by the same companies that sell Secure Socket Layer, or SSL, certificates that allow traffic to be encrypted and that are indicated by a yellow padlock in Web browsers.

There is broad industry agreement that Web browsers need to better identify trusted sites. The padlock icon used today was designed to show that traffic with a Web site is encrypted, and that a third party, called a certification authority, has identified the site. However, the system has been weakened by lax standards and loose supervision. EV SSL certificates are just like those that allow encrypted connections between browsers and sites. The difference is that the identity of each certificate holder has been verified. Requestors will be subject to a strict vetting process that all issuers must follow. As a result, EV certificates cost more than traditional SSL certificates.

For example, Cybertrust sells conventional certificates for $230 a year, but charges $800 a year for an EV SSL certificate. Similarly, VeriSign sells EV SSL certificates for $995 a year, while its traditional certificates go for $399. Discounters sell the common certificates for much less. GoDaddy, for example, has prices as low as $19.99 a year. “With EV we have a common vetting standard, which raises the cost. That is why you can’t have these rock-bottom prices,” Johan Sys, a senior director at Cybertrust, said in explaining the price difference.

Shutting out the little guy
The new system adopted by Microsoft has won both praise and criticism. Initially, only incorporated entities will be able to get the trust indicator–a rule that shuts out smaller businesses. The CA Browser Forum, the organization that drafts the rules for EV SSL certificates, is still working on guidelines that would include all legitimate Web sites.

“The CA Browser Forum is continuing to work on that issue and that is probably No. 1 on the agenda,” Diorinos said. The CA Browser Forum, comprised of companies that issue certificates for Web sites and major browser makers, is treading carefully. It doesn’t want to weaken the security of the EV SSL certificates, VeriSign’s Theodossiou said.

“We don’t want to come up with a standard for nonregistered businesses that adds a loophole,” Theodossiou said. “We want to make sure that the standard is correct. Trying to push out something that adds loopholes is pushing out something that devalues the green toolbar.”

Microsoft is the first browser maker to adopt the EV SSL certificates. Some say the Redmond, Wash.-software giant even jumped the gun by adopting an unfinished standard for issuing the certificates. Other browser makers are still contemplating how to support the new certificates in their products. “We are including support for EV certificates in Firefox 3, but we are still investigating how we will communicate the additional information to the user,” said Window Snyder, security chief at Mozilla, which coordinates development of Firefox, the most used Web browser after IE. Firefox 3 is due in the second half of the year, Snyder said.

Representatives for Opera have said they are waiting to see how Microsoft fares with the green bar in IE7, which last month reached more than 100 million users, before adding such functionality to its browser. Adoption of EV SSL certificates is expected to ramp up as more people become aware of the feature. “We think the adoption rate can take about 6 to 12 months until you hit a sweet spot where most of the high-profile Web sites will have it,” Cybertrust’s Sys said.

Microsoft plans to make promotional material available for Web site owners to explain what the green bar means, Diorinos said. “I will pop the champagne when we see widespread adoption of EV and when we start seeing users be more secure online,” he said.

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California-based Mozilla already has a presence in China via a not-for-profit foundation supporting open-s