MS bows to privacy pressure

Microsoft has bowed to pressure from privacy groups and agreed to delete all user data collected on its Bing search engine after six months, says the Telegraph.

After continual lobbying by a panel of national privacy regulators from the European Union called the Article 29 Working Group, Microsoft has conceded it will totally eliminate all data it has collected on people using Bing after six months.

John Vassallo, a Microsoft vice-president and associate general council, has confirmed the global redesign of the search engine operation will happen over the next 18 months. “We support what the Article 29 Working Group is doing. That is why we are making this change,” says Vassallo.

Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, and opponents of Google's Book Search settlement have proposed an alternative to the controversial legal pact, calling on the US Congress to appoint a public guardian to oversee a national database of digital books, reports The Register.

The Open Book Alliance (OBA) was created to oppose Google's book-scanning settlement with American authors and publishers, with the organisation saying the $125-million civil pact should be replaced by Congressional legislation that settles copyright issues for all digital booksellers.

The OBA's public guardian would be a non-profit or a public sector library, such as The Library of Congress. To ensure the widest participation by content holders and greatest public benefit, the digital book database should be entrusted to a neutral, civic, not-for-profit organisation.

Samsung Electronics will pay Rambus $700 million over five years, and invest another $200 million in the chip design company as part of a settlement ending their legal disputes, according to Market Watch.

Under the agreement, Samsung will license Rambus' patent portfolio covering all Samsung semiconductor products, including a perpetual fully-paid licence to certain DRAM products. The companies signed a memorandum of understanding in connection with a new generation of memory technologies.

Shares of Rambus jumped more than 12% in after-hours trading; later paring some gains but still up by more than 8%.