Obama removes YouTube

US president Barack Obama has removed YouTube from his YouTube-side chats, after repeated complaints over the video sharer's use of long-term tracking cookies on his official White House blog, reports The Register.

On Saturday, Obama's weekly video address made its usual appearance at WhiteHouse.gov. But this time, as reported by CNet, the site did not embed the video address by way of YouTube. It appears the White House is now delivering its own Flash-based video code via Akamai's ever-popular content delivery network.

In late January, CNet's Chris Soghoian pointed out that in placing YouTube videos on its site, the White House had exempted the Google-owned video sharer from a rule that forbids the use of long-term tracking cookies on federal agency Web sites. In typical Google fashion, YouTube was issuing tracking cookies to everyone who visited the president's blog - whether they actually watched a video or not.

Xhead = UK online spending to reach £56bn

According to Forrester Research, online spending in the UK is set to reach £56 billion by 2014 as the Web defies the recession, says Computing.co.uk.

Internet sales will grow at a yearly rate of 6% over the next six years, says the survey, which covered more than 4 100 UK consumers as well as large retailers with a Web presence.

According to Forrester, around 28 million UK consumers shop online today and the figure is set to jump to 37 million by 2014, the equivalent of £56 billion in value.

BT will find out today if it can proceed with the roll-out of a high-speed, fibre-optic broadband network, says the BBC.

The firm wants to invest £1.5 billion in the network, giving up to 20 million UK homes access to speeds up to 100Mbps.

BT has made clear it will only make the move if regulator Ofcom allows it to get a decent return on that investment.

Psion Teklogix has answered Intel's claims regarding the chipmaker's right to use the term "netbook”. The Canadian company claims Intel is being "unjustly enriched" by unauthorised use of the trademark, reports CNet.

Last week, Intel filed for a declaratory judgment against Psion Teklogix, claiming the term "netbook" is a "widely used generic term that describes a class of affordable computing devices, much like the term 'notebook' or 'ultra-mobile PC'," Intel said in a statement last week.

Psion had a firm response: "Intel has acted wilfully and maliciously, has unlawfully attempted to trade on the tremendous commercial value, reputation and goodwill of the NETBOOK mark," Psion said in a court filing in the US District Court, Northern District of California.