Rural Broadband, Legal Challenge to Digital Economy Act & Paypal sues Google

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Welcome to Skyline Marketing’s review of the weekly technology News covering Internet Services, SEO & Internet Marketing.

It has been announced that nearly £50million of investment for Devon & Somerset (£30m), Norfolk (£15m) and Wiltshire (£4m) is to be provided to help these rural areas provide high-speed broadband internet services.  Existing pilot schemes currently exist in the North & Scotland.  The investment is part of a £530 million allocated from the Comprehensive Spending Review.  Further announcements for other rural areas for faster Internet Services are likely to be made during the current parliament.

Tenders for the contractors to carry out the upgrading of the internet infrastructure will now take place, and it is expected for the upgrades to take some sort of shape within 12 months.  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) including o2 who were recently named fastest for download speeds, will hopefully at this point be able to install their equipment and offer cheaper deals to those in rural areas.

In other news, BT & Talk Talk are to appeal against a ruling in the controversial Digital Economy Act.  The telecom and Internet Service Providers believe the anti-piracy legislation within the act are contrary to European Laws on privacy and commerce.  The legal challenge has arisen as the act requires Internet Service Providers to hand over the identities of people who are believed to be committing piracy breaches to music labels and the such.

However, the High Court believes this is not breaching privacy or commerce laws and as a result the law that was hurried through shortly before the 2010 General Election remains in tact.  BT and TalkTalk are now taking leave to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeal.

Finally today, Microsoft Mach II (Google), has once again upset another worldwide corporate success – PayPal – this time over claims that Google has stolen Paypals “mobile wallet” technology that Google launched last week.  The technology allows users to pay for products in shops with their smartphones, and surprisingly enough as is generally the case, it has already been a success in Japan.

Osama Bedier, who was previously a former PayPal executive, was hired in January this year by Google and became their Vice-President of Payments.  In the Court papers Paypal said:

“Google put Bedier in charge of its mobile payment business, virtually ensuring that Bedier would misappropriate PayPal’s trade secrets concerning planning and competitive assessments in mobile payment.”

Google declined to comment until it had received the complaint in writing and had had time to review it thoroughly.

Thanks for taking the time to read, we will be back with more SEO, Internet Marketing & Technology news soon!  Have a great bank holiday from all at Skyline Marketing, Exeter, Devon.

Tags:Broadband, Google, Internet marketing, Paypal, SEO