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Consumer Watchdog, a group that's accused Google of antitrust misconduct, is trying to find out why the FTC's investigation into the subject resulted in only mild punishment.

The group requested the Federal Trade Commission release its staff's report to detail the situation, according to a letter Consumer Watchdog sent to the commissioners (PDF). The agency's staff prepare such reports then forward them to the five commissioners who vote on what course of action to take.

"I call on you to release the FTC staff report to help make clear what was behind the commission's … Read more

The U.S. Library of Congress said today that it has completed a process of collecting a full, ongoing stream of tweets, and that it has begun work to archive and organize more than 170 billion tweets.

Under an agreement struck between the government institution and Twitter in 2010, the microblogging company is providing the Library of Congress with a full stream of all public tweets, starting with 21 billion generated from between 2006 and April 2010, and now supplemented with about 150 billion more posted since then.

In an announcement about the status of the project today, the library … Read more

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has completed a nearly two-year investigation into Google's business practices. Here are some of the key takeaways:

On the issue most important to Google, Google won. The most potentially damaging line of inquiry undertaken by the FTC concerned accusations that Google's search results were unfairly biased in favor of its own products. Some critics wanted to see mandated changes to Google algorithms. But after considering a number of approaches, FTC commissioners decided unanimously that Google was not violating any antitrust laws when it comes to search results. For Google, this … Read more

Avis Budget Group, best known for its car rental services has moved to acquire car-sharing company Zipcar for $500 million.

The companies announced the deal today, saying that Avis paid $12.25 per share for Zipcar, representing a 49 percent premium on its $8.24 closing price on December 31. Zipcar's board of directors unanimously approved the deal, and shareholders owning about 32 percent of Zipcar have already signed off.

Zipcar offers a unique service in the car business. Rather than rent out cars in the traditional way, like Avis, Zipcar offers a "sharing" service that places … Read more

When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive -- and growing -- user bases, they're of course not the only games in town.

The world of social media is filled with other services, and millions of people get a daily fix without ever going near Facebook or Twitter. There are big general networks like Tagged, and plenty of smaller, purpose-built ones like Path or celebrity-focused ones like Lady Gaga's Little Monsters. There's even a revamped MySpace.

So what does 2013 … Read more

English speakers seem to be interested in action movies, boy bands, and Facebook.

New stats compiled by Swedish software engineer Johan Gunnarsson detail the top 100 most-viewed articles on Wikipedia over the past year. The online encyclopedia doesn't create its own year-end list but does let people read its log files, according to AllThingsD. This top 100 list compiled by Gunnarsson, which comes in several languages, is the first time users can see Wikipedia's most popular articles over the course of a year.

For the English language Wikipedia, which is the most popular version of the site, "… Read more

There's been much talk this year about the future of search in social networks. Facebook processes more than a billion queries a day with a notoriously underpowered search engine. "We aren't even trying," Mark Zuckerberg has said. Not yet, anyway.

Today we're getting a good idea of what "trying" looks like. Path, the social-networking startup that brands itself as "the smart journal," is rolling out an update today that brings some innovative search features to its apps for smartphones and tablets.

Path consists of a series of saved moments -- photos, … Read more

Google has announced a new way for children around the world to track Santa as he makes his rounds.

The appropriately named Santa Tracker was developed by Google Maps engineers who developed a new route algorithm that will let users track Santa's journey on a special page the search giant has set up. The tracking won't begin until 2 a.m. PST on Christmas Eve.

Until then, Google has set up an interactive Santa's Village page, offering everything from a tool that lets users send a call or message from Santa to a game centered on the … Read more

Google is getting ready to make its settlement offer to the European Union's antitrust commission, the commission's head said in a statement released today.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said he met with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt today and expects a "detailed commitment" in January, according to an e-mailed statement from Alumnia's office.

"Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the commission," he said in the statement.

When reached for comment, … Read more