Obama faces Twitter 'town hall'

6 July 2011 Last updated at 19:18 GMT Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (left) moderated the town hall event for President Obama (right) US President Barack Obama has held his first Twitter "town hall" meeting, where he answered questions posed by users of the micro-blogging website.

Mr Obama used a live webcast to answer questions, submitted via tweets containing the hashtag #AskObama, on issues from jobs to the economy.

It was held at the White House, streamed live on Twitter and moderated by Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey.

A panel of users re-tweeted questions to choose those to be asked.

Reducing the deficit

The president began the event by tweeting his own question: "In order to reduce the deficit, what costs would you cut and what investments would you keep?"

He then answered the question, saying the US must "make a determination in what programmes could help us grow", like programmes focused on clean air and water.

"It could cause a whole new spiral into a second recession or worse," Mr Obama said of the potential effects of a failure to reduce the deficit.

Mr Obama has previously said he wishes to reduce the deficit by $4tn (?2.45tn) in the next decade by trimming domestic spending, including defence, and raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

The first question posed by a Twitter user on Wednesday asked President Obama what mistakes he had made in handling the recession.

Mr Obama defended his administration's stimulus programme, calling it "the right thing to do".

But the president said he should have "explained to the American people that it was going to take a while for us to get out of this".

'Real-time' event

Roughly 30 of more than 2.2 million Twitter users who follow the White House account are in attendance for the event in the East Room.

While these question-and-answer sessions are usually known as "town hall" meetings in the US, this event is being called a "Tweet-up" by the Obama administration.

Several of the first questions posed to the president on Wednesday focused on the deficit.

Mr Obama said that a failure to reach an agreement to avert a US government default could trigger a second economic recession or worse.

He warned that if Congress did not reduce the deficit and the treasury did not pay the bills owed by the US, "the entire world capital market will say the full faith and credit of the US doesn't mean anything".

Macon Phillips, the White House director of digital strategy, said in a statement that the purpose of the Twitter town hall is to "try to find new opportunities to connect with Americans around the country".

Thousand of questions have been submitted since late June, Mr Phillips said.

Twitter said it would publish data about the event's online level of engagement once the digital town hall meeting had finished.

In April, the president held a similar Facebook event at that social media giant's headquarters in California. A YouTube town hall was also held at the White House in February.

The Obama administration often uses Twitter to break news and as a platform to connect with the site's users.

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Google faces 'wire tapping' case

1 July 2011 Last updated at 11:06 GMT Google's Street View cars took snaps and scooped up data from wi-fi networks Google could be sued for scooping up data from open wi-fi networks after a US court ruling.

A judge in San Francisco decided that the company's actions may have violated federal laws on wire tapping.

Google had tried to have the class action lawsuit thrown out, claiming that anyone could have intercepted the wireless signals.

It had previously admitted collecting the data by mistake while gathering images for its Street View service.

Since the blunder was revealed, Google has stopped its Street View cars logging wi-fi networks.

Private data

The problem was discovered in 2010 when German data protection officials asked the company what information its Street View photography cars were collecting.

As well as taking panoramic images, it emerged that they also logged wi-fi networks to help with the search firm's location services.

That involved sampling packets of data from wireless hotspots. On open, unencrypted networks the system grabbed logins, passwords and other personal details. About 600MB of data was collected in 30 countries.

At the time, Google apologised for its action, blaming a coding error, and pledged to delete the data.

The revelation led to investigations in several countries. France fined Google 100,000 euros (?87,000) over the breach.

In the US, a class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of plaintiffs from nine states. The case is being heard in California where Google's headquarters is located.

The company tried to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the data gathering was inadvertent. It also said that anyone could have intercepted the transmissions.

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the law doesn't clearly cover that issue right now and that the law is really a mess.”

End Quote Jim Dempsey Center for Democracy and Technology US District Court Judge James Ware disagreed and said that just because a wi-fi network was open did not mean it was meant to be public.

"Merely pleading that a network is unencrypted does not render that network readily accessible to the general public," Judge Ware wrote in his decision.

The fact that Google used some specialist equipment meant it was was liable for prosecution under federal wire tap laws.

Judge Ware threw out several other elements of the complaint against Google, relating to state laws on wire tapping and unfair competition.

In a statement, the company dismissed the claims and said it would consider the latest ruling before deciding whether to launch an appeal.

US laws on wire tapping were in need of updating, said Jim Dempsey, a privacy expert at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

The laws were last updated in the late 1980s to address such things as CB radio and baby monitors, he said.

"I don't think anyone doubts that it should be illegal to intercept someone's communications," said Mr Dempsey.

"But I think it's equally clear that the law doesn't clearly cover that issue right now and that the law is really a mess."

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Google faces French court claim

28 June 2011 Last updated at 10:24 GMT The FTC is looking at whether Google manipulates its search results to steer users to its own sites French search engine 1PlusV is suing Google for 295m euros (?264m), the largest damage claim the search engine has faced in Europe.

It claims that Google used its market dominance to block the development of rival services.

An earlier complaint from 1PlusV and others, including Microsoft, triggered a European Commission investigation.

It also faces a probe from the US Federal Trade Commission.

Lost profits

1plusV, which runs the Ejustice.fr legal website and search engine, said that court action was the "logical" next step in its campaign to force closer scrutiny of Google's practices.

"Our actions benefit not just one company, but all players in the booming vertical search business," said 1plusV founder Bruno Guillard.

It filed its initial complaint with the EC in February 2010 and a formal investigation was launched in November.

Google was served notice of the claim on Monday.

"We have only just received the complaint so we can't comment in detail yet. We always try to do what's best for our users. It's the key principle that drives our company and we look forward to explaining this," the firm said in a brief statement.

At the core of 1plusV's case is the claim that it lost revenue because Google prevented it from developing specialised "vertical" search engines.

Black-listed

"Google employed a number of anti-competitive practices and unethical behaviour over a period of four years to cripple 1plusV's ability to generate business and advertising," it said in a press release.

Between 2007 and 2010, it claims that 30 vertical search engines it had created were "black-listed".

Some of these have since been "white-listed" - indexed again, it said.

It also accused Google of artificially pushing its services to the first page of search results.

Another key element of the case against Google hinges on its Adsense system which allows advertisers to buy keywords which, when typed in as a search, query produce a commercial link alongside the search results.

In order to take advantage of Adsense, 1plusV said it was forced to abandon its own search technology and adopt Google's.

Google's advertising revenues hit $8.3bn in the first quarter of 2011.

The European Union has the power to fine companies up to 10 percent of their global turnover for breaching EU rules.

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