Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys Technologies maybe the only one to be bold enough to speak the truth. Nilekani mentioned that the growth in the IT sector will be slower.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum which started in the Indian Capital on Sunday, Nilekani mentioned that, “Growth in the IT sector will be slower”. He also added, “There is an overall slowdown which is understandable given the crisis. When we look at the growth of the 4-5 years that is not going to be reproduced. In the current environment it is definitely not going to be of that nature. I think the IT industry has demonstrated time and again that it is resilient enough to meet the challenges”.

Stating the major IT slowdown during 2001, he mentioned, “We had a similar situation, though not as profound in 2001, but we not only got out of that but took advantage of that. So I am sure the companies are following the right strategies to wait for the things to subside and take advantage of the next cycle of growth.”

Junk e-mails sent across the globe were visibly reduced today as a web hosting firm considered to be a major host for organizations engaged in spam activities was taken offline.

McColo Corp, a U.S hosting service has its state-of-the-art 30 story office in San Jose, California. Would you ever believe that this was the base for all cyber crime offenses including remote management of millions of compromised computers to sell fake security products, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and child pornography through emails, newsletters, adware’s and various forums.

E-mail security firls like IronPort reported a reduction of 66 percent of spam during Tuesday. Spamcop reported 25 percent reduction of spam e-mails every second.

However, U.S Justice Department mentions that web hosting providers cannot be held responsible for illegal activities in their networks except if it involves child pornography and copyright violations. Global Crossing, a Bermuda-based company with operations in New Jersey was one of the companies providing Internet to McColo. However, Global Crossing claims that it co-operates fully with law enforcement and security researchers to address malicious activities.

It is surprising to know that a company with such a large internet spam presence was not detected, stopped or penalized by the U.S law enforcement or the U.S Secret Service.

This might sound confusing and interesting. “Google me, you dumb F##k”. Those are the exact words which came out of Courtenay Semel, daughter of Former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel. For ones who are addicted to reality shows, she’s the one who appeared in Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive and the one who dates reality star and singer Tila Tequila.

A security guard on duty at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit against the daughter of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel for allegedly hitting him on his face while she was drunk.

In the lawsuit filed today in Los Angles County Superior Court, Jaroslaw Jarczok who was working as the security last August at 4:00 AM at PURE Nightclub stated in the suit that Courtenay was “quite intoxicated due to alcohol and/or chemical or other substances.” He has also stated that she acted rude and dirty.

Things got out of hand and Jarczok had to handcuff Semel who then struck Jarczok on his face and spoke the immortal words:

“Do you even know who I am, f##king idiot? Google me, you dumb f##k.”

Jarczok has further stated in his lawsuit that he has been humiliated and “anxious about receiving harassing comments by friends…” Jarczok also claims for unspecified damages.

Certain words can never be spoken by certain people. Even when they are drunk or dead!

Mr Semel had joined Yahoo in 2001 when Yahoo’s fortunes were at an all time low due to the collapse of dotcom boom. Semel had helped Yahoo come out of its pit to a certain extent and be an active competitor in the business. However, Google grew more than anyone ever expected and brought down Yahoo from its dominance.

When Semel’s departure was informed, Yahoo’s shares rose 3% immediately.

McCain has requested YouTube to make available all the videos which were removed due to copyright complaints. He also stated that YouTube has been acting too quickly complying with copyright infringement notices.

On a letter to Chad Hurley, CEO, YouTube, Trevor Potter, General Council, McCain – Paula campaign stated, “Overreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech”.

The letter further states, “Despite the complete lack of merit in these copyright claims, YouTube has removed our videos immediately upon receipt of takedown notices. This is both unfortunate and unnecessary.”

McCain has also proposed for a full legal review of all the videos that has been taken down from accounts that were created for political campaigns or for candidates.

Google replied back to McCain’s campaign, mentioning that a substantial legal review of all DMCA take-down notices is not a viable solution. The reply further mentions, “Any such review would have to include a determination of whether a particular use is a ‘fair use’ under the law, which is a complex and fact-specific test that requires the subjective balancing of four factors. No number of lawyers could determine with a reasonable level of certainty whether all the videos for which we receive disputed take-down notices qualify as fair use.”

Looks like this argument would go on for many more days. And that’s exactly what McCain hates! This being a crucial time in political campaign, every minute counts!

The recent economic crisis has lead to increasing number of visitors to news websites. On a comparison with the top three UK News websites, Yahoo, Google and MSN by Hitwise, it was found that all three websites are having huge increase in traffic during the last few months.

The report also depicts that Google has seen the most consistent traffic over the last three years and that Yahoo! has increased in its market share during 2008. However, Google relies on third-party websites for its traffic and its own properties constitute only 67.2% while Yahoo has 84.6% and MSN with 81.8%.

Analyzing the email patterns, Robin Goad, Research Director for Hitwise UK stated that 18.9% of people who visit Yahoo UK News later go for an email service while just 1.7% of Google UK News visitors use an email service afterwards. The reason being, Google users send a link to the original story instead of links to Google News.

The recent downward trend in the global markets has made more UK visitors show interest in news which has resulted in an overall traffic increase in all news websites.

Readers of the Wall Street Journal were surprised to see the ad, “McCain Wins Debate!” in the morning when results were supposed to be in the evening after the presidential debate in Mississippi. 

The ad which declared “McCain Wins Debate!” had McCain’s headshot with the American flag as the background. Though the advertisers mention this as a mistake and blamed it as a purely human error, many think it’s a fix to support McCain. 

Joseph Gallagher, Vice President of Advertising, Wall Street Journal stated that the mistake was found out immediately and was removed from the site.

The opposition party has not yet raised a voice regarding this fault.

Google had requested young people aged between 5-16 across the UK to design their Google Doodle. This year Google had requested to design a logo based on the idea “My Community”. This is the third year the competition was held. Now, its your turn to chose the best Doodle among the top chosen ones.

Google Doodle competition has created a lot of interest among young people especially in schools. Last year more than 60,000 doodles were created based on the theme, “My Future”. The winning Doodle was displayed on Google UK home page for a day which was viewed by 18 million people.

Visiting Google’s Doodle, you would be requested to vote for the best Doodle under ages 5-7, 7-11, 11-14 and 14-16. Among 70,000 doodles, 48 were selected by the judging panel for voting.

The winning doodle will be used on the UK Google homepage on 1st October.

Adding Meta Keywords was considered a common practice during the last century. It is now considered prehistoric and of no relevance. But not according to the Massachusetts District Court which ordered McGills Glass  Warehouse to pay $426,487 in damages, attorney fees and other costs.

McGills and Venture Tape Corp sell competitive products. McGills as was a common practice, placed Venture Tape’s trademarks, “Venture Foil” and “Venture Tape” in their Meta Keywords and as white font texts in a white background to get some traffic from search engines using Venture’s popularity.

In 2003, Venture Tape found this out and sued McGills in the district court. The court ordered $230k to be paid for damages during 2000-2003, $7k in costs and $188k for attorney fees incurred.

Though McGills defends stating that there are no evidence that any consumer were lured to their site, Court does not accept this claim. The court stated that “By the conduct of its case below, McGills effectively admitted seven of the eight elements” and also mentioned that the defendant’s conduct was willfull.

Even after McGills showing that their entire profit during 2000-2003 was only $230k, the court seemed unconvinced. McGills will have to pay their entire profit to Venture and in addition also pay the attorneys fees and other costs of $195k.

Cisco is strengthening its plan to enter into the internet industry with the purchase of the messaging platform, Jabber. Cisco has already purchased WebEx, Securent, PostPath and IronPort. The Jabber acquisition will help Cisco enhance its services across multiple platforms by providing on-premise and on-demand solutions. Doug Dennerline, Cisco senior vice-president of the Collaboration Software Group stated “Enterprise organizations want an extensible presence and messaging platform that can integrate with business process applications and easily adapt to their changing needs.” He also stated that the acquisition will help extend the instant messaging service and make Cisco a interoperability benchmark.Jabber is a popular messaging platform and it is compatible with different systems and platforms. MS Office Com Server, AOL AIM, Google, Yahoo! And IBM Sametime can be used with Jabber. Employees of Jabber would become part of the Collaboration Software Group which consists of Ciscos most profitable businesses like the IOS network operating system, Unified Communications solutions, SaaS offering, policy management and network and service management.

Studies have revealed that banner ads, campaign programs and visits on a branded website helped pharmaceutical companies create a brand awareness and better sales results among prospects and patients.

A recent study by comScore evaluated the impact of banner ads. The study found that interactions and expotures thru online ads improved adherence rates among patients. This resulted in pharmaceutical companies resorting to the brand’s website for online marketing.

Bridget O’Toole, executive vice president at comScore stated, ““The most effective online marketing tool for both patients and prospects is the brand’s Web site.  It’s important to realize, though, that visits to a brand Web site are achieved through the use of a variety of offline and online tactics, such as online banner ads, search and offline advertising.” He also added, “This is why it is essential for marketers to develop fully-integrated campaigns that not only raise awareness and educate consumers but that also drive visitation to a site.”

These reports reinstate the fact that brand value is vital in life saving products as it helps create a trust factor among patients.