Orange pulls out of bidding for AOL UK: source
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France Telecom's  Orange  unit has pulled out of the bidding for the UK Internet  connection business of Time Warner Inc.'s  AOL, an  industry source close to the matter said on Thursday.
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The European Commission Friday approved the planned sale of AOL LLC's U.K. Internet access business to Carphone Warehouse Group PLC (CPW) of the U.K. The deal follows recent similar sell-offs in Germany and France.
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But ads watchdog rubber stamps 'fair use' again Orange was cut down by advertising watchdogs today for claiming its broadband and home phone service is "unlimited" without mentioning its fair use policy.â¦
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Orange data users spend a day disconnected The Orange mobile phone network lost its data connectivity yesterday over most of the country.â¦
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AOL's chief technology officer Maureen  Govern, who oversaw the division responsible for accidentally  releasing search data for more than a half a millions users,  has resigned from the company, according to an internal company  memorandum.
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Dutch computer services company PinkRoccade NV said Thursday it has broken off takeover talks with Ordina NV in favor of better bid from Getronics NV.
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(InfoWorld) - AOL has extended itsÂ offer to acquireÂ online marketing company TradeDoubler, giving its shareholders until March 14 to tender their shares in favor of the deal. AOL's Swedish subsidiary, AOLS Holdings, offered to acquire TradeDoubler in January for approximately $900 million. The deal has been recommended by TradeDoubler's board of directors but must still be approved by its shareholders. TradeDoubler offers hosted tools to help companies manage online marketing and sales activities. If the acquisition goes through, the Swedish company will become a subsidiary of Advertising.com, which AOL bought in 2004, but it will continue to do business in Europe as a separate brand. AOL said TradeDoubler will help increase the number of marketing options for its advertisers and provide Web site publishers with more ways to generate revenue through advertising on their sites. Â
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Cable firm NTL  has dropped plans to bid for ITV  after its 4.7-billion-pound ($9.3 billion) proposal was rejected by the British broadcaster and rival BSkyB  swooped to take a blocking stake in ITV.
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Global private equity group CVC   has pulled out of a consortium eyeing a bid for Australia&#39;s  Coles Group Ltd.  after going through the retailers&#39;  books, the buyout group said Monday.
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In a move both risky and essential, AOL is abandoning its strategy of exclusivity and will free much of its music, sports and other programming to nonsubscribers in hopes of increasing ad sales.
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Air One has pulled out of the bidding for Alitalia  citing impossible conditions, leaving Rome's plans to auction the loss-making carrier in tatters ahead of Monday's deadline for final offers.
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EBay says it is ending its ad pullout from Google's U.S. AdWords network.
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The shedding of AOL's international operations continued Thursday as Time Warner announced it had sold its AOL France division to Internet service provider Neuf Cegetel in a 288 million euros. Talks to sell AOL UK are continuing.
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AOL has agreed to make it easier for its remaining customers to leave as part of a $3 million settlement.
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(InfoWorld) - A contrite and repentant Google canceled a party that irked eBay and that a source said led eBay to remove all of its ads from Google's U.S. network earlier this week. On Monday, Google announced it would throw a party in Boston on Thursday evening designed to attract eBay merchants who would be in town to attend the eBay Live annual seller conference. The purpose of the party: Protesting eBay's decision to forbid merchants in its marketplace from using Google's Checkout online transaction system. The online auction company found Google's move to be in bad taste, and at some point after the party was announced, eBay took the drastic measure of pulling all of its ads from Google's AdWords U.S. network. A source familiar with the situation said that the decision to turn off the ads had come from eBay's top executives who were steaming over what they perceived as a low blow by Google designed to embarrass eBay in front of its top merchants. It would be hard to disagree with eBay executives' assessment, considering the mocking tone of Google's party announcement, encouraging eBay merchants to gather at the Old South Meeting House, where in 1773 mass protest meetings were held, leading to the Boston Tea Party. "We'll use the same spot where revolutionaries launched the Boston Tea Party to celebrate freedom with free food, free drinks, free live music -- even free massages," the official blog posting reads. Then, on Wednesday afternoon, Google unexpectedly cancelled the party after its officials apparently determined they had gone too far. "eBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity. After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference," reads a posting on that same blog. eBay, which had earlier blasted Google for the planned party, said it was pleased with Google's decision. "It's reassuring to see that Google recognizes that their actions were inappropriate. We're pleased that our partner chose to do the right thing and cancel their event," eBay said in a statement. However, eBay is keeping its ads off AdWords, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said. The eBay Live event begins Thursday in Boston. The spat is yet another sign of what many consider a significant deterioration of relations between the two Internet giants in recent years as Google has become a partial competitor to eBay. Earlier Wednesday, Durzy said the decision to pull out the ads wasn't related to the party and characterized it as an ordinary experiment by eBay, similar to others the company constantly does to determine the best allocation of its advertising and marketing budget. But there is nothing ordinary about eBay and Google, and the pullout is likely to have significant repercussions for both companies while it lasts: eBay is the largest paid search advertiser in the U.S., and Google is the country's largest paid search ad network. In March, eBay ranked first in the U.S. among paid search advertisers with 802 million sponsored link exposures, or 4.1 percent of the total, according to comScore Networks. That doesn't even take into account eBay's comparison shopping engine, Shopping.com, which ranked third on that list with 357 million sponsored link exposures, or 1.8 percent of the total. Meanwhile, Google topped the list of search engine referrers, handling 57.3 percent of all paid search ad clickthroughs, comScore said. Yahoo took a distant second place with 26.1 percent of clickthroughs. At the center of this week's confrontation is Google's Checkout online transaction system, introduced about a year ago and so far banned from the eBay sites. EBay argues Checkout doesn't have enough of a track record yet, while Google charges eBay with trying to protect its own PayPal online payment system. In addition to Checkout, Google has been entering eBay territory with other products like its Base listings service. In May of last year, eBay and Yahoo struck a wide-ranging partnership that, among other things, made Yahoo the exclusive provider of search and display ads within U.S. eBay sites. Although Google performs a similar function for eBay sites outside of the U.S., the eBay-Yahoo tie up was seen as a defensive move by eBay and Yahoo against Google. Google hasn't replied to requests seeking comment.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Time Warner Inc. withdrew its bid  for Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on Monday, after  sources said a rival bidder group headlined by Japan's Sony  Corp. raised its offer to nearly $5 billion.
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Aon Corp. is under more intense pressure to stop taking so-called contingent commissions from insurers after a rival announced Thursday it no longer would accept such payments.