investigation

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to capture and store Americans' confidential text messages, according to a proposal that will be presented to a congressional panel today.

The law enforcement proposal would require wireless providers to record and store customers' SMS messages -- a controversial idea akin to requiring them to surreptitiously record audio of their customers' phone calls -- in case police decide to obtain them at some point in the future.

"Billions of texts are sent every day, and some surely contain key evidence about criminal activity," Richard Littlehale … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has a way of quietly announcing its dealings with Autonomy in its annual and quarterly regulatory filings.

In its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the company announced that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into the alleged irregularities of HP's acquisition of Autonomy.

Here's what HP wrote in its filing:

Amazon's in a bit of trouble in Germany.

The country's Federal Cartel Office (FCO) announced yesterday that it's launching an antitrust investigation against Amazon to determine if the e-commerce company is unfairly treating third-party merchants that sell their products through its Marketplace platform.

According to BBC, which spoke with FCO chief Andreas Mundt, the organization is specifically trying to determine whether a clause that Amazon places on merchants limiting them from offering a product they sell through Marketplace at a cheaper price on competing sites, violates the country's antitrust clauses.

"This is particularly the case … Read more

Dozens of lawsuits and investigations emerged after Facebook's initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market last year. One investigation, initiated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, focused on technical errors in Nasdaq's system that inadvertently delayed trading that first day.

Now, word has it that Nasdaq may be able to settle the debacle with the federal regulators, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sources familiar with the matter have told the Journal that Nasdaq has been in preliminary settlement talks with the SEC. If the two sides do make a deal, it will most likely … Read more

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today it will conduct an internal investigation of the university's role in the circumstances that led to the suicide Friday of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Swartz, 26, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. Authorities claimed he broke into a restricted-access computer wiring closet at MIT and accessed that network without authorization.

A champion of open access to documents on the Internet, Swartz faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if … Read more

Google settled a major win last week when the Federal Trade Commission announced that after a nearly two-year investigation into the Web giant's business practices the company was absolved of making major changes to its search product.

However, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, seems to believe there was something fishy about the announcement.

The official announcement was made on January 3, but several news sources, including Bloomberg, Reuters, and Politico, got a hold of the results of the investigation the day before it was supposed to be made public. Technically, … Read more

Google is poised to settle the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's long-running antitrust investigation by agreeing to voluntarily change some of its business practices, Bloomberg reported today.

The FTC has been investigating a wide range of Google's business practices, focusing mostly on the way Google displays search results, which critics say favor the company's own services over those of its competitors. The U.S. trade agency has also been examining Google decisions on technology licensing, which some argue are anti-competitive.

As part of the settlement of the trade agency's 20-month probe, the search giant is agreeing … Read more

Autonomy founder and former CEO Mike Lynch is firing back at Hewlett-Packard after the release of HP's annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. The report states that the federal government opened an inquiry into HP's acquisition of Autonomy in November and hints that Autonomy's accounting is partially to blame.

"It is extremely disappointing that HP has again failed to provide a detailed calculation of its $5 billion write-down of Autonomy, or publish any explanation of the serious allegations it has made against the former management team, in its annual report filing … Read more

The board of AuthenTec is under investigation by New York-based law firm Levi & Korsinsky following its pending acquisition by Apple.

In a note to AuthenTec investors this morning, the firm said it is looking into whether the company broke any laws, and "adequately" shopped itself around to potential buyers before selling to Apple.

"The claims concern whether the AuthenTec board of directors breached their fiduciary duties to AuthenTec stockholders by failing to adequately shop the company before entering into this transaction and whether Apple is underpaying for AuthenTec shares, thus unlawfully harming AuthenTec stockholders," the … Read more