investigation

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

Just as Google was working to settle the antitrust investigation launched by the European Union, the governing body has tacked on one more demand: change your mobile services too.

According to the Financial Times, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia saved this final stipulation until settlement talks were already well into process. It's unclear what exactly Google needs to change but if the search giant doesn't concede it could lead to the settlement talks falling apart.

The EU's antitrust probe was opened in 2010 when European regulators asked the company to explain how it ranked search results and … Read more

Comcast has agreed to pay $800,000 to settle a Federal Communications Commission probe into the cable giant's broadband marketing practices after its merger with NBC Universal.

The settlement came after an FCC investigation found that Comcast representatives were not adequately marketing its standalone broadband service, a violation of a condition for the carrier's merger with NBC Universal that required Comcast to "visibly offer and actively market" the standalone Internet service for three years.

"Today's action demonstrates that compliance with commission orders is not optional," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. &… Read more

Despite earlier reports saying that it might do so, Australia won't take aim at Google's Street View service over the collection of Wi-Fi data.

The country's news.com.au service reported today that Australia Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim was planning to evaluate a recently released U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report on Street View data collection to determine if his office should call on the Australian Federal Police to launch an investigation into the search giant's practices. However, in a subsequent media statement, the commissioner's office made it clear no such investigation would be … Read more

Two congressmen have asked the Department of Justice to reopen its investigation of Google's Street View street-mapping service, which collected and stored data from unencrypted wireless networks.

Google's Street View cars, which were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points, also inadvertently collected e-mail and text messages, passwords, Internet-usage history, and other data from unsecured wireless networks for two years or so, beginning in 2007.

In the wake of a recently released FCC report that concluded no laws had been broken by the surreptitious data gathering, Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) … Read more

Google has another country to worry about in its fight against antitrust complaints.

India's Competition Commission announced today that it has launched an antitrust investigation into the search giant's practices on its advertising platform, AdWords. There is a chance, the agency said, that it could expand its investigation into other areas.

Google has been hit from all sides as regulators in the U.S. and European Union investigate whether the search company has violated antitrust regulations.

Last week, European Union competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said his office is "very serious" about its investigation into Google's … Read more

Although it has been investigating Google for a considerable amount of time, the European Union's competition office is not ready to decide on the case just yet.

"We are not yet there. This is a complex case," European Union Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said of his office's Google investigation in an interview with Reuters. "We are not in a hurry. We are very serious."

The European Commission launched an investigation into Google's search practices back in November 2010. The investigation followed complaints from search providers, U.K.-based price comparison site Foundem, French … Read more

Just when it seemed like things were finally settling down for Google in the Street View debacle, more information has been leaked. The formerly unnamed engineer who wrote the code that enabled Street View cars to collect personal e-mail, text messages, passwords, and Internet-usage history from unsecured wireless networks for four years has been identified, according to The New York Times.

Marius Milner is his name and the Times reported that his LinkedIn profile occupation was listed as "hacker" and under the social network's specialties category his entry said, "I know more than I want to … Read more