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Amazon's head in the cloud (week in review)

Internet retailer beats Apple and Google to the cloud, while Google settles FTC privacy charges and then gets slammed by Microsoft. Also: Comodo break-in widens.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Steven Musil
4 min read

Amazon.com beat Apple and Google in the race to the cloud, but along the way it may also have jumped the gun a bit.

Amazon Cloud Drive (photos)

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Amazon launched a much-anticipated digital music locker service that lets people store their music on the Web and then listen to their collections on computers with a Web browser or on Android devices. Consumers can store their digital songs, videos, photos, documents, and music. In addition, Amazon also rolled out the Cloud Player, which enables people to play the songs they uploaded to Cloud Drive.

However, what the company didn't do was license the rights to do this from the major Hollywood film studios and top record companies. Certainly, many from the film and music camps believe that without obtaining the proper permission, Amazon's new service violates their legal rights, multiple sources from the entertainment sector told CNET.
•  Why Hollywood isn't afraid of Amazon's cloud
•  Music labels look for rights violations in Amazon cloud
•  With cloud move, Amazon has Apple in its sights
•  Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player (review)
•  How to: Use Amazon Cloud Player for Android

More headlines

Comodo: Web attack broader than initially thought

A week after Comodo revealed that one of its registration authorities was compromised and digital certificates were stolen, it discloses that another reseller was compromised.
•  FBI probes Comodo Web security breach
•  Why browsers differ on Web sites' safety

Microsoft to file antitrust complaint against Google

In EU complaint, the tech giant says Google is engaging in anticompetitive behavior in search, online advertising, and smartphone software.
•  Why Microsoft is taking on Google in Europe
•  Has Google learned Microsoft's antitrust lessons?

Google settles FTC charges over Buzz

As part of its agreement to end Federal Trade Commission investigation, Google agrees to establish a "comprehensive privacy program" after Buzz privacy flap.

N.Y. to scrutinize AT&T and T-Mobile merger

The state's attorney general plans to analyze the proposed merger, which could create a "near duopoly," to ensure that it doesn't harm New York wireless consumers.
•  Sprint to fight AT&T's bid for T-Mobile
•  AT&T CEO: Post-merger world will be 'competitive'

Maker of driving app miffed at RIM's takedown

The battle between lawmakers and app makers over applications that alert users to police presence has its first casualty. Meanwhile, similar apps on other platforms count themselves lucky, for now
•  Fake Android app steals data, takes shot at pirates
•  Windows Phone 7 apps: 'Quality over quantity,' Microsoft says
•  Free iPhone app improves docs' emergency response

Google's '+1' experiment looks Delicious

A new experiment from Google brings Facebook's Like button to mind, but it takes even more of a cue from an ahead-of-its-time start-up service that faltered after a sale to Yahoo.
•  Google readies 'better ads' system for Gmail
•  Google denies working on facial-recognition app

Report: Google one step closer to mobile payments

Google has entered a partnership with MasterCard and Citigroup that would let credit and debit cardholders pay with their Android smartphones instead, The Wall Street Journal reports.
•  Report: Next Windows Phone OS to tap mobile payments
•  Samsung, Visa to give NFC payments a boost

More than 8 million iPads sold so far this year?

A collection of analysts polled by Fortune magazine peg unit sales of both the original iPad and the iPad 2 at anywhere from 5 million to 8.8 million for 2011 up through Saturday.
•  iPad 2 sells out internationally
•  eBay reveals its iPad 2 sales data
•  Obama's got an iPad, and he tethers too

Next iPhone not coming until October?

As the iPhone 5 rumor mill keeps churning, one of the newest reports suggests that Apple may be a bit behind its usual schedule of the last three years.

McAfee: Cybercrooks target corporate trade secrets

Cybercriminals are changing focus from grabbing private information to now stealing trade secrets and other intellectual properties from major corporations.
•  Report: NSA joins Nasdaq hack probe

Baseball apps that score on opening day

Baseball season has started. For iPhone, iPad, Android phone, or BlackBerry, there's an app to help you follow your favorite team, keep score at games, or construct a killer fantasy lineup.
•  GameSlam takes players deeper than fantasy baseball
•  Win $1 million for perfect game in MLB 2K11

Also of note
•  Paul Allen: Gates, Ballmer tried to 'rip me off'
•  Report: Spam down 33 percent after Rustock takedown
•  Buffett cautions social-networking investors