IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 30 January
30-01-2008
by Sylvia Leatham
MySpace launches developer platform | eBay gets tough on fraudulent sellers
The Irish Times reports that e-payments group Payzone cannot defend the claims of Chief Executive John Nagle and Chief Financial Officer John Williamson that they must be treated as remaining in their jobs as they have not been lawfully removed, the High Court was told on Tuesday. Paul Gardiner SC, for Nagle, said it appeared Payzone chairman Bob Thian became so annoyed after reading a letter of 14 January from Nagle that he had abandoned the process required under contract and the company's own articles of association for the removal of Nagle, and had called the company's directors and announced the removal of Nagle and Williamson. In the letter, Nagle had strongly criticised Thian's behaviour as chairman.
Separately, the paper says that Payzone's directors went ahead with their planned board meeting in Dublin on Tuesday night in spite of the High Court hearing adjourning without a verdict. It is understood the directors held their meeting at the Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephen's Green. The legal proceedings were not on the agenda. Instead, John Nagle was expected to give a trading update to directors.
The paper also reports that telecoms regulator ComReg has awarded contracts to three consultants to advise it on the proposed break-up of Eircom. LECG, a global consultancy with offices in London, has been awarded two contracts. It will advise ComReg on strategic, operational and regulatory issues. Oxford-based economic consultants Oxera has won a contract to advise on economic and regulatory accounting issues. Bank of Ireland subsidiary IBI Corporate Finance has won a contract to give ComReg guidance on corporate finance issues.
The Irish Independent says that Irish people are the worst offenders when it comes to how frequently we change electrical goods, doing it more often than most other EU consumers. And despite government recycling campaigns, more rubbish than ever before is ending up in landfills, an Environmental Protection Agency report reveals. A significant 7.4kg per capita of household electrical goods was collected for recycling in 2006, almost double the EU target of 4kg per capita.
According to the Wall Street Journal, social networking firm MySpace is to introduce tools for developing games, media-sharing features and other programs. MySpace will formally launch the MySpace Developer Platform next Tuesday with a kick-off event and workshop at its new San Francisco office. Although developers will have all the tools they need to create and test programs, they won't be able to integrate them right away. MySpace has yet to announce a start date for that. The company said the initiative should result in innovations in how friends connect and communicate.
The Financial Times reports that a US federal judge has ruled that the antitrust supervision of Microsoft imposed as part of the company's 2002 settlement of a landmark legal case should be extended for another two years. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly also issued a stinging rebuke of the software giant, accusing it of being responsible for an "inexcusable delay" that had "impeded the final judgments from accomplishing their intended result and achieving their principle objects." The decision means that Microsoft will not escape external oversight at the end of this month, as it had hoped, but face continued supervision until November 2009.
The paper also says that online retailer Amazon has launched a mobile phone system for US customers. The Amazon Mobile system provides mobile users with a streamlined version of Amazon's main website, enabling registered customers to buy online using their existing credit card or bank accounts. It includes features from the company's regular website, such as customer reviews and product images.
The same paper notes that eBay has announced some of the most stringent measures in its 12-year history to target unreliable and fraudulent sellers. The changes are part of a broader overhaul to move beyond the "flea market" culture on which the company was founded, but which has started to hold it back as internet commerce has become mainstream. The new measures mean that sellers whose overall ratings fall below 4.2 on the five-point scale will in effect become invisible as their goods are buried at the bottom of search results. In addition, weaker sellers will also be forced to use a guaranteed payment system, such as eBay's PayPal.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 