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IT

Submission + - US Justice Department sues eBay for anti-competitive hiring practices (washingtonpost.com)

McGruber writes: The Associated Press (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/justice-dept-sues-ebay-for-allegedly-agreeing-with-intuit-not-to-hire-each-others-employees/2012/11/16/4352fa4e-303a-11e2-af17-67abba0676e2_story.html) is reporting that the US Justice Department is suing eBay for allegedly agreeing with Intuit not to hire each other’s employees.

According to the article, "eBay’s agreement with Intuit hurt employees by lowering the salaries and benefits they might have received and deprived them of better job opportunities at the other company,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Joseph Wayland, who is in charge of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. The division “has consistently taken the position that these kinds of agreements are per se (on their face) unlawful under antitrust laws.”

Microsoft

Submission + - German city says OpenOffice shortcomings are forcing it back to Microsoft (arnnet.com.au)

An anonymous reader writes: "In the specific case of the use of OpenOffice, the hopes and expectations of the year 2007 are not fulfilled," the council wrote, adding that continuing use OpenOffice will lead to performance impairments and aggravation and frustration on the part of employees and external parties.

"Therefore, a new Microsoft Office license is essential for effective operations," they wrote. ...

"The divergence of the development community (LibreOffice on one hand Apache Office on the other) is crippling for the development for OpenOffice," the council wrote, adding that the development of Microsoft Office is far more stable. Looking at the options, a one-product strategy with Microsoft Office 2010 is the only viable one, according to the council.

Comment Not Gonna Happen (Score 1) 292

Tons of ridiculous Italian laws get proposed, most of them don't pass. This is one of the many ways politicians in Italy waste time and money. Of course, even if this doesn't pass, Italy is still in a very sad state of affairs. Italy's keeping company to Burkina Faso on the Freedom of Press Index. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index ]. The problem stems from the godlike power given to Italian judges and politicians. Want a pertinent example? How about Giuliano Mignini, now internationally renowned for his demented control of the Meridith Kercher investigation. This following letter was by the Committee to Protect Journalists to the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. It highlights several very grave abuses of power committed by Mignini in the past. [ http://www.cpj.org/2011/04/journalists-threatened-for-reporting-on-murder-cas.php ]
Piracy

Call of Duty: Black Ops the Most Pirated Game of the Year 5

Torrentfreak reports that after calculating download frequency for pirated copies of popular video games, Call of Duty: Black Ops has won the dubious honor of being the most pirated game of 2010. The PC version of the game was torrented roughly 4,270,000 times, and the Xbox 360 version was downloaded an additional 930,000 times. (The most pirated Wii game was Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Dante's Inferno somehow managed to accrue the most downloads of Xbox 360 games.) Fortunately for Activision, the game has still made over $1 billion in sales, and its 20,000,000+ players have racked up over 600,000,000 man-hours of play time since the game's launch in early November.
The Courts

Man Sues Rockstar Saying GTA:SA Is Based On His Life 124

dotarray writes "From the article: 'Rockstar Games are no strangers to legal action, but it doesn't come stranger than this. An American model, Michael Washington (known as "Shagg") is suing the publisher — as well as parent company Take Two Interactive — because they based Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on his life.'" It's a good thing Washington never learned the infinite ammo cheat.
Crime

Student Googles Himself, Finds He's Accused of Murder 184

University of Florida student Zachary Garcia was more than a little surprised to find out he was wanted for murder after Googling his name. It turns out the police were looking for a different man but had mistakenly used Garcia's photo. From the article: "Investigators originally released a driver's license photo of Zachary Garcia — spelled with an 'A' — but it was Zachery Garcia — spelled with an 'E'— who was charged in connection with the crime."

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