Spending in IT trends downward — Growth in spending is slipping from 7 percent to 5 percent this year, according to a Goldman Sachs report summarized on CNET. Cost cutting measures are getting the most new investment, with server virtualization topping the list.
Google may start auto or music service — Having successfully predicted that Google would start Google Health and a virtual world, which turned out to be Lively, research firm Hitwise has turned back to its data to predict the search giant’s next moves. The results suggest something related to either autos (perhaps bad news for these two ) or music (which could affect many more companies).
Yahoo may want to buy Demand; Demand may not want to sell — Demand Media, a large domain speculator and advertising business that qualifies as one of the Internet’s most heavily-funded companies, may be on Yahoo’s acquisition radar, reports TechCrunch. One small problem: Demand don’t wanna sell, at least according to All Things D. Were the acquisition anything more than pipe dreams, Yahoo might offer up to $2 billion.
Senator grills ad startup over privacy — “Deep” targeting firm NebuAd may not survive in its current form, if the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee has his way. The Senator took issue with the startup’s tracking of users’ surfing in a hearing on Wednesday morning, and especially with the company’s opt-out policy, which he said should be opt-in, only. We’ve previously covered the company’s technology in some depth. Separately, Facebook’s privacy officer testified on his own company (transcript here), and Google and Microsoft said that they would support new privacy legislation.
Senate approves expansion of Internet surveillance –Also on Wednesday, the Senate passed expanded wiretapping provisions to allow more government surveillance of citizens, just hours after the Commerce Committee was criticizing businesses for making efforts to do the same. Neither opt-ins nor -outs from FBI snooping were discussed.
Gaming investor? Headed to E3? Don’t bother — Long-running and highly successful gaming conference E3 has turned into a lame duck, according to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, who told TheStreet.com that the event is “virtually useless for retail and investors.” Of course, some might argue the booth babes are reason enough for a visit.
Could all Internet traffic be encrypted? — If the famed Swedish file-sharing community the Pirate Bay has its way, the answer is yes. The group is proposing a network-level encryption plan called “Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets”, or IPETEE, in response to a local law that allows Sweden to snoop on the Internet communications of its citizens. Incidentally, the idea would also put a stick in the spokes of US surveillance programs, as reported above. But the plan may never see the light of day; NewTeeVee has more, including a brief history of TPB’s failed schemes.
Former Virgin exec joins Valhalla to invest in mobile — Saj Cherian, a former executive at Virgin Mobile USA and NBC Universal, has joined Virginia-based Valhalla Partners as a principal. Cherian will focus on mobile investments. MocoNews has a brief interview.
Venture capitalists: Now with less arrogance — The latest bubble to deflate for VCs is their egos, according to the Silicon Valley Venture Capital Confidence Index. Early-stage investors are bummed out over a lack of exits, particularly through IPOs. The full .PDF report is here, while ZDNet has a shorter summary.
Zimbra wins a battle in the educational email market — Yahoo-owned Zimbra has won a pretty significant victory with a decision by Stanford University to use the service over its competitors, which TechCrunch names as Gmail and Microsoft Exchange.
A tale of private equity gone horribly wrong — John Devaney lost his investors’ money. Not part of it; not most of it; all of it. Normally investors would pull out when things looked bad, but Devaney froze their funds before managing to lose them. Today’s feel-good private equity story is at the New York Times.
