Google has lost another copyright proceeding in a major European market, this time in Germany (it will appeal), on top of the 2007 judgement in Belgium that found against Google in favour of Copiepresse, on behalf of a group of newspapers. In the US, Google is also facing litigation over copyright, plus the suits filed against YouTube

The long awaited first Android-driven handset was launched this week, and with the Google logo emblazoned on the back it has been swiftly christened the Googlephone

Encouraged by the way that Google has come to dominate the global market for online search advertising, Clear Channel and its rival CBS Radio are now eyeing the potential to dominate the global market for online radio advertising, and fend off Google. In July 2008, Clear Channel announced its plans to dominate the ‘internet radio’ market, by launching a ‘portal’ offering a vast array of radio programming, along with a new business unit to sell online advertising inventory. Although Clear Channel’s targets initially are US advertisers and US internet users, the company will likely target the UK market when it eventually decides to roll out its business model for online radio to the rest of the world. As a result, within the next decade, the UK commercial radio sector could face an additional source of competition from overseas media companies offering radio content delivered via the internet

Vodafone Europe’s service revenue growth dropped by two full percentage points in the quarter to June 2008; Spain plummeted from +5.1% to -2.5%, but the UK and Italy’s underlying growth also fell, with only Germany stable

Vodafone’s Q4 revenues were healthy if a little weak, with underlying growth slowing from 2.0% to 1.8%, but the improvement in Germany is very welcome

Vodafone UK has announced a tariff refresh that includes ‘free’ mobile browsing with all of its new contract plans

Microsoft’s $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! represents the software giant’s last opportunity to compete with Google in the rapidly growing market for online advertising, which is forecast to double to $80 billion within three years

Vodafone’s European performance was very solid, with underlying growth of 1.9%, up from 1.7% last quarter, with some very encouraging moderation to price cuts in Germany and elsewhere

Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print

Google has announced that it will be bidding for 700MHz spectrum in the US, after the FCC adopted most of the ‘open access’ provisions for which it lobbied