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Virgin Media, Britain’s largest provider of broadband services, has announced it will launch an unlimited music download program later this year. The company is initially partnering with Universal Music, the world’s leading music company, although other labels and are expected to sign up when more details are announced.

In return for what Virgin Media describes as “a great value monthly subscription fee,” consumers will be able to download as much music as they like. All of the MP3 downloads will be DRM-free, which means consumers will be able to play them indefinitely on whatever device they choose.

No estimate was provided for the possible cost of the service. However, Virgin Media did say an entry-level subscription would be available for consumers who want to download some music but who don’t need unlimited access.

“In terms of both convenience and value,” Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett said, “our new music service will be superior to anything that’s available online today and provides a fair deal for both consumers and artists. There is no better example of Virgin Media’s commitment to harnessing digital technology to give customers what they want, when they want and how they want.”

Reducing Piracy

One of the goals of the program, Virgin said, is to bring about “a material reduction” in the piracy of Universal Music content across Virgin Media’s network. The initial step will be to educate (or presumably remind) consumers that music piracy is illegal, and to promote the availability of a legal low-cost alternative.

If those steps are insufficient, then Virgin Media will implement a “graduated response system” for persistent music pirates. Ultimately, the company said, continued piracy could result in temporary suspension of Internet access. The company made it clear, however, that no one will permanently lose their Internet access, and the company will not monitor customer traffic to…

Does Bing have Google shaking in its boots? Google may indeed be concerned about Microsoft’s breakout Bing launch, analysts said.

According to the New York Post, Google cofounder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent updates to the site. The Post also reported that Brin himself is leading the team to determine how Bing serves up its results.

“I do think Google is taking Bing very seriously,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “According to the early traffic indications, there has been some bump for Bing.”

Bing’s Bump

Microsoft launched Bing about two weeks ago and is sinking between $80 million to $100 million to market its so-called decision engine. The early results are impressive.

Microsoft increased its average daily penetration among U.S. searchers from 13.8 percent during May 26-30 to 15.5 percent during June 2-6, according to comScore. The research firm concluded this is an indication that the search engine is reaching more people than before. Microsoft’s share of search-result pages in the U.S., a proxy for overall search intensity, increased from 9.1 percent to 11.1 percent during the same time frame.

Meanwhile, StatCounter is reporting that Bing has overtaken Yahoo to secure the number-two spot in the search market. StatCounter said Bing grabbed market share from Google. StatCounter’s analysis reveals that in the U.S., Bing leapfrogged Yahoo to take second place with 16.28 percent. Yahoo had 10.22 percent. Google still dominates the U.S. search market with 71.47 percent.

In the U.S., Bing ranked 17th out of more than 450,000 Web sites, up from 5,120 the week before the official launch when the Web site was merely a placeholder, according to Hitwise. Within the search-engines category, Bing ranked fourth out of the search engines tracked by Hitwise.

At 12:01 EST Friday, a new cyber landrush will get under way, as the social-networking giant Facebook introduces so-called “vanity URLs” to its popular service. On a first-come, first-served basis, Facebook subscribers will be able to choose customized descriptors for their profiles.

According to Facebook designer Blaise Dispersia, the change will mean that instead of having a Facebook URL ending in a randomly assigned number — such as http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 — users can create a profile link that more clearly indicates their identity — for example, http://www.facebook.com/blaise.dispersia.

“When your friends, family members or coworkers visit your profile or pages on Facebook,” Dispersia said in a recent blog post, “they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.”

Head Start for Businesses

In an effort to minimize the problem of cybersquatting that has plagued domain-name registrars, Facebook has given businesses the opportunity to preregister trademarked business names to prevent them from being claimed by others.

According to reports, tens of thousands of businesses have already preregistered trademarks. In addition, the company has quietly provided vanity URLs in advance to Facebook employees and “certain celebrities.”

A company that fails to preregister its trademark before Friday’s rush can probably get it back, but will probably need to obtain a court order, which can be both time-consuming and expensive.

Still Chasing Twitter

Facebook’s decision to incorporate vanity URLs into its site is another indication that despite its success, the social-networking site is uneasy about other upstart competitors, particularly the rapidly growing Twitter. Since its inception, Twitter has offered short URL links to profiles that match each user’s screen name, which generally makes it easier to find people on the site…

In its ongoing effort to regulate citizen access to Internet content, China has announced that all new computers sold in the country will be required to have preinstalled filtering software known as Green Dam-Youth Escort.

According to a statement published in a state-run newspaper, the Liberation Daily, the government’s objective is to protect the nation’s young people, who are flocking to the Web in ever-increasing numbers. “The state encourages research into Internet products that help minors surf the Web in a healthy manner,” the statement said. Requests for additional explanation have gone unanswered.

Not surprisingly, the news of the new mandatory software requirement has generated considerable protest inside and outside of China.

Online Petition

According to The Wall Street Journal, an online petition was launched at midnight on Thursday to protest Green Dam. Although the number of signers is small (just more than a thousand in a nation with more than a billion residents), the comments are openly critical of the government’s policy. At least one protester referenced the specter of Big Brother by writing, “I don’t want to live in 1984.”

While the ostensible purpose of the filtering requirement is to protect children from pornography and violent material (in fairness, similar steps have been proposed in the United States), researchers have discovered that politically sensitive terms are blocked as well.

For instance, efforts to connect to sites about the meditation technique Falun Gong trigger a pop-up message that declares the site harmful and then shuts down the browser. Similar shutdowns occur in response to other phrases deemed subversive by the Chinese government.

Other researchers report that similar shutdowns occur when sensitive terms are typed into various Microsoft software products, including Word, Notepad and MSN’s instant messaging. That implies a degree of keystroke monitoring that may be unprecedented for a central government.

Vulnerabilities, or Backdoors?

Of greater concern to…

Less than a week after Palm and Sprint Nextel announced an exclusive partnership to sell the eagerly awaited Pre smartphone, a second carrier, Verizon Wireless, claimed that it, too, will begin selling the device in the US.

Apparently, Verizon will begin selling the Pre as soon as Sprint’s exclusivity deal with Palm expires, an unnamed source supposedly familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal.

The source said Verizon plans to begin selling the Palm Pre, which has multi-touch capabilities, calendars synced in one place, cached contacts, a slide-out keyboard and the new webOS operating system, in January of 2010.

Both Palm and Verizon, however, are remaining tight-lipped about the release date, denying that a date was set for the Palm Pre to be sold by Verizon Wireless.

Just a Hint

In an apparent hint, Verizon Wireless CEO, Lowell McAdam said, “Over the next six months or so, you see devices like the Palm Pre [being sold by Verizon].”

Asked directly about Verizon’s upcoming pricing for the Pre, company spokesperson Brenda Raney declined to give specifics, only saying that “it is premature to discuss pricing of a phone that isn’t currently in our portfolio.”

“Sprint’s exclusivity on the Pre is for an extended period of time,” said Sprint spokesperson Mark Ellioot. “We have not been more specific, but it is longer than six months,” he added, casting doubt on the statement by Wall Street Journal’s source.

Breaking Records

It is not clear whether eager Verizon Wireless customers will be willing to wait for the January release of the Pre or if they plan to become Sprint customers to acquire the Pre sooner. However, it seems that by late Sunday the Palm Pre had broken previous sales records for both first day sales, as well as first weekend sales for any Sprint device. Although Sprint…

Google has confirmed it is being investigated by the Department of Justice for its October 2008 copyright settlement agreement with the Authors Guild, a group with 8,000 authors and the Association of American Publishers, which has more than 300,000 members.

The deal, being investigated because of its anticompetitive nature, would force Google to provide $125 million toward a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers could register their works and receive some form of compensation for their work from subscriptions or book sales.

“The Department of Justice and several state attorneys general have contacted us to learn more about the impact of the settlement, and we are happy to answer their questions,” said Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesperson. “It’s important to note that this agreement is non-exclusive and if approved by the court, stands to expand access to millions of books in the U.S.”

Google said it received Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) from the DOJ. A CID is a request for information in the course of a civil investigation and does not constitute the beginning of legal proceedings. David Drummund, Google’s legal counsel sait it is the equivalent of a civil subpoena, he told Reuters.

Competitive Barriers

Consumer groups have been outspoken about their disapproval of the deal between the Internet search giant and the authors and publishers groups, among them Public Knowledge, a Washington, DC-based public interest group.

The group said while it encourages access to orphan works, it believes the proposed settlement allows only the Book Rights Registry to grant licenses to use absent authors’ works. This would allow only Google to use the licenses. Orphan works are copyrighted works where it is challenging or impossible to find the copyright holder.

“The Justice Department is free to see what it can see,” Public Knowledge’s Communication Director Art Brodsky said, declining to provide…