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A group of companies led by Microsoft have called on European authorities to launch an antitrust investigation into Googles dominance of mobile Internet usage on smartphones.

The FairSearch initiative of 17 companies which includes Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle claims Google is acting unfairly by giving away its Android operating system to mobile device companies on the condition that the U.S. online giants own software applications like YouTube and Google Maps are installed and prominently displayed.

Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a Trojan horse to deceive partners, monopolize the mobile marketplace and control consumer data, said Thomas Vinje, the groups Brussels-based lawyer.

Android operating systems are installed on about 70 per cent of new smartphones, according to analyst estimates, handing Google the largest market share worldwide, followed by Apples iOS platform. Systems from BlackBerry, Microsoft and others trail far behind.

Googles predatory distribution of Android at below-cost makes it difficult for other providers of operating systems to recoup investments in competing with Googles dominant mobile platform, FairSearch said in a statement.

The European Commission, the 27-nation blocs executive arm and antitrust authority, must at some point decide whether to take up the case or drop it. A spokesman confirmed the complaint had been received.

Google Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., did not address the complaints charges in detail. We continue to work co-operatively with the European Commission, said Google spokesman, Al Verney.

The U.S. company is already under investigation by Brussels for practices related to its dominance of online search and advertising markets.

That complaint, launched in 2010, alleges Google unfairly favours its own services in its Internet search results, which enjoy a near-monopoly in Europe. Google has proposed a list of remedies to address the Commissions concerns to achieve a settlement. The Commission is currently examining the proposed changes.

We have received some proposals by Google and we will soon launch a market test of the proposed remedies, said Antoine Colombani, a spokesman for EU Competition Comissioner Joaquin Almunia. He declined to speculate on when the investigation would be concluded.

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Google antitrust complaint calls free Android mobile software a 'Trojan horse'

Facebook isn't making phones. Instead, the social networking giant is making software called "Home" that will add a Facebook interface to Android phones, making an aggressive move onto the most popular mobile device platform.

The free software will be available next week, enabling people to turn their phones into "Facebook phones" if they choose. The company said it "designed Home to be the next version of Facebook." It also takes its competition with Google to a new level, by effectively taking over phones based on Google's Android software.

"Home isn't a phone or operating system, and it's also more than just an app," the company said in its much hyped announcement today. "Home is a completely new experience that lets you see the world through people, not apps."

Speculation about Facebook's phone ambitions swirled in recent weeks, with some predicting the company would manufacture its own hardware in partnership with HTC, which worked on a Facebook phone called the Status. The device came out in 2011 and wasn't a hit.

This time around, HTC is making an Android phone that will come preloaded with Home and be sold exclusively through AT&T starting April 12. But that's a secondary announcement to Facebook's mobile ambitions.

By building software that can be downloaded on multiple devices _ rather than built into particular hardware _ Facebook likely will reach more users with Home. It's also asserting that its services deserve more prominence on Android devices than other apps and the operating system's interface.

It's a bold move in several ways. Facebook is pushing Google into the background on devices running Google's mobile operating system. Facebook also is gambling that users will like its service enough to Facebook-ify their phones, letting the company fill their pocket screens with news feeds, manage access to other applications and increase its ability to monetize mobile users.

Windows Phone users already are familiar with deep Facebook integration on their devices. Microsoft, an early investor in Facebook, blends photos and contacts from the service into its phone platform, moving it from app to cornerstone.

Here's how Facebook summarized its goals, in the Home announcement:

"We designed Home to be the next version of Facebook. But we also wanted to do something more. We wanted to reimagine the way we all use computing devices to make us more connected and bring us closer to the people we care about."

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Facebook Tries to Challenge Google With Smartphone Interface

In Silicon Valley, the employee perks are the stuff of legend. Parents-to-be at Facebook are given a bonus to help with expenses and extensive maternity and paternity leave. Software company Evernote will pay to have their employees apartments cleaned twice every month. And Google perhaps the most generous when it comes to fringe benefits lavishes its employees with freeconciergeservice and a cafeteria chock full ofgourmetfood. While these benefits are partially a product of the intense competition for qualified tech workers, they may also be a way for companies to simply increase compensation without giving the taxman a cut. And according to an article in yesterdaysWall Street Journal, theI.R.S is taking notice:

There is growing controversy among tax experts about how to treat these coveted freebies. The Internal Revenue Service also has been focusing on the topic, according to attorneys who practice in the area, examining whether the free food is a fringe benefit on which employees should pay additional tax.

The Journal report describes the conundrum the I.R.S. faces when deciding how hard it should try to collect taxes on these fringe benefits. On the one hand, its not fair for cash compensation to be taxed while perks like free food arent. At the same time, taxing fringe benefits isnt as simple as taxing cash compensation, and the law allows for exceptions, such as when workers are stationed in remote locations where purchasing lunch isnt feasible.

(MORE: Apps and Sites That Make Filing Taxes Easier)

It makes sense that the I.R.S. would be looking into these practices at this time, as fringe benefits are a growing component of employee compensation overall. According to a recentUSA Todaystudy, employee-paid benefits now account for 19.7% of total compensation, up from 16.6% in 2000 and less than 10% in the 1960s. One key driver of this phenomenon is the rising cost of healthcare. As healthcare costs have risen, many workers have received a larger percentage of their compensation as healthcare benefits.

But there has been a cultural shift as well at least in the technology sector which is encouraging firms to increase workplace perks. Last fall the New York Times ran an article on the perks increasingly offered by Silicon Valley, which argued that firms are doling out more and more fringe perks so that employees can spend more time thinking about work and less about non-workresponsibilities. The idea is that if your employer pays for your home to be cleaned or takes care of your child-care needs, youll come across fewer of the work-life balance problems that plague Corporate America today. The goal is to achieve less work-life balance and more work-life integration. Life-work balance is a nonsense term, Andrew Sinkov, 31, a vice president of marketing at Evernote, told theTimes.The idea that I have to segment work and life is based on some archaic lunar-calendar thing.

So it may be the increasing value of benefits paid to employees really is just a way for employers to get more out of their workers than a way to avoid paying tax. But the I.R.S. isnt going to just forgo this lost revenue. According to theJournalreport, the feds are considering cracking down on companies that are giving out fringe benefits without withholding taxes. The result would be firms having to increasingly list benefits on workers W2s, and higher tax bills for employees at the end of the year.

(MORE: Your Burning Tax Season FAQs, Answered)

Of course, if the IRS does really start to crackdown hard on this sort of practice, one could imagine many employees bristling at paying taxes on non-cash benefits. TheJournalreport says that when this has happened in the past, employers have ensured their employees dont lose out by giving them extra pay to cover their larger tax bills.

But this surely isnt a solution to the problem on a large scale because its just an inefficient use of funds from the employers perspective. Essentially these firms are paying employees income tax for them, just to ensure that those employees eat lunch in the company cafeteria or take advantage of free child care. For some companies that really want their workers to be on campus for long hours each day, this strategy may make sense. But in the face of a widespread effort by the government to collect taxes on non-case compensation, it will much easier for firms to just offer their workers higher saleries and fewer benefits.

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Free Lunches at Work? The Taxman Wants a Bite

Published on: 10th Apr 2013

Anti-virus software firm, Bitdefender has launched a free version of its Antivirus service for Android smartphones.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Android is an antivirus solution that taps in-the-cloud scanning technology to help prevent battery strain.

"We've seen an uncontrolled explosion in Android malware in the last year, so we've created a solution to counter that trend," said Bitdefender Chief Security Researcher Catalin Cosoi. "We would like to see it as widely employed as possible, so we made it easy to use, light on the battery and lethal to Android malware."

Android malware increased by 27 percent in the last six months alone, according to Bitdefender research, as malware creators intensified efforts to steal users' private data. The more common forms of Android malware can ramp up a user's phone bill by secretly dialing premium rate numbers, steal passwords, spy on corporate emails, and monitor device activity.

The solution uses in-the-cloud scanning technology to remain updated around the clock on the latest threats to Android operating systems. The light footprint allows for ultra-fast scans and effective strikes against malware from the cloud, with a claimed close to zero impact on the device's battery.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Android can be found on Google Play

Tags: [bitdefender] [virus] [malware]

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Bitdefender Launches Free Antivirus Software for Android Smartphones

Early last month, National Business Daily, a Chinese economic news outlet, published a story titled The Mystery of 360 Black Box, accusing Beijing-based Qihoo of inserting illegal software into its antivirus software and Internet browser and stealing users' private information and business secrets to gain more market share and serve its own interests. The report described the conduct as "cancerous cells of the Chinese Internet."

The National Business Daily article cited a third-party programmer who goes by the name "Independent Investigator" as saying that Qihoo 360 used the backdoor of its software in conjunction with its cloud service to steal user information and uninstall competitors' software from users' computers. The article said Qihoo has for years been using its products to gather personal information such as email addresses, medical records, financial information and passwords.

The ensuing discussion and public attention saw users abandon Qihoo's antivirus software in droves. In the city of Nanjing, one user even took Qihoo to court, alleging that its 360 Internet browser uploads users' surfing history to the company's server.

The news story reflected concerns that date back several years and have in at least one case resulted in a lawsuit. The plaintiff in that suit said consumers' suspicion and anger at Qihoo are well justified. The companys explanations for having collected private information without consent have been unsatisfactory.

Concerns about Qihoo increased last fall when Wan Tao, a well-known former hacker who now leads a nonprofit called IDF Lab that monitors Internet threats, investigated Qihoo. Specifically, IDF spent about two weeks studying the 360 security browser's v5.0.8.7 version, and on Nov. 26, 2012, Wan and his team published a report on 360, documenting a hidden backdoor of the software. The IDF report alleged that "through its application, 360 security Internet browser has downloaded DLL files from 360 servers and applied them without user knowledge, providing no clear file application and usage explanation."

Aware of the highly sensitive nature of the overall issue as well as its own investigation, Wan explained some of the precautions IDF took in conducting its research.

"We had the test results quite some time ago, but we took some time, and we made the wording more neutral," said Wan. He said the purpose of the tests was to raise awareness, not to make a profit. Before publishing, IDF contacted Qihoo, asking its tech team to provide answers to some questions. But the only response came from Qihoo's public relations team, consistently denying IDFs requests for answer, said Wan. In fact, he added, they not only denied requests for information but also suggested IDF was engaging in attempted extortion.

Concerns about privacy with Qihoo products led Apple Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) earlier this year to remove Qihoo apps from its App Store, including core products such as 360 Mobile Phone Guard and its Internet browser.

Qihoo's chairman, Zhou Hongyi, has long maintained his company's innocence, saying the criticisms stem from rivals' resentment at his company's competitive successes.

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Privacy Issues With China's Qihoo 360 Technology, Which Provides Free Antivirus Software, Are Becoming More Public