Mediaboss Marketing

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission is widening its regulatory sweep to include "shadow" banking, heralding new controls over the sprawling and largely unchartered 46 trillion euro ($61 trillion) sector blamed for helping trigger the financial crisis.

The EU's executive launched a consultation with industry on Monday with a view to writing rules to control shadow banking, a term describing activity resembling banks' basic borrow-and-lend model, but often taking place beyond the watch of regulators.

It opens up a new front in the regulatory drive of Brussels, which some analysts believe has been slow to tackle the causes of a financial crisis that struck Europe roughly five years ago.

"What we do not want is for financial activities and entities to circumvent existing and foreseen rules, allowing new sources of risk to accumulate in the financial sector," said Michel Barnier, the EU official in charge of regulatory reform.

"That is why we need to better understand what shadow banking actually is and does, and what regulation and supervision may be appropriate."

Political leaders are aware of the potential problem that shadow banking presents and the Group of 20 top global economies have asked their task force, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), to come up with plans to regulate the sector.

That will give a lead to the European authorities in finalizing their plans.

The chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority, Adair Turner, has called for radical plans to regulate shadow banking, saying last week that the system may be too complex for regulators to understand.

Hedge funds and private equity are often cited as examples of shadow banking. But the term can also take in investment funds and even cash-rich firms that lend government bonds to banks, and which in turn use them as security when taking credit from the European Central Bank.

Shadow banking can also refer to offshore vehicles such as those that banks used before the crisis for leverage, as well as money-market funds taking deposits from companies.

Read this article:
EU considers new controls for shadow banking

NEW CASTLE, Pa., March 19, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Real Estate Contacts, Incorporated (OTCBB:REAC.OB - News) is proud to announce that its shares are now publicly quoted under the stock symbol REAC. RealEstateContacts.com provides a service that enables real estate professionals to capture, cultivate, and convert leads which cater to prospective home buyers and sellers. The Company's business is conducted solely within the internet and the online video arena, which includes our real estate search engine, social community and video real estate network. We match buyers, sellers, brokers and professionals anywhere in the world through our portal website. RealEstateContacts.com is a partner for real estate professionals to market their listings and promote their services. Our goal as a real estate portal is to send consumers to the listing broker or agents website where they can find out more information about the property and the listing agent.

Robert De Angelas President and CEO, of Real Estate Contacts comments, "Real Estate Contacts is very excited to begin trading and looks forward to the future with the company's revolutionary technology that could potentially be a game changer in several different industries."

About Real Estate Contacts Inc.

Real Estate Contacts, Inc. conducts an online real estate advertising and marketing real estate portal including a real estate video listings network that offers real estate professionals the opportunity to reach consumers interested in buying or selling property in their respective geographic area through the internet and video. With our current real estate search portal http://www.realestatecontacts.com and our national real estate video listings channel http://www.realestatevideochannels.com we will operate the most definitive online real estate search portal and real estate video channel in cities across the United States. e Contacts, Incorporated

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain forward-looking statements covered within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, plans and timing for the introduction or enhancement of our services and products, statements about future market conditions, supply and demand conditions, and other expectations, intentions and plans contained in this press release that are not historical fact and involve risks and uncertainties. Our expectations regarding future events or revenues depend upon our ability to develop and supply products, which we may not produce today and that may need to meet defined specifications. When used in this press release, the words "plan," "expect," "believe," and similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current expectations. They are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, changes in technology and changes in pervasive markets.

Continued here:
Real Estate Contacts Inc. Receives Approval to Trade Under Stock Symbol REAC

Apple says it is buying back $10 billion in stock and launching a dividend payment to spend just under half of its cash pile on shareholders in the next three years.

While Apple has avoided big acquisitions instead favoring buying smaller companies with admired technology, that other half of the pile could still go to making some pretty big acquisitions.

[More from WSJ.com: IPad Exposed]

Allow Deal Journal to imagine Tim Cook is viewing his situation similarly to Richard Pryor in Brewsters Millions. In this case Uncle Steve has left him a mountain of cash, and Tim has to spend it to make even more riches for shareholders and himself.

This is what Deal Journal sees him potentially shopping for if thats the case.

NetflixIf Apple is looking for a jolt to its entertainment business, it could find a good deal in Netflix and muscle movie studios the way it muscled music studios with iTunes. An with Apple launching into the television world, a source of streaming TV could be a big help.

Research in MotionA deal would create a behemoth in smartphone technology, so much so that Google an others would likely have a good argument for antitrust authorities to put a stop to it. But if the iPhones biggest weakness is corporate concerns about email and security, the patents RIM holds would be dear to Apple.

[More from WSJ.com: Mets Owners to Pay $162 Million to Madoff Trustee]

SamsungSee above, antitrust would be a serious headache and even Apples cash wouldnt be enough, but given that Samsung makes a lot of Apple parts. A family of iPhones on different budgets would have plenty of new demographic targets.

T-MobileMaybe Apple is content to let RIM wallow in its attempt to catch up, and would rather take to giving iPhone users the service for the device. Just like it built iTunes up to feed iPods and the App Store to sell to iPhones, Apple wants to control a users entire experience. Acquiring a cell network would do that to a new degree. (Sorry, Phil Falcone, even these money bags are unlikely to take a bet and bail you out of Lightsquared.)

See more here:
Apple Shopping Spree: What Could Tim Cook Buy

March 19, 2012 - 16:02 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A Turkish cybersquatter has registered at least a dozen variants of Pope Benedict's name as .xxx internet domains and is using them to promote Islam, The Register reports.

Cybersquatted sites including PopeBenedict.xxx currently proclaim "Everyone will find Islam" alongside pictures of the Quran and Kaaba.

Unsurprisingly, the sites also state that "This Web Site is For Sale".

PopeBenedict.xxx is registered to one Bulent Ozcan, a resident of Turkey, according to Whois records. Other domains evidently squatted by the same person include: josephaloisiusratzinger.xxx, josephaloisiusratzinger.com, benedictus.xxx, benedictxvi.xxx, ratzinger.xxx, xvibenedictus.xxx, xvibenedictus.com benedictusxvi.xxx pontificio.xxx holyfather.xxx and josephratzinger.xxx.

While the pope is not the first person to be cybersquatted in the new .xxx domain Sir Richard Branson recently recovered richardbranson.xxx from a squatter this does seem to be the most comprehensive effort to trash an individual by linking their name to .xxx porn (and to promote a "competitor").

The Vatican's quickest option for shutting down the domains might be to file a Rapid Evaluation Service complaint with the National Arbitration Forum, the U.S. body hired by .xxx manager ICM Registry to handle this kind of case.

RES complaints cost $1,300 to file, but cybersquatted domains can be permanently suspended in as little as two working days. Because the policy covers personal names, the Pope won't need to show trademark rights in his name.

However, it would probably be cheaper to file a complaint using the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which unlike RES offers bulk discounts, instead.

The Vatican briefly got its cassocks in a twist last December when it mistakenly thought that vatican.xxx had been registered by a cybersquatter.

The rest is here:
Turkish cybersquatter registers Pope Benedict's name as .xxx internet domains

The board of directors of internet overseer ICANN is said to be fuming after its ethics were called into question by the organisation's outgoing president and CEO.

Rod Beckstrom, who is set to the leave the domain name policy group in July, took to the stage at ICANN's public meeting here in San Jose, Costa Rica on Monday to criticise what he called the "tangle of conflicting agendas" on the board.

ICANN must be able to act for the public good while placing commercial and financial interests in the appropriate context, he said. How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?

There is value in having community members with domain name industry experience but it is equally valuable to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest, he said.

The address came a few weeks after an ICANN board meeting at which seven of its 16 directors, including the chair and vice-chair, acknowledged conflicts of interest relating to ICANN's new generic top-level domains initiative, which promises to create hundreds of new domain suffixes.

Chair Steve Crocker runs the consulting firm Shinkuro, which has a silent investment from domain name registry provider Afilias. Vice-chair Bruce Tonkin, meanwhile, is a senior executive with Melbourne IT, an Australian company that expects to help over 100 clients apply for new gTLDs.

All seven conflicted directors excused themselves from voting on or discussing new gTLDs, in adherence to new ethics rules approved by ICANN in December.

Beckstrom first raised conflicts of interest as a problem facing ICANN at its meeting in Singapore last June, just a few days before the organisation approved the new gTLD programme.

The programme enables any company to apply to run their own right-of-the-dot domain name either generic terms such as .web or .blog, geographic names such as .london, or branded extensions such as .canon and .hitachi.

The then-chair of ICANN, Kiwi trademark lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush, left the organisation shortly after the Singapore meeting to take on the well-paid executive chairman position at Top Level Domain Holdings, a start-up with big plans to apply for dozens of new gTLDs.

Original post:
ICANN prez calls out own board over conflicts of interest