This Goo is on You, or at least some call centre worker

You Goobers

Few people in these parts doubted that a second helping of internet hysteria, venture capitalist madness and fiscal incontinence had come in to play. Now there's been a mega buy to confirm our fears.

Cash-fat dandy Google gobbled up YouTube for $1.65bn. The deal gives Google a fat pipe to millions of users and lets the company replace its own underperforming Google Video store. Potentially, however, Google's hefty video buy in also leaves it open to a flurry of lawsuits from content owners who were just waiting for YouTube to gain a bit of financial muscle.

Google will have to find a way of dealing with copyright concerns or resign itself to owning the most expensive outlet for quirky dog tricks videos and self-obsessed pimply teens.

Also on the Web 2.0 front, Google combined its own online spreadsheet software with the Writely word processing suite it acquired in March. As a result, you get Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

Fear not, Redmond.

Vista – the biggest change since icons

Speaking of the Beast, the allegedly imminent arrival of Windows Vista continues to have Microsoft and its cronies in a tizzy. Of course, it's not just vendors that hope to benefit from the new operating system. Vista – final beta out now - has given the analyst firms a chance to sell all kinds of opinions.

Gartner, for example, issued an apocalyptic warning, saying that we're all about to experience the biggest change to PC technology in the last 20 years. Customers will demand more laptops, more freedom, and more virtualisation. "Organisations will discover that Vista cannot be adopted without a careful examination of its impact," Gartner said, tapping its usual flair for the obvious.

What's sure not to impact users all that much is Microsoft's upcoming release of IE7. Microsoft decided long ago that the browser was not a priority. Still, it's popping out IE7 as an optional download later this month. There's some debate as to whether or not the IE release will fix Microsoft's shrinking – make that rising - browser market share.

You're not really hard unless you've got a scandal

These days the enterprise hardware crowd can be divided in the Haves and the Have Nots – those that have federal investigations underway and those that don't.

Poor Brocade continues to capture headlines for the wrong reasons after the US Securities and Exchange Commission decided to make an example out of its former CEO Greg Reyes. For it's Reyes who has been tapped as the test case for the stock options probe sweeping the nation.

Lucky for Brocade, the SEC is having a tough time wielding its probe. It has delayed collecting a fine from the storage switch maker. Brocade is also chatting up the FTC about its McData buy.

No stranger to the courts, HP continues to use its spy scandal as a tool for selling more ink cartridges. Former CEO Carly Fiorina shoved her new book out the door attacking old board directors, Compaq chief Mike Capellas, and anyone else she could think of. As we understand it, the book is already up for a second printing. Former chairman Patricia Dunn pushed her quill too with a quixotic editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Topping off the fiasco, CEO Mark Hurd has hired an old chum from NCR as the company's new ethics chief. Because what HP really needed to clean itself up was some good old-fashioned cronyism.

Meanwhile, the likes of IBM and Sun continue to sell their kit, relatively scandal free. IBM wants to cool your boxes, while Sun wants to ship you some new virtual tape. Both vendors also hope to hawk their upcoming RISC chips at you.

Penises conduct interviews in Second Life

While it doesn't have the SEC breathing down its data centres, Sun did chuck up a scandalously bad marketing effort this week. The company has made it possible for penis avatars to interview top executives in Second Life.

Those searching for a laugh will also want to find out the truth behind Microsoft's yesteryear spy efforts against Borland, while those searching for a cry will remember Novell almost founder Ray Norda - dead at 82.

My cache is running green

Security firm Finjan this week begged customers to try and keep their caches clean. As it turns out, those storage boxes and caching servers sitting around your data centre continue to harbour threats long after a malicious website has been dealt with.

Elsewhere, we've got some commentary on renaming the days of the week based on your Microsoft security firms.

Symantec chipped in as well, deciding that network security is really important, or at least something it can call Security 2.0.

I'd rather be mugged than phished

Being clubbed or even just talked into handing over your wallet seems pretty bad. The British public, however, would prefer an honest mugging to a new age phishing or 419 scam.

Those Yanks know how to procure

The British government could turn to the US for some help learning how to purchase technology. That's according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which this week demanded that UK shape up buying practices. Too often, officials are too slow to act or too uniformed to make proper IT decisions. That's not the case, though, for the US's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has IT buying down, according to the CBI.

Outsourced and sucked dry

Outsourcers have started to whine about not being able to make enough money off their customers. A pair of recent studies show that increased competition has allowed companies to become more demanding of their outsourced help. As a result, immense pricing pressure has hit the outsourcing industry and fewer large deals are being signed. It's now up to the outsourcers to prove their worth.

US hackers hoard Brit IDs

UK police are doing their best to try and help some 2,300 residents who had their personal information compromised by a US malware ID theft scam. Coppers in the US seized a machine full of the Brit data – which included names, addresses, credit card numbers and transaction records – and the Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit sprang into action.

Sadly, attempts to warn victims about the compromise have failed with people deleting emails telling them about the data breach.

I'm rich, but not rich enough

Perhaps jealous of the GooTube deal, MySpace founder Brad Greenspan has called for an investigation into News Corp's buy of the social networking site. Greenspan reckons that MySpace could have been worth billions – not the piddly $580m News Corp shelled out. The grumpy fella is asking the US Securities and Exchange Commission to have a dig into the deal.

Can you call back? I'm mating

Some call centre news is so ho-hum. Take, for example, the Information Commissioner's Office decision to investigate data breaches at the phone sweatshops.

Easily topping that drudgery is the word that the Catholic Church wants to clamp down on call centre fornication in India.

Ts and Cs today – data collection tomorrow

O2 will be adding a tidbit to the bills of its next customers. It wants to let you know about the information that can be gathered on call times, location, and length.

Spanked and thanked

We leave you with this gem, which seems to speak for itself: 'I didn't get where I am today without being spanked.'

Thanks for the memories. See you next week. ®