The Department of Justice has approved Google’s $700 million purchase of ITA Software, the world’s largest flight data company.
As part of the approval, Google must accept certain restrictions, however.
The major restriction is that Google must continue to license ITA software to airfare sites “on commercially reasonable terms” and Google must promise to continue enhancing the software “in a manner consistent” with ITA’s development over the past decade.
Google must also use an internal firewall that will block the company from gaining “competitively sensitive information” off of ITA customers.
Says the DOJ (via CNN):
The Department of Justice’s proposed remedy promotes robust competition for airfare websites by ensuring those websites will continue to have access to ITA’s pricing and shopping software.
ITA software organizes flight data like times, prices, availability and more, and is used on sites like Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia.com, TripAdvisor and Bing, among others.
Result for: decade
After nearly a year’s worth of work, the new version of AfterDawn’s backend and layout is almost ready for the prime time. Still some minor bugs need to be fixed, a few mysterious issues need to be addressed, etc. but it is almost ready (we’d say 99% done) and you can test it now.
So, please visit AfterDawn “v4″ at:
http://www.v4.afterdawn.com/
or click here to view this news article in the new layout.
Let us know your thoughts. Post your comments to this news article or use our feedback form to contact us directly. I must also mention that the site wont function properly if you’re using IE6, Netscape 3.x, Mosaic or any other browser that is almost a decade old. Furthermore, many sections of the site utilize — to very small degree, I must say — JavaScript, so it is recommended to have it turned on in your browser’s settings.
Here are some of the most notable changes:
Complete redesign of the AfterDawn backend
The page loads should be much quicker
Result for: decade
Note: Starting this week, we at AfterDawn are introducing a Video Daily segment relevant to the tech world and giving our users something a little “different.”
AdweekMedia has announced that Apple has won the “Brand of the Decade” award among others in their publication’s “Best of the 2000s” advertising awards. The company also did well in the publication’s Reader’s Choice Poll.
CEO Steve Jobs won “Marketer of the Decade,” mainly due to his innovations in the digital music world (iPods) and in the smartphone market (iPhone). In the reader’s choice poll, Jobs won by a large margin, garnering 51 percent of the vote. In second place was Larry Light of McDonalds.
For “Brand of the Decade” the margin wasn’t as high, but Apple still ran away with it, beating out Google for the award, and in the reader’s choice poll.
The iPod was given ““Product of the Decade”” by the magazine while the readers gave the award to the iPhone, followed by the iPod.
Continuing the same trend, the iPhone won “Digital Device/Platform of the Decade” in the reader’s poll, however Facebook won the editor’s choice.
“Marketing Innovation of the Decade” was given to viral videos by the editors, but the reader’s gave it to, not surprisingly, iPhone apps.
Finally, Apple won “Campaign of the Decade” for its “Get a Mac” ads, which show Macs (played by Justin Long) as the “cool” kids while Windows machines are virus-prone, and “un-cool.” The reader’s chose the anti-cigarette “Truth” ads for the award.
