Holiday Wire: Sacca As VC; iTunes Ovi Offer; Aussie Age Regs
—5 Questions with Chris Sacca: Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google (NSDQ: GOOG) (responsible for Google’s spectrum bid), is among the latest to depart the Googleplex to become an investor. IN an interview, he talks about open networks: “The impending openness creates huge opportunity. Although I was hopeful about getting them to open their networks, I must admit that even I didn’t expect Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) to be competing with each other for the title of most open. The result will be that small teams can build apps that users want and get them directly into the hands of consumers without having to suffer through months of costly deal negotiations with carriers.:
—A Nokia (NYSE: NOK) board member has been quoted as saying: “Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) can get into our portal [Ovi]. We even invite (Apple Inc chief executive) Steve Jobs to do so”, adding that Apple’s iTunes store would be an enrichment for Nokia’s customers. While that might be true, I suspect the offer was made under the strong assumption that Apple wouldn’t be taking it up any time soon. Nokia’s strategy with Ovi includes partnerships—the handsets offer both Nokia’s services and those of the carrier—and it’s reasonable they’d want to include the best-known digital music store in the world…but I can’t see Apple giving away its advantage. (Thomson Financial via Engadget Mobile)
—The Australian Communications and Media Authority has released rules to restrict access to online or mobile content designated 15+ or 18+ (release). The 15+ content restriction isn’t that onerous since content providers can simply take the word of the person seeking to view the content that they are 15 or older, but the 18+ content requires an age verification system. This brings digital content in line with non-digital content in this regard. Previous regulations covering this area have been dispensed with. The full details are here.
Posted In: Legal, Regulatory, Companies, Apple, Nokia, Countries, Australia & New Zealand
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