Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Google Plans to Acquire Doubleclick for $3.1 Billion

  Published: September 25, 2007, 10:59 pm

  Tags: Doubleclick, European Union Regulators, European Union, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft

  Google-an outright bellwether among the search engines that we have today would likely have a rocky ride along the way as it is itching to smooch and snag New York-based Doubleclick (An online ad tracker) for $3.1 billion. But there are a number of stakeholders, Yahoo, AT&T, Microsoft and some data privacy advocates who were rallying against

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• National Consumer Agency - Yet another useless government agency

  Published: September 25, 2007, 4:22 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, National Consumer Agency, Nca, Office Of Director Of Corporate Enforcement

  An interesting link today via Damien Mulley to Despod's Photo and Comment Blog where there's some pretty damning evidence of the uselessness of the National Consumer Agency. First of all, how many employees are there in the NCA? And they still can only come up with a pre-written bog-standard generic unhelpful PFO e-mail reply to a

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• N.Va. Trash Regulators Struggle With Repeat Offenders

  Published: October 6, 2007, 12:00 am

  Tags: N Va, Trash, Regulators, Struggle, Repeat, Offenders, Fairfax, Ishmael Wright, Charles D Forbes, Prince William County, Loudoun County, Ashburn Virginia, Tom Smith, Belmont, Mclean Virginia, Monica Gorman, Northern Virginia, Washington Dulles International Airport, Fairfax

  Over the past year, a trash company with more than 40,000 Northern Virginia customers has been cited for dozens of safety, environmental and licensing violations and has refused, at times, to respond to regulators' complaints.

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• Microsoft Yields to European Regulators

  Published: October 23, 2007, 12:00 am

  Tags: Microsoft, Yields, European, Regulators, Microsoft Corporation, European Union, Europe, United States, Microsoft Windows Media Player, Brendan Barnicle, Brent Williams, Charles Di Bona, John Ward Anderson, Neelie Kroes, Pacific Crest Securities, Paris, Sanford C Berns

  Microsoft yesterday capitulated to European Union regulators, ending a decade-long antitrust battle that some say could shape how U.S. companies operate in Europe.

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• Industries Paid for Top Regulators' Travel

  Published: November 2, 2007, 12:00 am

  Tags: Industries, Paid, For, Top, Regulators, Travel, Hal Stratton, Nancy Nord, China, New Orleans, Steve Coronado, Ann Brown, South Carolina, Hilton Head Island, Joan Lawrence, Julie Vallese, Pam Gilbert, Defense Research Institute, Spain, Toy Industry Association Inc, U S Office

  The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by ...

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• Industries Paid for Top Regulators' Travel

  Published: November 2, 2007, 12:00 am

  Tags: Industries, Paid, For, Top, Regulators, Travel, Hal Stratton, Nancy Nord, China, New Orleans, Steve Coronado, Ann Brown, South Carolina, Hilton Head Island, Joan Lawrence, Julie Vallese, Pam Gilbert, Defense Research Institute, Spain, Toy Industry Association Inc, U S Office

  The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by ...

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• Further evidence of how useless the NCA are!

  Published: November 21, 2007, 4:32 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, National Consumer Agency, Nca, Office Of Director Of Corporate Enforcement

  Back in September, I wrote about how the National Consumer Agency and the Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement were taking to writing to PFO letters to this Irish consumers coming to them for help.Some time ago, I found a further example of such a letter from the NCA sent to Ach go h irithe after a complaint about drinks pricing in a

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• We're in the safe hands of our regulators

  Published: December 17, 2007, 6:27 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, Ifsra, Financial Regulator, The Irish Times

  I wonder if Bertie had it in mind that the assessment of our Financial Regulator he's planning (referred to here on Public Inquiry) would cover the hygiene habits of staff within the Central Bank?Cracking article here (sub required) by Quentin Fottrell in todays Opinion section of the Irish Times. The relevant quote for our purposes here is as

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• ODCE - look at how great we are....NOT!!!

  Published: January 7, 2008, 2:22 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, Office Of Director Of Corporate Enforcement, Odce

  The ODCE have published their annual numbers for 2007, and seem to be trying to tell us how great they are - at least according to this brief report from the Irish Times, telling us they're going after larger and more complex cases, and that this explains only 28 convictions this year compared to 46 the year before - despite spending 30% more

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• UNITED STATES: U.S. Feds okay Broadwater LNG

  Published: January 14, 2008, 8:31 am

  Tags: Ferc, Us Regulators, Iroquois Gas Transmission System, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

  regulators have given the first thumbs-up for the Broadwater import terminal for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, at the midway point in the 20-mile-wide Long Island Sound between New York and Connecticut. A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission taskforce looked at ways to minimize disturbing... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my

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• NCA - Crowing over pointless Tesco prosecution

  Published: January 29, 2008, 5:11 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, Tesco, National Consumer Agency, Nca

  Our fantastically useless National Consumer Agency strikes again. Today, they told us how they'd secured a prosecution against Tesco Ireland (the Dundrum store).Excellent, they're looking after our interests. The very naughty "Tesco Ireland was convicted in respect of failing to display the selling price of two items: twin pack tissues and toilet

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• Property Management Companies - Call for Submissions: National Consumer Agency Stakeholder Forumon Multi-Unit Developments

  Published: January 30, 2008, 4:42 am

  Tags: Dublin West, National, Tesco, National Consumer Agency, Nca, Useless Regulators

  NCA,

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• NCA - can't be arsed doing their jobs?

  Published: February 10, 2008, 4:25 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, Grocery Prices, Price Rises, National Consumer Agency

  Back in July last year, we had some fun with the National Consumer Agency over their grocery price survey which excluded Aldi and Lidl. I was reminded this today by an article by Ian Kehoe in the Sunday Business Post, Focus on 14bn grocery trade.A quote from the article goes as follows:The National Consumer Agency (NCA) recently published a

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• Another useless Irish regulator on its way - lucky us!

  Published: February 15, 2008, 10:56 am

  Tags: Npsra, Useless Regulators, Estate Agents, Auctioneers, The Irish Times, Nca, Odce, Regulation

  NPSRA, useless regulators, estate agents, Auctioneers, the Irish Times, NCA, odce,

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• You're paying for the NPSRA - to do SFA!

  Published: February 13, 2008, 5:32 pm

  Tags: Useless Regulators, Npsra

  Related to my post below, one or two other points to add about the National Property Services Regulatory Authority (NPSRA).The new useless regulator has:An office in Navan in MeathA Chief Executive DesignateA staff of up to 5 people (I believe)A budget of 0.5m (or 1m according to here)The new useless regulator does not have:Any power

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