(InfoWorld) - Google has resolved the latest data outage to hit Google Analytics, and it promises to cut down on the frequency of technical problems affecting the Web site traffic-monitoring service.

Analytics went into a data display blackout Saturday evening that lasted until Monday evening. During that time, users could access their accounts but couldn't see traffic data for Sunday and Monday.

"Data for Sunday and Monday was still collected and processed during this time, so no data was lost. By Monday night, accounts were back to normal. We are continuing to take steps to minimize the number of processing delays in the future," a Google spokeswoman said Tuesday afternoon.

The spokeswoman declined to say how many users were affected. Judging by how a Google staffer phrased a pair of messages on the official Analytics blog on Monday, it seems the problem may have been widespread.

Organizations of all sizes use the free Google Analytics to monitor traffic and analyze usage of their Web sites. Using the data collected by Google Analytics, Web publishers make decisions regarding their sites' design, content, and ad space.

When Google Analytics stopped delivering data to users on Saturday, it was the latest in a string of recent performance and availability problems affecting the popular service.

Last week, Google Analytics suffered what the company called a "brief processing delay." Another such delay hit the service during the weekend of July 14 and 15, affecting "a small percentage of users," Google said then.

The previous weekend, a server outage prevented "many" users from creating and logging into new accounts, according to Google . A significant data outage left many users fuming in late May as well.

Google is a big proponent of the software-as-a-service model, in which vendors host in their own servers the applications their clients access. Although this model has benefits, it also has drawbacks, such as the performance and availability problems that have hit Google Analytics. In these situations, users can do little but wait for the vendor to fix the problem on its data center and hope it is done quickly.

(InfoWorld) - Contrary to recent speculation, an antipiracy tool Google is developing for YouTube will not block uploads to the video-sharing site.

Instead, the tool will check videos after they are put on YouTube and flag those that match legitimate material submitted by copyright owners and compiled by Google into a library of restricted uploads, a Google spokesman said.

When the digital fingerprinting tool finds a match in the library, it will take predetermined actions, such as issuing an alert, removing the clip, or both, said Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes.

In this way, the digital fingerprinting tool remains consistent with descriptions of its core design made by senior Google executives in recent months.

It is also congruent with Google's position that YouTube is on the right side of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as long as it removes, upon request, illegally copied videos that owners don't want uploaded without their permission.

The tool became news on Friday, when a Google attorney briefly described it during a routine hearing in the copyright-infringement lawsuit that Viacom filed against the search-engine company.

As press accounts of the attorney's comments began circulating, a number of bloggers and industry insiders wondered if the tool's design had been altered so that it would prevent offending video clips from reaching YouTube's site.

Responding to a request for clarification from IDG News Service, Google's Reyes said that the tool has always been based on digital fingerprinting technology that will flag video clips after they have been uploaded to YouTube.

It is the same tool that Google CEO Eric Schmidt described in April during the company's first-quarter earnings call, Reyes said. At the time, Schmidt said the tool wasn't being designed to filter out and block pirated videos, but rather to help "somewhat automate" the process through which content owners flag illegally copied videos so that Google can remove them from the site.

"It's not a filtering system. The technology doesn't block uploads," Schmidt said in April. "It makes it much more effective and quicker to get us to remove inappropriately uploaded content. It's very much compliant with the DMCA."

The tool is still in development and testing, so some features haven't been finalized yet, Reyes said, adding that Google is now testing the tool's speed and scalability. "I don't have the answers to all the questions [about how the tool works]. We are at very early stages of testing the technology," Reyes said.

On Friday, attorney Philip S. Beck of Barlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott told U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton that Google would try to deliver the video recognition tool by September, according to published reports and a hearing transcript provided by Viacom, which otherwise declined comment.

"Somebody who has a copyrighted video ... would provide it to us and say 'we don't want this up on YouTube.' We're developing a way to take basically an electronic or video or digital fingerprint of this material so that if somebody does try to upload it, within a minute or so the computers will figure out that that's one of the items that the copyright owner said they don't want up on the system, and we would be able to pull that down until any issues are resolved," Beck said, according to the transcript, which Viacom obtained from the court.

Reyes stressed that Google isn't developing this tool to comply with any law, but rather to help copyright owners flag videos they don't want up on YouTube.

"The DMCA doesn't require us to make any of these tools available. The DMCA requires us to take down the content when notified. This just makes it easier for people to flag content, for content owners to notify us," Reyes said. "At the end of the day, we don't want infringing content up there either. That's what it comes down to."

Google already has audio recognition technology in place at YouTube, as well as a mechanism for content owners to manually flag uploaded videos, Reyes said. In addition, Google bans users who violate YouTube's terms of service three times, he said.

The digital fingerprinting tool may not be the last such tool Google develops, Reyes said. "It's all part of the 'Claim your Content' technology, which is a family of tools. This video identification technology would be the latest tool we would offer. It won't necessarily be the last tool because we're going to keep trying to innovate in this area," Reyes said.

Viacom sued Google in March in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement from YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

Friday's hearing was a procedural one intended to set the schedule for the case. The scheduling wasn't completed, so another conference was set for Aug. 6.

Google acquired YouTube in November of last year in a $1.65 billion deal.

This story was updated on July 31, 2007.

(InfoWorld) - Officials in New York state asked Apple on Monday to change its iPhone design to allow consumers to replace their own batteries, just days after lawyers in Illinois filed a class-action lawsuit over the same complaint.

Apple charges customers a $79 fee to replace the iPhone battery, which is sealed inside the phone instead of being attached by a removable latch, like most other consumer electronics. The company also charges an additional $29 to rent the user a temporary replacement phone during the repair.

Apple should revamp those policies and set cheaper fees for the service, according to a letter sent to Apple CEO Steve Jobs by Mindy Bockstein, the chairwoman of New York's Consumer Protection Board.

"A high-end cell phone shouldn't have to have low-end customer service," Bockstein wrote. She also demanded that Apple reveal its contract terms more clearly in its stores and online sites.

Apple did not return calls for comment. An AT&T spokesman referred all battery questions to Apple. AT&T is the sole service provider for the iPhone.

The product has already helped to create new profit at Apple, although it launched just two days before the end of the company's third quarter. Apple reported an $818 million profit for that term and expects that revenue will continue to rise, with an estimated 1 million iPhones sold by the end of the next quarter.

The New York complaint was similar to a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of Cook County, in Chicago. That suit charges both Apple and AT&T with hiding the battery replacement cost from customers until they had already purchased an iPhone. It also alleges that users will have to pay that charge once every year, since the iPhone battery is rated for 300 recharging cycles.

Apple has already issued a statement that the battery should last far longer than one year, since it will still be 80 percent effective after the 300th charge, and since the company counts a full charging cycle only when the battery has been run down to zero power, not for every partial charge.

However, Apple did not return calls for comment on the lawsuit filed in Illinois. Likewise, AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said his company does not comment on pending litigation.

If they decide to contest the lawsuit, the companies will face an experienced foe. The suit was filed by Larry D. Drury, a Chicago attorney who recently led the class-action lawsuit against James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces," a memoir promoted by Oprah Winfrey's book club. Frey admitted fabricating parts of the book. Winfrey renounced her endorsement, and some readers demanded their money back from the publisher. A settlement in the case allows book buyers to file for reimbursement.

Both the letter to Apple and the lawsuit echo another consumer complaint, submitted to Apple in June by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a nonprofit advocacy group in California. The foundation said that Apple had already created controversy when it designed its popular iPod music player with an integrated battery, so the company has had ample time to find a more user-friendly design.

The iPod's permanent battery has not generated many complaints because users are more willing to live without music than phone service, according to comments on several Apple blogs, and to the foundation's letter.

"Unlike the iPod, the iPhone is obviously intended and marketed as a device to be utilized for a broad range of business-related purposes, and on a constant basis," the letter said. "We can only assume that Apple and/or AT&T intend to provide a replacement battery at no charge for the actual life of the phone."

Unless Apple changes its marketing or design strategies as a result of the mounting complaints, the foundation is bound to be disappointed that its assumption will prove wrong.

(InfoWorld) - AT&T made its first foray into over-the-air music downloads in a deal with independent music seller eMusic.com that excludes iPhone users.

AT&T mobile customers can already transfer music from their PCs to mobile phones, but the eMusic deal lets them download songs wirelessly to their handsets. Each song downloaded to the phone is also automatically available for the user to download to their PC for no additional cost.

The operator has followed its competitors in charging a premium for the songs. There is no per-song pricing option. Customers will pay $7.49 per month for five songs, with the option of adding five more songs for the same price. That works out to $1.50 per song.

By comparison, PC users subscribe to eMusic on the low end for $9.99 per month, which includes 30 songs. That works out to 33 cents per song.

AT&T strongly recommends that users have an unlimited data plan before even previewing tracks on the eMusic mobile service.

For now, users can choose from four phones to use the mobile service: the Samsung a717 and a727, new versions of the Samsung Sync, and the Nokia N75.

Absent from that list is the iPhone, introduced by AT&T on June 29; iPhone users transfer music from iTunes on their computers to the phone and can't download music wirelessly.

In addition to eMusic and the iPhone option, AT&T promotes Napster and Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go as options for its customers to transfer songs from their PCs to their phones.

eMusic offers more than 2 million songs for download and exclusively sells music that is free of DRM. While its catalog includes some mainstream artists, most of its music comes from independent labels.

Sprint Nextel launched an over-the-air music download service in 2005, charging $2.50 per song but has since cut that price to 99 cents. Verizon Wireless charges $1.99 per song for wireless downloads.

In Europe, Omnifone was started earlier this year to offer mobile music. It has signed agreements to sell music from the major labels and 30 operators have said they'll offer the service to customers. It costs €2.99 ($4) per week for unlimited downloads.

(InfoWorld) - A U.S. Federal Communications Commission decision Tuesday on wireless spectrum action rules is a "mixed bag" for customers, some advocacy groups said.

[ See related: FCC embraces open access for 700MHz auction ]

The FCC voted to require so-called open-access rules on 22MHz of the 62MHz of spectrum to be auctioned by early next year. The winner of that chunk of spectrum will be required to accept outside wireless devices such as mobile phones, and will be prohibited from blocking or slowing wireless and Web content from competitors.

But the FCC declined to adopt rules that would require the auction winner to provide wholesale access to competing wireless and broadband providers, a rule supported by groups such as Public Knowledge and Consumers Union, as well as Google.

"Consumers should be pleased with part of the FCC’s decision today," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. "In the new wireless services created as a result of this decision, they won’t be forced to abandon cell phones or other devices they have purchased when they change service providers."

But the FCC will lift those conditions if a reserve price for the spectrum isn't met. "This condition leaves a broad opening for the industry to avoid these pro-consumer policies," Sohn said.

The lack of a wholesale access rule also limits the benefits, she said. "The commission’s actions are a split decision for consumers because the commission had the potential to do so much more," she said. "While Chairman Martin and some of the other commissioners spoke about the potential to help consumers by creating more competition for high-speed Internet services, at the end of the day they did nothing about it."

Others said the open-access rules would limit bidding for the spectrum block. FCC commissioner Robert McDowell said the auction conditions will drive large wireless and broadband providers to other sections of the spectrum auction made available for regional bidding. Small wireless and broadband providers will be outbid on those regional spectrum auction, he predicted.

The commission is hoping that a "single white knight" will bid on the 22MHz block, but no company has committed to bidding, he said.

Other commissioners created a "highly tailored garment that may fit no one," he said.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin, like McDowell a Republican, said the commission's goal wasn't to please any wireless or broadband provider. "The public interest is not about what any company wants," he said. "It's about serving the people."

Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition.org, an advocacy group against auction conditions, predicted the 22MHz may not attract enough bids. "There is a very substantial risk that this becomes known as the 'do over' FCC auction," he wrote on his blog. "First, to any outside observer, the FCC's highly tailored auction rules appear to have a pretty obvious 'set aside' for the Google camp and its proposed net neutrality/open access business model for a third of the 700MHz spectrum."

But Janice Obuchowski, chairwoman of Frontline Wireless, generally praised the FCC's decision. The commission largely endorsed a Frontline plan for part of the spectrum that would allow the winning bidder on 10MHz of spectrum to pair that with 12MHz set aside for public safety agencies.The winning bidder would then be required to build a broadband network that serves both public safety and commercial users.

"We've come a long way," Obuchowski said. "We're ready for the auction. We will be a bidder."