No sign of ad upturn for AOL

AOL says it expects any increases in subscription revenues to be offset by a drop in advertising revenues by as much as 50 per cent during 2003. The drop is largely due to pre-booked ads not delivering the revenues first anticipated. This, balanced with the predicted income from new advertising will put revenues for 2003 roughly par with those of 2002, says the company. ...more

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MCPS-PRS fights back over music download charges

The MCPS-PRS (Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society) Alliance has issued its response to allegations that it overcharges for the rights to sell music downloads. Yesterday the BPI and leading UK downloads stores announced that they are taking legal action against the Alliance to force it to charge the same for digital rights as it does for broadcast. In a statement, the Alliance said that the 'disappointing' decision to take legal action demonstrated a complete lack of imagination. ...more

Signs of life in local loop unbundling

Oftel has announced 360 new exchanges that will be opened up to rivals in the unbundling of the local loops. This makes a total of 741 exchanges that BT is setting up to take equipment from competitors. ISPs will then be able to offer their own high-speed ADSL services to customers at their own prices. ...more

Symantec and Veritas to marry

Symantec and Veritas are to merge in a $13.5bn stock deal. The deal between Symantec, security specialist and builder of the popular Norton antivirus software, and storage giant Veritas is the biggest in Silicon Valley history and has already been approved by both boards. ...more