The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today that it has closed its file on Google’s disclosure that Street Cars used to collect information for its mapping service had inadvertently collected consumer data. This is following Google’s pledge that the company will not use any of such date for any Google’s service or product.

Although this is so, Commissions in some other countries continue to probe the company; rightly so since Google, though initially said that they have inadvertently collected just brief details of users over unsecured Wi-Fi networks, later discovered that the information captured in actual fact, contained entire emails and passwords.

This should be good news to Google. Though it seems like nothing could touch Google now, I hope that such news would alert people to check on their Wi-Fi networks and secure them, if necessary. You’d be surprised how many users do not even know if they are secured or otherwise!

Peer-2-Peer file sharing website has been ordered by the court to close down permanently for violation of copyright on a massive scale. LimeWire has battled Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the courts for a long time so this looks like they have finally lost.

This is not the end of the story, of course, as the RIAA said that the court will conduct a trial in January next year to determine damages (and losses). Also, since LimeWire founder, Mark Gorton, has been found personally liable, I am afraid the long arm of the law will reach him.

Although I do not use LimeWire, I still feel sad that an open source P2P project has met its death this way. Not all sharing of large files are illegal but then there will always be people misusing a service, especially when it’s good. LimeWire was just a medium.

If you have been following technology news, you would know that the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, has asked people to “move” if they are not happy that their houses have been captured on Google’s Street View. He later apologised, passing the remark off as a joke.

Whether it was a joke or just a misspeak and even though he has apologised for it already, I still think that it’s very arrogant of him to ask people to leave if they are not happy with being captured by the Google Street View Car. It’s not easy for people to just “move” and besides, why should we?

Anyway, for people who are not happy being caught on camera, albeit only their houses, they could write in to Google and ask that the image be removed. Google will comply, don’t worry, but surely, it’s a hassle to home owners! Don’t you agree?

Yahoo! Mail has undergone a revamp and many users are saying it is refreshing. I have a Yahoo! Mail account which I hardly use but just log in occasionally to check on my junk mail so this change, even though it’s long overdue, doesn’t affect me much. I understand that it has been almost five years since Yahoo! Mail had a major revamp. That’s like so long in internet age.

If Yahoo! Mail is still your primary email account, perhaps you should try out the new layout. There are many changes now and may I say, less clutter. There are fewer advertisements as well; you may notice that all on the left have been removed.

In addition, you can tweet without leaving your Yahoo! Mail page. As for me, I would rather use a Twitter desktop application! LOL other changes include font size, new colours, applications, and of course, simplified email filtering. I am thinking that with the new layout and so many new changes, people will need time to get used to it.