Addressing a petition for cancellation of the GMail trademark in the US, Google responded to the US Patent and Trademark Office that International Independent Investment Research’s application for the trademark was invalid from the beginning.

IODA, a digital distribution company for the independent music community, has announced a new service, which will allow independent record, labels to sell digital music directly to consumers on label and artist Web sites.

The company has partnered with DownloadCentric to offer the service to its label, distributor and artist clients. They will use the platform to create customized storefronts, which will facilitate direct-to- fan sales.

When it receives a complaint from content owners regarding copyrighted videos, YouTube is usually pretty quick to comply with regulations and pull down the infringing clips. As it turns out, those clips may still be available for viewing and/or download on YouTube’s servers.

The news doesn’t seem to be getting any better for YouTube.

According to new data from TNS Media Intelligence, Internet phone company Vonage spent over $185 million on display ads in 2006, outspending competitors Verizon Communications and display ad giant Netflix.

The budget share for display and classified ads will remain unchanged through 2011, with paid search gaining ground and rich media along with video increasing according to eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.

Internet companies are salivating at the moneymaking opportunities presented in the thus far untapped Chinese marketplace. The dilemma, however, still lies in the form of censorship practices enforced by the nation’s government. Will the country’s officials allow a Chinese version of the site to be accessed?

More useful information for site publishers arrives from Google’s Webmaster Central as they begin reporting on anchor text phrases linking to a website; Danny Sullivan coins a word to describe the update.

Security firm Fortinet has found a lot of malicious code posted on Google’s Blogger service, with a mass mailer worm directing spam recipients to it in some instances.

Google is working on a mobile phone, a Google executive confirmed, but you may not see it in the States.

It would, after all, steal some Apple thunder, and Schmidt and Jobs are billionaire buddies.

Engadget reports that Isabel Aguilera, a Googler heading up things on the Iberian Peninsula, said there is a Google phone being developed, but are intended for the the markets in developing nations.

Vodafone’s getting deeper and deeper into this whole Internet thing – the latest reports indicate that the company is exploring options with MSN, Yahoo, and AOL.  It has also displayed several mobile phones designed to work with Skype, and has presented some VoIP technology.

Harris Interactive, a market research company has announced the results of new research into consumer acceptance of mobile phone advertisements. The research looked at current levels of consumer interest in mobile phone advertisements, preferred advertising methods and the willingness of consumers to be profiled.

March Madness begins today and already the tournament action is in full swing with enough opening round games to satisfy even the most ravenous of college basketball appetites.

Today is the Ides of March – the same day that Julius Caesar was betrayed and assassinated so many years ago.  And although it’s not likely to go down in history in quite the same way, another betrayal has taken place – Lenovo has chosen Microsoft’s software (in place of Google’s) as its default search application.

There’s a new (and official) personalized homepage gadget in town: Google Talk. It’s quite nice, and after a quick trial I have to say I prefer this to both desktop Google Talk, as well as Gmail’s Google Chat alternative.