Penske Media Corporation, which owns publication/blog brands like BGR, Deadline, Hollywood Life, HollyBaby, ENTV, MovieLine, TVLine, and OnCars, has now acquired Variety, the entertainment news publication that has been around for over a century.

Variety was founded in 1905 by Sime Silverman, and now it has been purchased by Penske from Reed Elsevier for an officially undisclosed sum (though the New York Times is reporting $25 million). Reed Elsevier has owned the publication since 1987.

Variety President Niel Stiles said, “We are enthusiastic that PMC will become the new steward of the great Variety franchise, which Reed Elsevier has built over the past 20 years, and the Silverman family for the 80 years before that. PMC is uniquely positioned to preserve and build the market presence of Variety. Their shared values and complementary assets provide for many new opportunities for the business model and brand.”

Jay Penske, Chairman and CEO of PMC, said, “Since 1905, Variety has been the world’s premier entertainment news source, and is today one of the most recognized global media brands. We are thrilled to welcome Variety and its exceptional team into the PMC organization. As a company we plan to rapidly build upon Variety’s foundation, while extending this invaluable brand’s presence across web, broadcast, mobile, and international markets.”

Brooks Barnes at the NYT reports, “There was some trepidation in Variety’s genteel newsroom on Tuesday about how Deadline, known for its aggressive reports, might affect news-gathering; other Variety staff members were glad to be free of Reed, which rarely invested in the newspaper.”

The Variety business currently includes Daily Variety, Weekly Variety, Conferences & Events, and Variety.com’s archives, which include film and TV information dating back to 1914.

Variety.com gets about 320,000 unique monthly visitors according to comScore data, compared to Deadline’s 2.4 million. Variety.com, however, has a paywall. It will be interesting to see if this is lifted under Penske.

The European Commission extended the deadline for reviewing Google’s purchase on competitive grounds. They moved the date for a decision from October 26th to November 13th.

Placating Neelie Kroes and company on the Commission required Google to back off on some undisclosed intentions for managing DoubleClick, according to Forbes:

“In response to third-party concerns, Google has committed to the European Commission that we will keep certain DoubleClick business practices unchanged,” said Julia Holtz, competition counsel for the ad-happy search engine. “We believe that the deal is good for publishers, advertisers and users.”

A spokesman for Google would not detail these “business practices,” but said it was in response to third-party concerns.

Unlike the much-rumored free pass the Federal Trade Commission seems to be ready to give to the deal, its European counterpart looks like it wants some actual concessions from Google before giving its approval.

A report on Deadline Hollywood Daily suggested the duo have a minimal chance of seeing such a payday happen. Nikki Finke wrote:

I’m told by News Corp insiders that the chances of DeWolfe and Anderson getting what they want pay-wise is “slim to none” and “highly unlikely”. Even though the duo’s MySpace is incredibly dominant in the social networking sphere, attracting almost 80% of all U.S. visits.

Then again, Friendster was huge until next generation MySpace came along. So I think the duo had better hurry and nail down their deal because, every day, MySpace faces more huge pressure from smaller but increasingly popular Facebook, which now gets 12% of all U.S. social networking business.

The deal they could agree to right away would be $15 million each, spread over two years. That doesn’t sound too bad, considering they sold MySpace to News Corp for $580 million. The hue and cry over their sizable demand sounds a little out of order, though.

First, News Corp managed to make a $900 million deal with Google for search and advertising services on MySpace. Recently, rumors of a MySpace-Yahoo deal began to circulate. That deal, exchanging MySpace for 25 percent of Yahoo, would value MySpace in the neighborhood of $12.5 billion.

Even though the massive pay packet for Anderson and DeWolfe has been greeted dismissively, it may not be out of line with MySpace’s apparent value.

The deadline arrived along with observances from privacy advocates, who do not share the FBI’s or DoJ’s enthusiasm for CALEA’s entry into the Internet. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing commented on the extension of wiretap law into data:

This has been the law for voice switches for over a decade, where it represents a potential holiday for dirty cops who don’t have warrants use these back-doors (and criminals and corporate espionageists who want to eavesdrop on sensitive calls). Now it’s part of our data infrastructure as well. Nice one, America.

Kevin Poulsen at Wired’s Threat Level blog demonstrated a similar lack of enthusiasm about CALEA’s drop-dead date:

It’s worth noting that the new requirements don’t alter the legal standards for law enforcement to win court orders for internet wiretaps. Fans of CALEA expansion argue that it therefore won’t increase the number of Americans under surveillance.

That’s wrong, of course. Making surveillance easier and faster gives law enforcement agencies of all stripes more reason to eschew old-fashioned police work in favor of spying.

In an ideal world, surveillance would be seen as a beneficent entity, watching for events that disrupt societal norms. The world is far from ideal, and while arguments against CALEA may be dismissed in favor of law enforcement concerns, the potential for abuse does exist.

Let’s hope the public’s desire for a safe society isn’t fulfilled by a controlled one where non-mainstream thought is checked into silence through fear.

It seems the show just keeps getting bigger and better with this year’s event featuring all of your favorite speakers.

You can catch my gig on Tuesday August 8th, when I’ll be discussing Online Reputation Monitoring and certainly don’t miss the 5th Annual Google Dance!

July 24th is the deadline to get the reduced conference pass pricing.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

The 2006 WebAwards call for entries has been extended, the association announced on its blog. Those awards will recognize the best in web development.

The extension allows final entries to be submitted and current entries to be tweaked before the judging takes place. The WMA discussed some of the details behind its awards in the blog entry:

Sponsors like SimpleFeed and MacWorld support the WebAwards, which have grown in status over the years. Last year, the WMA dubbed National Geographic’s Inside The Mafia website the best in show for 2005.

This will be the tenth year the WebAwards have been conducted. With a few days left until the deadline, web developers have some time remaining to submit their creations for consideration for this year’s awards.

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Does this mean that responses and bids have been less than stellar, or that Google realized twelve days simply wasn’t enough time for most people to get their bids in?

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

Google’s venture into selling print advertising in 28 magazines has had its deadline for applying extended:

That statement makes us curious. Doesn’t AdWords function on an auction basis now? Why would existing AdWords advertisers have any problem with the process? The process looks straightforward, and Google answers questions about the print auction in a Help page.

Services with high demand don’t get deadline extensions, as a rule of thumb. It looks more like Google wants additional advertisers to get in on the bidding.

The AdSense team wants to see its network of site publishers consider using Google Base for content sharing, in addition to posting content on their websites:

More avenues for exposing content does sound good. This opens up some interesting questions. Will a Local search for pizza places turn up someone’s review of a restaurant? If I search Froogle for a DVD, will I be prompted to take a look at someone’s screenplay stored in Base?

Back on February 2nd, Google had to rollback the release of Versioning and Content Bidding for AdWords API users. The AdWords API team still has some bugs to squash:

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The FCC has tried to address the problems customers encountered with Internet phones and 911 service. By compelling VoIP providers to notify and receive acknowledgement that customers understand emergency dialing may not always work with their products, the FCC has placed the burden of education on them.

Not all customers have acknowledged these notifications, the Wall Street Journal notes, and the FCC was going to require those customers, numbering tens of thousands of users, be cutoff from VoIP service until they do.

An appeal from those providers has convinced the regulatory agency to push back the compliance deadline. In the absence of a customer response to the notification, the FCC wants to see VoIP companies stop regular phone service, but not emergency dialing.

While VoIP offers an inexpensive way to place calls from a computer, it is dependent upon the computer and the broadband connection it uses. If the computer fails or the connection becomes lost, the VoIP service no longer functions.

There have been cases involving VoIP where attempts to make emergency calls did not go through to 911 dispatchers, and lawsuits have resulted from those problems.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

$5 million USD per day. That’s what the Redmond-based software company could face in fines from the European Union, beginning by the end of July.

Microsoft was fined $624 million USD last year for anticompetitive practices. That ruling centered around allowing third-party developers certain source code access to Microsoft’s server operating systems. Microsoft has traditionally fought any efforts to open its source code to competitors.

Another issue concerns the bundling of the Windows Media Player with the Windows operating system as purchased by consumers. EU regulators continue to have concerns that the company may provide a technically inferior version of Windows without the Media Player.

And Microsoft has been unhappy with the proposed rates and royalties it could charge in Europe for the operating system and code licenses, respectively.

Though the two parties spent the holiday weekend negotiating on the compliance issue, no progress has been reported.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.