According to various reports, Germany will not be signing the controversial treaty, at least not anytime soon. Perhaps the Germany is waiting for the EU parliament to issue its vote of consent, but that won’t happen until later this year, sometime in the summer.

According to a Google translation of an article appearing in Spiegel.de, German government officials offered the following response for their ACTA delay:

The minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), has now made ​​it clear that in Germany first before a decision is to decide the EU Parliament. “It is good that the public debate about ACTA, both on and offline so committed is done,” the justice minister said on Thursday. “The EU must now decide whether it needs ACTA and wants,” said Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. “This must be approved by the European Parliament only once. All controversial issues are being discussed at European level and must now be answered.”

While the translation is responsible for the broken English-like response, it appears as if Germany’s government officials won’t act until the controversy surrounding the bill is addressed. Conversely, it also seems as if the German government is waiting on the EU parliament to weigh in before their vote is offered.

While that may indeed be the case, the fact German officials are acknowledging the controversy surrounding ACTA and other Internet regulatory treaties and laws, which indicates the protests are indeed being noticed. With that in mind, if the following Hatebreed masterpiece isn’t the theme song of the anti-ACTA movement, something needs to change:

From the release (I don’t read German and so this is translated using Chrome’s built-in translating device so I remove myself from any responsibility for awful translations):

By using Google Chrome in conjunction with the other measures outlined above, you can reduce the risk of a successful IT greatly reduce attack.

Equally beneficial in Google Chrome is the auto-update feature, which also integrated the Adobe Flash Player covers. Thus, the Adobe Flash Player is kept up to date.

The report goes on to say other encouraging things about Chrome, such as calling it a “central component for using any online service.” Google accepted the endorsement graciously (is there any other way to accept praise, though?) in a post to their official blog earlier today:

Security has always been a core focus of Chrome, so we’re particularly honored to see several of its security benefits recognized in the report.

These lawsuits merely add to a long list of legal battle between the two technology giants. Earlier this week Apple lost in efforts to prove Samsung, and partner Galaxy Tab, guilty of infringing on FOSS patents in a Dutch court.

No doubt that Samsung will be appealing some of the court decisions. So far though neither Apple nor Samsung has made very much progress in their litigation against each other. One dominant cause for their lack of progress in the courts might be the fact that both corporations are doing very well sales wise.

Neither one can substantiate any significant losses due to the infringements, so no court has been eager to impose a settlement agreement. I am sure we have not see the last of these suits from either party.

Bloomberg reports today that Apple has filed yet another lawsuit in Germany, this time seeking to ban sales of multiple Samsung devices. The design suit, which focuses on Samsung smartphones such as Galaxy S Plus and the S II, alleges that the models violate Apple’s design rights. As if the fun should stop there – and why should it – Apple filed a separate lawsuit against five Samsung tablets. The Bloomberg report continues:

Last month, the Dusseldorf court said it is unlikely to grant an injunction against the Galaxy 10.1N and an appeals court also voiced doubts about the reach of Apple’s European Union design right that won the company the injunction against the Galaxy 10.1. The new suits aren’t filed under emergency proceedings and allow Apple a new procedure against both models.

The end of last year was witness to an international back-and-forth court room dispute between Samsung and Apple that played out in courts in the United States, Germany and Australia. No word yet on where they plan to take their Patent Lawsuit World Tour next.

To be fair, though, not all of this design war is futile act of hair-splitting. At the beginning of this year, you may recall the debut of the Samsung Ace, which was a might familiar looking if you’re an Apple fanboy.

eBay has owned a minority stake in BillSafe since October 2010. Now it owns the whole thing.

eBay says BillSafe works with merchants of all sizes in Germany, where there are already over 15 million PayPal accounts. Purchase-on-invoice is the most popular form of payment in Germany, as well as in Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, eBay says.

“German customers are extremely security-conscious, and they enjoy the convenience and safety of invoicing when they shop online. One of PayPal’s greatest assets is the security of our system, and we’re glad that we can now offer customers even more peace of mind with a payment method that they already know and prefer and that drives more sales for the merchants,” says Arnulf Keese, managing director of PayPal Germany. “Together with BillSAFE, we can offer even more choices to our customers – whether they prefer to pay with their bank accounts, their credit cards or now through purchase on invoice.”

“Purchase on invoice is an ideal addition to the payment options available with PayPal and makes it the most comprehensive service for consumers and merchants alike,” said Alexander Ey, managing director of BillSAFE. “Security-conscious shoppers can receive and inspect the merchandise they bought online before paying for their purchases. And merchants can sell to customers who were previously skeptical of buying online. It’s an ideal match.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. eBay says it doesn’t expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial guidance as issued in its Q3 earnings release.

“Google Analytics complies with European data protection laws and is used by other European data protection authorities on their own websites.”

Reports indicated that German officials had ended talks with Google to resolve the issue, but Google said it would continue “actively working to address their concerns.”

Apparently there was some progress made, as Google has put up a post on its German AdWords blog. “While the use of Google Analytics in our opinion is not against the German and European data protection law, had German data protection authorities in the past to have a dissenting view,” says Google Data Protection Commissioner, Germany, Per Meyerdierks (as translated by Google). “We have worked closely with these authorities – represented by the Hamburg Institute for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Officer – concerns regarding the collaborated and implemented a number of improvements to Google Analytics.”

Meyerdierks says the following government requirements must be met for those who wish to use Google Analytics in Germany (also as translated by Google):

• Please mention in your privacy policy that Google Analytics is used on your website.
• Implement the IP mask function instructs the Google Analytics to not save the full IP address of your users or to process.
• Instruct in your privacy policy on the possibility of disabling the Google Analytics function using a browser add-on to. End users can, if desired, to prevent very easy by installing this browser add-on that analysis information can be sent to Google. This possibility exists for over a year for Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer is now available for Safari and Opera and has proven successful and efficient solution for users.
• We have updated Terms introduced to include with the data protection authorities coordinated arrangements for data processing.

An official statement from German officials can be found here (in German).

As pointed out by The Local, the issues with Facebook were explained by a ULD release, and it essentially says Facebook’s “Like” button builds profiles of users and submits them back to a server in the United States. This is a direct violation of the rules set up by Germany concerning the privacy of its citizens. Because of that, German businesses that reside in the Schleswig-Holstein district must remove the “Like” button from their sites, or else face punishment in the form of a fine:

ULD expects from website owners in Schleswig-Holstein to immediately stop the passing on of user data to Facebook in the USA by deactivating the respective services. If this does not take place by the end of September 2011, ULD will take further steps. After performing the hearing and administrative procedure this can mean a formal complaint according to sect. 42 LDSG SH for public entities, a prohibition order pursuant to sect. 38 par. 5 BDSG as well as a penalty fine for private entities. The maximum fine for violations of the TMG is 50TS Euro.

That’s 50,000 Euros for those who aren’t sure.

Facebook maintains that their “Like” button meets EU’s privacy standards, but a spokesperson for the ULD, Thilo Weichert, disagrees:

ULD has pointed out informally for some time that many Facebook offerings are in conflict with the law. This unfortunately has not prevented website owners from using the respective services and the more so as they are easy to install and free of charge. Web analytics is among those services and especially informative for advertising purposes. It is paid with the data of the users. With the help of these data Facebook has gained an estimated market value of more than 50 bn. dollars ($50 billion)…

Nobody should claim that there are no alternatives; there are European and other social media available that take the protection of privacy rights of Internet users far more serious. That they also may contain problematic applications must not be a reason to remain idle towards Facebook, but must prompt us as supervisory authorities to pursue these violations.

Basically, don’t use anything that could potentially feed Facebook’s metrics-gathering system. In fact, Weichert suggests using other social media platforms, although, the problem with that is potentially missing out on Facebook’s far-and-wide reach.

Nevertheless, the burden of being Facebook-compliant falls on the business owners, at least for now. Nothing in the documents indicates Facebook will be punished for these privacy violations, perceived or otherwise. The fines will not be aimed at Facebook for collecting the data, instead, they will be for the owners who continue to feed the beast.

A note to cynics, worrywarts, and shareholders: this move isn’t as random as it may seem.  Although it does mark Google’s first clean tech investment outside the U.S., the company’s done a lot with wind power in the past – including making a $38.8 million investment in two wind farms – so it’s not as if new CEO Larry Page is acting in an unprecedented manner.

Google isn’t even taking the lead with respect to this one solar plant, for that matter, considering its $5 million investment should buy the company just a 49 percent stake.

Anyway, the plant is one of Germany’s largest, and is located in Brandenburg an der Havel, a town near Berlin.  According to a post on the European Public Policy Blog, it covers a site that the Russian military used as a training ground through the early 90s.

Otherwise, the post declared, “The power plant has a peak capacity of 18.65MWp . . . .  This facility will provide clean energy to more than 5,000 households in the area surrounding Brandenburg.”

Google jointly invested in the solar plant with German private equity company Capital Stage, by the way, and it wouldn’t be too surprising if other outside-the-U.S. clean tech investments follow.

A little refresher for anyone who hasn’t been following along: Germany’s the country in which so many politicians and private citizens expressed concerns about Street View that Google gave them a chance to opt out (a first for the company).   About 244,000 people took advantage of the offer, and Google eventually released censored photos of some landmarks and a tourist-oriented town.

Now for the legal matter.  Deutsche Welle reported today, “[T]he Berlin State Supreme Court (Kammergericht) announced its decision in a court case from late last year, in which a woman had sued Google, fearing that photos of her, her family and the front of her house would be posted on Google Street View and would thus violate her property and privacy rights.”

Next, the report continued, “The court ruled that it is legal to take photographs from street level, rejecting her argument that Google was trying to take unauthorized pictures. . . .  This is the first high-level court ruling, which cannot be appealed any further, regarding Street View since the service debuted in Germany at the end of last year.”

So again, this is an important victory for Google.  And, although the specific issues were different, it’s arguably even more significant since French authorities fined Google over Street View today.

He talks about Google increasing its presence in Europe and Germany, and the funding of a center for discussing/debating the evolution of the web. He also announces a small business initiative.

He then talks about OnePass, the new subscription service the company announced recently.  

There are some microphone issues at the beginning that are somewhat comical.