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Yahoo chief says Microsoft not interested in renewed takeover tr

Autor admin | 29.05.2008 | Category Internet News, Microsoft, Yahoo

CARLSBAD, California (AFP) - Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang said Wednesday that Microsoft is “no longer interested” in buying the pioneering Internet firm, but is considering “other partnerships.”

Yang also maintained that Yahoo is “not under siege” despite a threatened stockholder revolt led by billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn.

Yang’s comments came during a speech at an “All Things Digital” conference organized by the Wall Street Journal in the Southern California city of Carlsbad.

“Microsoft is no longer interested in buying the company and they are discussing various other partnerships with us,” Yang said, echoing comments made the prior evening by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

“We are listening.”

Yang implied that sparring that took place between the companies while Microsoft’s nearly 50 billion dollar offer was on the table has given way to talks aimed at finding a way for them to work together.

Microsoft could have taken a “much more hostile” tact and tried to oust the Yahoo board of directors that rebuffed advances by the Redmond, Washington, based software giant, according to Yang.

Yang stressed that it was Microsoft, not Yahoo, which walked away from the bargaining table.

Microsoft says it broke off takeover talks in late April after it upped its February 1 bid of 44.6 billion dollars by three billion dollars and Yahoo’s board still wanted more.

Yang defended the board’s handling of failed takeover talks with Microsoft and pleaded anew the case that the struggling Internet firm is poised to recapture its former glory and a bigger share of online advertising dollars.

Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo to better take on Google, which dominates the lucrative world of Internet search and advertising.

“They definitely have an interest in Yahoo,” Yang said of Microsoft. “With the right circumstances, not only price, our board is open.”

Talks between Yahoo and Microsoft may be centered on letting Microsoft handle Yahoo’s online advertising in the belief it can pump more cash out of the promising revenue source.

Yahoo successfully tested just such an arrangement with Google during Microsoft’s takeover try.

An alliance with Microsoft, or even Google, could be a salvation for Yahoo board members facing a showdown with Icahn.

Icahn has reportedly bought a stake of more than four percent in the California firm and says he plans to oust board members he accuses of botching takeover talks with Microsoft.

Icahn has nominated a Microsoft-friendly slate, which includes him, to replace all ten Yahoo board members at elections to be held at an annual meeting in late July.

Yahoo delayed the shareholders meeting to an unspecified date because it needs time to prepare for the threatened coup attempt.

“The perception of us being a company under siege is just not accurate,” Yang said as he was peppered with questions about Yahoo’s future.

Yahoo’s potential to make money online stretches far beyond search, according to company president Susan Decker.

Internet search accounts for only 10 percent of the space for placing online advertising, and Yahoo boasts 500 million people that routinely use its properties, which include free email and user groups.

“It’s an enormous asset,” Decker said at the conference. “It’s undervalued. We want to do more with it.”

Yahoo!

Google could pick Git to manage Android code

Autor admin | 24.05.2008 | Category Open Source

Releasing 8.6 million lines of source code and expecting open-source programmers to join Google in its development is a technological challenge.

But when Google does make its Android mobile phone software an open-source project later this year, it looks likely it will take a page from the Linux playbook and use a tool called Git to manage that part of the work.

Linux leader Linus Torvalds originally developed the Git source-code management software in 2005. He didn’t like available open-source tools for the chore, but encountered resistance in using a proprietary tool, BitMover’s BitKeeper.

Torvalds liked the distributed approach enabled by BitKeeper and Git, in which individuals could maintain their own “trees,” variations of a project that branch off a main trunk. Git also can be used to track and manage software patches sent “upstream” by contributors working on code branches to the programmers responsible for maintaining various open-source projects.

Google currently uses a source-code management tool called Perforce to manage Android, but the company is moving to another code repository technology in preparation for moving Android into an open-source project, said Android leader Andy Rubin.

“We need an open-source repository. Currently we’re on Perforce. That has to be moved to Git,” and there’s an effort now to make the transition, Rubin told me in an interview about Android.

That sounded to me like Android had settled on Git, but Rubin wasn’t willing to go that far. “We have no announcements at this time,” he said.

Maybe we’ll hear more at the Google I/O conference next week for programmers interested in Google’s work. One theme of the conference is Android.

Benjamin Lynn of Google’s developer programs group offered a basic guide to Git on a Google open-source blog posting this week. And Google uses Git elsewhere, for example, to help Linux kernel programmers with support for Qualcomm mobile phone processors.

Junio C. Hamano currently maintains Git.

One choice Google won’t pick for source code management is the centralized Subversion software.

“Subversion we don’t think is enough of a repository to handle 11 million lines of code. If this is adopted, and there are 10,000 people checking out, it’ll die,” Rubin said. (Android today consists of about 8 million lines of Linux code plus 11 million lines of higher-level code; of the latter, about 8.6 million will become open-source software.)

CNET news.com

The new look of facebook

Autor admin | 22.05.2008 | Category Internet News, Social networking

On Wednesday, after months of nothing but ambiguous screenshots, Facebook finally talked about its upcoming site redesign. It’ll make it easier for members to see immediate, dynamic updates from their network of friends, a company representative said, and it’ll cut down on some of the profile clutter by distributing user information across a set of tabs rather than having it all on one page.

The big question: Will members like it?

“Any user interface changes, large or small, carry with them a certain risk,” developer Kyle Bragger told CNET News.com, adding that big decisions can easily create more confusion. “Audience really should always be considered when making user interface decisions.”

And considering Facebook has more than 70 million members, many of whom don’t consider themselves particularly tech-savvy, a massive overhaul won’t go over smoothly with everyone.

One developer who asked to remain anonymous speculated that members might not like the fact that you can no longer view a Facebook profile on a single page. “(It takes away) the user’s ability to create a unique profile page that they identify with,” he said. “Even your Twitter profile seems to do a better job of representing you these days.”

Ultimately, it’s hard to tell how the general response will be, especially since no one outside the company has tested the new design yet. Major changes to Facebook have a spotty history: Facebook members freaked out about the News Feed but welcomed the ability to spice up their profiles with developer applications, and while some prominent critics lambasted the Beacon advertising program, members as a whole didn’t seem to care.

But none of those situations involved a total redesign that will put some information in different sections of the site and require users to click around in ways the site didn’t before. “Completely switching up the profiles on people will be like upgrading Windows (from XP) to Vista,” said Nick O’Neill, the blogger behind All Facebook. “I think Vista looks cool but I have no idea how to use any of the tools, (so) I stayed with XP.” The problem is that Facebook members won’t have a choice: everyone’s getting the new design, like it or not.

Then there are the thousands of developers who have created applications for Facebook’s platform and who will have a chance to test out the new design several weeks before the greater membership. Although the code for application creation isn’t changing, the way that Facebook users interact with apps certainly will: posting to feeds and “walls” is different, and some applications will have their own browser tabs whereas others will be an additional click away. Some developers have already voiced concerns that Facebook’s platform is dominated by “corporate” apps and that it’s hard for an indie creation to catch on. With applications on separate tabs, it’s inevitable that some will say this worsens the situation.

“Not all of the details have been announced for what changes need to be made. What is clear is that applications are going to need to readjust how their content is displayed.” O’Neill said. It’s true: a lot of information was left unsaid, including how it might tie into the extension of Facebook’s API into Friend Connect. He estimated that some developers likely are “going to be forced to make substantial changes to their applications.”

At the same time, some developers say they appreciate the fact that Facebook will now be able to convey more immediate information into “news feeds” that are more advanced, and are looking forward to an expanded profile environment that isn’t crammed into a single page.

“Much, much better. More dynamic. More room for breathing,” a developer who asked to remain anonymous told CNET News.com regarding the new design. “The older design was very constricted.”

CNET News.com

MySpace wins bumper spam payout

Autor admin | 14.05.2008 | Category Internet News

MySpace has won a $234m (£120m) legal judgement over junk messages sent to members of the social networking site.

Victory in the case was awarded to MySpace after Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, the men behind the junk mail, failed to show up in court.

The judgement is thought to be the largest ever given against senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail.

However, anti-spam experts said MySpace had little chance of getting the cash it sought.

Damage call

“Anybody who’s been thinking about engaging in spam are going to say ‘Wow, I better not go there,’” said Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace chief security officer to AP.

“Spammers don’t want to be prosecuted. They are there to make money. It’s our job to send a message to stop them,” he added.

The two junk mailers worked together to create MySpace accounts or took over existing ones by stealing passwords.

Using these accounts the pair e-mailed MySpace members to make the mail look like it came from trusted friends. Typically the e-mail asked recipients to view a video or visit a website.

“When you go there, they were making money trying to sell you something or making money based on hits or trying to sell ringtones,” said Mr Nigam.

MySpace said the duo sent 735,925 messages to its members.

In court papers, MySpace said sending the junk mail cost it money and generated complaints from hundreds of users. MySpace also said that some of the external websites contained pornographic material, potentially harming teenagers who use MySpace.

Under the 2003 US CAN Spam law, each violation entitles MySpace to $100 (£50) in damages, tripled when spam is sent “wilfully and knowingly”.

In its legal case MySpace sought $157.4m from Mr Wallace and Mr Rines under CAN Spam plus a further $63.4m separately from Mr Rines under the same law. MySpace sought another $3m from the pair under a different section of CAN-Spam. It also sought $1.5m under California’s anti-phishing laws and reimbursement for the $4.7m it spent on legal fees.

US District Judge Audrey B Collins in Los Angeles granted every one of MySpace’s claim for damages.

But John Levine of the anti-spam advocacy group Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email believes MySpace will have a tough job collecting the money.

“The giant judgements are all defaults, which means they don’t necessarily even know how to find the spammer.”

The judge also issued injunctions against Mr Wallace and Mr Rines barring similar activities in the future.

MySpace is pursuing another anti-spam case against a person it claims gained access to profiles using stolen passwords and then sent spam bulletins from those accounts.

BBC

Google brings Friend Connect to the masses

Autor admin | 12.05.2008 | Category Google, Internet News

As expected, Google has unveiled a preview of Friend Connect, a way to add social features to a Web site without programming.

David Glazer, director of engineering at Google, described Friend Connect, whose site is inaccessible Monday morning, as plumbing for the rest of the Web.

“The Web is getting better by getting more social. We’ve baked social features into the infrastructure of the Web, and it is not tied to any particular site,” Glazer said. “Users can interact with any of their friends anywhere they go on Web, and with any app.”

I asked Glazer if Friend Connect is a response to Facebook Connect and MySpace.com’s Data Availability. “People will speculate a lot in that direction. We didn’t create this code in the three days (since Facebook and MySpace made their announcements).”

Unlike Facebook and MySpace, Google lacks a dominant, centralized social-networking hub. Friend Connect works the edges of the Internet, applying an open and distributed approach, and bringing a social dimension to the 99-plus percent of sites that aren’t socially enabled.

“The distributed model has worked well for the Web. That is what the Web does–many points of light loosely coupled and massively distributed, allowing users to connect to pages of information,” Glazer told me. “Now it is working to connect people to other people.”

Friend Connect-compliant sites will be able to view, invite, and interact with newfound friends, or with existing friends, from established social-networking sites, including Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Orkut, and Plaxo via secure authorization application-programming interfaces.

Currently only a few sample sites, including Google’s Guacamole site, are available to end users. “We are looking to get feedback from Web site owners about what kinds of sites and apps they want,” Glazer said. Ingrid Michaelson, an independent musician, integrates iLike’s OpenSocial application with Friend Connect to connect friends without having to leave the site.

 John McCrea, vice president of marketing at Plaxo, said Google’s Friend Connect is “flipping the model” from walled gardens (such as Facebook) to a more open social Web:

Instead of widgetizing apps and bolting them on to some corporation’s proprietary social graph, why not widgetize the social graph and socially enable any Web site or Web page?

That’s a big, bold vision that Plaxo is 100 percent aligned with. As to Facebook and MySpace, it is certainly great to read the rhetoric they are now putting forth. The meme of data portability, open social Web, and bill of rights for users of the social Web has certainly caught on!

Alas, the devil is in the details, and we haven’t seen any details (yet) from Facebook–just a Friday blog post signaling intent. It might be great, and we hope it is, but it’s not clear what the actual substance will be.

With regard to MySpace, the rhetoric is over-the-top goodness, including a declaration of the end of the era of walled gardens. Alas, the details, as they currently exist, for their “Data Availability” effort fall far short of the vision many of us share for users having ownership of their data, control over who can see it, and freedom to take it with them, wherever they go across the social Web.

In the MySpace “Data Availability” model, the user can take their data for a walk anytime they want or to any place they want, but the data remains on a tether. There is no notion of copy, move, or sync. Participating sites must agree to have MySpace serve the data live in their page. That’s a half-step wrapped in a beautiful flag of openness.

“Friend Connect provides wizardlike pages. Webmasters just fill in the information, select social apps, copy code, paste, and save. No coding is required. It passes the ‘easy’ test, and it does something useful,” Glazer said. It provides features such as user registration, invitations, member galleries, message posting, and reviews, as well as OpenSocial applications.

At the core of Friend Connect are three emerging social standards–OpenID, oAuth, and OpenSocial.

“Today is the right time to connect all emerging standards to give users the ability to go anywhere on Web and interact with any set of friends on any application,” Glazer said.

Google’s Social Graph API is not part of the Friend Connect preview, Glazer said. “The Social Graph API is part of the same conversation, but we didn’t need to connect those two dots.”

Glazer emphasized that Google is focused on keeping users in control of their information. “The Webmaster has no business knowing who my friends are, but I can choose to link my login to my Facebook account and invite friends,” he said. “It’s up to each site to publish APIs, with appropriate terms of use,” Glazer told me. “I would expect as Friend Connect matures in the market, we will see more people connecting to it and more standard interfaces to turn on and register for it. It’s not fully standard now.

Friend Connect covers many of the use cases for the social Web, but a single, standard “friend” API is still lacking.

“There are a few good candidates, such as the OpenSocial RESTful APIs, which are at a rough consensus stage but not running code,” Glazer said. “We don’t know enough to call a winner, but there will be a standard.”

CNET news.com

Alarm at Google Yahoo partnering

Autor admin | 12.05.2008 | Category Google, Internet News, Yahoo

Regulators in the US are being urged to investigate any potential online advertising and search partnership between Google and Yahoo.

The call by a coalition of 16 American civil rights and rural advocacy bodies comes despite the fact no firm deal has actually been announced.

“We all suffer in such mega mergers,” Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum told BBC News.

The justice department is examining a trial the companies did in April.

It has been widely reported that it is looking into the anti-trust implications of last month’s two-week test.

However, the department says it has no comment on the coalition’s demands because there is no definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google at the moment.

But reports say that the two companies are presently hammering out the intricacies of a future potential advertising and search agreement, and are sharing their plans with antitrust regulators.

At Google’s shareholder meeting on Thursday, Chairman Eric Schmidt said: “If there were a deal [with Yahoo], we would anticipate structuring the deal to address the anti-trust concerns that have been widely discussed.”

‘Never positive’

This assurance is not good enough for the coalition which is made up of the League of Rural Voters, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the American Agriculture Movement.

It also includes the Black Leadership Forum, an umbrella group of 36 civil rights organisations including the NAACP and the National Urban League.

In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Thoma Barnett, head of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division, the coalition argues that such a deal would give Google almost 90% of the search advertising market and strengthen its influence over internet users’ access to information.

“We face a possible future in which no content could be seamlessly accessed without Google’s permission,” the letter states.

The effect Mr Flowers says of such large partnerships is never positive and would for the black community, as for other communities, “condense competition, increase prices and limit new business opportunity on the internet”.

‘Do no evil’

League of Rural Voters’ executive director Niel Ritchie claims that the do-no-evil mantra may no longer apply in today’s marketplace in which Google’s reach is apparently without bound, touching more and more aspects of our everyday lives.

“We believe the government should give this agreement very careful scrutiny,” he says.

Mr Flowers says:

“Google has already exhibited a pattern of violating privacy, engaging in anti-competitive conduct and using its monopoly power in the search market to drive internet users to its affiliated services and its viewpoints on policy matters.

“Any joint combination with Yahoo could dramatically worsen these problems.”

The Centre for Digital Democracy, a consumer advocacy group, is also willing to push regulators to block any deal and wants European consumer groups to raise concerns with European Union officials.

“You can’t allow Google to operate a portion of its leading competitor out of its back pocket,” Jeffrey Chester executive director of the CDD told the Associated Press.

There has been no comment from Yahoo or Google.

BBC

EBay’s PayPal rule in Australia draws fire

Autor admin | 10.05.2008 | Category Internet News

SAN JOSE, Calif. - EBay Inc. is exploring whether to require customers to use its online payment service PayPal, a move that has angered users and prompted antitrust scrutiny in Australia, where a PayPal-only rule takes effect next month.

It’s unclear whether eBay will institute a similar policy in the United States and other countries. However, the online auction company often tries big changes in smaller markets before expanding them worldwide, and says it is open to that in this case.

“We are going to take learnings from it and apply them accordingly,” said eBay spokesman Usher Lieberman.

EBay says it wants to reduce disputes and restore trust in its marketplace with the PayPal-only plan. Because eBay and PayPal can share information on each transaction, eBay says use of PayPal allows it to stop fraud more efficiently than outside payment services. Pressing that safety argument in a heated discussion with Australian users, an eBay executive compared the new rule to banning the sale of heroin on street corners.

But critics lament that PayPal is costlier than other payment options, and they suspect eBay is just interested in increasing PayPal’s revenue. Australian banks say the plan will eliminate competition for the sake of exaggerated benefits.

“Competition will be restricted, innovation and development will be constrained, new entry will be discouraged and PayPal will be able to increase fees and charges to eBay users,” the Australian Bankers Association said in a filing with regulators Thursday.

Because eBay sellers are commonly independent merchants who don’t accept credit cards, PayPal acts as a go-between. Buyers use their credit cards and bank account information to make payments, and PayPal relays the funds to sellers’ PayPal accounts, charging them 30 cents plus a commission — up to 4.4 percent in Australia. The second-most common method of payment on eBay Australia, bank transfers, cost 20 cents each.

Australia’s bankers group says PayPal is not as immune to fraud as eBay claims. While PayPal does keep bank and credit card account information secret between trading partners, the bankers group decried that it does not verify identity as banks do.

EBay’s financial reports indicate that PayPal, while hardly fraud-proof, is getting better at cracking down. Its loss rate is 0.24 percent, down from 0.33 percent a year ago. That means that for every $100 transacted with the service, PayPal has to eat 24 cents because of fraud. That is slightly lower than the rates seen in credit and debit card transactions involving the top 20 online retailers, said Avivah Litan, a payments security analyst with Gartner Inc.

EBay contends that when users opt for methods like bank transfers, their transactions are four times more likely to result in a disputed payment. EBay says reducing that risk will attract new buyers to the site.

And, the company adds, it doesn’t stand to profit directly from the PayPal rule. It claims its investments in new buyer protections could outweigh any gains from increased PayPal fees. For instance, under Australia’s new plan, if a buyer doesn’t get what he or she paid for via PayPal, eBay will refund the buyer up to 20,000 Australian dollars ($18,600).

To make the PayPal rule possible, eBay has applied for — and automatically gets — immunity from Australia’s anti-monopoly Trade Practices Act. But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is investigating, could revoke that immunity if it finds the plan will harm the marketplace. A decision is expected soon.

Critics say eBay is just trying to fatten its bottom line. Growth in eBay’s core auction listings has slowed in recent quarters, pushing eBay to expand other parts of its business, which includes PayPal, classifieds sites and online telecommunications service Skype. And eBay has already taken other steps viewed as protecting PayPal, such as banning Google Inc.’s rival Checkout service on alleged safety concerns months after it was launched in 2006.

Sellers in Australia are “absolutely furious” and resent that they are subjects of an experiment, said Phil Leahy, president of the 600-member Australia chapter of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance.

Leahy sells DVDs, movies and CDs through eBay, a high-volume, low-margin business. He says using PayPal instead of bank transfers would cost him $4,700 per month, based on his January sales numbers of $332,000. “It’s the difference between making money and not making money,” he said.

Leahy estimates Australian buyers use PayPal about 50 percent of the time — eBay would not confirm the figure — versus an 85 percent rate in the United States. He said bank transfers are used in 30 percent of transactions. The rest are conducted with bank and personal checks, money orders, or cash on delivery, all of which are banned under eBay’s new plan unless the payments are exchanged in person. That happens rarely.

Shaun O’Brien, a seller of home theater accessories, said many Australians trust their banking system more than online services like PayPal. He worries buyers will leave when they are deprived of a choice.

“Australians here have been heavily educated against putting credit card details online,” O’Brien said. “There are plenty of customers out there that refuse to use PayPal.”

The Australian experiment could lead to a less-stringent step: Perhaps eBay will require all sellers to at least offer PayPal as a payment choice. No matter how it turns out, however, eBay surely has more big plans for PayPal, which has grown steadily since the auction company bought the payment service in 2002. Last year it accounted for $1.9 billion in revenue, 25 percent of eBay’s total.

In fact, eBay’s top e-commerce executive, Rajiv Dutta, PayPal’s former president, said last year he was convinced PayPal would someday be bigger than eBay’s better-known auction and marketplace business.

Yahoo!

Yahoo CEO open to more Microsoft talks

Autor admin | 07.05.2008 | Category Microsoft, Yahoo

NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc chief Jerry Yang signaled a more open stance towards Microsoft Corp on Monday, saying he had been seeking common ground when the software maker abruptly ended deal talks.

Yang told Reuters in an interview that he had “mixed feelings” about the weekend outcome, after investors showed their disappointment over the break-up of negotiations by sending Yahoo shares down 15 percent.

“We were negotiating a way to find common ground and then on Saturday they chose to walk away,” said the 39-year-old co-founder of the pioneering Internet company. “They started it and they walked away.”

Asked if Yahoo would still leave a door open for Microsoft to return, Yang said: “If they have anything new to say, we would be open. … I am more than willing to listen.”

After three months of negotiations, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer raised his offer for Yahoo to $33 per share from an initial $31, for a total deal value of about $47.5 billion.

Yang held out for $37 per share, saying that even the sweetened offer did not value Yahoo properly for its Web search advertising technology, its prominence in selling display ads and its lucrative overseas holdings.

But its two largest shareholders independently told The New York Times they would have sold for as little as $34.

“I am extremely angry at Jerry Yang and at the so-called independent board,” Gordon Crawford, portfolio manager for Capital Research Global Investors, the largest Yahoo shareholder with some 16 percent of stock, told the newspaper.

Reuters - Continued…

Yahoo search to ‘battle spyware’

Autor admin | 06.05.2008 | Category Yahoo

Yahoo is introducing new technology to its search engine which will warn users if they are about to click on a website that hosts viruses, spyware and spam.

SearchScan uses security firm McAfee’s SiteAdvisor technology to warn users about “potentially risky sites”.

The service, which is switched on by default, produces an on-screen alert.

“Our goal is to protect users by allowing them to make a more informed decision about the sites they visit,” said Yahoo’s Priyank Garg.

Rival firm Google introduced similar technology in 2006.

Yahoo’s service will warn users about three types of risk:

Browser exploits: Sites that can harm a user’s computer or install malware simply by visiting the site. Any such sites or pages included in McAfee’s data will be removed from search results automatically.

Dangerous downloads: SearchScan will display warnings next to search results for sites that offer potentially dangerous software, such as viruses, spyware or adware.

Unsolicited e-mail: SearchScan will alert users to scanned sites that send unsolicited e-mails or inappropriately share e-mail addresses with third parties.

Viruses, spyware and adware programs are often “hidden” inside innocuous-looking programs such as screensavers and toolbars.

Industry analysts IDC estimate that 67% of all computers have some form of spyware installed without a user’s knowledge.

BBC

Malaysian blogger charged with sedition

Autor admin | 06.05.2008 | Category Internet News

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A prominent Malaysian blogger was charged Tuesday with sedition for allegedly implying the deputy prime minister was involved in the sensational killing of a young Mongolian woman.

Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin, who has not denied that he linked Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak to the slaying, pleaded innocent to the charge, telling reporters that he should have the right to hold the powerful accountable for wrongdoing.

He was taken to prison after he refused to post bail. The court set the trial for Oct. 6. If convicted, he faces up to three years in jail.

“I am not posting bail. See you guys in October,” Raja Petra told supporters before police took him away. “I will be out for Christmas. Don’t worry.”

Dozens of opposition members and bloggers gathered to show support for Raja Petra outside the Kuala Lumpur court where he was charged.

“This is an attempt to clamp down on all sorts of freedom,” said Nurul Izzah Anwar, an opposition member of Parliament and daughter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The sedition charge stems from an April 25 article that Raja Petra posted on his popular Web site Malaysia Today.

The article allegedly implies that Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, were involved in the 2006 killing in Malaysia of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a 28-year-old Mongolian interpreter.

Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of Najib, is charged with abetting the murder. Two policemen have been accused of killing her and destroying her body with explosives in a jungle clearing. The trial of the three men began in June 2007 and is under way.

The prosecution contends that Abdul Razak had the woman killed because she pestered him for money after he ended their affair.

Prosecutors said Raja Petra “published a seditious article … which contains seditious sentences,” including allegations that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is covering up evidence implicating Najib in the killing.

Raja Petra said he was not worried by the sedition charge and suggested he had evidence against the leaders.

“I am happy. We bloggers have declared war on the government. We are not scared of the government. The government should be scared of us,” he told reporters.

“Is it seditious to influence people against corrupt leaders? There is nothing seditious,” he said. “Do you think I do not have evidence?”

Some of Malaysia’s most popular blogs offer strongly anti-government commentaries and present themselves as a substitute for mainstream media, which are controlled by political parties or closely linked to them.

Yahoo