A company linked to Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen is suing 11 major corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook, accusing them of infringing on technology patents.

eBay’s latest move, some of the auction site’s devotees say, is straight out of the Ministry of Truth’s playbook.

The company made an announcement on Tuesday announcement about lowering the listing fees for items–even though, in many cases, final value fees will be raised. The company’s discussion forums simmered with outrage over the executive decision, and frustration over the lack of other options for auction-style e-commerce.

Firefox has just turned five, and it’s doubtful anybody outside of Redmond begrudges Mozilla’s celebrations. The open-source browser now accounts for 25% of the global market, according to figures from Net Applications, and has brought a radical rethink in what we expect from a browser.

Google, the world’s top Internet search engine, threatened to shut its Chinese-language Google.cn website and offices in China, saying a massive cyber-attack from China had resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

Here are some foreign companies that have withdrawn from or sold down their investments in the world’s third largest economy:

Jack Dorsey revolutionized online socializing by co-founding Twitter in 2006. Now he wants to transform the way people exchange money.

Dorsey is leading a new startup called Square. Its first product resembles a cube: a tiny credit card terminal that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone. The goal is to make it easier to complete a credit card transaction, whether you’re a street vendor selling T-shirts or an individual settling a lunch tab with a friend.

Dorsey, who was Twitter’s CEO until October 2008 and remains the social network’s chairman, said he came up with the idea for Square nearly a year ago with Jim McKelvey, a glass artist who was frustrated after losing out on a $2,000 sale because he was unable to accept a credit card from a customer.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. In October 2009, Americans conducted 14.3 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.4 percent search market share, up from 64.9 percent in September. Microsoft Sites grabbed 9.9 percent market share, up 0.5 percentage points versus September.

October 2009 U.S. Core Search Rankings

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in October with 65.4 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (18.0 percent), and Microsoft Sites (9.9 percent). Ask Network captured 3.9 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.9 percent.

*Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Americans conducted 14.3 billion searches in October, up 3 percent from September. Google Sites accounted for 9.4 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites (2.6 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.4 billion), Ask Network (552 million) and AOL LLC (412 million).

*Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

October 2009 U.S. Expanded Search Rankings

In the October analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the search market with 13.5 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.5 billion searches. Bing experienced the largest growth of the top ten expanded search properties with an 8-percent increase in query volume to more than 1.2 billion searches.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Now that eBay has vaulted a major hurdle in its efforts to sell Skype, the Web telephony service must prove it can make it on its own.

Since its founding six years ago, Skype has built up a roster of more than 520 million registered customers who use the free Web service for voice, video or text communication. In just the last quarter, it added 40 million users.

Still, Skype is facing some challenges. One problem is growing competition from other high-profile services, including Google Inc’s (GOOG.O) Google Voice.

Another, perhaps larger, issue is that consumers are increasingly using mobile phones rather than landlines for communication. For Skype, mostly used on desktop computers, this means it must quickly make inroads into mobile.

But if Skype is to stay relevant, it will have to do so without the backing of corporate parent eBay Inc (EBAY.O) , which is selling a large stake in the service to a group of private investors. A lawsuit that threatened to sink the deal was settled on Friday.

Behind the deal is the idea that eBay can return to its central business — an online auction and payment service — without being distracted by managing a telephone service.

Skype, meanwhile, will not have to answer to a corporate parent, one that may have different strategic goals, and can therefore concentrate on its own growth prospects.

“It puts you in a different mindset,” said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, which will hold a stake in Skype once the deal closes.

As an independent company, “there’s no need to deliver any specific revenue or earnings number in a particular quarter. It’s a pure focus on the long term,” he said in an interview.

Andreessen pinpointed mobile as a key growth area and cited the launch of a Skype application for devices such as Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) iPhone as a prime example of its efforts there.

But there are some doubts about its prospects in mobile. Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin contends the Skype application is unlikely to appeal broadly to consumers so long as they must open a separate application every time they want to use the service.

What Skype needs to significantly expand in mobile, he said, is approval from telecommunications network operators to integrate its service more tightly with the cellphone’s main voice dialing feature.

The challenge will be getting operators to agree to such integration, as it could hurt their revenue.

“That is the impediment to making their deals,” Golvin said. “That impediment is there irrespective of whether they’re independent or owned by eBay … It’s a business model challenge.”

Nielsen analyst Roger Entner said that independence from eBay means that Skype could choose to spend more on marketing its service to help attract more customers. But aside from this Entner said: “It really doesn’t make a difference.”

Entner sees the private investors looking for another buyer for the company as soon as they can.

“Venture capital and private equity companies are not in there for the long haul. What’s now happening is that the search is starting for the real buyer,” he said.

Before Friday, it appeared the current deal could be doomed — or at least face long delays.

After eBay announced a plan to sell 65 percent of Skype for $1.9 billion in September, Skype’s founders threw a wrench into the works by suing eBay and a group private investors that planned to buy into the service. The dispute related to technology licensing.

Under the settlement, the founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, will contribute software and a capital investment in exchange for a 14 percent stake in Skype. Investors Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will hold 56 percent of Skype and eBay will retain the rest. The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion.

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* Skype founders to get stake, board seat–report

* Index, Volpi dropped from investment group–report

* Skype founders to drop other claims against eBay–report

LOS ANGELES, Nov 3 (Reuters) – A settlement is near in a lawsuit that could have blocked eBay Inc (EBAY.O) from selling a majority stake in Web phone service Skype to Index Ventures and other investors for $1.9 billion, sources told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

The Delaware federal court lawsuit, brought by Joltid and Joost, the companies of Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, accused Index and its partner Michelangelo Volpi of using confidential information in their bid to acquire a 65 percent stake in Skype. Volpi was previously Joost’s chief executive.

Sources told Reuters last month that Zennstrom and Friis have tried to buy back Skype, which they sold to eBay in 2005, and had contacted several private equity firms.

EBay instead agreed to sell to a consortium that includes Index, private equity firm Silver Lake, Netscape founder Marc Andreessen’s Andreessen Horowitz and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

On Tuesday, sources told the Journal that a settlement could come as early as this week. The settlement would drop Index and Volpi from the investment group and give Zennstrom and Friis a stake and at least one seat on the company’s board.

Under the proposed agreement, Zennstrom and Friis would end a separate intellectual-property dispute with eBay, the Journal reported. It was not clear whether the Skype founders would also drop the lawsuit against Volpi and Index for alleged breach of fiduciary duty, the Journal said.

An eBay spokesman declined to comment on the report.

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Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the founders of Skype, though their Joltid and Joost businesses, are seeking an injunction against Mike Volpi and Index Ventures that would prevent Volpi and Index from completing a deal agreed to in September to buy Skype from eBay….