The attorney general and the FBI director have asked the nations leading Internet service companies to keep a variety of customer information and other data for two years, much longer than the companies do now, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

Companies have varying policies regarding what information is kept and for how long.

One thing the Justice Department wants is some type of subscriber information, such as the Internet address assigned to a person when logging on to a service provider, according to two sources familiar with a meeting that was held last week between the government and the Internet companies.

The online industry is expected to strongly oppose any request to retain these types of records because of privacy concerns for their customers.

It is a slippery slope one of the sources said of the governments interest in the information. It becomes a fishing expedition.

The Internet companies have said there are other ways to get the information without them having to hand it over and believe requests like this are burden to the industry, the sources said.

Microsoft can either improve MSN to make it more of a real competitor to Google, or it can take a different approach, for example by buying eBay, said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner. Google is quietly creeping up on Microsoft, and eBay would take Microsoft in a whole new direction.

The latest rumor to sweep the world of high tech claims that Microsoft has its eyes on eBay for a possible buyout. Last week, a report in the New York Post said that Microsoft has engaged in preliminary talks with eBay about acquiring the online auction company and merging it with MSN.
Microsoft and eBay declined to comment. The information out in the public is speculation and the company does not comment on rumors, said an eBay spokesperson. A spokesperson for Microsoft said much the same thing.

But bloggers, industry analysts, and others have been speculating about what a move on Microsofts part might mean.

Bulgarian police charged two men on Saturday for illegally distributing music and films in what officials called one of Europes largest Internet pirate groups.

They arrested an administrator and systems operator for putting download links to 20 million songs — or roughly 3 million albums — and hundreds of films on the web site www.arenabg.com, one of Bulgarias most popular pages.

Users could download as many of the songs and films as they liked after paying a four lev ($2.50) monthly fee. Authorities estimate the damage to the entertainment industry at around $30 million.

These people are among the biggest Internet pirates in Europe said Liliana Yosifova, spokeswoman for the Sofia Investigators Office. We are talking about big losses here.

Police also found three satellite receivers and 200 CDs with pirated movies at the suspects homes, part of what the Interior Ministry said was a high-speed network used to download new movies and songs from foreign pirate sites.

Global press chiefs gathered to thrash out how best to wrestle with the rise of the Internet, stay on top of technology, and beat countless bloggers and citizen journalists to the story.

Media professionals, huddled in the Scottish capital for the International Press Institutes World Congress, debated the long-term challenges and opportunities that the new media age would throw their way.

From instant news on the Internet to passers-by recording extraordinary events on mobile phones, the threats — and opportunities — for traditional newspapers are increasing.

Krishna Bharat, a principal scientist for Internet search engine giant Google warned editors that the web was going to reshape their industry.

Bulgarian police charged two men on Saturday for illegally distributing music and films in what officials called one of Europes largest Internet pirate groups.

They arrested an administrator and systems operator for putting download links to 20 million songs — or roughly 3 million albums — and hundreds of films on the web site www.arenabg.com, one of Bulgarias most popular pages.

Users could download as many of the songs and films as they liked after paying a four lev ($2.50) monthly fee. Authorities estimate the damage to the entertainment industry at around $30 million.

These people are among the biggest Internet pirates in Europe, said Liliana Yosifova, spokeswoman for the Sofia Investigators Office We are talking about big losses here.