San Jose, Calif. - Online auctioneer eBay announced on Tuesday that it plans to spin-off its Skype Internet telephone unit in an initial public offering in the first half of 2010. [more..]

San Bruno, Calif. - Google's YouTube has disabled video uploads and comments in South Korea, in response to a new law in the country requiring "real-name verification" for Web services with more than 100,000 daily users, the company announced in a blog post. [more..]

San Jose, Calif. - Online auction giant eBay has sold its StumbleUpon recommendation engine back to its original founders for an undisclosed sum. [more..]

Corning, N.Y. - U.S. Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has announced plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit the bandwidth caps on heavy broadband usage that companies including Time Warner Cable are testing in his district. [more..]

New York - A trio of media executives that includes Court TV and Brill's Content founder Steven Brill, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery, Jr., managing partner of private equity fund InterMedia Partners, on Tuesday announced the launch of a Journalism Online, a new venture that aims to help monetize online news publishing. [more..]

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft has extended the warranty on its Xbox 360 video game consoles to three years, for hardware failures indicated by an "E74" error message that users have been reporting since at least last fall, VentureBeat reported. [more..]

San Francisco - The nominees for the 13th Annual Webby Awards were announced on Tuesday, which honor excellence on the Internet in categories related to websites, online film and video, interactive advertising, and mobile websites. [more..]

New York - Goom Radio, an online radio firm that offers free, ad-supported programming, announced on Tuesday that it ahs raised $16 million in its first round of funding. [more..]

Los Angeles - Big Stage Entertainment, a developer of 3D facial avatar creation technology, said on Tuesday that it has secured an additional $2.7 million in second round funding, from Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures and TechCoast Angels. [more..]

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Washington - Despite calls from over 20 interest groups last week that he "diversify" his intellectual property-related appointment to the Justice Department, President Barack Obama has appointed former Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) attorney Ian Gershenorn as deputy assistant attorney of the DOJ's Civil Division, Wired.com reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - Publisher Reed Business Information is laying off 7% of staffers across its stable of 80 trade publications, including Variety executive editor Michael Speier, TheWrap.com reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Some owners of Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reader device have been voicing complaints that text is fuzzy and more difficult to read in smaller sizes on the second-generation version, Wired.com reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - Disney/ABC's "Lost" served 35.8 million video streams of full-length episodes during March, and counted 1.4 million unique viewers, Variety reported, citing Nielsen VideoCensus data. [more..]