Yahoo Limits Retention of Personal Data

Yahoo said it would limit to 90 days the time it holds personal information related to searches to address privacy concerns. (NYT)+++

Cents-Off Coupons and Other Special Deals, via Your Cellphone
The cellphone industry hopes customers will want to receive deal alerts at the store, or simply use the phone as a virtual coupon at the cashier.(TST)+++

Send Money Through Twitter With Twitpay
Twitpay lets people send payments to friends through the microblogging service Twitter.(NYT)+++

A Shake-Up at LinkedIn
Dan Nye, the chief executive of the business networking site LinkedIn, is leaving. Reid Hoffman, a co-founder, returns to the helm.(TST)+++

How Apple and Facebook Influence Salesforce.com
Like Facebook, Salesforce is turning into a platform for many applications, instead of just a fancy Rolodex. Like Apple it now offers a store where customers can buy the apps themselves.(TST)+++

Venture Capitalists Look Ahead to a Bleak Year
Venture capitalists are glum about 2009 and predict investments will decline sharply. Internet and chip companies will be hit the worst, they said in a new survey.(TST)+++

Your Privacy Is Protected Only if You Are Really Sick
Online ad networks have created rules for how data is collected about people who seek information online about diseases.(TST)+++

Losing the Paper Trail With Earth Class Mail
Earth Class Mail, a service that scans your snail mail, opens a new location in New York.(TST)+++

How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs
Barring an exodus of top talent, there is reason for optimism that Apple could keep up the pace of new products without its iconic CEO. (WSJ)+++

How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs
Barring an exodus of top talent, there is reason for optimism that Apple could keep up the pace of new products without its iconic CEO.(WSJ)+++

Panasonic Wins Bid to Buy Sanyo
Panasonic struck a deal with Sanyo’s three major shareholders to buy its smaller Japanese electronics rival.(WSJ)+++

LinkedIn CEO to Resign
LinkedIn said that its chief executive Dan Nye is resigning after less than two years at the helm of the social-networking site.(WSJ)+++

Global Chip Sales Expected to Fall 9.9% in ’09
Global chip sales will decline by nearly a double-digit percentage next year, according to market-research firm iSuppli.(WSJ)+++

Motorola Tightens Belt Again
Cellphone maker Motorola said most employees won’t get raises next year and put a freeze on its U.S. pension plan and matching 401(k) contributions.(WSJ)+++

Personalized Spam Up Sharply
Yes, guys, those spam e-mails for Viagra or baldness cream just might be directed to you personally. (SFC)+++

More Cell-Phone Only Homes
The portion of homes with cell phones but no landlines has grown to 18 percent, led by adults living with unrelated roommates, renters and young people, data shows. (SFC)+++

A Tax On Your MP3s?
N.Y. Gov. David Paterson’s first state budget threatens to affect just about every New Yorker. Even those online. (SFC)+++

Yahoo To Track Users Less
Yahoo Inc. said that it will shorten the amount of time that it retains data about its users’ online behavior, including Internet search records, to three months. (SFC)+++

Cable Firms Delay Switches
They’ll stop moving analog channels to digital tiers between Dec. 31 and March 1 to avoid confusing customers amid switch to digital broadcast transmissions. (SFC)+++

Getting paid to wear shirts
Jason Sadler isn’t anyone special. (His words, not mine.) But his new project, I Wear Your Shirt, is something out of the ordinary. (LAT)+++

TechCrunch no longer honoring news embargoes
TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington is sick of waiting to blog. He issued a statement today saying he and his writers would no longer honor most news embargoes. (LAT)+++

Major leadership shakeup at LinkedIn: Nye leaves, Hoffman back at the helm
After a two-year stint in which he helped propel dramatic growth, LinkedIn Corp. Chief Executive Dan Nye is handing back the reins to company founder Reid Hoffman in a major leadership shakeup at one of Silicon Valley’s hottest companies. (LAT)+++

Steve Jobs and Apple pulling out of Macworld
Macworld, the tradeshow that celebrates all things Apple and that became a cultural event for so-called Macolytes, will no longer have its featured showman or company at the party. (SV)+++

Chip sales forecast: down this year, and getting worse
Reflecting plummeting worldwide sales of computers and other gadgets, global chip sales will be down this year and even worse next year, a research group said Tuesday — the industry’s first back-to-back decline in annual revenue since the firm began tracking the market in 1980. (SV)+++

WSJ reviews competition between Microsoft and Adobe
The Wall Street Journal today published a nice rundown of the battle brewing between Microsoft and Adobe over Web video and animation software, and Web design tools. The story lists the major customer wins each company has notched this year and refers to Microsoft’s willingness to offer lots of extras to get its technology on marquee sites.(TST)+++

Recent comings and goings at Microsoft There has been some turnover in several key positions at Microsoft — particularly within the company’s Online Services Group — this month. (TST)+++

No Jobs means no Macworld splash
CEO Steve Jobs’ absence from the his usual slot keynoting Macworld almost guarantees the company won’t have any groundbreaking products to show off in January. (CNET)+++

Management shuffle at LinkedIn; CEO Dan Nye out Founder Reid Hoffman will return as CEO, and former Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner has been hired as interim president, the business-networking site says.(CNET)+++

Toshiba to show 512GB solid-state drive at CES
Company plans to unveil a large-capacity solid-state drive at the Consumer Electronics Show next month and begin shipments in the second quarter of 2009.(CNET)+++

Goldman reportedly OKs Panasonic bid for Sanyo
Sweetened offer clears the way for a deal estimated to be worth at least $6.5 billion.(CNET)+++

Yahoo shows ads in IM chat windows
Under fierce financial pressure, the Internet pioneer is testing some new real estate for advertisements.(CNET)+++

More Americans cutting the landline cord
More than one in six American households depended solely on cell phones for their telephone communications during the first half of 2008, according to a new survey.(CNET)+++

Sprint offers 3G/4G wireless modem for laptops
The new modem will allow users to connect to Sprint Nextel’s 3G cellular network when not in range of Clearwire’s new 4G WiMax network.(CNET)+++

Microsoft releases patch for critical IE security flaw
Faced with malicious attackers exploiting Internet Explorer, Redmond releases a critical security patch outside its normal cycle.(CNET)+++

NASA likely to give away space shuttles
When the space shuttle program ends in 2010, the agency hopes to give the remaining spacecraft to appropriate institutions.(CNET)+++

Google maps out Chrome’s RSS support
Chrome turns a blind eye to subscription offers from Web sites, but Google has revealed its plan to add the feature.(CNET)+++

‘Mystery’ Lunar X Prize team unveiled
At NASA’s Ames Research Center on Wednesday, the latest entrant in the race to get a private team to the moon announced its participants.(CNET)+++

Talking Apple in the land of foreclosures
Modesto, Calif., has been hit hard by the housing crisis and job losses. Still, there are plenty of shoppers in the new local Apple Store.(CNET)+++

New privacy guidelines for e-health records announced
As President-elect Obama calls for widespread adoption of e-medical records, the Department of Health and Human Services is offering more privacy guidelines for them. (CNET)+++

Novell cancels its 2009 BrainShare conference
Software company puts on hold its annual event, designed to educate customers and partners, citing potential attendees’ difficulties in getting travel expense approval. (CNET)+++