Some insight on the Microsoft XBox mod chip story in Australia. Nathan Cochrane is not too impressed with the Microsoft PR person. He believes "Microsoft was denied the right of an adequate reply" to the story because the PR person he and the ZDNet reporter, Patrick Gray, contacted did not do her job properly.

Today Nathan is reporting on a proposed new service P2P for expatriate TV watchers. A "French company is ready to launch a device that lets television viewers watch any channel on earth, and may open another front in the battle over digital copyright."

And Declan McCullagh elsewhere is complaining about Microsoft's lobbying efforts to induce regulation to keep the Net neutral. Declan is a pure libertarian who is suspicious of government regulation and believes market forces will right all wrongs for consumers. I admire his convictions but given that market forces are ultimately underpinned by contract law - ie. government regulation - I have never been totally convinced. The world is a bit more complex than pure libertarianism would have us believe. Nevertheless Declan is irritated that Microsoft, of all companies, should be changing tack on their coincident beliefs - Microsoft also, until recently, viewed with suspicion government interference in the marketplace. His second complaint about Microsoft in the article is they are taking a position in their lobbying that they have so far refused to espouse or defend in public.