Lots and lots of advertising companies are taking the opportunity given by the recent Google-Yahoo search advertising trial and the subsequent autumn revelation made by the Google CEO last month to let the U.S. Department of Justice know they’re not so comfortable with the recent dealings between the two largest search giants on the Web. The ANA, or the Association of National Advertisers, a group that collectively manages north of $100 billion in business, decided to issue a letter today to the assistant attorney general of the antitrust arm of the DOJ.

According to Dawn Kawamoto of CNET News, the ANA, which “includes a range of Fortune 500 companies such as the Kellogg Co. and The Proctor & Gamble Co. to Johnson & Johnson and The Walt Disney Co.,” the delivery was preceded by “a comprehensive and independent analysis of its members” as well as “in-person discussions with (Google and Yahoo).”

As has been mentioned by many a news and analysis source, Google last week celebrated it’s 10th year in operation, and in light of the milestone its VP of search products and user experience, Marissa Miller, spoke with the LA Times about the company’s presence in advertising following its DoubleClick acquisition in 2007 (made official in March 2008). If trends continue, the company’s numbers are only growing larger. In fact, the ANA foresees that “a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory” which will in turn “likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search and advertising.”

All things considered, this news only adds further to the fairly compressed period of trouble for the last several months have been for Google. Yahoo as well. Google is now being hit with increased privacy concerns from European reaches, the US Government, consumer advocates, city and town residents, and various other parties big and small. Yahoo, meanwhile, is coming off an attempt by Microsoft to purchase its business, an effort which Redmond abandoned, only to see activist investor Carl Icahn net three Yahoo Board seats for himself and two other individuals, a story which seems far from complete. Where will this go? Perhaps not the way Google and Yahoo originally intended for. The extra level of attention given by the ANA that regulators parsing the deal between both companies cannot weight kindly. Keep in mind, it is only weeks until the “grace period” given to inspectors by Google and Yahoo is through.

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UPDATED: It’s no cheap exercise to implement a surveillance system to record what goes on at home or at one’s place of business. And as for the hardware, it can still be a pricey endeavor. As with most anything else, much depends on engineering and utility. But there’s a name that seeks to extend such artificial eyes into what it calls Web 2.0 video storage, and do so very inexpensively. GoToMyCamera, based in Palo Alto, Calif., operates with the aid of Amazon’s S3 cloudware and enables remote access to video (”surveillance-as-a-service”) at a rate that many will financially regard to be very manageable.

Let’s get right into the numbers. According to GoToMyCamera, part of Eptascape Inc (no affiliation to Citrix, the maker of GoToMyPC), there exist three plans operating on a month-to-month contract. While sign-up costs $5 across the board, a Solo account, allowing for 1 camera, 1 user, and 100 MB of included storage space ($0.25 for extra 100 allotments), will cost just $5. Basic will run you $10 per month, enabling 4 cameras, 1 user, and 200 MB included. And despite what the website may describe, it is $0.50 for each additional 200MB of space.

Higher still is GoToMyCamera’s Business plan, costing $30/month for service with a 10-camera allowance, 10 users, 500 MB included cloud storage. For each additional 500MB, it is $1.50.

There’s a bit of a disparity in the extra storage allotments offered among the Solo, Basic, and Business plans. If storage should be proportional, 500MB would be $1.25 rather than the published $1.50. We’ve contacted the folks behind GoToMyCamera about this. We’ll let you know of their response.

Yet, even with these adjustments, the cost/service ratio is intriguing. Once you have one, two, four, ten network cameras (only Axis Network cameras supported at present), and connect them as required, material pushed to the Web is easily accessed. Vacation on the mind? Perhaps you’re just across town and want to maintain a connection. This is one way to do that - and keep lots of dollars in your pocket.

Update: Marco Graziano of GoToMyCamera wrote back to us about the matter over storage pricing. Here is his reply in full:

I have tried intentionally to keep only storage for additional fees over the monthly fee. It is true that there is an (intentional) small discrepancy between the $0.25/100MB for Solo subscribers and the $1.50/500MB for the Business subscribers. On the other hand, Business subscribers have up to 10 times the cameras of the Solo subscribers with increased bandwidth costs that is not a factor in the pricing. It is not easy to map what Amazon S3 charges us into a simple schema for end-users and this is an initial attempt. I would like to refrain from using number of “HTTP PUTS” and bandwidth in the pricing schema for our subscribers. Somehow they need to be factored in. We will be able to refine the pricing once we have a better understanding of the common usage patterns in real situations.

An interesting statement emerged on NewTeeVee today. Post author Chris Albrecht quotes Roku VP of consumer products “It’s unfortunate that the limitless possibilities are being capped by an ISP [Comcast], but it has no direct business impact on us.” Roku, for those unaware, is in a partnership with Netflix to deliver streaming movies on a $99 buy-in deal fully subsidized through one’s monthly rental subscription cost. Comcast, meanwhile, will be initiating a bandwidth limit of 250GB for residential broadband users per month starting in October.

Let me say that 1) the limits to be enact could have a direct business impact on Roku, and 2) of course the company will say otherwise. The reason being that it is in Roku’s interest to disregard changes at Comcast. If it were to complain in ways that prospective users would notice, it might risk cutting into sales by dissuading shoppers concerned about hitting the data limit. And at this point in time, Roku likely doesn’t need such disruptions to its output.

VP Tim Twerdhal says that consumers’ choice of downstream video bitrates allows Roku to safely stay within the bounds set by Comcast. A valid point. Equally valid is his explanation that visual quality will be sustained while bitrates drop as the technologies involved improve and advance. But such progress is a relative unknown to Comcast’s very real “cut-off.”

Furthermore, it only takes knowledge of existence a limit - not too big or too small - to influence consumer decisions. Give a user warning of what might be if he/she were to seek the full potential (or close to it) of modern conveniences like high-quality media downloads, and that tricky thing known as deliberation creeps into the picture. A user might begin to weight the pros and cons of his/her situation. And that eventually eats into interconnected economies. With the movie/TV download sector being one of the hungriest around today.

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Germany’s Office for Information Security, also known as the BSI, has apparently looked at Google’s Chrome browser and felt a pinch of uneasy déjà vu (a la Microsoft), only this time sensing that the company behind the software wants to know too much about you, too often. As a result, the BSI is advising anyone who’ll listen to steer clear of the crayon invader’s brand new beta. At least for anything other than experimental tasks.

Though this isn’t a warning stretched to the whole EU, the fact is that the BSI’s red flag has been shown by a number of German media stalwarts, including Berliner Zeitung and Tagesschau, the second of which is a news program widely viewed by the public. Which makes for fairly substantial news. And just so we’re thorough, the way we’ve learned of this official relay is the through the German blog Spreeblick, sourced by Philipp Lensen of Google Blogoscoped. Lensen summarized the matter thusly:

The Federal Office for Information Security warned Internet users of the new browser Chrome. The application by the company Google should not be used for surfing the Internet, as a spokesperson for the office told the Berliner Zeitung. It was said to be problematic that Chrome was distributed as an unfinished advance version. Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the Internet.

To be honest, a part of me wishes to draw a bit of humor from this news chain. After all, it’s not as if Google hasn’t walked this line before. It manages vast amounts of user data, regularly distributes “unfinished advance version(s)” of software and services, and generally gives privacy hawks the willies. On the other hand, we knew this moment would come.

All this conversation about Google this and Google that, Google so easy and Google so smart. The Chrome project aggregates pretty much every concern into one quick install. Naturally the whistle gets blown. This time from Germany’s own BSI. The issue of security can really only be compounded by the fears of a one-stop shop for both corporation and criminal. The premise of those fears: Google Chrome equals Google Concentrate. “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you,” goes the song.

There’s more of this on its way, to be sure. Regardless of intent or execution, words of caution ring more loudly than calm, and with holes in Chrome to fill, it’s easy to see why various folks would prefer people dabble rather than dive. No doubt, this discussion will be an open one for long time hence, and Google as it is known today will never escape the cloud of suspicion that hovers ever more darkly. All the company can do now is…deal.

Just to lay the cards fully out onto the table, I used Google Translate to put articles from both Berliner Zeitung and Spreeblick into poor, algorithmically-arranged English.

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As we noted earlier, the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing held their official opener on Saturday. The next week and a half will bring roughly 4,000 athletes from 150 countries into one athletic village, challenging one another for hundreds of medals gold, silver and bronze in nearly two dozen sports. With that in mind, if you’re keen on taking in the views and the news as they come from the Chinese capital, here are a few places to stay abreast and in tune.

While the NBCOlympics.com isn’t playing host to events scheduled through the 17th of the month, when the Paralympic games officially wrap up, the NBC Universal Sports website is, according to Alan Schwarz of The New York Times’ Rings blog, slated to present 50 hours of live coverage, as well as on-demand footage. In order to watch live coverage, viewers in the US will be required to schedule their days to an early morning routine, seeing as how many events will take place as early as 5 AM ET.

So far, two videos are presented in the Universal Sports archive: one for the opening ceremony held Saturday; the other a highlight reel of the ceremony plus coverage of a portion of Day 1 events. As for software compatibility, video is not presented in Silverlight, nor Flash, but in Windows Media format. Mac users can view coverage through a browser plugin called Flip4Mac. Personal experience shows this option to stutter and flicker at points, but it is a mostly decent delivery.

Another way to watch the Paralympic games up close is through ParalympicSportTV. This is done through Narrowstep, and while video detail isn’t particularly outstanding, the channel is tagged with the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) label, an association which might be of interest to some. If you have trouble viewing content at the main ParalympicSportTV page, an archive has also been established on YouTube. Nearly three dozen clips have been added to the collection so far.

Want extra reading material to go with the IPC’s coverage? The committee president, Sir Philip Craven, has gone ahead and created a blog, to which he has posted daily items for a short time. The broader Paralympic.org website is home to a good amount of news and resource information, too.

Across the Atlantic, the BBC offers a page within its Sport section devoted to Paralympic happenings. Of course, there’s ample focus on competitors from Team Great Britain, but according to BBC News, live streams are being offered “for six hours a day through the red button.” Quite thorough, I think. That is in addition to evening showings on BBC2 and via the BBC’s iPlayer service.

Lastly, being an American, I think it behooves me to briefly mention the U.S. Paralympics Team website, which is just chock-full of material to pore over. It last links to news stories, video clips, photo galleries, event results, and even a link to Universal Sports’s Paralympic coverage. Plus, if what you see gets you interested enough to take part in paralympic game play yourself, you can head over to its event page to see if something is happening in your area in the near future.

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If a post on Facebook’s developer blog is accurate, you have less than a week to make your call for no change. That’s right, no change. a group of members have coalesced behind a petition, massing together “Against the ‘New Facebook’” to send Zuckerberg and the rest of them out in Palo Alto a message: “We’re not saying get rid of the new layout, just that they should keep the old one and let us choose which layout we want like skins. Color options would be good too.”

As Compete’s trendspotters made known this past week, many Facebook users have switched over to the “new” Facebook, also called “beta,” only to revert back to the old way. Yet, the company is choosing to switch the network over by default in a matter of days, not months, as I myself envisioned it would. If you’re not fond of the idea of a site-wide shift, join the gentle opposition. Their goal at present is to reach 1 million registrants. As of 7:50 PM ET Saturday, they collectively number 424k-strong. The count has been 11 days in the making. Thousands enter the fold by the hour. All to invoke no change, but rather, a choice. Where do you fall? (Note: We made mention of a parallel movement yesterday, less than half the size, with nearly the same title. It happens.)

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