The crackdown comes six months after California Attorney General Kamala Harris began discussing the need for better privacy protections with six powerful companies that have shaped the mobile computing market, spawning nearly 1 million applications over the past four years.

Those talks led to an agreement requiring mobile apps seeking to collect personal information to forewarn users by displaying privacy policies before their services are installed on a device.

The companies working with Harris are: Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone and iPad; Google Inc., the Internet search leader and maker of Android mobile software; Amazon.com Inc., the maker of the Kindle Fire tablet; Microsoft Corp., which makes a mobile version of its Windows operating system; Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry; and Hewlett-Packard Co., which is donating its mobile software to the open-source community.

“We are assuming everyone is going to cooperate in good faith and not get cute,” said Harris, who plans to review compliance with the guidelines in six months.

The crackdown comes six months after California Attorney General Kamala Harris began discussing the need for better privacy protections with six powerful companies that have shaped the mobile computing market, spawning nearly 1 million applications over the past four years.

Those talks led to an agreement requiring mobile apps seeking to collect personal information to forewarn users by displaying privacy policies before their services are installed on a device.

The companies working with Harris are: Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone and iPad; Google Inc., the Internet search leader and maker of Android mobile software; Amazon.com Inc., the maker of the Kindle Fire tablet; Microsoft Corp., which makes a mobile version of its Windows operating system; Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry; and Hewlett-Packard Co., which is donating its mobile software to the open-source community.

“We are assuming everyone is going to cooperate in good faith and not get cute,” said Harris, who plans to review compliance with the guidelines in six months.

The complaint follows a similar step by Apple against Motorola last week.

Motorola is in the process of being taken over by Google for $12.5 billion, the biggest acquisition in the Californian company’s history. Microsoft fears that Google will continue Motorola’s tight hold on key patents.

Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have been hit by legal cases in Europe and the United States, with Motorola claiming that the companies’ products are using key patents it owns without permission.

Apple and Microsoft, meanwhile, argue that Motorola is overcharging for the use of these patents, which cover technologies necessary to connect wirelessly to the Internet or stream video online.

EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht asserted Wednesday that an opinion from the European Court of Justice would clear away the fog of misinformation surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known as ACTA.

“This debate must be based upon facts and not upon the misinformation or rumor that has dominated social media sites and blogs in recent weeks,” De Gucht told reporters in Brussels.

The decision appeared to reflect recognition by European Union officials of the political obstacles. Protests against the agreement were staged earlier this month in several European capitals – including Berlin, Helsinki, Paris and Vienna – by critics who say the agreement would stifle free speech and access to information.

The hacking group known as Anonymous claimed responsibility last week for a new series of hacks against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and consumer rights websites. The sites were replaced with a violent German-language video satirizing ACTA.

A dimwitted henchman working for an evil mastermind named Bakuki goes over to investigate the strange noise and then – WOOSH! – his blotchy body splatters across the room after a giant blade surprises him from behind. That’s just one way players can flick their fingers to help heroes Lil and Laarg evade trouble in the cartoony video game “Escape Plan.”

That suspicious knock on the wall didn’t come from mashing a button or thumping a touchscreen but from tapping the back of the PlayStation Vita, Sony’s new high-powered handheld console released Wednesday in the United States and Europe that features a touchpad located behind a touchscreen, giving gamers new ways to engage what’s happening on screen.

With the popularity of touchscreen smartphones and tablets, stroking a screen to cut a virtual rope or propel a digital bird is no longer a novel idea, so Sony Corp. is smacking that mechanic on its bottom with a smooth rear touchpad covered with the company’s circle, X, square and triangle icons located opposite a lush 5-inch high-definition screen.

Yes, there are old-school buttons and analog sticks as well, but the new interface means Vita users can also interact with images on screen by tapping the rear touchpad, front touchscreen – or both for a “pinching” effect that elicits a different response, like prompting Lil in “Escape Plan” to fart as he floats around Bakuki’s twisted headquarters.

Opposition from federal antitrust regulators forced the Dallas-based phone company to give up on the $39 billion deal in December. That meant it had to hand over $4.2 billion in cash and spectrum rights to T-Mobile as a so-called “break-up fee” to compensate T-Mobile for the failure.

Looking at that $4.2 billion charge, AT&T’s board cut Stephenson’s cash bonus by 25 percent, and cut his stock award by 6 percent, for a total of $2.08 million.

That left Stephenson’s 2011 total pay package at $18.7 million, according to the Associated Press formula. His compensation was down from $20.2 million in 2010.

It’s unusual for company boards to cut CEO compensation for specific missteps. But the cost of the failed T-Mobile deal was exceptional. It’s standard practice to offer break-up fees to get acquisition targets to sign on to a deal, but the one AT&T promised was unusually large.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said it is offering to buy the Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba.com that it doesn’t already own for 13.50 Hong Kong dollars a share, at a cost of up to HK$19.6 billion ($2.5 billion). The offer is 46 percent higher than the stock’s last price of HK$9.25 before it was suspended from trading on Feb. 8. The shares are to resume trading on Wednesday.

After years of rapid growth, Alibaba.com expects to add paying customers at a slower rate so it is now focusing more on improving the experience of existing manufacturers, wholesalers and trading companies that use the site. That could hurt financial results, the companies said.

“Taking Alibaba.com private will allow our company to make long-term decisions that are in the best interest of our customers and that are also free from the pressures that come from having a publicly listed company,” founder and Chairman Jack Ma said.

Alibaba said the “depressed” share price is also having an “adverse impact” on business, its reputation with customers and employee morale. Taking the company private would eliminate that problem.

The deal will give it full access to all tweets except for private ones, New York-listed Yandex said in a statement.

It will also allow the Moscow-based company “to improve the quality of the search,” and users will be able to find tweets “just moments after they have appeared,” said Anton Pavlov, Yandex’s blog search manager.

Twitter posts will appear both in a blog search and on a separate website, twitter.yandex.ru.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Here are a few tips on how to make it big on the world’s biggest video platform.

SUBSCRIBERS, SUBSCRIBERS, SUBSCRIBERS

YouTube’s design changes mean that getting on the most-viewed list isn’t the ticket to stardom that it once was. That “Evolution of Dance” video that was YouTube’s most-watched clip for ages wouldn’t cut it in the new YouTube world.

Now, it’s all about getting people to subscribe to your videos. That means fans will know when you post a new video, which often translates to automatic views. Maker Studios cofounder Danny Zappin says most of a video’s views now occur in the first few weeks after release because subscribers have been waiting for them.

The online video giant is aiming to create 25 hours of programming per day with the help of some of the top names in traditional TV. The Google-owned site is spreading its wealth among producers, directors, and other filmmakers, using a $100 million pot of seed money it committed last fall. The fund represents YouTube’s largest spending on original content so far.

YouTube believes it is laying groundwork for the future. While the number of traditional TV watchers has leveled off in recent years, more and more people are watching video on mobile phones, tablets and computers, especially the 18- to 34-year-old age demographic that advertisers covet.

The idea is to create 96 additional YouTube channels, which are essentially artists’ home pages, where viewers can see existing video clips and click “subscribe” to be notified when new content goes up.

Well-funded videos by a select roster of stars are likely to be more watchable than the average YouTube fare of cute cats and webcam monologues. YouTube is betting that a solid stream of good content will attract more revenue from advertisers, bring viewers back frequently and bolster its parent company’s fledgling Web-connected-TV platform, Google TV.