US keeps text of proposed anti-counterfeit treaty secret

In today's podcast: US keeps text of proposed anti-counterfeit treaty secret; Microsoft sees share of US search market fall; and Swedish company wants to bring MMS to iPhone.

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The Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), part of President Barack Obama's office, has denied a company's request for information about a secretive anticounterfeiting trade agreement being negotiated, citing national security concerns. The USTR this week denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Knowledge Ecology International, an intellectual-property research and advocacy group, even though Obama, in one of his first presidential memos, directed that agencies be more forthcoming with information requested by the public. The USTR under Obama seems to be taking the same position about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as it did under former President George Bush, that the treaty documents are not open to the public.

Microsoft's share of Internet searches in the U.S. fell to a 12-month low according to Comscore's report of Internet search queries for February. The information, which was released to Comscore clients but won't be available to the general public until the close of markets Friday, shows Microsoft with 8.2 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, down slightly from January share of 8.5 percent and its lowest share percentage in 12 months, according to the research firm. Results viewed by the IDG News Service and confirmed by Comscore show Google remaining strong with 63.3 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, up 41.6 percent year over year for the month.

Swedish company Mobispine has launched iSendMMS, an application that lets iPhone users send MMS messages. The application is available via AppStore and costs 49 Swedish kronor, or US$5.70. Users will also have to pay the operator MMS tariff for each sent message. Currently, the application only works in Sweden for users with a SIM card from TeliaSonera. But Mobispine is looking to make it available in other countries. The company has been in discussions with other operators since November, when the application was ready. Since then it has been working on the long process of getting the application approved by Apple. Receiving Apple's approval will open the door for a launch in other countries

Yahoo released on Friday an application that lets Facebook members share their physical location with those on their list of friends. The application, called Friends on Fire, uses Yahoo's Fire Eagle technology, which lets developers create Web applications, sites and services that take into account users' locations. This "location aware" online services are becoming more popular, thanks to advances in mobile communications and the mainstream embrace of social networking. Last month, Google launched Latitude, a service that lets users of Google Maps and the iGoogle personalized home page share their locations with their acquaintances and communicate with them via e-mail, IM, text messaging or voice calls.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.