If the government succeed, there will be a whole lot of games taken off websites that sell the games.

Many of us aren’t aware what is going on in other countries in regard to online e-commerce. However, we think you should become more involved so that you will benefit it. For example, if you see a decent buy on Ebay but it is based in Australia, and is MA15+, you cannot purchase this item as a result of what the Australian government are planning to do. From personal experience, I have found Australia sell the most up-to-date games online and so this will be a huge blow economically.

What is being planned?

Well, the Australian government are attempting to target the gaming market by fully utulizing their “internet censorship” system. The regime will block all websites selling games that are only appropriate for users who are 15 or older resulting in a huge decline in online gaming sales. Is this the right thing to do seeing as the economy is going to be hit by the recession hard?

This may not be so bad in most countries as they have 18+ gaming categories whereas in Australia MA15+ is the highest it goes! This drawback means that companies need to use more resources by lowering the violence in most of the games.

Has it already begun?

According to reports, the filtering scheme has been applied to shops selling these MA15+ games and Senator Conroy said that the Internet Service Providers (ISPS) will block all content related to games including flash, web and downloadable games.

This filter plan will effectively block all gaming websites with a tiny bit of violence which, as I said before, affect retailers who sell online, including eBay and Amazon.

What do you think about the issue? Personally I feel its a bit naive seeing as the economy is already going down and also that Australian 17 year olds are permitted to join the army, which is 10 times as violent than any gory video game.

Remember, feel free to comment. We are happy to respond to any of your views and questions.

The European Commission for anti-competitive prices has fined Intel a record $1.45 billion, which smashes the previous record fine of 497million euros which was levied against Microsoft, in 2004. The Commission found that Intel illegally paid manufacturers (such as Dell, HP etc), and Media Saturn (which owns Europe’s biggest electronics retailer), to favour its chips, and thus squeeze any competition, out of the marketplace for CPU’s.

The investigation was sparked by complaints by AMD, who were the main victims of Intel’s anti-competitive strategies. Intel’s successful monopolistic strategies are reflected in the fact that, last year, Intel made 80.5% of microprocessors in computers, while AMD made only 12% of them. Additionally, Intel’s market value is $85 bn, while AMD’s market value is $2.6 bn.

Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said, “Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years,“. The Commission has ordered Intel to cease their illegal practices and has given them 3 months from the notification of the decision to pay up.

However, Intel is adamant that they have done nothing to violate the anti-trust rules, and will appeal against this verdict. Intel chief executive said, “Intel takes exception to this decision. We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor market… There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal”.

Intel is likely to drag on the litigation process, as Microsoft did in 2004, but regardless, this whole case must be a huge blow for Intel. WE will just have to wait and see how things develop.