“Oracle and Google have been ordered to reveal the names of reporters, bloggers and other commentators they have paid,” The BBC News reports. “The demand, made by a US judge, follows an intellectual property battle the firms fought in court. The judge said he was ‘concerned’ that financial relationships may have influenced analysis published in newspapers and on the net… The two firms have been given until 17 August to provide the information.”

“Several instances of the firms paying commentators are already known. Florian Mueller, a patent consultant based in Germany, revealed on 18 April that Oracle had ‘very recently become a consulting client’ – two days after the court case began,” The Beeb reports. “Google is also known to have given money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The San Francisco-based campaign group posted articles including “Oracle v Google shows the folly of US software patent law” during the case.”

The Beeb reports, “Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism at the University of Kent, said the case flagged up a wider concern he had about the way some writers operated. ‘One of the key aspects that this highlights is the crucial difference between bloggers and professional journalists,’ he said. ‘Journalists are professionals who understand their obligation to their listeners and viewers – not the interested parties about which they are writing. Many bloggers ignore that distinction.’”

Read more in the full article here.

Also, have you seen this one?. Yikes!

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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "buddabob" and "Fricfracflintwall" for the heads up.]