Google emerges from FTC probe relatively unscathed

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google has settled a U.S. government probe into its business practices without making any major concessions on how the company runs its Internet search engine, the world’s most influential gateway to digital information and commerce.

Thursday’s agreement with the Federal Trade Commission covers only some of the issues raised in a wide-ranging antitrust investigation that could have culminated in a regulatory crackdown that re-shapes Internet search, advertising and mobile computing.

But the FTC didn’t find any reason to impose radical changes, to the relief of Google and technology trade groups worried about overzealous regulation discouraging future innovation. The resolution disappointed consumer rights groups and Google rivals such as Microsoft Corp., which had lodged complaints with regulators in hopes of legal action that would split up or at least hobble the Internet’s most powerful company.

Google is still trying to settle a similar antitrust probe in Europe. A resolution to that case is expected to come within the next few weeks.

After a 19-month investigation, Google Inc. placated the FTC by agreeing to a consent decree that will require the company to charge “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” prices to license hundreds of patents deemed essential to the operations of mobile phones, tablet computers, laptops and video game players.

The requirement is meant to ensure that Google doesn’t use patents acquired in last year’s $ 12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility to thwart competition from mobile devices running on software other than Google‘s Android system. The products vying against Android include Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad, Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Microsoft‘s Windows software.

Google also promised to exclude, upon request, snippets copied from other websites in capsules of key information shown in response to search requests. The company had insisted the practice is legal under the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Nonetheless, even before the settlement, Google already had scaled back on the amount of cribbing, or “scraping,” of online content after business review site Yelp Inc. lodged one of the complaints that triggered the FTC investigation in 2011.

In another concession, Google pledged to adjust the online advertising system that generates most of its revenue so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival networks.

Google, though, prevailed in the pivotal part of the investigation, which delved into complaints that the Internet search leader has been highlighting its own services on its influential results page while burying links to competing sites. For instance, requests for directions may turn up Google Maps first, queries for video might point to the company’s own site, YouTube, and searches for merchandise might route users to Google Shopping.

Although the FTC said it uncovered some obvious instances of bias in Google‘s results during the investigation, the agency’s five commissioners unanimously concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to take legal action.

“Undoubtedly, Google took aggressive actions to gain advantage over rival search providers,” said Beth Wilkinson, a former federal prosecutor that the FTC hired to help steer the investigation. “However, the FTC’s mission is to protect competition, and not individual competitors.”

Two consumer rights groups lashed out at the FTC for letting Google off too easily.

“The FTC had a long list of grievances against Google to choose from when deciding if they unfairly used their dominance to crush their competitors, yet they failed to use their authority for the betterment of the marketplace,” said Steve Pociask, president of the American Consumer Institute.

John Simpson of frequent Google critic Consumer Watchdog asserted: “The FTC rolled over for Google.”

David Wales, who was the FTC’s antitrust enforcement chief in 2008 and early 2009, said the agency had to balance its desire to prevent a powerful company from trampling the competition against the difficulty of proving wrongdoing in a rapidly changing Internet search market.

“This is a product of the FTC wanting to push the envelope of antitrust enforcement without risking the danger of losing a case in in court,” said Wales, who wasn’t involved with the case and is now a partner at the law firm Jones Day.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the outcome “is good for consumers, it is good for competition, it is good for innovation and it is the right thing to do.” Before reaching its conclusion, the FTC reviewed more than 9 million pages of documents submitted by Google and its rivals and grilled top Internet industry executives during sworn depositions.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a technology trade group, applauded the FTC for its handling of the high-profile case.

“This was a prudent decision by the FTC that shows that antitrust enforcement, in the hands of responsible regulators, is sufficiently adaptable to the realities of the Internet age,” said Ed Black, the group’s president.

The FTC has previously been criticized for not doing more to curb Google‘s power. Most notably, the FTC signed off on Google‘s $ 3.2 billion purchase of online advertising service DoubleClick in 2008 and its $ 681 million acquisition of mobile ad service AdMob in 2010. Google critics contend those deals gave the company too much control over the pricing of digital ads, which account for the bulk of Google‘s revenue.

If Google breaks any part of the agreement, Leibowitz said the FTC can fine the company up to $ 16,000 per violation. Last year, the FTC determined that Google broke an agreement governing Internet privacy, resulting in a $ 22.5 million fine, though the company didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Google‘s ability to protect its search recipe from government-imposed changes represents a major victory for a company that has always tried to portray itself as force for good. The Mountain View, Calif., company has portrayed its dominant search engine as a free service that is constantly tweaking its formula so that people get the information they desire more quickly and concisely.

“The conclusion is clear: Google‘s services are good for users and good for competition,” David Drummond, Google‘s top lawyer, wrote in a Thursday blog post.

Google‘s tactics also have been extremely lucrative. Although Google has branched into smartphones and many other fields since its founding in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998, Internet search and advertising remains its financial backbone. The intertwined services still generate more than 90 percent of Google‘s revenue, which now exceeds $ 50 billion annually.

Throughout the FTC investigation, Google executives also sought to debunk the notion that the company’s recommendations are the final word on the Internet. They pointed out that consumers easily could go to Microsoft‘s Bing, Yahoo or other services to search for information. “Competition is just a click away,” became as much of a Google mantra as the company’s official motto: “Don’t be evil.”

Microsoft cast the FTC’s investigation as a missed opportunity.

“The FTC’s overall resolution of this matter is weak and — frankly —unusual,” Dave Heiner, Microsoft‘s deputy general counsel, wrote on the company’s blog. “We are concerned that the FTC may not have obtained adequate relief even on the few subjects that Google has agreed to address.”

FairSearch, a group whose membership includes Microsoft, called the FTC’s settlement “disappointing and premature,” given that European regulators might be able to force Google to make more extensive changes.

“The FTC’s inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators,” FairSearch asserted.

Yelp also criticized the FTC’s handling of the case, calling “it a missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy, and the consumers and businesses that rely upon it.”

Investors had already been anticipating Google would emerge from the inquiry relatively unscathed.

Google‘s stock rose 42 cents Thursday to close at $ 723.67. Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., shed 37 cents, or 1.3 percent, to finish at $ 27.25.

In a research note Thursday, Macquarie Securities analyst Benjamin Schachter described the settlement as “the best possible outcome” for Google. “We believe that the terms of the agreement will have very limited negative financial or strategic implications for the company.” Schachter wrote.

___

AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story.

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Oregon leads K-State 32-10 at Fiesta Bowl thru 3rd

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — DeAnthony Thomas returned the opening kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown for the first of his two touchdowns, Marcus Mariota scored on a 2-yard run in the third quarter and No. 5 Oregon held a 32-10 lead over No. 7 Kansas State after three quarters at the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night.

Thomas got Oregon off to a fast start with his kickoff return and added a 23-yard touchdown catch for a 15-0 lead.

Heisman Trophy finalist Collin Klein rallied Kansas State in the second quarter, scrambling for a 6-yard TD run. He kept the Wildcats moving, setting up Anthony Cantele for a 25-yard field goal that made it 15-13.

Late in the second quarter, Cantele missed a 40-yard field goal and Oregon got its quick-hit offense rolling again, moving 77 yards in 46 seconds for a 24-yard touchdown pass from Mariota to Kenjon Barner just before halftime.

Oregon's Alejandro Maldonado added a 33-yard field goal and Mariota put the Ducks firmly in control with his touchdown run, capped by an unusual point-after: Oregon earned a rare 1-point safety after Kansas State blocked the PAT and receiver Chris Harper was tackled in the end zone after recovering the kick.

A pair of 11-1 teams that had that national title aspirations end on the same day, Oregon and Kansas State ended up in the desert for a marquee matchup billed as a battle of styles: The fast-flying Ducks vs. the execution-is-everything Wildcats.

Thomas offered the first flash of speed, crossing into the end zone like a sprinter taking the finish-line tape after picking up a couple of blocks and racing past Oregon's bench for a touchdown on the opening kickoff. The Ducks, are they are apt to do, went for 2 on the point-after and converted on a trick play to go up 8-0 in the game's first 12 seconds.

It was the second straight day a BCS bowl began with a quick strike. On the first play in the Sugar Bowl on Wednesday night, Louisville returned an interception for a touchdown against Florida.

Thomas hit the Wildcats again late in the first quarter, breaking a couple of tackles and dragging three Wildcats into the end zone for a catch-and-run TV that put the Ducks up 15-0.

It's nothing new for Oregon's sophomore sensation: He had 314 total yards and two touchdowns in the 2012 Rose Bowl. Nothing new for the Ducks, either — they average more than 50 points per game.

Kansas State took a while to get going, stalling out on its first two drives.

Klein finally got the Wildcats moving, scrambling and diving for the pylon on a touchdown run early in the second quarter, then getting them in position for Cantele's field goal. Kansas State drove into Oregon's end late in the second quarter, but was backed up by a false-start penalty and Cantele missed his field-goal attempt, giving the Ducks plenty of time to score again — and again.

Last year's Fiesta Bowl was an offensive fiesta, with Oklahoma State outlasting Stanford 41-38 in overtime.

The 2013 version was an upgrade: Nos. 4 and 5 in the BCS, two of the nation's best offenses, dynamic players and superbly successful coaches on both sides.

Oregon has become the standard for go-go-go football under Chip Kelly, its fleet of Ducks making those shiny helmets — green like Christmas tree bulbs for the Fiesta Bowl — and flashy uniforms blur across the grassy landscape.

Their backfield of Thomas, Barner and Mariota made up a three-headed monster of momentum, each one capable of turning a single play into a scoring drive of 60 seconds or less.

Mariota has been the show-running leader, a question mark before the season who ably ran Oregon's high-octane offense as the first freshman quarterback to start for the Ducks since Danny O'Neil in 1991.

Oregon won the Rose Bowl for the first time in 95 years last season and was in position for a spot in the BCS title game this year before losing a heartbreaker to Stanford on Nov. 17.

Whether Kelly leaves for the NFL or not, he had a good run, leading the Ducks to four straight trips to BCS bowls.

Kansas State had gone through its second revival under Bill Snyder, the studious coach who never lost touch with the game or players young enough to be his grandchildren during a three-year retirement.

The 73-year-old followed up the Manhattan Miracle by returning to lead the Wildcats back to national prominence with his attention-to-detail ways.

Klein has led K-State's meticulous march this season, a fifth-year senior who plays in the mold of the college version of Tim Tebow: Gritty, humble, finds a way to win, whatever it takes.

Like the Ducks, the Wildcats had their national-title hopes stamped out on Nov. 17, blown out by Baylor with a rare letdown on both sides of the ball.

Both ended up with a nice consolation prize, playing each other in one of the most anticipated games of the bowl season.

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Automakers End 2012 With Sales at 5-Year High

DETROIT — Automakers on Thursday reported their strongest sales year since 2007, posting solid December results in the United States and promising more growth in 2013.

Sales of new cars and trucks increased 9 percent in December, a gain that put total sales for 2012 at about 14.5 million vehicles — the industry’s best performance in five years, according to the research firm Autodata.

That represents a 13 percent increase over 2011, and raises expectations that demand will continue to rise as more Americans need to replace their aging vehicles with new models.

Auto executives forecast that the United States market would grow to at least 15.5 million this year and possibly higher, if housing starts and other economic factors continue to improve.

“For the industry, 2012 was mission accomplished,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with the auto research site TrueCar.com. “Companies are hitting their sales goals, and they are doing it with fewer incentives.”

Much of the growth has been concentrated in the comebacks of Toyota and Honda from supply chain disruptions caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan two years ago. And while automakers like Chrysler and Volkswagen posted hefty increases throughout the year, the two biggest American companies, General Motors and Ford Motor, lagged the overall gains.

December was a microcosm of the year’s results, as G.M. and Ford on Thursday reported smaller sales increases than those of their chief domestic, European and Asian rivals. G.M. said sales in December increased 4.9 percent, compared with the same month a year ago, primarily because of new products like the Cadillac ATS sedan and higher incentives on its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.

The company had been losing ground in the high-profit pickup segment until it added discounts to the Silverado, which posted a 6.1 percent sales increase in December, and the Sierra, which was up 13.4 percent. For the year, G.M. sold 2.59 million vehicles, an increase of 3.7 percent from 2011.

G.M.’s head of United States sales, Kurt McNeil, said the company expected significant growth to about 15.5 million vehicles industrywide this year. He noted that Tuesday’s pact on the fiscal crisis in Washington removed potential concerns for consumers shopping for new vehicles.

“We are especially pleased that the politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington were able to compromise,” Mr. McNeil said in a conference call with analysts on Thursday. “The short-term crisis has passed.”

Ford reported a slight sales increase of 1.6 percent in December, as safety recalls for its new Escape S.U.V. and Fusion sedan depressed its overall results. Ford said that sales of the Fusion dropped 10.8 percent during the month, and Escape sales slid 21.3 percent. The company has been plagued with multiple recalls on engines and other parts on the new vehicles, which are usually among its strongest sellers.

The drop-off was mitigated by strong results for Ford’s two smallest cars, the Focus, which increased in sales by 58.3 percent, and the Fiesta, which was up by 52.8 percent.

For all of 2012, Ford’s United States sales increased 4.7 percent, to 2.24 million vehicles. Ken Czubay, head of Ford’s United States sales and marketing, said the company’s small-car sales were its best in more than a decade.

Ford predicted that industry sales could possibly reach 16 million vehicles in 2013, as more consumers trade in older models and buy new, more fuel-efficient ones. That peak hasn’t been reached since sales of 16.1 million in 2007.

Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit companies, was the star performer in December, with a 10.4 percent increase.

The company’s new compact car, the Dodge Dart, gained traction with sales of 6,100 — its highest monthly total since it was introduced last summer. Much of Chrysler’s lineup — ranging from Jeep S.U.V.’s to the tiny Fiat 500 — posted sales records for the month of December. For the year, Chrysler said it sold 1.65 million vehicles, a 20.6 percent increase from 2011.

Toyota reported a 9 percent sales gain in December, which was one of the weaker months in its turnaround in 2012. The company said it sold 2.08 million vehicles in the United States for the full year, which was a 26.6 percent gain over 2011. Its three top-selling vehicles — the Corolla compact car, Camry sedan and Prius gas-electric hybrid — accounted for nearly half of its overall sales for the year.

Analysts said Toyota appeared poised to outperform the overall market this year as well.

“Fresh products like the all-new RAV4 S.U.V. should help keep the momentum going,” said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with the car research site Edmunds.com.

Honda ended the year on a high note, reporting a 26.2 percent jump in sales in December in the United States. Its bellwether cars, the Accord and Civic, led the way, each with increases of more than 60 percent. For the year, Honda said it sold 1.14 million vehicles, a 24 percent gain from 2011.

Other automakers had mixed results. Nissan said its December sales dropped 1.6 percent, but the company ended 2012 with a 9.5 percent gain for the year.

Volkswagen closed the year with another banner month. The German automaker reported a 29.9 percent gain for December and a 30.6 percent increase for the full year.

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Hillary Clinton Is Discharged From Hospital After Blood Clot

Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose globe-trotting tour as secretary of state was abruptly halted last month by a series of health problems, was discharged from a New York hospital on Wednesday evening after several days of treatment for a blood clot in a vein in her head.

The news of her release was the first welcome sign in a troubling month that grounded Mrs. Clinton — preventing her from answering questions in Congress about the State Department’s handling of the lethal attack on an American mission in Libya or being present when President Obama announced Senator John Kerry as his choice for her successor when she steps down as secretary of state.

“Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery,” Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton, said in a statement.

Mrs. Clinton, 65, was admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital on Sunday after a scan discovered the blood clot. The scan was part of her follow-up care for a concussion she sustained more than two weeks earlier, when she fainted and fell, striking her head. According to the State Department, the fainting was caused by dehydration, brought on by a stomach virus. The concussion was diagnosed on Dec. 13, though the fall had occurred earlier that week.

The clot was potentially serious, blocking a vein that drains blood from the brain. Untreated, such blockages can lead to brain hemorrhages or strokes. Treatment consists mainly of blood thinners to keep the clot from enlarging and to prevent more clots from forming, and plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration, which is a major risk factor for blood clots.

Photographed leaving the hospital, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, appeared elated. In a Twitter post on Wednesday, Chelsea Clinton said, “Grateful my Mom discharged from the hospital & is heading home. Even more grateful her medical team confident she’ll make a full recovery.”

Dr. David J. Langer, a brain surgeon and associate professor at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, said that Mrs. Clinton would need close monitoring in the next days, weeks and months to make sure her doses of blood thinners are correct and that the clot is not growing. Dr. Langer is not involved in her care.

Mrs. Clinton’s illness cuts short what would have been a victory lap for her at the State Department. With only a few weeks before the end of President Obama’s first term — the time frame she set for own departure — she will be able to do little more than say goodbye to her troops.

But she will, at least theoretically, be able to testify before the Senate and House about the attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. She was not able to appear at a hearing in December because of her illness. Republicans, who have sharply criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the attack and its aftermath, had demanded that she appear to explain the department’s role, though in recent days they have modulated their request.

Mrs. Clinton’s blood clot formed in a large vein along the side of her head, behind her right ear, between the brain and the skull. The vein, called the right transverse sinus, has a matching vessel on the left side. These veins drain blood from the brain; blockages can cause strokes or brain hemorrhages. But if only one transverse sinus is blocked, the vein on other side can usually handle the extra flow.

In one sense, Mrs. Clinton was lucky: a clot higher in this drainage system, in a vessel with no partner to take the overflow, would have been far more dangerous, according to Dr. Geoffrey T. Manley, the vice chairman of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. He is not involved in her care.

The fact that Mrs. Clinton had a blood clot in the past — in her leg, in 1998 — suggests that she may have a tendency to form clots, and may need blood-thinners long-term or even for the rest of her life, Dr. Manley said.

One major risk to people who take blood thinners is that the drugs increase bleeding, so blows to the head from falls or other accidents — like the fall that caused Mrs. Clinton’s concussion — become more dangerous, and more likely to cause a brain hemorrhage. Even so, the medication should not interfere with Mrs. Clinton’s career, Dr. Manley said.

“There are lots of people running around on anticoagulants today,” he said. “I don’t see any way it would have any long-term consequences.”

He also said there was no reason to think that this type of clot would recur; he said he had treated many patients for the same condition and had never seen one come back with it again.

Dr. Langer said the vein blocked by the clot might or might not reopen. Sometimes, he said, the clot persists and the body covers it with tissue that closes or narrows the blood vessel. As long as the vein on the other side of the head is open, there is no problem for the patient.

One thing that is unclear, and that may never be known for sure, is what caused Mrs. Clinton’s blood clot. Around the second week in December, she reportedly contracted a stomach virus that caused vomiting and dehydration, passed out, fell and struck her head. A concussion was diagnosed several days after the fall, on Dec. 13, and the public was told Sunday that she had a blood clot, though its location was not revealed until the next day.

She had several risk factors for clots, including dehydration and her previous history of a clot. In addition, women are more prone than men to this type of clot, particularly when dehydrated. The fall may also have been a factor, though it is not clear whether her head injury was serious enough to have caused a blood clot. The type of clot she had is far more likely to be associated with a skull fracture than with a concussion, several experts said.

Did overwork — frequent overseas trips, perpetual jet lag, high-pressure meetings — make her ill? Mrs. Clinton has kept up a punishing schedule since she declared her candidacy for president in 2007. Having logged more than 950,000 miles and visited 112 countries, she is one of the most-traveled secretaries of state in history. She has put on weight and in recent times appeared fatigued. But the same could be said of plenty of people who do not develop clots in their heads.

“You cannot tell me that her hard work resulted in this,” Dr. Langer said. “I can’t imagine that you could make that judgment.”

In theory, Dr. Manley said, exhaustion can weaken the immune system temporarily, and lower a person’s resistance to infections like the stomach virus that apparently started Mrs. Clinton’s problems. But in his opinion, the most important contributing factor to her blood clot was probably the head injury from her fall.

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Spain’s Chinese Immigrants Thrive in Tough Economy

BARCELONA, Spain — When Jiajia Wang’s parents first moved to Barcelona from China in the 1990s, they had no working papers and spoke no Spanish. The family ate eggs to survive. Her mother and father worked 12-hour days at a Chinese restaurant.

After five years, they bought a restaurant of their own with money borrowed from relatives, interest-free. She and her brother washed the dishes. Her parents slept on a mattress in the bathroom of their cramped apartment so that the children could study at night in the other room.

Today, while Spanish youth unemployment hovers around 50 percent, Ms. Wang, 24, who studied economics at Harvard on a one-year fellowship, juggles four jobs: teaching Mandarin, advising Chinese investors in Spain, running a publishing house and writing romantic novels. She sends home €1,000, or about $1,300, a month to support her parents, who retired last year.

Her family’s story is telling of the ways many of Spain’s 170,000 Chinese immigrants have managed not only to weather a tough economy but even to thrive, aided by intense labor and a strong Confucian model of family loyalty, while joblessness and cuts to government services have left other Spaniards struggling.

“The Chinese family is less dependent on the government because the family is the welfare state, the bank and social services, all wrapped in one,” Ms. Wang said.

“For Chinese people who lived through hardship back home,” she added, “working 16-hour days is nothing, and that has made us more resilient during the crisis.”

The Spanish government itself seems to have recognized the importance of this success. So determined is it to attract Chinese immigrants that in November it passed a law offering residency permits to foreigners who buy homes worth more than €160,000, with the specific aim of drawing Chinese and Russian investment, lawmakers said.

As hard-hit Spaniards struggle to keep both their jobs and their homes, Spain’s Chinese immigrants in Barcelona and Madrid are starting businesses and buying distressed properties from the bursting of Spain’s housing bubble.

Of the 8,613 foreigners who started businesses in the past 10 months, 30 percent, or 2,569 were Chinese, according to the National Federation of Self-Employed Workers.

InfoChina Gestión, a real estate company based in Madrid that focuses on Chinese investors, said the number of houses sold for €70,000 to €100,000 to Chinese nearly doubled last year, to 813. Mr. House, a real estate company in Madrid, said it was selling at least 10 houses a month to Chinese, a majority of whom paid at least 80 percent in cash.

The types of work many Chinese immigrants gravitate toward helps explain their success as much as their work ethic. In a time of economic crisis, ubiquitous low-margin Chinese-owned bazaars, hairdressers and supermarkets have become a lure for cost-conscious Spanish consumers.

“If it wasn’t for the Chinese shops, it would be harder to scrape by,” said Ester Maduerga, 30, a saleswoman at a sports shoe store, as she scanned the notepads, leather belts and plastic alligators at One Hundred and More, a Chinese-owned bazaar here.

Xi Li He, 26, the bazaar’s manager and cashier, said the business was flourishing, in part because he had reduced prices by importing inexpensive goods from China. When Mr. Xi, fresh from business school, tried to take a job at a large Spanish retailer, he said his mother doubled his salary.

That kind of success by Chinese immigrants has provided a beachhead of sorts for further investment from China that has pumped some life into an otherwise moribund Spanish economy.

Before Spain’s crisis exploded in 2008, Chinese foreign investment in Spain was negligible. By last year, it had grown to €70 million, according to ICEX, a government investment agency.

Ivana Casaburi, a professor of international marketing at Esade business school in Barcelona, said Chinese companies were being drawn to Spain because it offered a low-cost gateway to the European Union, the world’s biggest trading bloc.

Isla Ramos Chaves, an executive at the Chinese computer maker Lenovo, said that even with the crisis, Spain — the fourth-largest economy in the euro zone — remained a market that Chinese companies were eager to tap. She added that Chinese multinationals in Spain were proving robust, in part because they were anchored by a huge domestic market back home.

Executives at Haier, the Chinese-owned appliance maker, said the economic crisis, rather than being a deterrent, had provided an opportunity, as Spaniards were willing to consider competitively priced washing machines and air-conditioners, even if their brands were less well known.

“I am not sure we would have been as successful if the market was stable and growing,” said Santiago Belenguer, the general manager of Haier’s Spanish operations.

The success of Chinese newcomers to Spain has not spawned the kind of anti-immigrant backlash seen in some hard-pressed parts of Europe like Greece. Immigration experts said Spain’s relatively welcoming attitude reflected its new openness after the repression of the Franco years, when the country was a nation of emigration. Since the crisis, the return of thousands of Latin American immigrants to their home countries from Spain has also relieved pressure on the work force.

That does not mean everyone has championed the success of the Chinese, and some complain of stereotyping and being targeted by law enforcement.

In October, the police arrested 80 people in a nationwide crackdown on Chinese criminal gangs engaged in money-laundering and tax evasion. The police said the low price of Chinese products was being abetted by some importers not declaring shipments from China, thereby avoiding taxes.

Here in Barcelona, José Rodríguez, the owner of A Porta Galega, a traditional tapas cafe in the hip neighborhood of Eixample, said cut-rate prices for everything from beer to shampoo at Chinese-owned shops made it impossible for Spaniards to compete. At least a dozen Chinese-owned tapas bars are scattered along his block.

Still, he added, he would sell his own restaurant to Chinese buyers, “for the right price.”

Silvia Taulés contributed reporting.

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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc‘s lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc‘s use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon‘s motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple’s false advertising allegations. Apple leveled other claims against Amazon, including trademark infringement.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment, and an Amazon representative could not be reached immediately.

Amazon has stepped up competition against Apple in recent years, launching its cheaper Kindle tablet computer to go after the dominant iPad and trying to lure mobile application developers to its Kindle platform.

One of the first public clashes in their tussle was Apple’s 2011 lawsuit.

Apple accused Amazon of misusing what it calls its APP STORE to solicit developers for a mobile software download service. However, Amazon said its so-called Appstore has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.

In a legal filing last year, Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, used the term to discuss rivals. Cook commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referred to the “four app stores on Android.”

In her ruling on Wednesday, Hamilton wrote that the mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon cannot be taken as a representation that its service is the same as Apple’s.

“Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement (express or implied) of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience,” Hamilton wrote.

A trial on Apple’s remaining claims is scheduled for August.

The case is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01327.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Louisville leads Florida 30-10 after 3 in Sugar

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Terell Floyd returned an interception 38 yards for a touchdown on the first play, dual-threat quarterback Teddy Bridgewater directed four more scoring drives and No. 22 Louisville held a 30-10 lead over heavily favored No. 4 Florida through three quarters of the Sugar Bowl on Wednesday night.

Shaking off an early hit that flattened him and knocked off his helmet, Bridgewater was 17 of 26 passing for 236 yards and two touchdowns. Among his throws was a pinpoint, 15-yard timing toss that DeVante Parker acrobatically grabbed as he touched one foot down in the corner of the end zone.

His other scoring strike went to Damian Copeland from 19 yards. Jeremy Wright added short touchdown run for Louisville and John Wallace connected on a 27-yard field goal.

Florida had not trailed by more than 10 points in a game all season, but the Cardinals, who came in as two-touchdown underdogs, got off to quite a start. The Gators did not get on the board until Caleb Sturgis's 33-yard field goal early in the second quarter, which made it 14-3.

Florida finally got in the end zone with a trick play in the closing seconds of the half. They changed personnel as if to kick a field goal on fourth-and-goal from the 1, but lined up in a bizarre combination of swinging-gate and shotgun formations and handed off to Matt Jones.

Jones met only minimal resistance as he crashed into the end zone to cap an 11-play, 74-yard drive that included four straight completions and four straight runs by Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel.

The Gators tried to keep the momentum with a surprise onside kick to open the third quarter, but not only did Louisville recover, Florida's Chris Johnson was called for a personal foul and ejected for jabbing at Louisville's Zed Evans. That gave Louisville the ball on the Florida 19, from where Bridgewater needed one play to find Copeland for his score.

On the following kickoff, Evans cut down kick returner Loucheiz Purifoy with a vicious low hit that shook Purifoy up. Soon after, Driskel was sacked hard from behind and stripped by safety Calvin Pryor, who had said days earlier that he thought underdog Louisville was ready to "shock the world."

Louisville's Lorenzo Mauldin recovered on the Florida 4, but the Gators' defense drove the Cardinals backward and forced a missed field goal.

Wallace had another field goal wiped out by an illegal block and then he missed the re-kick from father back.

After Louisville native Muhammad Ali was on the field for the coin toss, the Cardinals quickly stung the Gators. Floyd, one of nearly three dozen Louisville players from the state of Florida, made the play.

Driskel was 11 of 19 for 110 yards. His interception was only his fourth all year. He was looking for seldom-targeted receiver Andre Debose, who had only two catches all season coming in. The throw was a bit behind Debose and the receiver tipped it, making for an easy catch and score for Floyd.

Oddly, Louisville had only 10 defenders on the field until only moments before the snap, when safety Jermaine Reve darted out from the sideline and immediately found a Florida receiver to cover.

When Louisville's offense got the ball later in the quarter, the Florida defense, ranked among the best in the nation this season, sought to intimidate the Cardinals with one heavy hit after another. Then again, Cardinals coach Charlie Strong was plenty familiar with many of these Gators — he was their defensive coordinator before moving to Louisville after the 2009 season.

One blow by Jon Bostic knocked Bridgewater's helmet off moments after he'd floated an incomplete pass down the right sideline. Bostic was called for a personal foul, however, which seemed to get the Cardinals drive rolling. Later, Wright lost his helmet during a 3-yard gain and took another heavy hit before he went down.

Louisville kept coming, though.

B.J. Butler turned a short catch into a 23-yard gain down to the Florida 1. Then Wright punched it in to give the Cardinals an early two-TD lead over a Southeastern Conference opponent that lost only one this season and finished third in the BCS standings, one spot too low to play for a national title in Miami.

Louisville won the Big East berth to this game. They beat Rutgers in late November to virtually lock up the conference title, sealing that win on a late interception by Floyd.

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Some Breaks for Industries Are Retained in Fiscal Deal

Nearly $250 million for Hollywood. Over $330 million for the railroad industry. More than $220 million for rum producers. And $62 million for doing business in American Samoa.

While taxes are expected to increase for most Americans as a result of the deal between the White House and Congress to end the fiscal impasse in Washington, corporate America was more fortunate. A bevy of tax breaks and credits that had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2012 will be extended for another year, costing taxpayers $46.1 billion over the next decade, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.

The preservation of these subsidies and deductions has become a perennial Washington ritual in recent years, with lobbyists and companies and their allies on Capitol Hill securing their survival in the fine print of the tax code. Washington’s inability to close many of these loopholes is a sign of just how reluctant business is to sacrifice prized subsidies despite loud calls from many chief executives in recent months to raise taxes, cut spending and deal with huge budget deficits.

“Except for the people who like it, it’s a giveaway,” said Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “It’s hard to mobilize opposition, but the people who benefit from it benefit a lot.”

Many of the provisions survive because they are so obscure. A $62 million tax credit for employers in American Samoa benefits StarKist, which is the largest private employer in the South Pacific island chain, with nearly 2,000 workers there. The tax break was supported by Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, who as former chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was an advocate for American territories that lack formal Senate representation.

“We support the development credit, and it’s a key factor in our ability to maintain competitive operations in American Samoa,” said Mary Sestric, a spokeswoman for StarKist. “This is a big priority for us.”

Corporations were keenly sensitive to changes in broader tax policy, in addition to benefiting from direct tax breaks. For example, Goldman Sachs distributed $65 million in stock to 10 senior executives in December instead of January, when the firm typically makes such awards. That move helped them avoid the higher tax rates that will now be imposed on income of $400,000 or more.

The chief executive of Goldman, Lloyd C. Blankfein, was among the most prominent corporate executives who backed higher taxes as part of a broader deficit-reduction package. He and other business leaders also met with President Obama late last year as the White House sought support from corporate America during negotiations with Republicans in Congress.

Some subsidies, like a break for research by companies, can actually have long-term benefits for the economy, defenders argue.

Others, like the one that allows filmmakers to deduct the first $15 million in production expenses for movies made in the United States, are much more narrowly focused but have loyal supporters that manage to keep them alive year after year. Another beneficiary of Congressional largess is Nascar, which will enjoy a $78 million subsidy for racetrack construction over the next 10 years.

“Once they get in, they tend to stay in,” said Alan Auerbach, director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley.

Besides the $46.1 billion in corporate incentives over the next 10 years, there is another $18.1 billion in breaks for alternative energy, much of that going to companies as well. Producers of biodiesel, for example, will reap more than $2 billion in tax breaks. And while it may not exactly be an alternative source of energy, producers of coal on Indian lands retained $1 million in tax breaks — a provision backed by Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee.

The wind industry, a chief beneficiary of support from Washington, will get $12 billion in subsidies over the next decade. In fact, the benefits that were included for the wind sector are slightly broader now than in previous years.

Under the new rules, contained in the legislation that Mr. Obama signed on Wednesday, new wind farms will be covered by a production tax credit or an investment tax credit similar to the ones that just expired, but the projects will not need to be finished by the end of this year to qualify; they simply must have been started in 2013.

The American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, said in an e-mail to its members that the change was made by Congress “specifically in order to accommodate the business timelines of our industry.” The business has been in a tax-driven boom-and-bust cycle.

The renewal of the tax benefits was pushed strongly by Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Baucus and Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. When the Senate began considering “tax extenders,” or continuations of various tax breaks, wind advocates pushed to have all of them included.

“There always seemed to be some bipartisan support for this,” said Philip D. Tingle, a lawyer who specializes in energy taxes. “The element, the issue was, how they were going to pay for it.” The renewal will probably cost the Treasury about $12 billion, although the wind industry insists that it will generate so much taxable activity that total tax revenue, including those at the state and local level, will exceed the tax expenditure.

The industry undertook a large lobbying campaign and says it generated more than 750,000 letters, e-mails and other communications with Congress. It took nearly 100 members of Congress on tours of wind farms and factories where components are built. The issue may be more regional than partisan; according to the American Wind Energy Association, 80 percent of wind farms are in Congressional districts represented by Republicans, as are 67 percent of the factories.

The tax credits were also extended to cover electricity made from biomass, tides and ocean waves, landfill methane and improvements to hydroelectric stations.

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Ground Zero Volunteers Face Obstacles to Compensation

On the day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, the Wu-Tang Clan canceled its meeting with a record mixer named Richard Oliver, so Mr. Oliver rushed downtown from his Hell’s Kitchen apartment to help out.

He said he spent three sleepless days at ground zero, tossing body bags. “Then I went home, ate, crashed, woke up,” he said. He had left his Dr. Martens boots on the landing outside his apartment, where he said they “had rotted away.”

“That was kind of frightening,” he continued. “I was breathing that stuff.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, nothing symbolized the city’s rallying around like many New Yorkers who helped at ground zero for days, weeks, months, without being asked. Now Mr. Oliver, suffering from back pain and a chronic sinus infection, is among scores of volunteers who have begun filing claims for compensation from a $2.8 billion fund that Congress created in 2010.

But proving they were there and eligible for the money is turning out to be its own forbidding task.

The other large classes of people who qualify — firefighters, police officers, contractors, city workers, residents and students — have it relatively simple, since they are more likely to have official work orders, attendance records and leases to back them up. But more than a decade later, many volunteers have only the sketchiest proof that they are eligible for the fund, which is expected to make its first awards early this year. (A separate $1.5 billion treatment fund also was created.)

They are volunteers like Terry Graves, now ill with lung cancer, who kept a few business cards of people she worked with until 2007, then threw them away. Or Jaime Hazan, a former Web designer with gastric reflux, chronically inflamed sinuses and asthma, who managed to dig up a photograph of himself at ground zero — taken from behind.

Or Mr. Oliver, who has a terse two-sentence thank-you note on American Red Cross letterhead, dated 2004, which does not meet the requirement that it be witnessed or sworn.

“For some people, there’s great records,” said Noah H. Kushlefsky, whose law firm, Kreindler & Kreindler, is representing volunteers and others who expect to make claims. “But in some respects, it was a little bit of a free-for-all. Other people went down there and joined the bucket brigade, talked their way in. It’s going to be harder for those people, and we do have clients like that.”

As documentation, the fund requires volunteers to have orders, instructions or confirmation of tasks they performed, or medical records created during the time they were in what is being called the exposure zone, including the area south of Canal Street, and areas where debris was being taken.

Failing that, it will be enough to submit two sworn statements — meaning the writer swears to its truth, under penalty of perjury — from witnesses describing when the volunteers were there and what they were doing.

Proving presence at the site might actually be harder than proving the illness is related to Sept. 11, since the rules now allow a host of ailments to be covered, including 50 kinds of cancer, despite an absence of evidence linking cancer to ground zero.

A study by the New York City health department, just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found no clear association between cancer and Sept. 11, though the researchers noted that some cancers take many years to develop.

Unlike the original compensation fund, administered by Kenneth Feinberg, which dealt mainly with people who were killed or maimed in the attack, “This one is dealing with injuries that are very common,” said Sheila L. Birnbaum, a former mediator and personal injury defense lawyer, who is in charge of the new fund. “So it’s sort of a very hard process from the fund’s point of view to make the right call, and it requires some evidence that people were actually there.”

Asked how closely the fund would scrutinize documents like sworn statements, Ms. Birnbaum said she understood how hard it was to recreate records after a decade, and was going on the basic assumption that people would be honest.

In his career as a record mixer, Mr. Oliver, 56, has been associated with 7 platinum and 11 gold records, and 2 Grammy credits, which now line the walls of his condominium in College Point, Queens. He said he first got wind of the Sept. 11 attacks from a client, the Wu-Tang Clan. “One of the main guys called me: ‘Did you see what’s on TV? Because our meeting ain’t going to happen,’ ” he recalled.

Having taken a hazmat course after high school, he called the Red Cross and was told they needed people like him. “I left my soon-to-be-ex-wife and 1-year-old son and went down,” he said. “I came back three days later,” after surviving on his own adrenaline, Little Debbie cakes handed out to volunteers and bottled water. After working for three days setting up a morgue, he was willing to go back, he said, but “they said we have trained people now, thank you very much for your service.”

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Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases

RIGA, Latvia — When a credit-fueled economic boom turned to bust in this tiny Baltic nation in 2008, Didzis Krumins, who ran a small architectural company, fired his staff one by one and then shut down the business. He watched in dismay as Latvia’s misery deepened under a harsh austerity drive that scythed wages, jobs and state financing for schools and hospitals.

But instead of taking to the streets to protest the cuts, Mr. Krumins, whose newborn child, in the meantime, needed major surgery, bought a tractor and began hauling wood to heating plants that needed fuel. Then, as Latvia’s economy began to pull out of its nose-dive, he returned to architecture and today employs 15 people — five more than he had before. “We have a different mentality here,” he said.

Latvia, feted by fans of austerity as the country-that-can and an example for countries like Greece that can’t, has provided a rare boost to champions of the proposition that pain pays.

Hardship has long been common here — and still is. But in just four years, the country has gone from the European Union’s worst economic disaster zone to a model of what the International Monetary Fund hails as the healing properties of deep budget cuts. Latvia’s economy, after shriveling by more than 20 percent from its peak, grew by about 5 percent last year, making it the best performer in the 27-nation European Union. Its budget deficit is down sharply and exports are soaring.

“We are here to celebrate your achievements,” Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, told a conference in Riga, the capital, this past summer. The fund, which along with the European Union financed a $7.5 billion bailout for the country at the end of 2008, is “proud to have been part of Latvia’s success story,” she said.

When Latvia’s economy first crumbled, it wrestled with many of the same problems faced since by other troubled European nations: a growing hole in government finances, a banking crisis, falling competitiveness and big debts — though most of these were private rather than public as in Greece.

Now its abrupt turn for the better has put a spotlight on a ticklish question for those who look to orthodox economics for a solution to Europe’s wider economic woes: Instead of obeying any universal laws of economic gravity, do different people respond differently to the same forces?

Latvian businessmen applaud the government’s approach but doubt it would work elsewhere.

“Economics is not a science. Most of it is in people’s heads,” said Normunds Bergs, chief executive of SAF Tehnika, a manufacturer that cut management salaries by 30 percent. “Science says that water starts to boil at 100 degrees Celsius; there is no such predictability in economics.”

In Greece and Spain, cuts in salaries, jobs and state services have pushed tempers beyond the boiling point, with angry citizens staging frequent protests and strikes. Britain, Portugal, Italy and also Latvia’s neighbor Lithuania, meanwhile, have bubbled with discontent over austerity.

But in Latvia, where the government laid off a third of its civil servants, slashed wages for the rest and sharply reduced support for hospitals, people mostly accepted the bitter medicine. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who presided over the austerity, was re-elected, not thrown out of office, as many of his counterparts elsewhere have been.

The cuts calmed fears on financial markets that the country was about to go bankrupt, and this meant that the government and private companies could again get the loans they needed to stay afloat. At the same time, private businesses followed the government in slashing wages, which made the country’s labor force more competitive by reducing the prices of its goods. As exports grew, companies began to rehire workers.

Economic gains have still left 30.9 percent of Latvia’s population “severely materially deprived,” according to 2011 data released in December by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, second only to Bulgaria. Unemployment has fallen from more than 20 percent in early 2010, but was still 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat, and closer to 17 percent if “discouraged workers” are included. This is far below the more than 25 percent jobless rate in Greece and Spain but a serious problem nonetheless.

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