The Electronic Frontier Foundation has managed to convince Michael Crook to stop filing bogus DMCA claims against websites carrying a picture of him that appeared on Fox News. A settlement of the EFF lawsuit requires him to withdraw his complaints, take a copyright law course, and apologize for interfering with the free speech rights of those he targeted.

Wired News will put the phrase, “We are the media,” to the test as it launches its Assignment Zero project. The project will run for two to three months, and offers any willing contributor a chance at being a reporter or editor. Results of the project will be published at NewAssignment.net and Wired. If it works, it would show that a widely separated group of people can report completely and well on news issues.

The next generation of search will be improved for people as it becomes more personalized. Google’s Matt Cutts told Read/Write Web that “personalization has a very high chance of being able to improve search for the average user.” Matt also talked about web spam, and said being able to offer spam free search in any language has been a big trend for Google both last year and this year.

Long-time YouTube critic Mark Cuban weighed in with an opinion on Viacom’s billion-dollar lawsuit against the video sharing site and its owner, Google. Cuban said in a post at his Blog Maverick site that he hopes the lawsuit is not just a negotiating ploy. He sees no downside for Viacom and expects many more suits to follow Viacom’s action.

Google may be softening its stance on net neutrality. GigaOM writer Drew Clark cited recent comments made by Google senior policy counsel
Andrew McLaughlin that ran counter to Google’s publicly stated opposition to quality of service agreements. Although Google distanced themselves from McLaughlin’s comments by calling them his “personal view,” Google did sign an exclusive contract with Verizon to carry YouTube videos in November 2006.

Rumors of a MySpace News site have gained more credibility. Screenshots of the news portal at the social networking site were leaked to Wired News in the form of a sales document. The leaked data discussed how the site will be structured, but a launch date was not included. Previous rumors stated the launch would happen sometime in the second quarter of 2007.