WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - AT&T Inc spent close to half the total in the record-setting U.S. sale of airwaves for mobile data, with Dish Network Corp spending heavily to manage a surprise win at No.2 ahead of Verizon, results showed on Friday. AT&T bid a total of $18.2 billion to win licenses of so-called AWS-3 spectrum. Dish itself did not win any licenses, but had invested in bidding partners SNR Wireless LicenseCo LLC and Northstar Wireless LLC, which bid a total of $13.3 billion. The two companies, backed also by financial firms including BlackRock Inc but with little to no revenue, had applied to receive a discount as small-business entities, bringing their net bid amount to $10 billion.

Search engine Google has agreed to better inform users about how it handles their personal information after an investigation by Britain's data protection regulator found its privacy policy was too vague. The Information Commissioner's Office said in a statement that it required Google to sign a "formal undertaking" that it would make the changes by June 30 and take further steps in the next two years. The ICO investigation stems from a privacy policy implemented by Google in March 2012 that consolidated some 70 existing privacy policies into one and pooled data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and its social network Google+.

By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ride service Uber, which is trying to enhance its image after several controversies, on Friday released the findings of a report on its handling of passenger data and said it would act on all the report's recommendations for improvements. Lawyers at Hogan Lovells, who wrote the report commissioned and paid for by Uber, found that the smartphone app-enabled service had appropriate guidelines and procedures in place for internal access control, data security and data retention. The report said Uber could improve privacy and data security by taking steps such as providing training for employees, making policies easier for customers to understand, and tightening access controls. Management at the San Francisco-based company, which announced the report's findings in a blog post, said on Friday it had already begun putting the recommendations into effect.

(Reuters) - The head of China's commerce regulator met with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd chairman Jack Ma on Friday to discuss combating fake products, the official Xinhua news agency reported, with the two adopting a conciliatory tone after a row over illegal business on the Internet company's platforms. The meeting took place the same day the regulator, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), backtracked on an earlier report that had excoriated the Chinese online commerce company for not doing enough to suppress counterfeiting on its websites. SAIC issued what it called a "white paper" on Wednesday saying many products sold on Alibaba's websites infringed on trademarks, or were banned, substandard or fake. "The most recent SAIC posting speaks for itself.

By Bill Rigby SEATTLE (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp brought back annual performance bonuses for its chief executive and her top lieutenants for 2014 despite falling profits and a tumbling stock price, a regulatory filing showed on Friday. The technology company, which has posted lower revenue for 11 quarters in a row as it struggles to transform itself into a cloud-based software and services company, withheld annual bonuses in 2013 at the executives' own request. The bonuses returned as a feature of IBM's executive compensation for 2014, according to a document filed with securities regulators on Friday, despite the fact that IBM's net profit from continuing operations fell 7 percent last year and its stock shed about 14 percent. IBM CEO Virginia Rometty will get a $3.6 million annual incentive payout for 2014, according to the filing.

By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge appeared skeptical on Friday about Uber's bid for a quick pretrial ruling that its drivers are contractors and not employees, a critical question facing Silicon Valley's sharing economy. App-based ride service Uber, and smaller rival Lyft, face separate lawsuits seeking class action status in San Francisco federal court, brought on behalf of drivers who contend they are employees and entitled to reimbursement for expenses, including gas and vehicle maintenance. At a court hearing on Friday, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said Uber's bid for a pretrial ruling its drivers are contractors is a "tough argument" to make, given that the drivers serve Uber's business goals.

Enterprise software vendors want you to purchase expensive support contracts, but is that the right decision? Get the facts here.

Some 6.76 million new customers signed up for the service last year, says research

At some point on Sunday, if you’re watching the Super Bowl, you’ll hear a familiar sound. Not the sound of a referee making a bad call, or the sound of an abandoned hot dog falling to the floor, or the sound of half-drunk fans growling at other half-drunk fans. No, I'm talking about the sound of jock jams; the only sound capable of satisfying an entire stadium of aggressively competitive people with a lot of money. There's "Tootsie Roll," "Pump Up The Jam," "It Takes Two." Even if you haven't listened to those songs in years, I bet you can hear them in your head right now if you try.

This year, companies will discover how APIs fit nicely into any scenario -- .from the Internet of Things to data analytics to integration.

IBM's revenues may have declined for 11 consecutive quarters and its stock price has fallen, but its CEO, Virginia Rometty, is taking a hefty addition to her already substantial paycheck

The torrent site, used to download television shows, movies, games and other files, was shut down for seven weeks.>