Alibaba Group Holding Limited, or Alibaba (), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services via Chinese and global marketplaces, as well as local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse portfolio of companies around the world in numerous business sectors.

On 19 September 2014, Alibaba's initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange raised US$25 billion, giving the company a market value of US$231 billion and, by far, then the largest IPO in world history. It is one of the top 10 most valuable corporations, and is named the 31st-largest public company in the world on the Forbes Global 2000 2020 list. In January 2018, Alibaba became the second Asian company to break the US$500 billion valuation mark, after its competitor Tencent. , Alibaba has the ninth-highest global brand valuation.

Alibaba is one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies. In 2020, it was also rated as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. It is also one of the biggest venture capital firms and investment corporations in the world, as well as the second largest financial services group behind Visa via its fintech arm Ant Group. The company hosts the largest B2B (Alibaba.com), C2C (Taobao), and B2C (Tmall) marketplaces in the world. It has been expanding into the media industry, with revenues rising by triple percentage points year after year. It also set the record on the 2018 edition of China's Singles' Day, the world's biggest online and offline shopping day.

Alibaba has been criticized for censorship on its platforms, this includes both censorship ordered by the Chinese government and self-censorship. In addition, the Chinese government reportedly has access to clients' data stored by Alibaba's cloud unit.

Naming
The company's name came from the character Ali Baba from the Middle Eastern folk-tale collection One Thousand and One Nights because of its universal appeal. As Jack Ma, one of the founders, replied to Lorraine Hahn on TalkAsia:

History

Early years
On 28 June 1999, Jack Ma, with 17 friends and students founded Alibaba.com, a China-based B2B marketplace site, in his Hangzhou apartment. In October 1999, Alibaba received a US$25 million investment from Swedish Wallenberg family's Investor AB, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. In 1999, Wallenbergs Investor AB owned 6% of the shares. Alibaba.com was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to help export Chinese products to the global market as well as to address World Trade Organization (WTO) challenges. In 2002, Alibaba.com became profitable three years after launch. Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system, so from 2003 onward, Alibaba launched Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Alimama.com, and Lynx.

When eBay announced its expansion into China in 2003, Ma viewed the American company as a foreign competitor and rejected eBay's buyout of Alibaba's subsidiary Taobao. By applying existing technologies, gaining trust in the Chinese e-commerce market, and expanding through dominating the market at a loss before making a return on additional services, Alibaba's subsidiaries outperformed eBay in the Chinese e-commerce market, claiming a growing percentage of consumers from eBay. Alibaba subsidiary Taobao would later force eBay out of the Chinese market, with eBay closing its unprofitable China Web unit, though the two companies would break even six years later.

Expansion
In 2005, Yahoo! invested in Alibaba through a variable interest entity (VIE) structure, buying a 40% stake in the company for US$1 billion. This would as a result net in US$10 billion in Alibaba's IPO alone to Yahoo!. In 2012, China Investment Corporation led a group of Chinese investors in buying out Yahoo!'s 40% stake and in buying the Alibaba shares that had traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

According to Li Chuan, a senior executive at Alibaba, the company was planning in 2013 to open traditional brick and mortar retail outlets in partnership with Wanda Group, a Chinese real estate company. Additionally, Alibaba purchased a 25% stake in Hong Kong-listed Chinese department store chain Intime Retail in early 2014. In early 2017, Alibaba and Intime's founder Shen Guojun agreed to pay as much as HK$19.8 billion (US$2.6 billion) to take the store chain private. Alibaba's stake—28% from 2014's US$692 million investment—would rise to about 74% after the deal.

In April 2014, Alibaba invested in Lyft, along with Coatue Management, and Andreessen Horowitz; they led a US$250 million Series D financing round. On 5 June 2014, Alibaba bought a 50% stake of Guangzhou Evergrande F.C. from Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. in a deal that was worth 1.2 billion yuan (US$192 million). On 5 September 2014, the group—in a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—set a US$60- to $66- per-share price range for its scheduled initial public offering (IPO), the final price of which would be determined after an international roadshow to gauge the investor interest in Alibaba shares to shareholders. On 18 September 2014, Alibaba's IPO priced at US$68, raising US$21.8 billion for the company and investors. Alibaba was the biggest US IPO in history, bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. On 19 September 2014, Alibaba's shares (BABA) began trading on the NYSE at an opening price of $92.70 at 11:55 am EST. On 22 September 2014, Alibaba's underwriters announced their confirmation that they had exercised a greenshoe option to sell 15% more shares than originally planned, boosting the total amount of the IPO to $25 billion.

Alibaba and the underwriters of its IPO were sued in a California superior court in a consolidated class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in October 2015 on behalf of investors who purchased Alibaba's American depositary shares alleging violations of the Securities Act. Alibaba reached a settlement agreement in December 2018, subject to court approval, in which it agreed to pay $75 million to settle the lawsuit.

In January 2017, Alibaba and the International Olympic Committee jointly announced an $800 million deal that would last until 2028 where the company would sponsor the Olympic Games. In September 2018, Jack Ma, the main founder of Alibaba, announced that he would step down as chairman in a year's time so he could focus on philanthropy. In response to the announcement, The Economist stated that Ma had a significant impact in China and worldwide via contributions and dedication to various businesses.

Listing
In May 2019, Bloomberg cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that Alibaba was considering raising $20 billion through a second listing in Hong Kong. In November 2019, Alibaba raised 12.9 billion in its secondary listing in Hong Kong, which became the world's largest offering that year. On Tuesday, 10 September 2019, Jack Ma officially stepped down as the chairman of Alibaba, Daniel Zhang succeeded him at the head of the company. In September 2019, the municipal government of Hangzhou announced that it was boosting its monitoring of the private sector by embedding government officials in Alibaba and other companies.

In November 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Xi Jinping personally scuttled Jack Ma's Ant Group IPO. Bo Zhuang, chief China economist at TS Lombard said that the suspension "forms part of a wider political drive as the leadership seeks to widen and consolidate its control over finance and technology". What followed was an unexpected Chinese government-released draft on 10 November 2020, which gives regulatory authorities a wider latitude to regulate their biggest tech enterprises.

In December 2020, the shares of Alibaba Group suffered a historic stock price crash to the lowest close in around 6 months, following the antitrust investigation into the company by Chinese regulators. In December 2020, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) stated that it opened an investigation into Alibaba over monopolistic practices. The country's central bank, as well as three other regulators, confirmed in a separate statement that the affiliated Ant Group would also be summoned for discussions over "competition and consumer rights", where regulators instructed the company to return its focus to digital-payments. People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, endorsed the investigation shortly after the announcement, claiming the investigation to be "an important step in strengthening antimonopoly oversight in the internet sphere". As a result, from the antitrust probe, Alibaba lost nearly all of its stock-market gains in 2020, from $859 billion to $586 billion, by the end of December. Jack Ma, co-founder of both Alibaba and Ant Group, vanished from public view when Ant's IPO was suspended in early November, but resurfaced in January 2021 in a 50-second video, appearing briefly via video link at the digitally facilitated Rural Teacher Initiative. As of February 2021, he has yet to be seen in public. The video appearance caused Alibaba stock to jump more than 7%. Jack Ma made a public appearance in Hangzhou, China in March 2023 where he met with students and teachers at the Alibaba partners-funded Yungu School.

In February 2021, Alibaba sold $5 billion in bonds, the company's third large sale of dollar bonds, issuing four sets priced to yield between 2.143% and 3.251%. The four sets of bonds were $1.5 billion of both 10 year and 30 year debt along with $1 billion of bonds due in 20 and 40 years. The 20 year bonds were designated as sustainability notes.

On April 9, 2021, as part of a Chinese crackdown on big tech, SAMR issued a $2.8 billion fine against Alibaba for anti-competitive practices and ordered Alibaba to file self-examination and compliance reports to the SAMR for three years. This amounted to 12%  of its 2020 net profit. Critics say the move tightens the Chinese's governments control of tech companies.

On 11 November 2021, it was reported that over the course of its 11-day Singles' Day sales extravaganza, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding received a record 540.3 billion yuan (S$114.4 billion) in orders, a 14 percent increase over the previous year.

In July 2022, the SEC added Alibaba to a list of companies facing delisting from U.S. stock exchanges if its auditors remain unable to examine Alibaba's books before 2024.

In December 2022, a state-owned enterprise of the China Internet Investment Fund, established by the Cyberspace Administration of China, took a 1 percent golden share investment in two Alibaba subsidiaries that control Youku and UCWeb.

Restructuring
In March 2023, the company announced it would reorganize into six business groups and other investments and follow a holding company model. The different business groups will have its own CEO and board of directors and be able to seek their own fundraising and market listings. The six business groups are Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao & Tmall Group, Local Services Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and Digital Media and Entertainment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported on 30 March that Jack Ma engineered this in talks with company CEO Daniel Zhang while he was overseas.

In September 2023, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Ltd., the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, has filed for its Hong Kong initial public offering, potentially making it among the first of the Chinese e-commerce leader's units to go public.

Companies and affiliated entities

E-commerce and retail service platforms

In 1999, Jack Ma launched the primary business of Alibaba, Alibaba.com, while working as an English teacher in Hangzhou. Alibaba.com later became the world's largest online B2B trading platform for small businesses as of 2014. Alibaba.com has three main services: the English language portal Alibaba.com, which handles sales between importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions, the Chinese portal 1688.com, which manages domestic B2B trade in China, and AliExpress.com, a global consumer marketplace. Alibaba.com went public at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007, and was delisted again in 2012. In 2013, 1688.com launched a direct channel that was responsible for $30 million in daily transaction value.

In 2003, Alibaba launched Taobao Marketplace (淘宝网), offering a variety of products for retail sales. Taobao grew to become China's largest C2C online shopping platform and later became the second most visited web site in China, according to Alexa Internet. Taobao's growth was attributed to offering free registration and commission-free transactions using a free third-party payment platform. Advertising made up 75 percent of the company's total revenue, allowing it to break even in 2009. In 2010, Taobao's profit was estimated to be ¥1.5 billion (US$235.7 million), which was only about 0.4 percent of their total sales figure of ¥400 billion (US$62.9 billion) that year, way below the industry average of 2 percent, according to iResearch estimates. According to Zhang Yu, the director of Taobao, between 2011 and 2013, the number of stores on Taobao with annual sales under ¥100 thousand increased by 60%; the number of stores with sales between ¥10 thousand and ¥1 million increased by 30%, and the number of stores with sales over ¥1 million increased by 33%.

In April 2008, Taobao introduced a spin-off, Taobao Mall (淘宝商城, later Tmall.com), an online retail platform to complement the Taobao C2C portal, offering global brands to an increasingly affluent Chinese consumer base. It became the eighth most visited web site in China as of 2013. In 2012, Tmall.com later changed its Chinese name to Tianmao (天猫, "sky cat"), reflecting Tmall's Chinese pronunciation. In March 2010, Taobao launched the group shopping website Juhuasuan (聚划算), offering "flash sales", which are products that are available at a discount for only a fixed time period. In October 2010, Taobao beta-launched eTao, a comparison shopping website that offers search results from mostly Chinese online shopping platforms, including product searches, sales and coupon searches. According to the Alibaba Group web site, eTao offers products from Amazon China, Dangdang, Gome, Yihaodian, Nike China, and Vancl, as well as Taobao and Tmall. As part of a restructuring of Taobao by Alibaba, these spin-offs became separate companies in 2011, with Tmall and eTao becoming separate businesses in June and Juhuasuan becoming a separate business later in October.

In 2010, Alibaba launched AliExpress.com, an online retail service made up of mostly small Chinese businesses offering products to international online buyers. It is the most visited e-commerce platform in Russia. It allows small businesses in China to sell to customers all over the world, resulting in a wide variety of products. It might be more accurate to compare AliExpress to eBay, though, as sellers are independent; it simply serves as a host for other businesses to sell to consumers. Similar to eBay, sellers on Aliexpress can be either companies or individuals. It connects Chinese businesses directly with buyers. The main difference from Taobao is that it's aimed primarily at international buyers, mainly the US, Russia, Brazil and Spain. For conducting business in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention added Alibaba Group to its list of International Sponsors of War.

In 2013, Alibaba and six large Chinese logistics companies (including SF Express) established a company called Cainiao for delivery of packages in China. This network gradually grew to 14 local logistics companies in 2014. In 2016, Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall, two of the world's largest and most popular online retail marketplaces, achieved a total transaction volume of 3 trillion yuan (US$478.6 billion). The company aims to double the transaction volume to 6 trillion yuan by 2020. , Taobao reached 580 million monthly active users, while Tmall achieved 500 million monthly active users. It is also rapidly expanding its e-commerce network abroad. Alibaba has also announced that it will invest 100 billion yuan over five years to build a global logistics network, underpinning an aggressive overseas expansion, and demonstrating Alibaba's commitment to building the most efficient logistics network in China and around the world. It is investing a further 5.3 billion yuan in Cainiao Logistics to boost its stake to 51 percent from 47 percent. The investment would value Cainiao, a joint venture of top Chinese logistics firms, at around US$20 billion.

 On 11 June 2014, Alibaba launched US shopping site 11 Main. The 11 Main marketplace hosts more than 1,000 merchants in categories such as clothing, fashion accessories and jewelry as well as interior goods and arts and crafts and it plans to keep adding more, said the company. On 23 June 2015, Alibaba announced that it is selling 11 Main to OpenSky, an online-marketplace operator based in New York.

In February 2015, Alibaba invests US$590 million in Meizu, acquiring an undisclosed minority stake.

In June 2015, Alibaba started a joint venture Koubei with its affiliate Ant Financial Group to tap China's fast-growing local services market, each investing approximately US$483 million into the business for an equal equity stake.

In April 2016, Alibaba announced that it intended to acquire a controlling interest in Lazada by paying $500 million for new shares and buying $500M worth of shares from existing investors. Lazada Group is a Singaporean e-commerce company founded by Rocket Internet in 2011. Lazada operates sites in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its sites launched in March 2012, with a business model of selling inventory to customers from its own warehouses. In 2013 it added a marketplace model that allowed third-party retailers to sell their products through Lazada's site. Lazada features a wide product offering in categories ranging from consumer electronics to household goods, toys, fashion and sports equipment. In March 2018, Alibaba announced its plan to invest an additional $2 billion in the company, totaling a $4 billion investment. Alibaba also plans to appoint Alibaba co-founder Lucy Peng as Lazada's new CEO.
In October 2016, Alibaba launched Alitrip, later named Fliggy, an online travel platform that is designed as an online mall for brands such as airline companies and agencies. Fliggy set the target audience as the younger generation and it strives to become a one-stop service when they plan their trips, particularly in overseas travel. On 7 August 2017, Alibaba Group and Marriott International hotel group announced a comprehensive strategic co-operation. Two companies will set up a joint venture company. Through the docking technology system and the superiority resources, Fliggy has Marriott hotel flagship store. It has the same function with Marriott Chinese website and Marriott mobile app to create the best global travel experience for consumers.

In 2016, the Office of the United States Trade Representative added Taobao back onto a list of notorious counterfeit platforms that includes the likes of torrent site The Pirate Bay. Alibaba denied wrongdoing and filed two lawsuits against the counterfeiters , but brands whose sales have been affected by the counterfeit products accused Alibaba of not doing enough.

In 2017, Alibaba started opening a chain of supermarkets, named Freshippo (or Hema (盒马, lit. box horse)), as part of the company's "new retail strategy," where customers can either order in the store or online for delivery in under 30 minutes. It offers a mobile app that recommends customers products based on data analytics. In addition, customers can have their groceries cooked to eat in the food court of the supermarket.

In October 2018, it was reported that Alibaba's Koubei have merged with online food delivery service platform Ele.me into a new local life service subsidiary. However, the newly formed Alibaba Local Life Service entity experienced major competition from local service giant Meituan, which is backed by Tencent, leading to rumours of planned layoffs in 2022.

In September 2019, Alibaba announced it would acquire Chinese e-commerce platform Kaola from NetEase for around . In October 2020, Alibaba agreed to pay US$3.6 billion to take control of China's biggest hypermarket operator Sun Art (SEHK: 6808) from French billionaire Mulliez family. The deal doubled the group's stake in the hypermarket chain with a tootles ownership of 72%.

In June 2023, Alibaba appointed a new CEO Eddie Wu, current chair of the Taobao and Tmall Group.

Gold Supplier membership
Alibaba.com offers a paid Gold Supplier membership to try to ensure that each seller is genuine; sellers' Gold Supplier status and the number of years it has been held are displayed. The supplier verification types and checks are listed on Alibaba.com's website, with more stringent checks for sellers outside China. While the majority of suppliers are reported to be genuine, there have been many cases of sellers, some with Gold Supplier status, seeking to defraud unsuspecting buyers. In February 2011, controversy ensued when Alibaba's corporate office admitted that it had granted the mark of integrity of its "China Gold Supplier" program to more than 2,000 dealers that had subsequently defrauded buyers; the firm's share price dropped "abruptly" after the announcement. A statement from the firm reported that Yan Limin, the general manager of Alibaba.com at the time, had been dismissed in March for "misconduct"; Phil Muncaster of UK's The Register additionally reported that "a further 28 employees had been involved in dodgy dealings".

As The Economist noted, the company's response has conflicting components: Alibaba's promulgated view that its corrective actions indicate its commitment to quality and integrity (where it contrasts itself with other scandal-associated Chinese business sectors), versus a damage control view suggesting that the subscription-driven, third-party verified "China Gold Supplier" program was endangered by diminished trust in its endorsement system, removing the incentive for global buyers to choose Alibaba as their business-to-business service, thus more broadly endangering Alibaba through impact on its brand and capabilities (the latter via the "defenestration of senior people"). The scandal was said to have placed the head of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma—who was described as having been furious over the scandal—in a position to personally fight to win back trust.

Cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology
In conjunction with the company's 10th anniversary, Alibaba launched Alibaba Cloud in September 2009, aiming to build a cloud computing service platform, including e-commerce data mining, e-commerce data processing, and data customization. It has R&D centres and operators in Hangzhou, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Silicon Valley and Dubai. In July 2014, Alibaba Cloud entered into a partnership deal with Inspur. Alibaba Cloud is the largest high-end cloud computing company in China. In 2009, Alibaba acquired HiChina, the largest domain registration service and web hosting service company in China, and built it into Alibaba Cloud. On 28 July 2011, Alibaba Cloud released AliOS (formerly Yun OS and Aliyun OS), a Linux distribution designed for mobile devices. In the 2017 Computing Conference in Hangzhou, Alibaba launched AliGenie, a China-based open-platform intelligent personal assistant. It is currently used in the Tmall Genie smart speaker.

In 2018, Alibaba's Wanli Min presented City Brain, a technology geared towards urban solutions such as streamlining traffic, detecting accidents and improving transport efficiency.

On 27 July 2019, Alibaba unveiled a 64-bit RISC-V processor called the XuanTie-910 (Black Iron 910). It is a 12 nm 16-core with a clockrate of 2.5 GHz, and was designed by Alibaba's subsidiary T-Head (also known as Pingtouge). Alibaba claim the Xuantie-910 is faster than the ARM Cortex-A73 and is capable of 7.1 Coremark/MHz.

On 25 September 2019, Alibaba announced an AI accelerator called the Hanguang 800. The Hanguang 800 contains 17 billion transistors built with a 12 nm process and was designed by T-Head and DAMO Academy (Alibaba's research team). Alibaba claim it is capable of 78,563 images per second (IPS) inference and 500 IPS/W in ResNet-50. The Hanguang 800 will be available to be rented on Alibaba Cloud.

On 18 January 2022, Administration of the United States President Joe Biden started investigating Alibaba Cloud business's potential risk to the U.S. national security. This included scrutiny of storage facility of the U.S. clients' data by the provider and to determine whether the Chinese government can obtain access to the same.

In April 2023, Alibaba revealed its plans to release Tongyi Qianwen, a ChatGPT-like chatbot. Its name means "seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions". This AI product, which can support both English and Chinese languages, will be incorporated into the company's various business operations. It will initially be integrated into the messaging app, DingTalk, and the voice-activated smart speaker, Tmall Genie. According to Alibaba, drafting emails, creating business proposals, and converting meeting dialogues into written notes are among Tongyi Qianwen's capabilities. Media reported that the company has received more than 200,000 requests from businesses to join its beta testing program, from industries as varied as fintech, electronics, transport, fashion and dairy farming as of April 2023. Alibaba is also integrating Tongyi Qianwen into a digital assistant called Tingwu. Tongyi Tingwu, the AI-powered assistant, can analyze multimedia content and generate a text summary from video and audio files.

Surveillance of Uyghurs

In December 2020, The New York Times reported that Alibaba had developed and marketed facial recognition and surveillance software configured to detect Uyghur faces and those of other ethnic minorities in China. Alibaba responded that it was "dismayed to learn" that its Alibaba Cloud subsidiary had developed this feature, defending that the technology was developed "in a testing environment" and that it "was not deployed by any customer." However, IPVM reported in December 2020 that Alibaba refused to provide any proof the Uyghur recognition feature was just a "test" or "trial" and that Alibaba's own website showed Uyghur recognition as a live feature.

FinTech and online payment platforms

In 2004, the Alibaba Group launched Alipay, a third-party online payment platform. It also provides an escrow service, in which buyers can verify whether they are happy with goods they have bought before releasing money to the seller. Alibaba Group spun off Alipay in 2010 in a controversial move. According to analyst research report, Alipay has the biggest market share in China with 300 million users and control of just under half of China's online payment market in February 2014. In 2013, Alipay launched a financial product platform called Yu'ebao (余额宝). Alipay partnered with the Tianhong Asset Management to launch it to the general public. In 2015, Alibaba announced that they will introduce a system that can be paid by recognizing the owner's face. On 16 October 2014, the Alipay company was re-branded as Ant Financial Services (now Ant Group).

One of the factors for Alibaba's success in this platform is the company's quick and reliable payment system, where it offers several types of payment systems such as credit card, debit card, Alipay, Quick-pay, and online banking. These payment systems help to cope with simultaneous cash flow transactions with ease and convenience. Ant Financial was ranked sixth in Fortune's Change the World list, recognized for the positive green environmental impact of its Ant Forest, the world's largest platform for tracking individuals' carbon footprints. Ant Financial and its partners have achieved considerable success in the reduction of  emissions. Ant Financial is the highest valued fintech company in the world, and the world's most valuable unicorn (start-up) company, with a valuation of US$150 billion.

In August 2020, Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba, launched the IPO program, valued at US$200 billion.

Entertainment services
Alibaba created a new live entertainment business unit under its Digital Media and Entertainment Group which focuses on ticketing, content creation and live experiences, bringing its entertainment ticketing platform Damai and its content creation and technology units MaiLive and Maizuo under one roof. It aims to provide a platform for live events (e.g. concerts, plays, esports and sports events), as well as supporting content partners and leveraging Alibaba's data capability for offline shows. It also provides the online digital distribution service 9Apps, which hosts downloadable content and applications.

In March 2014, Alibaba agreed to acquire a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media Group for $804 million. The two firms announced they would establish a strategic committee for potential future opportunities in online entertainment and other media areas. The company was renamed Alibaba Pictures Group (SEHK: 1060). In March 2015, Alibaba Group launched AliMusic as its music division. Xiami Music and Tiantian Music are two of music steaming APP owned by AliMusic. AliMusic named Gao Xiaosong as the chairman and Song Ke as chief executive officer in July 2015. In 2017, Tencent Music has expected $10bn IPO by signing a rights deal with Alibaba, strengthening its position within the important Chinese market. Under the terms of the deal Alibaba will gain the right to stream music from international labels such as Sony Music, Universal Music Group and YG Entertainment, which already have exclusive deals with Tencent, in return for offering to its catalogue from Rock Records, HIM International Music and so on. In April 2014, Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity company controlled by Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma, agreed to acquire a combined 18.5 percent stake in Youku Tudou, which broadcasts a series of popular television programs and other videos over the Internet.

Internet services
In 2004, the Alibaba Group released Aliwangwang, an instant messaging software service for interactions between customer and online sellers. By 2014, there are 50 million Aliwangwang users, making it the second-largest instant messaging tool in China. In October 2013, the Alibaba's chairman Jack Ma announced that the Alibaba Group would no longer use Tencent's messaging application WeChat, and would henceforth promote its own messaging application and service, Laiwang. In April 2014, Alibaba Group and UCWeb, a Chinese provider of mobile internet software technology and services, launched Shenma (神马), a mobile-only search engine, as part of a joint venture. Later in June, the Alibaba Group acquired UCWeb, with an international product portfolio that includes a mobile browsing service (UC Browser), app and game distribution platforms (9Apps and 9Game), a mobile traffic platform (UC Union) and UC News that primarily caters to all types of news in the India market (as an aggregator) among others. Alibaba's Y Projects Business Unit developed the Xuexi Qiangguo app, which is used to teach Xi Jinping Thought.

In October 2005, Alibaba Group formed a strategic partnership with Yahoo! and acquired Yahoo! China, a Chinese portal previously launched on 24 September 1999 that focuses on Internet services like news, email, and search. In April 2013, Alibaba Group announced that, as part of the agreement to buy back the Yahoo! Mail stake, that they would suspend technological support for China Yahoo! Mail service and begin migration of Yahoo! China Mail accounts. Several options were offered to users to make the transition as smooth as possible, and Yahoo! China users had four months to migrate their accounts to the Aliyun mail service, the Yahoo! Mail service in the United States, or to another third-party e-mail provider of the user's choice. Yahoo! China closed its mail service on 19 August 2013. E-mails sent to Yahoo! China accounts could be forwarded to an Alimail box until 31 December 2014. Users were also allowed to transfer e-mail accounts to yahoo.com or any other e-mail service. It is estimated there are no more than a million users with Yahoo! Mail for China and chances are they also own other e-mail accounts.

In 2014, Alibaba Group founded DingTalk, an enterprise communication and collaboration platform. Also known as Ding Ding, the app was developed as part of efforts to compete with rival Tencent's WeChat. DingTalk is managed by Alibaba's cloud computing division.

Others
In 2014, Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity firm, launched AliHealth when the two companies bought a 54% stake in CITIC 21CN for HK$1.33 billion (US$171 million). It is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as . It positions itself as a pharmaceutical e-commerce business and medical services. In the same year, Alibaba acquired Chinese map supplier AutoNavi. In April 2015, the group also reached an agreement to transfer its online B2C pharmacy, Tmall Medical (yao.Tmall.com), to AliHealth. The integration provides consumers a wide range of pharmaceutical and health products available in China. In 2015, Alibaba later launched its Shanghai-based sports division, AliSports, after a consolidation of some of the parent company's existing business units. The new company's operations encompass television and digital sports rights, event operation, venue commercialization, copyright, media, business development, gaming, and ticketing. AliSports secured exclusive title sponsorship of the FIFA Club World Cup from 2015 to 2022. The company announced a Champion of Champions rugby sevens tournament in 2017, to be played in Shanghai for the highest prize money ever offered in the sport.

In December 2015, Alibaba agreed to acquire the South China Morning Post and other media assets belonging to the group for a consideration of $266 million. Although Alibaba promised editorial independence, vice-chairman Joseph Tsai said that Alibaba believes that "the world needs a plurality of views when it comes to China coverage. China's rise as an economic power and its importance to world stability is too important for there to be a singular thesis." The acquisition attracted media concerns over what this would mean for the newspaper's coverage.

Other subsidiaries of Alibaba include Hangzhou Ali Venture Capital and Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. Hangzhou Ali Venture Capital (杭州阿里创业投资) is a company 80% owned by Jack Ma and another manager of Alibaba. For regulatory purpose, Alibaba Group did not own the company directly, but by pleading. It was considered as a subsidiary and/or consolidated entity of Alibaba Group. Ali Venture Capital is a shareholder of Beijing Enlight Media and a domestic shareholder of China Unicom. The Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund is a non-profit making initiative launched by Alibaba Group in 2015.

Alibaba also has invested in more than ten startups in Hong Kong including DayDayCook, GoGoVan, WeLend and Qupital. In 2019, Alibaba launched China-Russia flights in collaboration with Russian Post to assure fast shipping of products.

Corporate governance
Alibaba's main co-founder Jack Ma is the former executive chairman of the Alibaba Group from its creation to 10 September 2019. The current executive chairman is Daniel Zhang, who succeeded Ma on 10 September 2019, and is also Alibaba's CEO since 2015.

J. Michael Evans is Alibaba's president since 2015. The board of directors of Alibaba includes top management Jack Ma, Joseph Tsai, Daniel Zhang, and J. Michael Evans, and director Eric Jing, plus independent directors such as Chee Hwa Tung, Weijian Shan, Walter Kwauk, and Wan Ling Martello, as well as Yahoo! co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang. Masayoshi Son (founder and CEO of SoftBank) formerly served on the firm's board before stepping down in 2020. Besides Tsai, Zhang, and Evans, senior management also includes Toby Xu (Chief financial officer), Judy Tong (Chief officer), Jessie Zheng (Chief risk officer, Chief Platform Governance Officer and Chief customer officer), Angel Zhao (Head of Alibaba Globalization Leadership Group), Chris Tung (Chief marketing officer) and Trudy Dai (President of Core Domestic E-commerce).

Previously, Jack Ma served as the CEO of the Alibaba Group since its creation, but later stepped down in 2013, choosing Jonathan Lu as his successor. The Alibaba Group under Lu was performing well, though there were rumors that Ma was growing distrustful in Lu's ability to lead the company. Daniel Zhang, who served as COO of Alibaba under Lu, succeeded Lu as CEO in 2015. On 10 September 2018, Ma chose Zhang to succeed him as executive chairman of the Alibaba Group after his stepping down announcement, and this would go into effect in 1 year on 10 September 2019.

Since 2012, the Chinese Communist Party has had a Party Committee in place in the company and has over 2,000 party members as Alibaba employees. In 2019, the Chinese government began embedding officials inside major technology companies, including Alibaba.

Alibaba has been criticized for censorship on its platforms, this includes both censorship ordered by the Chinese government and self-censorship.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alibaba did not join the international calls for withdrawal from the Russian market. Research from Yale University published on August 10, 2022, identifying how companies were reacting to Russia's invasion identified Alibaba in the worst category of "Digging in", meaning Defying Demands for Exit: companies defying demands for exit/reduction of activities. In August 2023, Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention designated the company an 'international sponsor of war' owing to it providing a platform for the sale of copper goods sourced from the occupied territories of Ukraine.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has announced Joseph Tsai as the new chairman and Eddie Wu as the CEO. This move comes as the company seeks to revive growth in the post-crackdown era, with Tsai providing strategic direction and Wu driving operational excellence.

Financial data
The company's revenue, net income, and assets have consistently grown, with revenues reaching more than $800 billion in the 2022/23 financial year.

Criticism
On August 7, 2021, Alibaba fired a manager who admitted to "indecent acts" with an inebriated employee. The case highlighted issues of sexual harassment in the workplace.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alibaba refused to join the international calls for withdrawal from the Russian market. Research from Yale University published on August 10, 2022 identifying how companies were reacting to Russia's invasion identified Alibaba in the worst category of "Digging in", meaning Defying Demands for Exit: companies defying demands for exit/reduction of activities.

Cybersecurity risk
Alibaba uses Cainiao software at its Belgian-European sales hub. The software is able to access data about retailers, products, transport details and flows, a person familiar with the company's IT systems told the British newspaper Financial Times. Chinese companies are legally obliged to pass on their data to China's authorities and security services. The Belgium State Security Service is monitoring the hub in Lütich because of this fact and possible espionage. According to the Financial Times, Cainiao denied suggestions of wrongdoing, noting that the firm operates in compliance with relevant laws and regulations.

On 18 January 2022, Administration of the United States President Joe Biden started investigating Alibaba Cloud business's potential risk to the U.S. national security. This included scrutiny of storage facility of the U.S. clients' data by the provider and to determine whether the Chinese government can obtain access to the same.

Surveillance of Uyghurs

In December 2020, The New York Times reported that Alibaba had developed and marketed facial recognition and surveillance software configured to detect Uyghur faces and those of other ethnic minorities in China. Alibaba responded that it was "dismayed to learn" that its Alibaba Cloud subsidiary had developed this feature, defending that the technology was developed "in a testing environment" and that it "was not deployed by any customer." However, IPVM reported in December 2020 that Alibaba refused to provide any proof the Uyghur recognition feature was just a "test" or "trial" and that Alibaba's own website showed Uyghur recognition as a live feature.

Social responsibility
Alibaba actively promotes female employment, collaborating with the All-China Women's Federation for community e-commerce events. The company also donates to UN Women to support female employment initiatives. Half of Alibaba's employees are women, with one-third of leadership roles, especially in departments like human resources, held by women.

See also

 Variable interest entity
 Amazon

References

External links

Jack Ma
Chinese companies established in 1999
Chinese brands
Companies based in Hangzhou
Financial services companies established in 1999
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Companies in the Hang Seng Index
Internet properties established in 1999
Silver Lake (investment firm) companies
Multinational companies headquartered in China
2014 initial public offerings
Electric vehicle manufacturers of China

Alibaba Group


The Paleontological Society, formerly the Paleontological Society of America, is an international organisation devoted to the promotion of paleontology. The Society was founded in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland, and was incorporated in April 1968 in the District of Columbia. The Society publishes the bi-monthly Journal of Paleontology and the quarterly Paleobiology, holds an annual meeting in the autumn in conjunction with the Geological Society of America, sponsors conferences and lectures, and provides grants and scholarships.

The Society has five geographic sections—Pacific Coast (founded March 1911), North-Central (founded May 1974), Northeastern (founded March 1977), Southeastern (founded November 1979), Rocky Mountain (founded October 1985), and South-Central (founded November 1988).

Medals and awards
The Society recognizes distinguished accomplishments through three awards, one recognized by a medal, the other two by inscribed plaques normally presented annually:
The Paleontological Society Medal, given since 1963, is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the Society and is awarded to a person whose eminence is based on advancement of knowledge in paleontology.
The Charles Schuchert Award, given since 1973, is presented to a person under the age of 40 whose work reflects excellence and promise in the science of paleontology. The award is named for Charles Schuchert (1858-1942), an invertebrate paleontologist from Yale University who was a leader in the development of paleogeography.
The Harrell L. Strimple Award, awarded since 1984, is given for contributions to paleontology by an amateur (someone who does not derive his/her livelihood from the study of fossils).

See also
 John Mason Clarke, the society's first President
 List of presidents of the Paleontological Society

References

External links
 Homepage

Paleontological institutions and organizations
Biology societies
Geology societies
Natural Science Collections Alliance members
Paleontology in the United States
1908 establishments in the United States
Scientific organizations established in 1908
Scientific societies based in the United States

Paleontological Society


The Chilliwack Museum and Historical Society is a registered non-profit society that operates the Chilliwack Museum and Archives located in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada.

Location
The Chilliwack Museum and Historical Society operates two sites in Downtown Chilliwack. The Chilliwack Museum is located at 45820 Spadina Avenue  within the former Chilliwack City Hall, a National Historic Site of Canada. The Museum houses the Society's main exhibition galleries and historic programming spaces. The Society also operates the Chilliwack Archives Research Centre at Evergreen Hall, located at 9291 Corbould Street, which possesses climate controlled storage for the Society's archival and artifact collections.

History

The community of Chilliwack first considered developing a museum in 1956, as a project to celebrate the town's centennial year, 1958. Residents whose ancestors were pioneers in the area, including Judge Allan Guinet, Oliver Wells, Earl McLeod, Mary Hickman, E.H. Patriquin, took  the lead.

The first museum in Chilliwack opened in March 1958 by the trustees of the Chilliwack Historical Society, and was housed in a room provided by Chilliwack city council in the police building on Nowell Street North.

In 1960 the museum was moved to a room in the local library. In 1971 another centennial celebration led to the museum moving into Evergreen Hall; it was renamed the Wells Centennial Museum.

In 1981 the Society was granted use of the former City Hall building on Spadina Avenue. The museum exhibits and administrative operations began to operate out of the new site, while the archives and collections continued to be based out of Evergreen Hall. The archives were expanded in 2011 to Evergreen Hall which doubled the amount of storage space for the archive and object collections.

In 2013 the archives received a donation of about 400,000 photographs and negatives taken between 1948 and 2006 by a local photographic business.  The museum also provided bus tours during the Chilliwack High School reunion.

In 2014 the museum provided resources for and helped to develop a local history effort, the Chilliwack Poppy Project.  That year the museum grounds were the site of an anti-abortion protest, which spilled over to the nearby Cenotaph.

Regular activities

The Chilliwack Museum and Archives offers heritage and cultural-based programming throughout the year, including classroom and museum-based programming for K-12 school groups, monthly Archives tours and outreach activities. The Museum location houses permanent and temporary exhibitions centred on Chilliwack history. The Chilliwack Museum and Archives website hosts numerous online exhibitions, and developed the Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism and Arson online exhibition,  an exhibition based on the book Chilliwack's Chinatowns by Dr. Chad Reimer in 2019. The exhibition is hosted by the Virtual Museum of Canada.

The Society acquires, preserves and maintains local archival records and object collections of relevance to the Chilliwack area and provides access to the collections for researchers and the public.  Collections are also searchable online through the Chilliwack Museum and Archives PastPerfect Museum Software database, which has been online since 2007. The Museum and Archives delivers local research services, publishes community history books and provides consultation and contributions to local heritage and cultural projects.

Operation
The Chilliwack Museum and Archives is governed and operated by the Chilliwack Museum and Historical Society, a registered not-for-profit Society.  The Executive Director oversees the work of four full-time and three part-time staff members in addition to approximately 20 volunteers. The Society is a member of the British Columbia Museums Association, the Archives Association of British Columbia and the Canadian Museums Association. The Chilliwack Museum and Historical Society receives funding from federal, provincial and municipal governments.

References

External links

Museums in British Columbia


Cantéyodjayâ is a work for piano by the French composer Olivier Messiaen, written in 1949. The form of the work's single movement exhibits aspects of sonata-form and rondo, but progresses by superimposition and repetition rather than conventional development.

The work's compositional bases are the Hindu rhythms often found in Messiaen's work. The composer's research into Hindu rhythms was based partly on the 120 rhythms listed in the thirteenth-century Sangita Ratnakara of Śārṅgadeva. The score includes names that are taken from this work, and also from Carnatic musical theory.

The opening element of the work is named "Cantéyodjayâ" (a Carnatic name) in the score. This opening figuration recurs often, interspersed with other material.

References

Compositions for solo piano
Compositions by Olivier Messiaen
1949 compositions

Cantéyodjayâ


The Eco-Power Stadium (formerly known as Keepmoat Stadium) is a multi-purpose stadium in Doncaster, England, with a capacity of 15,231. It cost approximately £20 million to construct, as part of the wider Lakeside Sports Complex that it resides within which in total cost approximately £32 million, and is used by Doncaster Rovers, Doncaster Rugby League Club and Doncaster Rovers Belles Ladies Football Club.

Facilities

Stands

East Stand

The East Stand is sponsored by Donasonic. The area of the East Stand towards the South East corner is the Families area sponsored by First Bus Ltd. and is known as the "First" Families Stand.

West Stand

This is the main match-day reception area with the stand sponsored by Red Viking Rail, and is known as the "James Coppinger West Stand", after former Doncaster Rovers player James Coppinger.

South Stand

The South Stand, popularly known as the Black Bank, is sponsored by Polypipe. For Doncaster Rovers matches this is the stand that houses the Black Bank (the ultras group of Doncaster Rovers supporters) and is decorated with flags and banners on match days, widely known for creating a fantastic atmosphere.

North Stand

The North Stand is sponsored by Corsan. The North Stand area closest to the East Stand is the usual location of visiting fans. Depending on the numbers of visitors, the availability of seats in this area are expanded westwards to meet demand.

Capacity

The all-seater stadium holds 15,231 spectators, 5,000 more than Belle Vue, with improved legroom and disabled access. Amongst the facilities in the new stadium is a new fans' bar, created to ensure fans have a place where they can enjoy pre-match drinks.

The pitch itself incorporates a system of synthetic fibres interwoven with natural grass. This helps to maintain the pitch's integrity and prevents the playing surface from deteriorating throughout the course of the season. The pitch however does not have an under-soil heating system in-place, despite being a modern construction. This has resulted in the postponement of a match within the first year of full operation.

Adjoining sports complex facilities and stadia
A mini-stadium is situated beside the main stadium, featuring a six-lane running track and a 500-seat stand. The mini stadium is used by Doncaster Rovers Belles, Doncaster Rovers Reserves, Doncaster Athletics Club, Doncaster RLFC's academy team, and the Doncaster Mustangs American football team.

Sports

Football

The first game played by Doncaster Rovers in the new stadium was on 1 January 2007 against Huddersfield Town, whom they beat 3–0. The game also saw the first three red cards in the new stadium. Doncaster Rovers' centre forward Mark McCammon was the first player ever to score on the new pitch.

Doncaster's first loss at the stadium came five days later at the hands of Bolton Wanderers when they defeated the Rovers 4–0 in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup.

On 14 January 2007, Doncaster Rovers Belles' first match in the main stadium resulted in a 5–2 defeat to Leeds United, before a crowd of 1,797. Vicky Exley was the first Belle to score on the new pitch.
The official opening of the Keepmoat Stadium was on 3 August 2007, with Doncaster Rovers playing a Manchester United XI in front of a crowd of 13,080. United won the game 2–0.

On 19 June 2012, it was confirmed that Doncaster Rovers had secured a 99-year operating lease from Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council to lead the management of the stadium with a view to improving operating results across the stadium sports partnership.

The stadium hosted the final of the 2012–13 FA Women's Cup.

The highest ever attendance at the Keepmoat stadium was 15,001 for the visit of Leeds United. Rovers also achieved attendances of over 14,800 at the Keepmoat Stadium in games against Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United.

On 3 March 2010, it hosted England's under-21s 2011 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification Group 9 match against Greece's under-21s. The hosts lost 2–1 with the visitors goals coming from Kyriakos Papadopoulos on the 28th minute and Yiannis Papadopoulos on the 49th minute while Nathan Delfouneso scored for the hosts on the 80th minute.

Since the EFL require all matches to be played on grass pitches, the stadium was used for all of Harrogate Town's matches for the first month of their 2020–21 season whilst the club replaced their synthetic pitch at Wetherby Road.

On 30 November 2021, England's women's team hosted Latvia's women's team at the stadium, beating them by a record margin of 20-0.

Rugby League
The opening game played by Doncaster in the new stadium was against Sheffield Eagles, to whom they lost 16–10 in front of 5,400 spectators. Sheffield Eagles (and former Dons') Richard Newlove was the first player to score try at the new stadium.

On Sunday 27 July 2008, the stadium hosted a semi-final of the Rugby League Challenge Cup between Hull F.C. and Wakefield Trinity. Hull beat Trinity 32–24 in front of a crowd of 14,716.

The stadium hosted the opening match of the 2009 Gillette 4 Nations on Friday 23 October between co-hosts England and France attracting a crowd of 11,529.

The stadium hosted the semi-final of the Rugby League Challenge Cup between Castleford and Leeds on Sunday 7 August 2011, Leeds winning 10-8 in front of 13,158 fans; another Challenge Cup Semi-Final between Hull F.C. and Wigan took place at the stadium on 29 July 2016, Hull running out 16-12 winners.

The Dons local rivals, Sheffield Eagles, used the stadium as their temporary home during the 2015 rugby league season.

In 2021, the stadium will play host to three group games of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.

Rugby league test matches

Music
There have also been a variety of concerts held in the stadium, including two in July 2007 featuring Ronan Keating, Bryan Adams and McFly. In July 2008 there was also a show by Sir Elton John and his band. On 30 July 2011, Irish vocal pop band Westlife held a concert for Gravity Tour supporting their album Gravity. In 2017, Doncaster born singer Louis Tomlinson filmed part of the music video for his hit single, Back to You, featuring Bebe Rexha, in the stadium. The Killers were set to play the stadium in May 2020, but the date was postponed to May 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other events
In September 2008, the stadium was used to host the BAFL (British American Football League) finals known as "Britbowl".
In mid June 2009 opened its facilities to accommodate corporate events and private functions, the first of which being the marriage reception of Wesley and Claire Vaughan, June 2009.
In November 2010, darts superstar Dennis Priestley held a darts exhibition at the stadium.
On 11 May 2013, an IBF Bantamweight World Title boxing match between Jamie McDonnell and Julio Ceja took place at the stadium, with McDonnell the winner.
On 27 July 2013, an MMA event hosted by UCFC has held at the stadium, the main event was between Ian Freeman and Ricco Rodriguez.
On 28 April 2016 it was announced that Rugby Union team Doncaster Knights would use the Keepmoat for a maximum of six games the following season if they were to win promotion to Premiership Rugby. This would allow work to be undertaken on their home ground of Castle Park in order to bring it up to at least the minimum seating capacity of 10,000 required by the RFU and the Professional Game Board (PGB) for a premiership venue. However, the Doncaster Knights did not achieve promotion that season.

Naming rights
When construction began on the stadium, a planning permission application was made under the name "Doncaster Community Stadium" with many people speculating that this would be the official name.

However, prior to the stadium's opening, Keepmoat Homes, a company specialising in council housing, was unveiled as the stadium's first sponsor. Keepmoat Homes would go on to sponsor the stadium for the first 15 years spanning between November 2006 and December 2021.

On 14 December 2021, Doncaster based construction company Eco-Power was announced as the new naming rights holder, taking effect from 27 December 2021, initially until the end of 2025.

Awards
At the Stadium Business Awards 2010, the stadium received the award for Best Matchday Experience.

See also
 Belle Vue, Doncaster Rovers' former home.
 XP School

References

External links

 Official website

Football venues in England
Doncaster Rovers F.C.
Sports venues in Doncaster
Rugby league stadiums in England
Multi-purpose stadiums in the United Kingdom
Football venues in South Yorkshire
Sports venues completed in 2006
English Football League venues
2006 establishments in England
American football venues in the United Kingdom
Doncaster Rovers Belles L.F.C.
Doncaster R.L.F.C.

Eco-Power Stadium


Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc. 562 F.3d 123 (2nd Cir. 2009), was a case at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in which the court held that recommending a trademark for keyword advertising was a commercial use of the trademark, and could constitute trademark infringement.

Background
AdWords is a system used by Google through which advertisers can purchase keywords. When a user searches for a purchased keyword, Google displays advertisements from the purchasing firm. Google also provides its advertising customers with a "Keyword Suggestion Tool", which recommends additional keywords for the customer to purchase. Rescuecom, a computer repair and service firm, discovered that Google had used its name during this process, and recommended it to it AdWords customers.

The name "Rescuecom" was trademarked by the company. Rescuecom further found that Google had recommended its name for purchase by some of Rescuecom's own competitors. The company therefore filed suit against Google claiming violations of the Lanham Act, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution,  false designation of origin, and tortious interference in business relations with an intent to gain economic advantage.

District court proceedings
The case was first heard by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York in 2006. The district court drew heavily on the Second Circuit precedent 1-800 CONTACTS, INC. v. WhenU. com, Inc., concerning the use of software that generated pop-up advertisements based on a computer user's actions, with the ads being generated from a database of company domain names. In that precedent, the court held that the usage of a trademarked domain name in an "unpublished directory of terms" and the appearance of "separate, branded ads" triggered by a trademark do not constitute "use" of the trademark under the Lanham Act.

In its ruling in the Rescuecom case, the district court held that, per the WhenU precedent, Rescuecom had "prove[d] no facts in support of its claim... [of] trademark use". Given that a trademark "use" is required under the Lanham Act for infringement to occur, the district court dismissed Rescuecom's complaint. Rescuecom appealed this ruling to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Circuit court opinion
The Second Circuit reversed the district court's decision in 2009, holding that Google's use of the "Rescuecom" trademark constituted a "use in commerce" under the Lanham Act, even when recommending it for purchase by its own advertising customers.

The circuit court held that the lower court had interpreted the WhenU precedent incorrectly, because Google's process of selling keywords for its AdWords service was a different type of business practice. The court rejected Google's argument that the inclusion of a trademarked term in an internal computer directory does not constitute "use" of that trademark under the Lanham Act. Instead, the court held that "Google's recommendation and sale of Rescuecom's mark to its advertising customers are not internal uses" and were a full business transaction. If the court were to accept Google's argument, "the operators of search engines would be free to use trademarks in ways designed to deceive and cause consumer confusion. This is surely neither within the intention nor the letter of the Lanham Act."

In another departure from the matters discussed in the WhenU precedent, the circuit court accepted Rescuecom's assertion that Google's placement of "sponsored links" purchased by its AdWords customers, above organic search results at the google.com page, could lead consumers to conclude that such ads were associated with Rescuecom. As a result, Google's argument that a sponsored link is analogous to placement of a generic brand next to a trademarked brand was rejected by the circuit court.

The Second Circuit thus vacated the district court decision, ruling that Google's actions constituted commercial use and that Rescuecom's claims of trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and related claims could not be immediately dismissed as Google requested. The case was sent back to the district court for reconsideration of possible financial damages to be paid to Rescuecom.

Impact and subsequent developments
In 2010, Rescuecom moved to drop the proceedings against Google and issued a press release declaring victory in the case. However, Google apparently made no new concessions to Rescuecom to get it to drop the lawsuit; instead, the changes that Rescuecom claimed as victory had been made by Google five years earlier. Thus it was unclear if Google had adjusted its AdWords recommendation process based on the circuit court ruling, or if Rescuecom had realized any rewards.

Meanwhile, the original district court ruling was criticized for confusing the matter of "commercial use" of trademarked terms on the Internet for advertising practices that would be permitted for traditional advertising, though the Second Circuit ruling on appeal has been cited as an important if uncertain precedent in the law of Internet advertising.

References

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cases
United States Internet case law
United States trademark case law
2009 in United States case law
Google litigation
Online advertising

Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc.


The Wild and Frantic Little Richard is the second and last Little Richard album released on the Modern Records label. It is composed of songs released on singles during his time with the label, live tracks, and material licensed or left over from Vee-Jay. (Little Richard produced Vee-Jay 1107). Some tracks released on 45 were different versions, shorter or longer, with or without horns and overdubs. Live material appears to be from 1 December 1965, at the Domino Club, Atlanta, Georgia. Studio from 31 August 1964, Los Angeles; 1 January 1966, Memphis.

Track listing
"Baby What You Want Me to Do" (live) (Grant Higgins)
"Do the Jerk" [aka "Get Down With It"] (live?)
"Directly From My Heart" (Penniman)
"I'm Back" (Penniman)
"Holy Mackerel" (Mitchell, Penniman)
"Good Golly, Miss Molly" (live) (John Marascalco, Robert Blackwell)
"Send Me Some Lovin'" (live) (Charles Price, John Marascalco)
"Groovy Little Suzy" [extended version of the Vee-Jay track] (John Marascalco)
"Baby Don't You Want a Man Like Me" (Penniman)
"Miss Ann" (live) (Enotris Johnson, Penniman)

Personnel
Little Richard – vocals, piano

Additional personnel listed in Modern archives as Stax session musicians, except for "Baby What Do You Want Me to Do", which is listed as Little Richard's backing band, The Upsetters, and an unidentified female vocalist. Little Richard has said that Jimi Hendrix played on some sessions and songs.

References

External links

1966 albums
Little Richard albums
Modern Records albums

The Wild and Frantic Little Richard


Robert Leslie Poxon (January 3, 1947 – June 2, 1969) was a United States Army officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in the Vietnam War.

Biography
Poxon joined the Army from his birth city of Detroit, Michigan in 1967, and by June 2, 1969 was serving as a first lieutenant in Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. During a firefight on that day, in Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam, during Operation Toan Thang III, Poxon attempted to aid a wounded soldier and was himself wounded in the process. Despite his injuries, he continued to lead his platoon and succeeded in destroying an enemy bunker before being killed. For his actions during the battle, Poxon was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Poxon, aged 22 at his death, and a graduate of De La Salle Collegiate High School, was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan.

Medal of Honor citation
First Lieutenant Poxon's official Medal of Honor citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Poxon, Armor, Troop B, distinguished himself while serving as a platoon leader on a reconnaissance mission. Landing by helicopter in an area suspected of being occupied by the enemy, the platoon came under intense fire from enemy soldiers in concealed positions and fortifications around the landing zone. A soldier fell, hit by the first burst of fire. 1st Lt. Poxon dashed to his aid, drawing the majority of the enemy fire as he crossed 20 meters of open ground. The fallen soldier was beyond help and 1st Lt. Poxon was seriously and painfully wounded. 1st Lt. Poxon, with indomitable courage, refused medical aid and evacuation and turned his attention to seizing the initiative from the enemy. With sure instinct he marked a central enemy bunker as the key to success. Quickly instructing his men to concentrate their fire on the bunker, and in spite of his wound, 1st Lt. Poxon crawled toward the bunker, readied a hand grenade and charged. He was hit again but continued his assault. After succeeding in silencing the enemy guns in the bunker he was struck once again by enemy fire and fell, mortally wounded. 1st Lt. Poxon's comrades followed their leader, pressed the attack and drove the enemy from their positions. 1st Lt. Poxon's gallantry, indomitable will, and courage are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

See also

List of Medal of Honor recipients
List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War

References

1947 births
1969 deaths
United States Army Medal of Honor recipients
Military personnel from Detroit
United States Army officers
Vietnam War recipients of the Medal of Honor
United States Army personnel killed in the Vietnam War

Robert Leslie Poxon


Moses Lake is a lake and reservoir along the course of Crab Creek, in the U.S. state of Washington.

Moses Lake is part of the Columbia River basin, as Crab Creek is a tributary of the Columbia River.

Although originally a shallow natural lake, Moses Lake was dammed in the early 20th century for irrigation purposes. It then became part of the Columbia Basin Project, built and managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Moses Lake receives water from Crab Creek, as well as from irrigated agricultural runoff. Its water used to flow out into Crab Creek, but now flows into Potholes Reservoir, a storage reservoir created by impounding Crab Creek at O'Sullivan Dam.

Moses Lake is fairly complex in shape, with several arms, called "horns". These horns include Lewis Horn, Parker Horn, and Pelican Horn. There are several islands in Moses Lake, including Crest Island, Marsh Island, Gaileys Island, and Goat Island.

Moses Lake was named after Chief Moses in the late 19th century. The city of Moses Lake was, in turn, named after the lake.

The city of Moses Lake was first named Neppel, and not Moses Lake until 1938.

References

Lakes of Washington (state)
Reservoirs in Washington (state)
Lakes of Grant County, Washington
Protected areas of Grant County, Washington
Moses Lake, Washington

Moses Lake


Christopher Hansteen (26 September 1822 – 10 March 1912) was a Norwegian judge. He served as an Associate Justice in the Supreme Court of Norway from 1867 to 1905, an unusually long period, and also spent a few years in politics.

Personal life
He was born in Moss as the son of customs surveyor Nils Lynge Hansteen (1782–1861) and his wife Petronelle Severine Clementin (1787–1829). He was a distant relative of Christopher Hansteen, the astronomer and more famous bearer of the name. In November 1853 he married Lagertha Cecilia Wulfsberg (1820–1897), a daughter of politician Gregers Winther Wulfsberg.

Career
Hansteen grew up in Moss, Christiania and Drammen. He enrolled as a student in 1838, and graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1843. He started a career as a civil servant, working as a clerk in the Ministry of Finance and Customs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice and the Police. In 1854 he was promoted to subdirector, and from 1857 to 1866 he was a judge and acting stipendiary magistrate in Christiania.

Hansteen was also active in politics. He was a member of Christiania city council from 1867 to 1876, and following the 1868 election he was a deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament, but without actually meeting in parliament. Political parties did not exist at the time, but Hansteen was known as a political conservative. He frequently used newspapers as an arena for promoting his views.

In 1867 he had been appointed as an Assessor in the Supreme Court of Norway. As such he took part in the Impeachment trial, where members of the Supreme Court as well as politicians from the Lagting ultimately impeached Conservative Prime Minister Christian Selmer and his cabinet. Hansteen largely let his professionalism subdue his political leanings in this case, which could not be taken for granted in the political climate of the time.

In 1886, when Iver Steen Thomle stepped down as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Norway, Hansteen had expressed a strong interest in the position. However, the Liberal cabinet led by Johan Sverdrup chose not to appoint him, probably due to Hansteen's political color. Later, when the Liberals had lost their majority, Hansteen was asked by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway to become Prime Minister and form a cabinet of his own in 1892; contrary to popular belief, parliamentarism was not fully implemented in Norway yet. This time, Hansteen himself declined due to his relatively old age. He continued as a judge until his retirement in 1905. His 38 years in Supreme Court was a record at the time. He lived almost to the age of ninety, dying in March 1912 in Kristiania.

Hansteen was decorated as a Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1868. He became a Commander, First Class of the same order in 1882, and in 1895 he received the Grand Cross.

References

1822 births
1912 deaths
Supreme Court of Norway justices
Politicians from Oslo
Deputy members of the Storting
People from Moss, Norway

Christopher Hansteen (jurist)


Annie MacDonald Langstaff (6 June 1887 – 29 June 1975) was a Canadian law student, legal activist, supporter of women's suffrage and an early woman aviator. Born in Ontario in 1887, she graduated from Prescott High School and then married in 1904. Her husband quickly abandoned her, leaving her a single mother. Moving to Montreal in 1906, she began working as a stenographer in the law office of Samuel William Jacobs, who encouraged her to study law. Finding no barriers to her admission, Langstaff enrolled at McGill University in 1911, graduating three years later as a Bachelor of Civil Law. On applying to the Bar of Montreal to practice, she was refused the right to take the examination.

When Langstaff petitioned the Superior Court for a Writ Of Mandamus to compel the bar to admit her as she met all statutory requirements, the court upheld the bar's decision based upon the fact that she neither had her husband's permission to attend law school, nor to become a lawyer. As her husband had abandoned her and her child and she did not know where he was, she was unable to obtain his permission. The refusal led to feminists in support of women's suffrage embracing Langstaff and her cause. She became active in the fight for enfranchisement of women in Quebec, while continuing her fight to become a barrister. In 1915 she filed an appeal with the Court of King's Bench, which also ruled against her, claiming that her recourse was to petition the legislature, since they had enacted the statute defining who could become a lawyer.

Langstaff was supported in her quest by her employer, with whom she would work for 60 years. Preparing an amendment to the Bar Act, Jacobs argued for the admission of women to the bar before the National Assembly of Quebec in 1915. Numerous attempts were made to change the law, without success. She wrote Canada's first French-English/English-French law dictionary in 1937. In 1940, when women in Quebec won the right to vote, the decision was used as leverage to change the law excluding women from practicing law. The next year, joined by Leona Bell and Elizabeth C. Monk, Langstaff pleaded with the Quebec Bar Association to support their right to practice. The bar agreed to allow women to enter the profession, if the legislature approved, which they did on 29 April 1941. Because of a prerequisite for lawyers admitted to the bar to have obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, Langstaff was not admitted to the bar in her lifetime. She was posthumously admitted to the Montreal Bar in 2006.

Early life
Annie MacDonald was born on 6 June 1887 in Alexandria, Glengarry Township, Ontario, to Clara Angela ( McPhaul) and Archibald B. MacDonald. Her father was a teacher, later an insurance agent, and both of her parents were Catholic. Annie was the oldest sibling in a family of five other children: John, Alice Phyllis Muriel "Phyllis", Mary Jane, Pearl and Eileen. By 1891, the family was living in Prescott, where MacDonald attended Catholic grammar schools and graduated from Prescott High School. On 21 November 1904 in Prescott, MacDonald married Gilbert Samuel Langstaff, a carpenter, with whom she had a daughter, Mary Andrea Langstaff, on 28 April 1906. Soon after their marriage, Langstaff and her husband separated, as he left her. Her husband migrated to New York City in 1905 with another woman whom he claimed to have married in 1904.

Career

Law school and bar case (1906–1915)

In 1906, Langstaff moved to Montreal, Quebec, to work for the law firm of Jacobs, Hall and Garneau, as a stenographer for the head partner Samuel William Jacobs, . Her family also moved to Quebec, where her father worked as a customs collector in Saint-Hyacinthe. Langstaff had an affinity for the law and within a few years was performing much of the company incorporation work for Jacobs. With his encouragement, she wrote to McGill University's faculty of law, in 1911, inquiring if she could be admitted. Frederick P. Walton, dean of the faculty, responded that no woman had ever asked for admission before, and while he was unsure of whether his colleagues would approve, she ought to begin attending lectures. Langstaff graduated in 1914 with a Bachelor of Civil Law, first in her class in criminal and company law, and fourth overall with first-class honours. That year, she became the first woman to serve as a court stenographer in the June Special Session of the Montreal Criminal Court.

Langstaff applied to sit for the preliminary bar examination but was refused by the Bar of Montreal despite her law degree. The preliminary examination was open to male students before they began their studies, but anticipating that she might encounter difficulty, Langstaff had not applied until after she had already received her degree. In January 1915, she petitioned the Superior Court for a Writ Of Mandamus. With Jacobs acting as her counsellor, she asked the court to grant her the right to take the examination, as she met all the statutory qualifications. At issue were two questions: whether a woman was admissible at all, and whether as a married woman, Langstaff was admissible as either a law student or lawyer, since her husband had not given his consent. A good deal of the court proceedings focused on the fact that Langstaff was raising her daughter as a single mother and did not know the whereabouts of her husband. In his ruling, Justice Henri-Césaire Saint-Pierre denied her request, stating that to allow her to practice law without her husband's consent would be a "direct infringement upon public order and a manifest violation of the law of good morals and public decency".

After Saint-Pierre's comments had been widely publicized in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada, the issue became a cause célèbre for those involved in the struggle for women's suffrage. Professor Carrie Derick and the  () staged demonstrations protesting the decision. Langstaff was invited regularly to speak at suffragist rallies, where she stressed that equal opportunity was her goal and filed an appeal with the Court of King's Bench. At the September 1915 hearing, the court's focus was again turned to the facts that she was not living with her husband, that he had not agreed to her attending law school, and that she was raising her daughter without his support. In a 4 to 1 decision, issued on 2 November with Justice Joseph Lavergne as Langstaff's sole supporter, her appeal was denied. The basis of the ruling was that the intent of the law in Quebec was to exclude women from the legal profession because hearing cases which involved crimes of a sexual nature or obscenities "would bring into contempt her honor as a spouse or as a mother and to revile herself in the eyes of her husband, her children, and the male sex generally". The judge also noted that the courts were not the appropriate venue for such a decision and that it should be reviewed by the legislature since the law forbade women practicing. On 31 December 1915, her only brother was killed in action while fighting on the front lines in World War I.

Continuing activism, paralegal work, and legal scholarship (1916–1965)
Langstaff began to plan for introducing an amendment to the Bar Act at the next legislative session of the National Assembly of Quebec, which would convene on 12 January 1916. Langstaff's supporters, including Jacobs, prepared a bill and Lucien Cannon sponsored it. Jacobs, using arguments supporting Langstaff's application written by Justice Lavergne, spoke to the committee along with feminists Grace Ritchie England and Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie. The bill did not make it out of committee, nor did a similar attempt made after the 1916 General Election of Quebec. Langstaff continued to work as a legal assistant at Jacobs, Hall, Couture and Fitch, (later Jacobs & Phillips (1920) and still later Phillips & Vineberg (1945)). During World War I, further action on admitting women to the bar in Quebec was suspended, but in 1920 another unsuccessful attempt at legislation was made. Becoming the assistant to the other senior partner, Senator Lazarus Phillips, Langstaff served as his secretary, a bookkeeper for the firm, and as a paralegal.

In 1921, Langstaff took up flying. An article published on 1 July 1922 in Maclean's Magazine called her the "first Canadian woman to fly" and featured her photograph. That year, when French general Ferdinand Foch toured Montreal, she circled the city in a plane as part of the festivities. She continued to attend and speak at suffragist meetings and rallies. In 1929, she proposed that single women refuse to marry until the civil code which treated wives as chattel was revised. In 1930, the legislature was again pressed to admit women to the bar. The debate clarified that the bar no longer objected to the admission of women and would allow a judge to grant her permission in the absence of a spouse. After two days of arguments, once again, the proposed bill was defeated by a vote of 37 to 29, largely because Antonin Galipeault, the Minister of Public Works and Labour, tied it to a pending suffrage bill and the possibility that feminists would next be asking for the possibility of divorce. The following year, another bill was submitted but was defeated by two votes.

In 1935, when Joseph-Napoléon Francoeur introduced legislation for women to prove their need for employment before they could work, Langstaff became a vocal opponent. She argued that employment was a human right and if men could work in women's occupations, like fashion or cooking, then women should be allowed to work in whatever field they wanted. She suggested that if professional men had sufficient income without employment, perhaps they should give up their careers to unemployed men. The bill did not pass, as most Members of Parliament felt that it violated the right to work. In 1937, Langstaff published the French-English, English-French Law Dictionary, the first Canadian legal dictionary to provide terms found in the Civil, Criminal and Municipal Codes in English and French languages. She authored several articles on family law and continued her work in business law, drafting bylaws and incorporation papers for groups like the Montreal branch of the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. In 1939, she was one of the featured aviators in an air show held in Montreal in honor of King George VI and heir presumptive, Elizabeth.

After having 13 suffrage bills defeated between 1922 and 1939, Quebec's feminists worked that year to convince Premier Adélard Godbout to keep his campaign promise to reintroduce the measure. On 9 April 1940, he personally introduced "Bill No. 18" proposing women's suffrage at the provincial level. The bill passed with a vote of 67 in favour and 9 against on the third reading on 18 April. Gaining approval on 25 April from the Legislative Council, feminists saw the vote as leverage to gain other reforms. The following year, Langstaff, Leona Bell (wife of Leslie Bell) and Elizabeth C. Monk submitted a plea asking support for women's right to practice law to the Quebec Bar Association. In a vote of 12 in favour and 11 against, the bar agreed to allow it as long as the legislature approved a bill in the sitting session. On 29 April 1941, the legislature passed the bill and in early 1942, Monk, Constance G. Short, and Marcelle Hemond were the first women admitted to the bar. Impacting Langstaff, the new law required that candidates have a Bachelor of Arts degree for admission to the bar and she was not prepared to study for another degree. Langstaff retired in 1965, having spent six decades at Phillips & Vineberg.

Death and legacy
Langstaff died on 29 June 1975 in Montreal, after a lengthy illness, and was buried at Cornwall, Ontario. Her papers were collected by her daughter and placed in the archival holdings of the Faculty of Law at McGill University.

In 1988, McGill's Faculty of Law inaugurated the Annie MacDonald Langstaff Workshops in her honour to provide a forum for academics, judges, lawyers, and community activists to present scholarly research and practical insights on issues relating to women and the law. Two other named lectures, the Margot E. Halpenny Memorial Lecture and the Patricia Allen Memorial Lecture are given each year as part of the series, in addition to three or four additional presentations.

In 2006, more than 90 years after she had first been refused admission to the bar, Langstaff was posthumously admitted to the Barreau de Montréal and awarded the bar's rarely-given Medal of Honour. As by that time, her daughter, who had become a nun in the Sisters of Holy Cross, had already died, the medal was accepted by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, the successor firm to her former employer. It later went on display at McGill University Faculty of Law.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links
"First Woman to Graduate from Law in Québec… A Prescott High School Grad"|The Past Around Us Blog

1887 births
1975 deaths
People from the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry
McGill University Faculty of Law alumni
Canadian legal scholars
Canadian women's rights activists
20th-century Canadian women writers
Women legal scholars
Canadian women aviators

Annie MacDonald Langstaff


Dan, Danny, or Daniel Sullivan may refer to:

Arts and entertainment
 Daniel J. Sullivan (born 1940), American film and theater director
 Daniel G. Sullivan, American screenwriter
 Dan Sullivan (musician), indie rock musician
 Dan Panic, American punk rock drummer, real name Dan Sullivan
 Daniel Sullivan (countertenor) (died 1764), Irish opera singer
 Dan Sullivan (critic) American theater critic

Politics and government

United States
 Dan Sullivan (Anchorage mayor) (born 1951), Republican former mayor of Anchorage, Alaska
 Dan Sullivan (U.S. senator) (born 1964), Republican U.S. Senator from Alaska
 Daniel V. Sullivan (1886–1966), New York judge and district attorney
 Dan Sullivan (Arkansas politician), member of Arkansas State Senate

Others
 Dan Sullivan (New Zealand politician) (1882–1947), New Zealand politician
 Dan Sullivan (Australian politician) (born 1960), from Western Australia

Sports
 Dan Sullivan (baseball) (1857–1893), 19th-century Major League Baseball player
 Dan Sullivan (American football) (born 1939), former Baltimore Colts offensive lineman
 Daniel Sullivan (ice hockey, born 1947), former World Hockey Association goaltender
 Danny Sullivan (born 1950), American race car driver
 Danny Sullivan (rugby league) (born 1982), Australian rugby league player
 Danny Sullivan (tennis) (born 1952), South African tennis player.
 Daniel Sullivan (American football), head college football coach for the Eureka College Red Devils
 Dan Sullivan (ice hockey, born 1981), Canadian ice hockey player
 Daniel Sullivan (ice hockey, born 1987), Canadian-born Italian ice hockey defenceman
 Danny Sullivan (footballer) (born 1994), association footballer for Torquay United F.C.

Other people
 Danny Sullivan (technologist) (born 1965), American search engine expert
 Daniel Sullivan (Great Chicago Fire), American involved in the Great Chicago Fire
 Daniel Augustus Joseph Sullivan (1884–1941), American naval officer; Medal of Honor recipient
 Daniel Sullivan (entrepreneur), American entrepreneur and business executive
 Daniel Sullivan (frontiersman) (died 1790), 18th-century military figure in the North American frontier
 Daniel "Horse-Whisperer" Sullivan (died 1810), Irish horse trainer
 Daniel Y. Sullivan (1948–2012), American dentist

Fictional characters
 Dan Sullivan (EastEnders), a character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders
 Danny Sullivan (Dream Team), a character from the British television series Dream Team

Daniel Sullivan


The 2008 Southend-on-Sea Council election took place on 1 May 2008 to elect members of Southend-on-Sea Unitary Council in Essex, England. One third of the council was up for election and the Conservative party stayed in overall control of the council.

After the election, the composition of the council was
Conservative 27
Liberal Democrat 11
Independent 7
Labour 6

Campaign
Before the election the Conservatives ran the council with 29 seats, compared to 10 for the Liberal Democrats, 7 Labour and 5 independents. The election was seen as being the closest for years with the other parties needing to gain 4 seats from the Conservatives to deprive them of a majority.

There was a record number of candidates in the election, with St Luke's ward having 7 candidates and the British National Party putting up candidates in every ward for the first time.

Election result
Overall turnout in the election was 34%.

Ward results

References

2008
2008 English local elections
2000s in Essex

2008 Southend-on-Sea Borough Council election


Soviet satellite states were satellite states indirectly controlled by the Soviet Union. This meant that they were countries controlled by leaders who were really controlled by the Soviet Union. Soviet satellite states included the Warsaw Pact countries and Mongolia. The Soviet Union chose leaders in these countries who were loyal to the Soviet Union and would send in the military if the local people protested against the local government.

Examples were:
 The Mongolian People's Republic (Satellite 1921–1990; government extant until 1992)
 The Tuvan People's Republic (Satellite 1921–1944; joined the Soviet Union in 1944)
 The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Satellite 1945–1948; government extant until 1992)
 The People's Socialist Republic of Albania (Satellite 1944–1960; government extant until 1992)
 The Polish People's Republic (1944–1989)
 The People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990)
 The People's Republic of Romania (1947–1965)
 The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1968 and again 1968–1989)
 The German Democratic Republic (1949–1990)
 The Hungarian People's Republic (1947–1956 and again 1956–1989)
 The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–90)

Most of these "Eastern Bloc" countries had compulsory military service for young men. They also had varying numbers of Soviet troops and KGB agents. All these countries had detailed control of information (censorship), and other aspects of the communist Soviet system. Many features of the Soviet information control were put into practice in distant countries, such as Cuba, which was allied to the Soviet Union, but was not its satellite state.

Other terms which may be used are:
 Satellite state
 Puppet state
 Client state
 Vassal state
 Buffer state

Political systems
Soviet Union
Colonialism

Soviet satellite state