Dodgy dealing all round

And if the technology sector is anything to go by, there are a fair few skeletons rattling away in executive closets throughout the world.

First up is Global Crossing, the bankrupt telco. Its collapse is already being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but it emerged this week that the FBI have also got involved. Neither party is prepared to disclose the nature of the investigation, but it is safe to assume its accounting methods will come under scrutiny from the Feds.

Then there's Nortel. It appointed a new CFO last November, a man called Terry Hungle. He resigned on Monday after questions were asked about his investments in a personal retirement plan. The SEC is investigating that as well. Looks like Hungle bungled.

Sage shareholders are a tad nervous following a story in the Guardian this week which alleged that the company used 'unusual' accounting practices. These could have inflated its profits by as much as £40m. For those of you who don't know, Sage produces accounting software, which is somewhat ironic. Rumours that the latest release comes in two versions, 'standard' and 'unusual', could not be confirmed.

Then there's Michael Cowpland, the former CEO of Corel. He's been under investigation for insider dealing for some time now. He was personally cleared of any involvement early this week, although a holding company he owned admitted it had acted illegally.

It's a fine distinction, but the court was satisfied. For a while. At the time of writing, US authorities were considering taking another look at his personal involvement, so he's not off the hook just yet. The case centres around MCJC Holding (prop. M Cowpland), which bought £9m worth of Corel shares in August 1997 just before Corel (prop. M Cowpland) issued a profits warning which sent its share price into a tailspin.

And it doesn't stop there. Baltimore Technologies owned up to overstating revenues for its Japanese subsidiary this week. Guardian iT's chairman resigned on Wednesday, the day after it emerged that there was a £2.5m 'discrepancy' in last year's accounts. Cable and Wireless shares fell nearly seven per cent on Wednesday morning after it admitted to using 'controversial' accounting practices to hit its quarterly revenue targets.

David Thatcher, a former Critical Path executive, has pleaded guilty to fraud after conspiring to meet financial targets with false revenues. He could face five years in jail (although the courts may look favourably on him because he dobbed in everyone else involved).

But it's not all bad news for our high-tech miscreants: online entertainment company e-district.net has settled its case against former CEO Steven Laitman. He too stood accused of inflating revenues and customer database figures. But he'll now go free as a lark because - and this is a sign of the times - e-district.net doesn't believe he has any assets worth pursuing.

And that's just this week's developments. God knows what scandals will hit the headlines next week. Bill Gates Goes Bankrupt! McNealy Sacks Butler For Buying Cheap Dog Food While Claiming He Bought 'Only The Finest Cuts' From Local Butcher! IT Project Comes In On Time, On Budget! World Gasps As IT And Accountancy Suddenly Become Interesting...

In other news this week, Sky has had to apologise to viewers after its interactive division accidentally broadcast the number of a porn chatline instead of a preview number for listening to the mobile ringtones it offers. People phoning in got a bit of a shock. Gives a whole new meaning to the 'vibrate' setting, doesn't it?

That particular 'b' word has been used by many of our readers in conjunction with BT this week. Fairly or unfairly? Well, let's see...

It all revolves around the strange case of BT's patent on hyperlinks, which it registered back in 1976. It was granted the patent in the US in 1989, but then sort of forgot about it until it came to light during a bit of a spring clean in summer 2000. BT is going to court in America in an attempt to legitimise its claim to the patent, and to pursue the royalties it says it's due from ISPs (both retroactively and going forward until the patent expires in five years' time).

The preliminary hearing took place on Monday, and things don't bode well for BT. The judge said that a patent filed long before the inception of the web might no longer be relevant, pointing out with a metaphorical flourish that this is like comparing a "mastodon with a jet".

Most legal experts believe BT stands little or no chance of winning this case. Even if it does, enforcing the patent will be difficult, given the ubiquity of hyperlinks. Collecting the royalties will be nigh on impossible.

Programmers could quite easily develop alternative technology. As one open source developer in America told Wired: "If BT won the right to collect fees-per-click you'd have a ton of seriously pissed-off programmers, with all the financial resources of every big business in the US who has anything to do with the internet behind them, working on coming up with a new protocol. Believe me, there is no way BT is going to get anything more tangible (than) a whole lot of ill will from internet users."

Besides, there's an 82 year old bloke called Bob Bemer who reckons he has an equally good claim on the technology behind hyperlinks. He said: "I was amazed when I read that BT claims to own hyperlinks. It's sad. Technology develops through decades of work by many people. That's why I put my work into the public domain whenever possible."

And there lies the rub really. BT is trying to win a battle it'll almost certainly lose, one way or another, and is, in the process, destroying even more of the dwindling stock of goodwill people have for the company.

We've received stacks of emails about the story, most of which expressed no problem with BT's commercial desire to exploit its assets. But almost everyone we've heard from is seriously unhappy with the dubious opportunism BT's shown by trying to make money out of something of fundamental importance to the entire web community.

We'll leave the final word with John Stewart, the current CEO of Signify and the founder of Pipex back in 1991. He said: "I will quite happily cancel all my BT accounts and move to NTL or ANY other telco/ISP if BT pursues or succeeds in this outrageous patent claim. I would have thought that you might mount a campaign to encourage silicon.com readers to sign a 'pledge' to move their accounts from BT if they pursue this claim any further. That might make them think twice. In many ways I am just embarrassed about how this makes BT and British internetworking look to the rest of the world."

Indeed. The Round-Up will be back next Friday.