1. We've reached the day, if not the appointed hour apparently (thus, the missing link), for the U.S. Department of Justice to reveal its concerns about Google's settlement deal with authors and publishers regarding the rights to distribute digital copies of works.

2. : Demand for desktop and laptop PCs improved in July and August compared to earlier in the year, indicating strong market demand, according to analysts. The turnabout is "something special, because the expectation was that many people would delay purchases until after Windows 7 came out in October," said Manish Nigam, head of technology research in Asia for Credit Suisse. We cannot resist placing that breath of fresher IT-related economic news high up in this week's list.

3. : We confess to being taken aback by Websense's finding that 95 percent of "user-generated comments" at blogs, chat rooms and message boards are either spam or malicious.

4. and : Skype's founders filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against eBay, which could block eBay's attempt to sell a majority stake in Skype to private investors. A second lawsuit filed at week's end also places the sale in jeopardy.

5. : Customers are being advised to closely monitor Avaya's planned purchase of Nortel's enterprise assets so that they don't wind up with nasty surprises when it comes to product integration and the like.