US publisher Asset International has agreed to buy London-based financial online and magazine publisher The Trade, the first in what it says will be a string of media M&A deals for the privately owned company. The Trade publishes thetradenews.com and quarterly magazine The Trade, both of which cover the institutional global securities trading market—which fits with Asset International’s aim of becoming the world’s leading information provider for institutional investors. AI’s CEO James Casella becomes CEO of The Trade though its founder, John Lee, retains control of the company day-to-day. Private equity firm Austin Ventures bought out Asset International in December. Release.

It’s a thumbs up from the European Commission: the proposed merger of Tiscali’s UK broadband business and Carphone Warehouse can now take place as planned. The EC’s Competition Commission ruled Tuesday that the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition”. The commission concedes that the two companies do overlap in retail and wholesale broadband and fixed-line phone lines, which could be a concern for broadband market leader BT (NYSE: BT). But it concludes that the merger would have no real competition effects on any of those markets, and it expects the new entity itself to face strong competition, not least from BT, cable rival Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) and emerging mobile network operators. Tiscali will become part of Carphone’s de-merged broadband business, which is in the process of separating from its retail division—both sides of the business are already run separately but they will become separately listed on the London Stock Exchange in July 2010. Release.

America’s first chief information officer Vivek Kundra launched the new spending dashboard on his website Data.gov Tuesday, which should bring transparency to government-funded information technology projects. Kundra, who previously demo’d the platform at Wired’s first-ever business conference on June 15th, announced it again Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum conference in Manhattan. The purpose of the spending dashboard is accountability. Viewers will be able to track the progress of government-funded IT progress.  More than that, they’ll be able to point fingers. There’s a little thumbnail picture of the CIO and contact information next to each project’s page. People who are unsatisfied with the way things are moving can write in. At this stage, Kundra and his team have thrown the data up, and hoped that America will work out the kinks. “This is version 1.0, we’ve launched it in beta and we’re going to continue to innovate and ad more and more features.” One feature that he emphasized was a feedback loop, so that the site won’t just be about exposure, but also creating a dialogue. It’s going to need to create one quickly. The first “Uncle Sam Wants You to wiki” task is to do some serious editing. “You could go through ...

Clear, the airport security fast-pass company that closed its lanes last week, is being sued in a potential class-action lawsuit by a stranded member who wants the company to refund his $200 membership fee and return his fingerprints and iris prints. Robert Harwood filed suit in New York State’s Supreme Court Thursday, alleging that he asked the company for a refund on June 23 — the day Clear announced it would shut down its lanes — and that the company refused. He wants the court to force the company to give pro-rated refunds to him and the estimated 165,000 other Clear cardholders. He also wants the court to force the company to return users’ biometric prints. Last Friday, Clear said it would try to sell the data to another Registered Traveler program, but would destroy it if it could not find a buyer. Clear, which had express lanes at 20 of the nation’s busiest airports, was the largest provider in the government’s Registered Traveler program. All members cards had to interoperate, but Clear was the definite leader and its shutdown likely means the end of the Registered Traveler program. Clear was founded by journalist-turned entrepreneur Steven Brill as Verified Identity Pass in 2005. Brill, ...

San Francisco - Streaming radio service Pandora is now requiring independent artists to stock a physical CD for sale at Amazon.com before adding their songs to the service, Hypebot reported. Submissions must be available as a physical CD, and include cover art and a UPC code, in part due to a deal to display album art on Pandora via Amazon's servers. Artists are also encouraged to joint the Amazon Advantage Program, which costs $29.95 per year and gives Amazon a 55% cut of profits from CD sales. read more