ICANN, the organization that determines how to coordinate Internet names is planning to launch brand top level domains. Some of the generic top level domains that exist today include .com, .org, and .edu. Some of the top brand top level domain names may include .apple or .coke. ICANN believes this would be a way for major brands to gain more control of the Internet presence. The cost of buying these brand top level domain names are pretty high though.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader has been given a better rating than the Amazon.com Kindle by Consumer Reports. While I have not always been on the same page as Consumer Reports, I know how seriously people take their ratings.

Spotify has raised funding that puts them at a $1 billion valuation. Spotify raised $100 million in funding from DST, Accel Partners, and Kleiner Perkins. Spotify has been working on this round of funding for about 6 months. Spotify plans on using this round of funding to pursue a launch for their streaming music service in the U.S. Spotify currently has licensing deals with three out of four of the biggest music labels in the U.S. [AllThingsD]

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has filed a civil lawsuit against Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL). HP believes that Oracle’s March 22nd statement to discontinue the developed on the Itanium platform violates the legally binding commitments that Oracle made with HP. Oracle allegedly made commitments to HP and over 140,000 shared HP-Oracle customers. HP filed the civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of the State of California in the County of Santa Clara. [HP Blogs]

URL shortening service Bit.ly previously charged for their premium service Bitly Pro. The advantage of Bitly Pro was the ability to create custom short domains. Some of their clients include gat.es (The Gates Foundation), diddy.it (Diddy), and cart.mn (South Park). Bitly Pro is now out of beta and is available for free and with no waiting charge. Register the short domain that you prefer to use and point it to Bitly’s servers. Then hook up your Bitly account at http://bitly.com/a/account. [Bitly Blog]

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has added My Places as a feature. So far Google Maps has allowed people to star places on Google Maps, rate them on Google Places, and add them to customized maps with your own icons through My Maps. Now there is a “My Places” tab on Google Maps. My Places now allows you to interact with saved maps, starred locations, and rated businesses.

Hacker group LulzSec has claimed responsibility for taking down the CIA website. In a tweet, LulzSec wrote “Tango down – http://t.co/2QGXy6f – for the lulz.” That hyperlink was to the CIA website. LulzSec is believed to have used a denial of service attack against the CIA website. Attacking federal websites is a federal crime so it is likely that the CIA will not take this action likely. LulzSec has committed several other major hacks without being caught thus far. [AllThingsD]

Last month Google had revealed their partners for the Chromebook notebooks are Samsung and Acer. Chromebooks are built with the Google Chrome operating system. Apps, documents, and settings of the notebooks are stored in the cloud. Chromebooks can now be ordered in the U.S. from Amazon and BestBuy.com. If you live in a country outside of the U.S., visit google.com/chromebook to find local retailers. [Google Chrome Blog]