Time for a bit of self-promotion (not to mention my distinguished co-authors). Our report on competition in European banking, post-bailouts, is published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research today. It's called 

Bailing out the Banks: Reconciling Stability and Competition and can be downloaded as a pdf. We conclude:

We reject the idea that the crisis requires the suspension of normal
competition policy rules; in times of crisis they are more important
than ever. However, we also believe that the competition rules
appropriate to the banking sector are not the same as those that should
apply to most other sectors.

The inter-connection between banks means that a competition assessment of bailouts must look beyond the individual institution which has been rescued and take account of the effects elsewhere in the sector.

The campaign by a group of UK authors against the Google Books Settlement is moving into top gear and has launched a blog. I've posted about it a few times, but those who are interested will probably want to go right to the horse's mouth for news and updates. Even for those who are relaxed about Google's initiative would do well to follow the debate about rights, in my view, as this terrain is not yet fixed. And certainly in the UK there doesn't seem to be as much attention paid as one might like to the policy debate on this specific issues, in contrast to France and Germany.