So, BoomTown–who cannot be unplugged from the matrix for very long without breaking into a cold sweat–was pretty excited to have free Wi-Fi on my Virgin America flight to Washington, D.C., early this morning.

Lots of Web companies are footing the bill for people to use wireless for free, in an attempt to boost use and, of course, their brand.

While that should be a given in this country, I won’t look a digital gift horse in the mouth.

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If spinning is an intense political skill, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is doing her very best at trying to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

As Om Malik reports on GigaOm, Whitman–who is trying to nab the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California–told a radio interviewer recently that “actually I think Skype will prove to be a good acquisition for eBay.”

Well, good if you mean the $2.6 billion purchase of the Interent telephony that didn’t ever work as Whitman had effusively promised in 2005. Or the ugly lawsuits over it. Or the successful shakedown by its co-founders to get a big chunk back.

You get the idea.

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Silicon Valley legend and now VC Marc Andreessen was making the interview rounds after the settlement between the litigation-addled co-founders of Skype and all the various people they were suing was announced this morning.

In an interview with BoomTown, when asked about the aggressive legal tactics of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that resulted in them finally seizing a stake in the Internet telephony giant by suing him and many other Silicon Valley players, Andreessen said:

“We did not take it personally. It’s a clean sheet of paper.”

Well, it is actually a torn, stained and very worn out piece of paper, but bygones!

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According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow.

While the massive agreement–which will settle a series of lawsuits waged by Skype’s co-founders–is not yet officially signed, sources said lawyers are apparently putting the finishing touches on the paperwork.

Sources also said that those co-founders–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis–will get 10 percent of Skype back for rights to key technology they control, an option to pay $83 million for another three percent of the Internet telephony service and two seats on the 23-member board.

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According to sources close to the situation, Index Ventures and Michelangelo Volpi are out of the deal to buy Skype–and their lawsuit-loving nemeses, the founders of the Internet telephony service, are in.

More details to come, but it’s sure proof that the legal system, such as it was used, works.

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BoomTown is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant–this time by eBay.

With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the print, television and online marketing campaign starts today to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”

Interestingly, the ads have been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.

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Uh-oh, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was expected to appear on the Internet giant’s third-quarter earnings call, but she apparently “came down with something,” according to CFO Tim Morse.

BoomTown is sending over chicken soup right now, but let’s hope she gets her vaccinations tout de suite!

Thus, no sassy quotes or cursing, but a very earnest Morse, who sounded like he was once a Boy Scout.

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The legal high jinks in the contentious battle over the fate of Skype got worse this afternoon, as former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the founders of Skype–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, via Joost and Joltid–against them.

It’s yet another chess move among a group of well-known tech players, who used to work together closely and are now at odds.

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Perhaps the sides in the ever-escalating war over the Skype deal will work out their differences and settle–which is what should and probably will eventually happen after everyone realizes how stupid all this noisy legal wrangling over the Internet telephony giant is.

But that day is decidedly not today, given a pair of recent big-gun PR hires by parties involved.

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Earlier today, Joost and Joltid attacked!

The pair of companies, which are controlled by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, filed a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures, where Volpi now works as a partner, asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with the Internet telephony giant.

Here are 10 filings made today related to the injunction!

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Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures, where Volpi now works as a partner, asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

The move is yet another legal attack from the founders of Skype, who were on the losing side of the $2 billion deal to buy the Internet telephony giant from eBay.

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According to sources close to the situation, AOL has been busy selecting the board for the company, which is still set to spin itself off by year’s end–even as it slows down a decision on a new search deal with either current partner Google or a more emboldened Microsoft.

AOL is using Spencer Stuart in the search for directors, led by well-known headhunter Jim Citrin, sources said, and the company has already settled on several outside candidates.

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Is it just me or is it completely ironic that a pair of European entrepreneurs kept out of the United States due to tantrum lawsuits from the music industry are stamping their own legal feet like two ill-tempered toddlers of late?

That would be Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who today filed yet another lawsuit in their seemingly never-ending quest to win in court what they couldn’t in business dealmaking.

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Revenge is a dish best served cold–except, of course, when one decides to serve it piping hot.

And that’s just what part of one of the losing sides of the $2 billion deal to buy Skype from eBay is doing in an unusual attack on Michelangelo Volpi, a well-known tech exec in Silicon Valley.

It’s Joost-y, for sure, so step right up to this sorry spectacle.

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Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine–which never met a list it did not like to make–had a solid group of women tech types on its “50 Most Powerful Women 2009” roster, the annual survey that it posted yesterday.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made the Top Ten this year, clocking in at No. 8, along with a lot of other tech-savvy women in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

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