Well, the 3Par bidding war saga looks to be coming to an end as HP's final $33 offer has been accepted and Dell has pulled out of the race.

It makes you wonder about the "efficient market" theory, doesn't it? I mean, here is a stock that was trading around $10 and basically flatlined for about a year, only to suddenly increase by more than 300% in a period of three weeks. The market certainly wasn't efficient at pricing 3Par shares.

Here are the latest stats on 3Par at the current near-$33 level:

Market Cap: $2B

Forward P/E: 122

Revenue (TTM) $203M

Price/Sales (TTM): 9.84

Enterprise value/EBITDA: 294

Hmmm. Not sure I'd call that a bargain.

Onto the rest of the news:

• The Atlantic coast of the U.S. is prepping for Hurricane Earl (New York Times).
• Andy Roddick is out at the U.S. Open (Wall Street Journal). But the real reason to cite this story is because of this great line: "Andy Roddick’s early exit breaks the hearts of T.V. producers dependent on repeated Brooklyn Decker reaction shots"
• 3G Capital is acquiring Burger King (Wall Street Journal). Will that yield downloadable mobile burgers?
• Bernanke admits he "wasn't straightforward" on Lehman (Bloomberg). According to my thesaurus, here are some synonyms for being "not straightforward": dishonest, crafty, crooked, deceitful, evasive, fraudulent, oblique, shady, shifty, sly, surreptitious, tricky.
• Jobless claims decline (CNNMoney.com). Barely.
• Ten questions and answers on Apple TV (PCMag). Silliest uestion: Does Apple have a Twitter killer?
• In case you haven't refinanced yet, you might want to note the current 30-year mortgage is at 4.32% which is a new all-time record since records starting being kept in 1971 (did they not have mortgages before 1971?) (Wall Street Journal).
• Most interesting financial headline of the day: "I'm selling the house and piling the proceeds into Greek government bonds." (Telegraph)
• The verdict is in: People hate the new Digg (Mashable). Yes, I do too.

I'm a key influencer. I'm also a technology evangelist, analyst, and journalist. And I can also leverage core competencies. Uh-oh. Sick of me yet?

We live in a world of prototypes, buzzwords, hype, and cliche. That's why I think CIO has hit the market with an article on the "10 Loathsome Technology Industry Types."

Here's an excerpt:

Vendor Marketing EVP You've got great hair—and you know it. Every conversation inevitably returns to "synergistic opportunities for the brand" or "CSR initiatives." You've got an iPhone 4 and you're hip to Facebook and Foursquare. Your most recent and greatest idea (if you do say so yourself): "I know how we'll get potential customers' contact information: Free iPad Giveaway! No one else is doing it!"

Venture Capitalist Wait, wait, don't tell me: You're based in the San Francisco / Palo Alto area, right? Uh-huh. And you once worked for HP or IBM? Yes. You enjoy yachting and golf? You betcha. And, of course, don't forget about your passion for "fine wine." How unique.

The Influencer A relatively new moniker for the same old type of self-aggrandizing, undeserving attention whore of years past: You've probably referred to yourself as a "guru" or "visionary" before. But your "highly soughtafter" methodology for measuring your Twitter influence is a secret worth keeping close to the vest. Definitely.

Pretty good stuff. Go check out the full story at CIO.com: "Influence This: 10 Loathsome Technology Industry Types."

What's on my mind this morning? Litigation. Like, Paul Allen suing everybody. And everybody suing Facebook.

What's up with that? Has the economy gotten so bad that the world is looking to lawyers to boost buisness activity?

In other news:

Genzyme rejects Sanofi bid (Wall Street Journal)

Intel to buy Infineon's wireless outfit for $1.4B (CNN Money).

Blackberry gets a stay in India (BBC). Quick -- figure out how to let people spy!

HP authorizes $10B buyback (Bloomberg). Bidding wars, buybacks -- who needs all that cash, anyway.

Government to propose new fuel economy stickers (USA Today). They'll come with pretty new graphics! Yay, now that's what I call bureaucracy at work...

Most people don't want to be located (NY Times). Especially me. Right now.

Google plans pay-per-view films (Financial Times).

Cisco is reportedly trying to buy Skype before its IPO (TechCrunch).

Is there a more explosive economic concept than combining iProducts with China? Didn't think so. In that vein, MarketWatch reports that China Unicom starts to ship iPhone 4 in China next month.

Our mind is boggled by the concept of hundreds of millions of frenetic Chinese citizens roaming the fastest growing country on earth clutching iPhones and iPads.

On to the rest of the news:

The Internet advertising industry appears to be in denial about the growing momentum behind Internet privacy -- and it should start to prepare for more protection of data through global privacy legislation.

As I noted last week, the European Union is moving toward privacy policies, most notably with the "cookie directive" which would require all advertisers to obtain opt-in to place cookies in user browsers.  In addition, we are in the early stages of new privacy legislation in the United States which would introduce tighter Internet privacy.

All of these powerful new regulations are likely to put signficant pressure on Internet media, most notably the ecosystem of ad networks and data exchanges.

Dell is making a big move into the data storage market with a $1.15 billion all-cash deal for 3Par Inc. It comes at an interesting time, as 3Par's growth and share price had recently slowed and it is still losing money. The offer is an 86% premium to 3Par's closing price Friday of $9.65

The move shows Dell has an interest in moving outside the commoditized world of PCs and comsumer electronics and into higher margin data-center products. 3Par specializes in building large storage arrays for corporations and data centers which can be "virtualized," or partitioned so that the system can handle data from many applications at once.

At any rate, it's paying off big for 3Par shareholders this morning with the stock indicating it will trade up nearly 85%.

• Hulu is said to be preparing an IPO that would value the company at more than $2B (New York Times).
• Japan's economy is stuck in its tracks again. And theoretically, that means China is now more powerful (Bloomberg). Bullish on Moo-shu, bearish on Sushi?
• Want a 4.4% mortgage? Good luck, says Fortune.
• China's currency fell to a seven-week low agains the U.S Dollar (Wall Street Journal). Remember all that noise about them strengthening the Chinese currency?
• This is what I want for Christmas: A Ferrari simulator (Physorg.com). Scratch that, I want a real Ferrari.
• Facebook is buying Chai Labs for $10 million (VentureBeat). Here's a fun fact: it was founded by a former Google executive.
• VCs and Super Angles: The War for the Entrepreneur (TechCrunch). Hmm, a bunch of rich arrogant people beating each other to a pulp. Sounds fun.
• Tim Ferriss thinks he has a way for you to read 300% faster (Tim Ferriss blog).

The "Net Neutrality" debate has taken a interesting turn this week, triggered by Verizon and Google's joint statement to move toward more tiered services on the Internet.

Here's where I am on net neutrality: It's not black or white. It's gray. Yes, we need to preserve an element of freedom to access applications over broadband. But also, the definition of net neutraility needs to leave some wiggle room to help telecom and media companies roll out some newer premium appications that make money.

I think the recent developments are actually exciting, because there is now a catalyst for change and the debate is out on the table. Verizon and Google getting together is kind of like the executives of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees coming to the table on a stadium-sharing deal. But this shows how crucial the issue is, if two of the most powerful corporations in the world are willing to come to the table to talk about it.

As the net neutraility fanatics grab their pitchforks and fire up their blogs, ready the roast the big evil corporations that are trying to swipe away their YouTube Internet, they're being naive if they think things can stay as they are. Stuff's gonna change.

Oh, this is fantastic, Oracle is suing Google. Larry Ellison vs. Eric Schmidt -- the Alpha Male vs. the Science Geek. This is going to be very interesting!

Oracle says in a press release that Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property." What's interesting is that it involves Java technology, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems earlier in the year. Hmmm, did Oracle lawyers know something that Sun lawyers didnt?

I'm sure you'll be reading more about that in the days ahead. On to some more news:

• IBM is buying software company Unica for $480 million (ZDNet). Unica helps retail sellers target marketing efforts and predict consumer behavior. I bet they can't predict my behavior.
• Sequoia is backing Airstrip, a software company that makes mobile patient monitoring applications (VentureBeat).
• WePay raises $7.5 million for group payment systems (TechCrunch).
• Retail sales rise less than estimated (Bloomberg). Hmm, just a theory here, but does that mean everybody spent their tax refunds?
• China mudslides kill more than 1,000 (CNN).
• Russian fire spreads near nuclear facility (Bloomberg). No, they don't mean it's come close to Boris Yeltsin.
• Google defends net neutrality plan (PCWorld).
• New Google apps extend the cloud (InformationWeek).
• Citizen scientists, using their computers in the Einstein@Home project, have discovered a rare star (BBC).
• Belgium is looking to get greener -- by liquifying corpses (Greenbiz.com). Ewwww.
• Liberals start "F*ck Tea" party compaign (CBSNews). Now, that's kind of funny.

Quietly, the European Union is moving toward broad privacy tightening of privacy on Internet applications, specifically in relation to advertising.

The European "Data Protection Working Party" is developing rules for online privacy, and one of the more commonly discussed elements of the new rules is the "cookie directive," which would require all opt-in by consumers to accept a cookie.

This, of course, is a big change in the way online advertisers currently track your activity. They don't need opt-in to insert a cookie in your browser.

The Internet privacy movement appears to be gathering steam and leading to growing paranoia (warranted) among those who have the most to lose: Dozens of venture-backed ad networks and advertising data companies.

What's going on? Well, certainly the Wall Street Journal series on data privacy didn't help. This may be the high-profile media piece that tips public opinion toward the privacy advocates, who have been quietly ramping up their assault on the free-and-easy exhange of Internet advertising data.

What should be scaring the Internet marketing companies: The ideas are starting to gain traction in Washington, D.C. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) recently issued statements that "that the price of consumers' daily use of the Internet increasingly is surrender of their personal information."

At the same time, you have other escalating assaults on the Internet advertising marketing machine. Let me name just a few examples:

• Europe is ramping up on Internet privacy, including cracking down on cookies. In fact, the EU has issued on opinion that all behavioral advertising must be opt-in. Why aren't more people talking about this?
• The U.S. Senate is prepping online privacy legislation!! (Washington Post)
  
• Facebook's privacy errors continue to boggle the mind (Christian Science Monitor)
  
• Other countries aren't happy with Google's Street View. South Korea recently seized Google's computers in an office raid.
• The media is starting to question free-and-easy Internet ad data. This may only be the beginning.
• The solid privacy series in the Wall Street Journal woke a lot of people up to reality. Maybe this will start to tilt public opinion in the direction of more legislation?
  

This potentially huge development doesn't seem to be getting that much play. Over the past few years, the venture capital industry has funded hundreds of ad data and ad network companies, all of them based on the premise that ad data would be freely acquired, exchanged and even traded. One such company is Blue Kai, a company I've followed on this site, which has their entire business model based on the exchange of anonymous ad data. There are dozens more. What happens to companies like that if powerful privacy legislation is passed?

And then we have even a bigger story: What about Google? Imagine what could happen to Google's market cap if the legislators initiate sweeping changes to Internet privacy laws.

This story is currently being underreported and underhyped. If you are in the Internet advertising or media industry, you should watch it closely. It could change your life.