SAN BRUNO, Calif. (AP) - YouTube is adding captions to millions of Internet videos.

The feature unveiled Thursday expands upon speech-recognition technology that YouTube began using to make captions available on a limited number of videos late last year.

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BRUSSELS (AP) - Some 100 million Europeans using Microsoft software will be asked to choose among rival Web browsers by mid-May under a deal the company struck to settle antitrust action, the European Union said Tuesday.

Microsoft Corp. is starting this month to send updates to Windows computers in Europe so that when computer users log on, they will see a pop-up screen asking them to pick one or more of 12 free Web browsers to download and install, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

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The fight against distracted driving may be at a tipping point as 23 states debate legislation to ban texting while driving, a practice 19 states already prohibit.

"Legislators are looking to see if it (texting) is enough of a safety issue that they need to intervene," says Anne Teigen, a transportation specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures, who says 194 bills concerning various forms of distracted driving, including texting, are being debated in 34 states. "They often get involved because there's a high-profile accident that had to do with texting. Also, because everybody has a cellphone now."

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BEIJING -- In 2000, a 31-year-old software engineer named Li Yanhong, a.k.a. Robin Li, left his job in Silicon Valley and returned home to China to start an Internet search engine. He raised $26.2 million in venture capital, including a modest investment by Google.

Ten years later, Li's company, Baidu, has become the dominant search engine in China, a goliath with 7,000 employees and a market value of $16.2 billion on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Google, which sold its stake in 2006 when it launched its own Chinese site, has lagged far behind, capturing less than half of the market share Baidu has here.

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Declaring the worst of the recession is behind it, Google reported soaring earnings Thursday, with its biggest quarterly profit ever.

The company said its third-quarter profit was up 27 percent over last year on a 7 percent yearly climb in revenues. Its net income of $1.64 billion was higher than any other previous quarter for the 11-year-old Internet titan.

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Today in your Friday Business Break: Google is taking a trike to photograph trails and other locations for its Street View service. Silicon Valley's unemployment rate drops to 11.8 percent. Two valley men are accused of insider trading.

Mountain View Internet juggernaut Google is using a camera-equipped tricycle to photograph off-road locations for its Street View service, and it's asking for nominations of places the Street View trike should visit.

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Google, facing slowing growth amid a slump in advertising spending, is again considering acquisitions, CEO Eric Schmidt said.

"Acquisitions are back on," Schmidt, 54, said in an interview at an event in Pittsburgh this week. His company had more than $19 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of its most recent quarter.

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With Google's savage and relentless domination of the internet search market continuing at a frightening pace, Yahoo had to do something. First, they joined with Microsoft in a 10 year partnership deal combining technologies, revenue sharing and ad search sales staff between the two tech and ad giants. Now, Yahoo has sought to relaunch itself with a $100 million global marketing campaign, designed to compete with Google even more aggressively, and place themselves at the centre of consumer's online lives.

The company are hoping the same symbols that helped it build an endearing brand around giant exclamation marks and yodeling in the early days, can help propel the company into relevance among today's internet users. Beginning on September 28, Yahoo will run ads on TV, radio, billboards, and the Web in the installment of a new global marketing campaign running through 2010. As the company looks to sell off non-core businesses, Yahoo will launch a global brand campaign over 15 months under the grammatically horrific slogan "It's Y!ou", featuring the familiar Yahoo exclamation mark. Other slogans in the new campaign include "The Internet is under new management: Yours" and "The Internet has a new personality: Yours".

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Partnership with Organic SEO Firm Peak Positions to Provide Client Hospitals More Targeted and Localized Web Traffic via Keyword Searches

TROY, Mich., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- CareTech Solutions (www.caretechsolutions.com), an information technology (IT) and Web products and services provider for hospitals and health systems, announced today it has launched a turn-key organic search engine optimization (SEO) program to improve hospitals' search engine rankings. The offering was launched in partnership with Peak Positions of Traverse City, Mich. (www.peakpositions.com), ranked in August 2009 as one of the top 30 SEO firms in the world by TopSEOs.com.

CareTech's organic SEO program includes keyword research, copywriting, code analysis and other enhancements to help deliver more targeted and localized website traffic via keyword searches, as well as comprehensive keyword ranking and website traffic analysis to enable dynamic adjustment of website elements as needed.

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BOSTON, MA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/02/09 -- WordStream, Inc., a provider of keyword research and organization solutions for continuously optimizing and expanding pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts involving large numbers of keywords, has announced the Top SEO College Websites on their Internet marketing blog.

In a recent search query analysis study, WordStream identified 15 university websites that are excelling at SEO and keyword ranking by optimizing their websites organically to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). Topping the list of Top SEO College Websites are Drexel University, University of Phoenix and Capella University. Also making the list are Ferris State University, Western Governors University, Pennsylvania State University, Northcentral University, Oregon State University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, University of Texas, Canyon College, Gonzaga University, American Sentinel University, University of Illinois and Grand Canyon University.

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Webmasters and marketers need to take specific steps to prepare their sites for mobile Web users.

Serving a Web page to render fully on a device browser requires unique steps and mobile search engine optimization requires a budget, according to Peak Positions, a company that specializes in SEO for online and mobile.

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Here is the breakdown: Google leads with a 64.8% share (3% increase over June), Yahoo is next with a 17% share (11% increase) and then Bing with a 9% search share (8% increase). Rounding out the top five are AOL (3% share) and Ask.com (1% share).

Googlers conducted 6.8 billion searches while Bingers conducted nearly 10 million. Although that is a very large difference, we must keep repeating that Bing only launched a few weeks prior to June and already it is in the top 3; being a part of Microsoft is part of the rapid growth, but consumers are coming back to the engine.

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Computerworld - Security experts are making progress in their efforts to identify the hackers responsible for the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that crippled Twitter for several hours yesterday.

They have also come up with strong evidence that confirms claims the DDoS rampage that brought down Twitter and hit Facebook, Google's YouTube and LiveJournal, were caused by attacks targeting a pro-Georgian activist and blogger.

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Google announced today that it has been working on a faster search engine that will improve results for web developers and power searchers.

Dubbed Caffeine, the new project focuses on next-generation infrastructure and seeks to improve performance in a host of areas including size, indexing speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness. Could this also be seen as a step towards improving access to the Deep Web?

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Google Inc. is revamping how it develops and prioritizes new products, giving employees a pipeline to the company's top brass amid worries about losing its best people and promising ideas to start-ups.

The Mountain View, Calif., company famously lets its engineers spend one day a week on projects that aren't part of their jobs. But Google has lacked a formal process for senior executives to review those efforts, and some ideas have languished. Others have slipped away when employees left the company.

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Wednesday's opening Keynote here in San Jose sees Guidewire's Carla Thompson joined on stage by senior representatives from many of the more interesting players in the Semantic Search space; Tomasz Imielinski from Ask, Peter Norvig from Google, Riza Berkan of Hakia, Scott Provost from Microsoft, William Tunstall-Pedoe of the UK's True Knowledge, and Andrew Tomkins of Yahoo.

Carla asks each panellist to describe the differentiating aspects of their product in 'one or two sentences;'

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Google shared one of the closely guarded secrets of its success with a roomful of developers this morning, revealing the tricks it uses to get Web pages to load in less than a second.

"We really think that if the Web gets better and the Web gets faster it is good for everyone," Marissa Mayer, a vice president of search products, told attendees of the O'Reilly Velocity Conference. From its launch in 1998, Google distinguished itself from competitors with a focus on speed. While Excite and Yahoo weighed down their home pages by turning them into massive portals, Google's page featured mostly white space.

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Yahoo! (YHOO) will never recover from its botched negotiations with Microsoft (MSFT), in which the larger company offered to buy it in early 2008. The initial offer was for $44.6 billion, or $31 a share. Yahoo! turned the deal down and by November of last year, its stock traded below $9.

Yahoo!'s new CEO, Carol Bartz, has made a series of mistakes early in her tenure, and the company probably cannot recover from them either.

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Following huge introductions of the Palm Pre and new iPhone 3G S, T-Mobile on Monday announces July availability of MyTouch 3G, the second phone on Google's Android operating system.

It's the first of 18 new Google-powered phones coming worldwide by the end of the year, Google says, declining to provide specifics. Tech and telecom analysts expect Sprint to have an Android phone by year's end.

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Microsoft is planning the launch of an ad campaign consisting of print, radio, online and TV ads to promote its new search engine.

The engine is code-named Kumo, but its formal moniker is expected to be Bing.

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At media event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Yahoo Search executives insisted that Internet users don't want to search.

"Nobody really wants to search," declared Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy. "People want to run their lives."

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Google debuted Rich Snippets this week, a feature that enables webmasters to build on the "snippet" of content that appears for their sites in organic search results.

"Rich Snippets give users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance," writes Google's Webmaster Central Blog. "We are currently supporting data about reviews and people. When searching for a product or service, users can easily see reviews and ratings, and when searching for a person, they'll get help distinguishing between people with the same name."

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Mommy bloggers are an online force to be reckoned with, and their numbers are rising both in the online shopping world and across social media. Nielsen has recently published a list of what it considers to be the top Power Mom bloggers.

Nielsen compiled the list of the 50 most influential mommy bloggers based on statistics captured via Nielsen BuzzMetrics, such as traffic, Twitter followers, blog posts and comments.

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Many things are down during the recession. But there's a boom in click fraud, the tricks used to make online ads seem more effective than they are. And companies that police the practice are seeing fresh business as Internet concerns seek to hold onto advertisers during the downturn.

The latest evidence comes from Anchor Intelligence, a Silicon Valley start-up. Ken Miller, its chief executive, says the company has received five times as many inquiries from potential customers in the past six weeks than during any previous period in its several-year-history. And on Thursday, Anchor announced a deal with Ask.com, designed to help limit the effects of click fraud on that IAC-owned search engine.

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Sounding like a restaurateur defending Michelin stars against the whisperings of fickle critics, Google on Tuesday offered assurance that its search is of the highest quality and introduced two new improvements to the way it presents search results.

To most Internet users, if Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s dominant search market share can be said to represent a yardstick of satisfaction, Google's search service works just fine. But Google nonetheless feels the heat from startups and competitors that claim to have built a better mousetrap. It can't afford to rest on its laurels.

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Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) on Tuesday said it's studying Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s Android operating system to determine whether it would be useful in PCs and other products, but didn't commit to using the software in any particular device.

HP's comments to InformationWeek came in response to a Wall Street Journal report that said the computer maker is considering swapping Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows for Android in some HP mini-laptops, which the industry calls netbooks.

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Despite the release of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer 8 two weeks ago, Microsoft continues to lose browser market share to Mozilla's Firefox.

According to the latest data from Net Applications, the global market share for all versions of Internet Explorer slipped from 67.44% in February to 66.82% in March.

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Cybercriminals are spreading invisible infections far and wide across the Internet by hammering hundreds of thousands of websites each day with so-called SQL injection attacks.

The trend started last summer and has continued to accelerate. IBM Internet Security Systems says it identified 50% more infected Web pages in the last three months of 2008 than it did in all of 2007.

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Is it just me or does it feel like Microsoft is starting to sound - quite frankly - a bit desperate for a search deal with Yahoo?

The Times (UK) today blasted out the headline: Microsoft reopens door to deal with Yahoo!, citing an interview with Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. But we already knew that Microsoft wanted a Yahoo deal. CEO Steve Ballmer said so in January, shortly after new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz came on board, and then again last month. Shortly after that, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said that a search deal would be an "incredibly useful step" but was quick to note that a deal with Yahoo is not a panacea.

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Is it just me or does it feel like Microsoft is starting to sound - quite frankly - a bit desperate for a search deal with Yahoo?

The Times (UK) today blasted out the headline: Microsoft reopens door to deal with Yahoo!, citing an interview with Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. But we already knew that Microsoft wanted a Yahoo deal. CEO Steve Ballmer said so in January, shortly after new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz came on board, and then again last month. Shortly after that, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said that a search deal would be an "incredibly useful step" but was quick to note that a deal with Yahoo is not a panacea.

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David Kernell is not having a good week.

The college student who is accused of hacking into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is now facing three additional charges.

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Google Inc. (GOOG) accounted for 72% of all Internet searches in the U.S. last month, according to data provider Hitwise.

Far behind was Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) at 17%, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) MSN at 6% and IAC/InteractiveCorp.'s (IACI) Ask.com with 4%.

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Google disclosed Saturday that it shared a very small number of online documents with users who weren't authorized to see them.

The privacy glitch, caused by a software bug, affected just a tiny fraction of documents - an estimated less than 0.05 percent - wrote Jennifer Mazzon, Google Docs product manager, on a corporate blog.

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ADOTAS - The chance to get advertising in front of college basketball fanatics online has pulled in millions for CBS.

The network is nearly sold out of inventory and is approaching $30 million in ad revenue for its web video that allows fans to live stream the 60-plus tournament games it televises, with about two weeks to go before the start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. The revenue will definitely see an increase "well north of 20 percent more" than last year's record $23 million, according to Mediaweek.

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Google is engaged in one of the largest print legal-notice campaigns in history, spending about $7 million of an $8 million campaign on notices in print newspapers and magazines around the world.

The campaign is a move required under a class-action settlement which will have Google paying $125 million to create a system under which customers will be charged for reading a copyrighted book, according to The New York Times. The suit against Google was filed in federal court by a large group of authors and publishers who argued that Google's plan to scan all the books in the world violated their copyrights.

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Google is testing expandable ads for its AdSense and AdWords programs.

When a user clicks on a display ad, it will temporarily expand over the content. According to Google, ads will not not expand to more than double their original width or height, and users may close the ads at any time.

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Onstage at a technology conference yesterday, John Battelle, the brash founder and CEO of advertising network Federated Media Inc. and author of a book on Google Inc., went on a humorous rant about why Google should buy the popular micro-blogging service run by Twitter Inc.

He believes Twitter should not be prized simply for its rapid viral growth or the simplicity of its platform, but for its search capabilities. He likened Twitter to YouTube, which he says in hindsight Google purchased for its powerful search engine, not to get into the video business.

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So this is stability? Yahoo's latest management revamp, spearheaded by new Chief Executive Carol Bartz, "is designed to last two to four years," said a spokesman. Admittedly, the Internet is a fast-changing medium. But to put such a definite life span on the new organizational structure underlines the uncertainty that lingers over the company's longer-term direction.

That said, compared with the turmoil under Jerry Yang, two years seems like an eternity. As a spokesman noted, Yahoo had been reorganizing once or twice a year, "which has been disruptive."

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Microsoft Corp. has begun testing a revamped version of its Internet search service, dubbed Kumo.com, as the software giant tries to improve its third-place position in the online search market.

In an email sent Monday afternoon to all Microsoft employees, Satya Nadella, senior vice president of research and development for Microsoft's online services division, invited company staffers to begin testing the Kumo search engine, currently only available on the company's internal network. For now, Microsoft's Live Search, at live.com, remains the company's search engine for the public.

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When Google Inc.'s online-email service shut off for over two hours earlier this week, it brought to light concerns about whether businesses can safely rely on software that their employees access over the Internet.

Online software services like Google's Gmail -- which run on vast computer farms managed by companies like Google and Salesforce.com Inc., rather than businesses installing and operating the software themselves -- are a bright spot for the technology sector: Sales grew 27% in 2008 to $6.4 billion, according to research company Gartner. Such services are also often cheaper to operate and easier to get started on, making them attractive options during a recession.

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Dial-up Internet access was supposed to be dead by now, replaced by Wi-Fi, DSL and other high-speed services.

But dial-up is proving to be more resilient than expected, at least partly due to the recession, which has helped to prolong, or in some cases rekindle, demand for a slower but cheaper way to surf the Web.

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As marketers scale back their ad budgets, some new technologies that make it easier for marketers to track the impact of their online advertising are gaining ground.

Products based on these technologies -- such as customized ads that show different products to different users, Web ads hidden inside links in text, and online coupons -- are part of what is called "performance-driven advertising." That's because the products aim to improve and more precisely measure how a particular ad performs.

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Google Inc., moving to improve its online health-record service, is teaming with International Business Machines Corp. to allow patients to add data generated from home-health monitoring products, such as blood-pressure cuffs and glucose meters.

The companies said software developed by IBM, with consumers' permission, can shift the data into a personal health record in Google Health, the search giant's service for helping consumers manage and store their health information online. Other software lets the patient transfer the information from there to an electronic medical record kept by providers like health-care companies and primary-care physicians.

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Yahoo is offering select Y! Search Marketing users the opportunity to integrate images and video into their pay-per-click listings.

Sponsored search remains one of the top-performing tools available to online marketers today. Yahoo's new service, Rich Ads in Search, would incorporate characteristics of banner advertising into sponsored search ad placements, reports MarketingVOX. Marketers could include videos and images, for example, making the experience "more engaging [.] for advertisers," said VP-Search Monetization/Distribution Tim Mayer of Yahoo.

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Google is testing a feature that enables users to hide unwanted ads in search results.

The service - an X icon in the upper right-hand corner of sponsored search results, indicating they can be hidden - is part of Google SearchWiki, which lets users customize search results: boosting organic listings most relevant to their query, for example, and burying or removing those they deem less fit, writes MarketingVOX.

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Google will stop selling ads on radio in May 2009. This retreat from radio sales is the latest example of how the recession is forcing Google to more quickly reassess its ambitions to move beyond AdWords and online advertising by entering in traditional forms of media.

The closing of Google Radio could lead to at least 40 layoffs among Google's 20,000 plus workforce. The decision to stop selling radio ads comes less than one month after Google scrapped its efforts to sell newspaper advertising.

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Video Optimization is having a huge impact in the organic search results of Google, Yahoo and the major search engines.

Video SEO services that result in optimizing videos of products and services is quickly becoming one of the fastest methods of securing a top ten organic ranking in the Google search results.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all confirmed that blended search the mechanism that compiles videos, images, news stories, maps, and other types of search results alongside their traditional search results, is one mechanism that 'dresses up' and 'fills out' their results pages.

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Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit is laying off around 700 employees, or 10% of its work force, as a sharp decline in ad spending continues to pressure its transition from an Internet-service provider to an advertising business.

The layoffs will occur during the next several quarters, with most of the U.S. layoffs finished by March, AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco wrote in a memo to staff Wednesday. AOL also is scrapping merit pay increases this year, consolidating facilities and reviewing its services and international operations.

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Microsoft Corp. posted an unexpected 11% drop in quarterly profit and disclosed plans to slash 5,000 jobs, the latest sign that companies dependent on commodity-style businesses such as personal computers are suffering the most in the global slowdown.

Microsoft stunned investors and employees with the news early Thursday, hours earlier than it was scheduled to report results and while its Redmond, Wash., headquarters was largely asleep. Microsoft shares tumbled 12% to their lowest level in a decade, leading a selloff in the broader stock market.

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Investors have had a euphoric reaction to Yahoo's earnings in trading Wednesday - after the company surpassed analyst expectations with its report, despite the poor outlook for display advertising in the weak economic environment.

But the company's losses and coming challenges put the analyst community in a Missouri mood. Multiple Wall Street researchers, in commentary said they were taking a wait-and-see approach as the company's new CEO, Carol Bartz, sets the company's direction and after the company declined to provide annual guidance for the first time.

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Google Inc. posted a 68% drop in fourth-quarter profit, dragged down in part by its investment in AOL, but sales were strong despite the worsening economy.

Results suggested that Google's search-advertising business and cost-cutting campaign are helping it weather the recession better than other Internet companies.

The Mountain View, Calif., company posted net income of $382 million, or $1.21 a share, down from $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose at an 18% annual rate, down from 31% in the third quarter, to $5.7 billion, from $4.83 billion. Profit was hurt by a $1.1 billion impairment charge on its investments in Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit and wireless company Clearwire Corp. Google acquired both stakes over the past several years.

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Google Inc. posted a 68% drop in fourth-quarter profit, dragged down in part by its investment in AOL, but sales were strong despite the worsening economy.

Results suggested that Google's search-advertising business and cost-cutting campaign are helping it weather the recession better than other Internet companies.

The Mountain View, Calif., company posted net income of $382 million, or $1.21 a share, down from $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose at an 18% annual rate, down from 31% in the third quarter, to $5.7 billion, from $4.83 billion. Profit was hurt by a $1.1 billion impairment charge on its investments in Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit and wireless company Clearwire Corp. Google acquired both stakes over the past several years.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Will Carol A. Bartz sell Yahoo's search business to Microsoft?

Analysts asked the question time and again after Ms. Bartz delivered Yahoo's financial results to Wall Street for the first time since becoming chief executive earlier this month.

Time and again, Ms. Bartz said she had not yet made up her mind. If anything, Ms. Bartz suggested that breaking off the search business would not be easy and that any decision would not come soon.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. named technology veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive Tuesday, bringing in a no-nonsense leader known for developing a clear focus - something that has eluded the struggling Internet company during a three-year slump.

The decision to lure Bartz, 60, from software maker Autodesk Inc. ends Yahoo's two-month search to replace co-founder Jerry Yang, who surrendered the CEO reins after potentially lucrative deals with rivals Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. both collapsed.

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After more than a decade of disappointment, the goal of marrying television and the Internet seems finally to be picking up steam.

A key factor in the push are new TV sets that have networking connections built directly into them, requiring no additional set-top boxes for getting online. Meanwhile, many consumers are finding more attractive entertainment and information choices on the Internet -- and have already set up data networks for their PCs and laptops that can also help move that content to their TV sets.

On Monday, Netflix Inc. is expected to announce a deal with Korea's LG Electronics Inc. that will make a Netflix online-video service available on a new line of high-definition TV sets from LG due out this spring. The online service offers 12,000 movie and television titles.

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More than half of U.S. consumers plan to cut back on purchases of high-tech products this year, according to a survey that adds to clouds hanging over two big trade shows this week.

The findings by Forrester Research, scheduled for release Monday, aren't surprising, given the litany of bad economic news since September. But the online survey of more than 5,000 American adults, conducted in November, provides some of the first specifics about spending choices that consumers are likely to make.

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Once again confirming the trend of having more legitimate sites serving exploits and malware than purely malicious ones, Chinese hackers have been keeping themselves busy during the last couple of days, launching massive SQL injection attacks affecting over 100,000 web sites.

The SQL injection attacks serving the just patched Internet Explorer XML parsing exploit, are launched by several different Chinese hacking groups, and with several exceptions, are primarily targeting Asian countries which is a pretty logical move given the fact that it's a password stealing malware for online games that is served at the bottom line.

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The evolution of libraries from public houses for books to public houses for information took another step forward Thursday as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $6.9 million award for a pilot initiative to improve public access to broadband Internet.

The award was made to Connected Nation, a nonprofit that promotes broadband Internet, and to the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) to improve connectivity speeds for public libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Virginia.

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A man who lost his job and was harassed by strangers after his infidelity to his late wife was detailed online has won China's first case against Internet vigilantism, the China Daily said on Friday.

A Beijing court ruled Wang Fei's reputation had been damaged by his late wife's university classmate, Zhang Leyi, who posted online the diary excerpts she wrote months before she killed herself, and by the internet company that hosted the comments.

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A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the US Internet search giant Google scrap its "Street View" service in Japan, saying it violates people's privacy.

Google launched Street View in the United States last year, providing pictures of panoramic all-around street-level views at locations on its online maps.

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A French ship on Saturday took experts to repair broken undersea Mediterranean cables that caused severe disruption to telephone and Internet services across the Middle East and Asia, France Telecom said.

But many operators said communications services had improved as alternative routes had been used to carry calls and Internet information.

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The Internet's been around in some form for decades. It wasn't until the mid-80s, though, that the Web as we know it started coming together -- and those precious dot-com domains started getting snatched up.

As we finish out the tech-centric year of 2008, we thought we'd take a look back at the Internet's oldest commercial Web sites -- the ones registered back when chatting about "the Net" was as socially acceptable as wearing Jedi garb into a crowded nightclub. So grab your light sabers, dear friends -- we're boarding the Millennium Falcon and heading back to a virtual galaxy far, far away.

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Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down.

The order could affect hundreds of thousands of videos clips, as it covers Warner Music's recorded artists as well as the rights for songs published by its Warner/Chappell unit, which includes many artists not signed to Warner Music record labels.

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Microsoft Corp. today announced a search distribution deal with Sun Microsystems Inc. to offer the MSN Toolbar, powered by Microsoft Live Search, to U.S.-based Internet Explorer users when they download the Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE(TM)), effective as of today.

Through this agreement, Internet Explorer users downloading Sun's JRE will have the option to download the MSN Toolbar and have one-click access to Live Search features, as well as news, entertainment, sports and more from the MSN network and direct access to Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.

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Microsoft Corp. today announced it will offer ad-funded cash rebates to customers who find and purchase their favorite products through a new program called Microsoft Live Search cashback. Key partners including eBay, Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears, Zappos.com, and WPP joined Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at advance08, Microsoft's annual advertising customer event, to announce their participation in the new program.

The complete Live Search cashback product portfolio includes more than 10 million product offers from more than 700 merchants, including more than 13 of the top 40 U.S. retailers. The company also announced it has delivered a new Live Search travel destination, Live Search Farecast, making it easy for searchers to find the best travel deals on the Web.

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Microsoft said it wants Google and Yahoo to agree to European demands to cut the time they keep users' search-engine records before it does the same.

While Microsoft is able to meet the requirements, it wants to wait until its larger search rivals get on board, Brendon Lynch, the company's director of privacy strategy, said Sunday in a telephone interview. A group of European Union officials - dubbed the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party - have asked search engines to purge their user records after six months.

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Adobe Systems Inc. is facing increasing pressure from Microsoft Corp., which is using its deep pockets to challenge Adobe's dominance of Web design software.

Adobe's Flash software, which adds video and animation to Web sites, is at the heart of many popular Internet destinations. Retailers, media outlets and entertainment sites rely on Flash to make their sites interactive and to serve up advertisements.

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Google Suggest, a drop-down feature in Google Search that auto-completes prospective searches as users type them in, now features sponsored links.

The ads currently only appear for select users. So far, two formats have been noted: a sponsored search-style text box (at left, via Groove Commerce), and a clickable URL at the top of the search suggestions, like this example provided by Oh! Nuts (via Search Engine Land):

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REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.

The "zero-day" vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims' machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don't have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer's programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world's most widely used Web browser.

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TV networks have long hoped digital dollars would help offset declines in traditional ad spending, but now even online video is showing some signs of faltering amid the recession.

General Electric's NBC Universal, at an investor conference last week, warned of a slowdown in ad spending on high-end Internet video. The company's NBC broadcast network streams many of its shows online, both on its own Web site and through Hulu.com, the sixth-most-popular video Web property, according to market tracker comScore Inc.

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The fools, usually, are us.

We, the people, switch off our critical faculties and happily barter our trust for the joy of convenience.

So will we ever make the effort to even raise an eyebrow when we read "Google this week admitted that its staff pick and choose what appears in its search results"?

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Yahoo rolled out a U.S. beta version of its Glue Pages, giving a visual boost to users' search results, according to a posting on its Yahoo blog site.

The beta is designed to allow users to enter a search and have not only text links appear on the site, but also related pictures, videos and blogs.

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A pink slip for corporate America's newly laid off typically means a severance package and a "see ya."

But when Yahoo issued its layoff notices to 10 percent of its workforce on Wednesday, it came with a twist, according to several sources.

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When it comes to protecting consumer privacy, Americans in general trust financial institutions less than they did a year ago and tech firms more, according to a new survey that lists American Express as No. 1 for the third year in a row.

Auction site eBay rose from eighth place to No. 2, IBM remained in third, Amazon rose from fifth to fourth and HP jumped from 16th place to 6th. Apple (No. 8), Yahoo (No. 14) and Microsoft rose and Facebook broke into the top 20 for the first time. However, Google fell from 10th place. (The survey doesn't provide any specific rankings below the top 20 so it is unclear where Microsoft and Google rank now, however they are in the top 50, according to Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, which conducted the survey.)

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It may be that the technology and advertising industries are curtailing spending in the current painful economic environment, but one start-up, OpenX, is happy to report progress in establishing its new business.

OpenX sells support and consulting services around an open-source software package geared toward publishers that need to serve ads on their online properties. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company also has been expanding online, first by hosting the software on its own site, free to lower-traffic customers, and second through a pilot test of a marketplace that lets advertisers buy ads across a larger group of publishers.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo on Monday began launching some of the serious aspects of its Yahoo Open Strategy, including a new version of Yahoo Mail that sorts the in-box according to your social connections and that can be expanded with mail-specific applications.

The first big change in Yahoo Mail is with its welcome page, which now spotlights messages from people in your Yahoo social network and invitations from others to join their social networks. Next, the in-box page now includes a new "from connections" button that shows messages only from those social connections.

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• For help with a variety of common problems, more people turn to the internet than consult experts or family members to provide information and resources.
• Another key insight is that members of Gen Y are the leading users of libraries for help solving problems and in more general patronage.

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New Internet Usage Study Shows Use of Search Engines Rising Daily

Pew conducted surveys with more than one thousand online experts, journalists and technologists, and the results majority show widespread use of Internet Search Engines and that Google has become the "primary" Internet resource for millions of Americans.

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Most consumers will be accessing the Internet through their mobile phones by 2020 according to a new research study published by The Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew conducted surveys with about 1,200 online experts, journalists and technologists, and the majority predicted that the affordability, easy accessibility, widespread use and portability of mobile phones will make them the "primary" Internet connection in the years ahead.

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Technology and copyright law have been at odds since the beginning of the digital era. Music publishers sued the fans who illegally downloaded songs. Movie studios and book publishers had their lawyers and lobbyists block digital access as best they could. But content owners are finally realizing they're better off helping their customers use digital media than trying to stop the march of technology.

Just in the past few weeks, YouTube announced that MGM will let the online video site offer selected movies and that CBS will let it link to shows such as the original "Star Trek" series. The big four music labels agreed to let the LaLa Web site offer sample songs. Even the Beatles, longtime digital holdouts, agreed their music can be part of a videogame.

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As posted by: Wall Street Journal

As an advocate for free, open-source software, I have run into Microsoft's "battles" many times, and your article ("Microsoft Battles Low-Cost Rival for Africa," page one, Oct. 28) made visible many of the issues around money-poor African nations being wooed by a large, powerful monopoly.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Yahoo on Wednesday began dropping the axe on employees, following through on a promise to cut its workforce by at least 10 percent in an effort to right its financially listing ship.

As Yahoo began its second round of layoffs this year, an investment firm, Ivory Investment Management, which owns a 1.5 percent stake in Yahoo, urged the firm's board to sell its Internet search business to software giant Microsoft.

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Former AOL chief Jonathan Miller is talking to investors about raising money to purchase all or part of Yahoo Inc., a long-shot deal that signals that investors' interest in the troubled Internet property has yet to subside.

Mr. Miller, who ran AOL from 2002 to 2006, has been sounding out private-equity investors and sovereign-wealth funds for months, and it is unclear where the talks stand, these people say.

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Steve Ballmer Threatens to Launch A Hostile Bid if Yahoo Does Not Agree to Merger Soon.

Microsoft Corp. is turning the screws to try to force Yahoo Inc. to agree to a takeover, but Yahoo remains focused on finding an alternative.

In a letter sent Saturday to Yahoo directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer threatened a hostile takeover bid for the Internet company if it doesn't agree to a merger within the next three weeks. On Sunday, Yahoo was planning a written response to the letter, saying Microsoft had failed to address antitrust concerns and other issues raised by its offer, according to people familiar with the matter. The offer is currently valued at $42.2 billion.

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Yahoo Inc. agreed to amend a controversial severance program that some saw as an obstacle to a takeover, while a Yahoo shareholder put new pressure on the company to sell its search business.

Yahoo, which is changing the severance plan to settle an investor lawsuit, agreed to limit the program to one year following a change in control, rather than two years, and to stricter definitions on the circumstances under which employees could collect benefits.

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There's that old saw about if you look around the table at a poker game and can't recognize the sucker, it's you. Yahoo's Jerry Yang might have some experience in this matter, as he's now broached the possibility of a merger with Microsoft -- something he rejected earlier in the year.

Options traders can be forgiven, then, if they're taking a wait-and-see approach.

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Despite its surging Internet audience, Facebook Inc. has yet to prove it can wring steady revenue out of advertisers. Now it's trying a new tactic to woo Madison Avenue.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company is rolling out a new ad format called "engagement ads" that further blurs the line between marketing and social networking.

The new ads appear on the main screen when a person first logs in to Facebook. They prompt a user to do something within the ad, such as comment on a movie trailer or RSVP for the season finale of a TV show.

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At Procter & Gamble Co., the corporate culture is so rigid, employees jokingly call themselves "Proctoids." In contrast, Google Inc. staffers are urged to wander the halls on company-provided scooters and brainstorm on public whiteboards.

Now, this odd couple thinks they have something to gain from one another - so they've started swapping employees. So far, about two-dozen staffers from the two companies have spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out. The initiative has drawn little notice. Previously, neither company had granted this kind of access to outsiders.

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New Rumors Are Whacked. Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin Doing Great Job

Are the three smart, talented and wealthy guys at the top of the Google food chain ready to move on?

That's the speculation as CEO Eric Schmidt gabs on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC about bailouts for automakers and Citigroup, and talks elsewhere how the government should invest in technology, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin talk about green energy or anything else except how to goose Google's market capitalization.

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Silicon Valley is abuzz with excitement around rumours that Google, the web-search giant that is Apple's neighbour in Silicon Valley, could enter the market with its own "gPhone". Google's boss, Eric Schmidt (a veteran of the telecom industry), has already said that the firm plans to bid for a prime slice of American wireless spectrum in a forthcoming auction, something Apple is also said to be considering. In short, both mobile operators and handset-makers could soon be confronted with two of the world's sexiest brands as direct rivals.

Publicly, Apple and Google are being diplomatic so far. The industry is a stool with three legs-network service, devices, and the software and content that goes on them-and "I don't think any player in the ecosystem trying to glue it all together will be very successful," says Dipchand Nishar, who leads Google's mobile-phone strategy. By this he may simply be conceding the obvious, which is that Google would not build hardware, even if it made the other two legs.

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Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups.

At its December meeting, the FCC could also consider new rules designed to speed up consideration of disputes between independent cable programmers and cable providers such as Time Warner Cable Inc. and Comcast Corp., which either refuse to carry some channels or put them on specialty tiers of service that cost subscribers more.

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SAN FRANCISCO: It takes only a glimmer of hope to excite Yahoo shareholders these days.

Investors bid up shares in Yahoo by 7 percent on Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal reported that Jonathan Miller, the former chief executive of AOL, had been talking to private equity and sovereign wealth funds in an attempt to raise between $28 and $30 billion to buy Yahoo. That would work out to $20 to $22 a share; Yahoo's stock closed up 76 cents at $11.50.

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A top Microsoft lawyer made the case on Thursday that sites like Google News are making money while the folks creating that digital content aren't able to make a living.

Google News, said Thomas C. Rubin, makes $100 million a year, while the newspapers that power its content are having to cut staff in record numbers.

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If you believe author/activist Naomi Klein, there's a nefarious conservative conspiracy intent on making the world safe for capitalism by exploiting national crises to force political change. Whatever you think of Klein's "Shock Doctrine" thesis, Google CEO Eric Schmidt seems like an unlikely candidate for the cabal. But at a talk in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, the head-honcho of the Search Engine That Walks Like a Verb did see a green lining in the current financial crisis: an opportunity to "stimulate the economy" by launching an ambitious infrastructure program that aims to fundamentally alter the American energy system.

Eric Schmidt in Washington DCSchmidt spoke at an event sponsored by the New America Foundation. He argued that the green lining in the economic implosion is that it has created demand for a massive domestic stimulus, opening the door to large-scale public works programs of the sort undertaken by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Instead of subsidies for the foundering U.S. auto industry, said Schmidt, we have an opportunity to leverage the bailout to "decarbonize our economy."

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Rumors are swirling that is move is one of the first steps in setting the stage for Microsoft's take over of Yahoo Search in the coming months.

Microsoft (MSFT) released a formal statement last week confirming the hiring of Sean Suchter, an important tech leader at Yahoo (YHOO), from Satya Nadella, SVP for MSN Search, Portal and Advertising

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In an attempt to offer a more customized search experience, and to stay ahead of competitors, Google will soon be rolling out its SearchWiki feature to everyone using its services while logged into a Google account. The feature, which has been in testing with select users over the last few months, will allow people to shift around, annotate, add, and delete search results to their liking.

"Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results?" asked a post on The Official Google Blog. "Maybe you're an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it's not there at all and you'd like to add it. Or maybe you'd like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs." SearchWiki will actually live up to its name and act as a wiki so that users can see notes made by other users, and view what pages others have added or deleted.

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A sweeping $125 million settlement between Google Inc. and the publishing industry clears the way for the Internet giant to make many millions of digital books available on the Web, with payments to authors and publishers for their use.

If approved by a federal court, the deal, struck after two years of negotiations, will let individuals and institutions buy online access to copyrighted, out-of-print works through Google, and will provide free online views of them at public libraries.

Titles that are still in print will be available only if publishers and authors agree to include them.

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Yang, who will return to his former role as Chief Yahoo, focusing on strategy and technology, tried to carve an independent strategy for Yahoo and was blamed when Microsoft Corp walked away from an offer to buy the company earlier this year. Rival Google Inc abandoned a search advertising partnership amid regulatory concerns, and Yang faced a growing chorus of criticism from investors and analysts as Yahoo's shares nosedived.

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Nine months after Yahoo first rejected a takeover bid from Microsoft, the Sunnyvale, Calif., Web search and advertising concern still is looking for a deal to solve its troubles.

OK, perhaps that should be rephrased: everyone else seems to be looking for a deal to solve Yahoo's troubles. And with third-quarter earnings on the way and the stock price trading in 2003 territory, Yahoo faces the prospect of another earnings conference call packed with dissatisfied analysts and investors.

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Yielding to pressure from regulators, Google Inc. abandoned its partnership with Yahoo Inc. -- a move that leaves Yahoo in the lurch and highlights the increasing scrutiny of Google's dominance in the market for Internet search advertising.

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Microsoft and Verizon Forge Deal

Microsoft Corp. is moving closer to a new mobile search agreement with Verizon Wireless to become the default mobile search provider on the Verizon cellphones, a deal rival Google Inc. has been striving for, people familiar with the discussions said.

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The world's internet superpower faces testing times

Rarely if ever has a company risen so fast in so many ways as Google, the world's most popular search engine. This is true by just about any measure: the growth in its market value and revenues; the number of people clicking in search of news, the nearest pizza parlour or a satellite image of their neighbor's garden; the volume of its advertisers; or the number of its lawyers and lobbyists.

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US job website Monster.com has suffered an online attack with the personal data of hundreds of thousands of users stolen, says a security firm.

A computer program was used to access the employers' section of the website using stolen log-in credentials.

Symantec said the log-ins were used to harvest user names, e-mail addresses, home addresses and phone numbers, which were uploaded to a remote web server.

The stolen data could be used to send phishing and spam e-mails.

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Google Inc. bills the latest twist on its online maps as "Street View," but it looks a bit like "Candid Camera" as you cruise through the panorama of pictures that captured fleeting moments in neighborhoods scattered across the country.

In San Francisco, there's a man picking his nose on a street corner, another fellow taking out the trash and another guy scaling the outside of an apartment building, perhaps just for fun or maybe for some more sinister purpose.

Further down the highway at Stanford University, there's the titillation of a couple of coeds sunbathing in their bikinis. In San Jose, there's the rather sad sight of a bearded man apparently sleeping -- or did he just pass out? -- in the shadow of a garbage can, with what appears to be an empty cup perched in front of him.

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These days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft’s software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world’s largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye. But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world’s largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye.

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Net's Most Popular Search Engine Seeks to Replace Daily Newspapers Worldwide

Google Inc. unintentionally provided a sneak peek at what appears to be a looming expansion into classified advertising -- a free service that might antagonize some of the Internet search engine's biggest customers, including online auctioneer eBay Inc.


Screen shots of the experimental service, dubbed Google Base, appeared on several Web sites Tuesday shortly after the legions of people who dissect the online search engine leader's every move discovered a link to a page inviting people to list things like a used car for sale, a party planning service and current events.

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Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to "kill" Internet search leader Google Inc. in an obscenity-laced tirade, and Google chased a prized Microsoft executive "like wolves," according to documents filed Friday in an increasingly bitter legal battle between the rivals.

The allegations, filed in a Washington state court, represent the latest salvos in a showdown triggered by Google's July hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai Fu-Lee to oversee a research and development center that Google plans to open in China. Lee started at Google the day after he resigned from Microsoft.

The tug-of-war over Lee - known for his work on computer recognition of language - has exposed the behind-the-scenes animosity that has been brewing between two of high-tech's best-known companies.

Ballmer's threat last November was recounted in a sworn declaration by a former Microsoft engineer, Mark Lucovsky, who said he met with Microsoft's chief executive 10 months ago to discuss his decision to leave the company after six years.

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"I'm going to f------ kill Google."
declares Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
 

CARLSBAD, Calif. - Don’t be fooled by all the speeches about global health and high school education. Bill Gates is still, first and foremost, about clobbering Microsoft Corp.’s competition. And his current obsession is Google Inc.

"Google is still, you know, perfect," he told the crowd of technology executives attending The Wall Street Journal’s third annual* D" conference on "All Things Digital." "The bubble is still floating. They can do everything. You should buy their stock at any price."

The world’s richest man said those words with a wry irony that suggested ridicule of the Google craze, but also resentment. There may be hot air in Google’s highflying stock price ($260 Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market), but Gates clearly takes the company seriously. "We had a 10-year period like that," he said, equating Google’s current standing in the computer world to that of Microsoft from 1986 to 1996.  

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Bill Gates and Steve Balmer
Chairman/CEO - President Microsoft

Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Google Founders

A consumer searching online for information about an insurance company should not be barred from seeing ads from that company's competitors, Public Citizen said today in a "friend of the court" brief involving a lawsuit filed by Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO).

GEICO has filed suit against two major Internet search engine operators, Google Inc. and Overture Services Inc., in an effort to suppress advertising by competing insurance companies and online insurance brokers.

GEICO is claiming trademark infringement, alleging that the search engine operators violate trademark rights by allowing other insurance companies to advertise to consumers who display an interest in obtaining information relating in some way to GEICO by using the registered trademark "GEICO" as a search term.

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According to the LA Times, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is in negotiations to buy the Blinkx search engine. LA Times reports “News Corp. is in negotiations to buy Blinkx, a privately held Internet search company based in San Francisco, according to people close to the world’s fourth-largest media giant.

The prospective acquisition of Blinkx is part of an aggressive bid by News Corp. to take on such Internet powerhouses as Yahoo Inc. News Corp. is trying to build a rival portal by acquiring fast-growing Web businesses and by leveraging the sites of its in-house brands, including those of local Fox TV stations, the Fox TV network and cable channels such as Fox Sports and Fox News.”

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Google Inc. is being sued over accusations that it overcharged advertisers who use the Web search giant's paid search advertising program, which accounts for the vast majority of Google's revenue.

The proposed class-action suit, filed on August 3 in State Superior Court in Santa Clara, California, accuses Google of charging in excess of advertisers' "daily budgets," under which Google allows an advertiser to limit how much it spends each day.

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Online search-engine leader Google Inc. is preparing to introduce an electronic payment system later this year in a move that would pose a financial threat to one of its biggest advertisers, Internet auctioneer eBay Inc.

The Wall Street Journal reported Google's plans on its Web site late Friday, citing sources familiar with the Mountain View-based company's plans. The Journal did not provide any details about Google's strategy.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on the report.

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