The issues raised by the settlement, which compensates copyright holders and gives Google a share of online book sales and ads, “warrant further inquiry,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Cavanaugh said yesterday in a letter filed in U.S. District Court in New York. Google said last month that the Justice Department had requested information about the agreement.
“The U.S. has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” Cavanaugh said. “At this preliminary stage the U.S. has reached [...]

Google hopes the service will be fully restored “soon,” Marsha Wang, a Beijing-based spokeswoman at the Mountain View, California-based company, said in an e-mailed statement. The operator of the worlds most popular Internet search engine also received reports of interruptions to its Gmail and Docs services, she said.
The U.S. company has spread “pornographic, lewd and vulgar” content, violating Chinas laws, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said today. The criticism follows Chinas decision last month to require computers sold in the country to include a state-backed anti-porn [...]

The outage came after the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center last week accused Google of providing links to vulgar and obscene sites. Google, based in Mountainview, California, said it would do more to stop users in China from accessing pornography.
The outage began late Wednesday and affected Googles main site, its Gmail.com e-mail service and its China-based site, Google.cn. On Thursday, all three were accessible from a computer in Beijing, but users in two other cities said they could not open Googles main site or Gmail.
“We are investigating the matter and hope the service will be [...]

All four deny wrongdoing. The case could set the tone for new limits on sharing videos and other content on the Web.
Google says the case violates EU rules by trying to place responsibility on providers for content uploaded by users.
The Mountain View, California, company also considers the trial a threat to freedom on the Internet because it could force providers into an impossible task - prescreening the thousands of hours of footage uploaded every day onto Web sites like the Google-owned YouTube.
Prosecutors and civil plaintiffs insist they dont want to censor the Internet, and maintain the case is about enforcing [...]

Users can go to the site and have their homes removed in “plenty of time” before the service is operational, Google said today in a statement. The companys software automatically blurs faces and license plates.
Google is expanding the Street View maps from the U.S. to other countries, letting users see locations from ground level. The company generates the images by roving the streets of cities in vehicles equipped with special cameras. Google said last week its working with European authorities to provide other privacy safeguards, including [...]

Technology consultants RampRate Inc. projects YouTubes operating losses this year at $174.2 million - far below the $470.6 million estimated by Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena in an April research report that became a hot topic on Wall Street and the Internet.
The dueling forecasts are the latest twist in a guessing game that has intrigued investors since Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006.
Although YouTube has become an even more popular diversion since the Google deal, it still hasnt proven it can make money.
Mountain View-based Google has acknowledged YouTube isnt profitable, but has refused to [...]

“There is no reason to be upset or surprised with the scrutiny,” Dana Wagner, Googles competition counsel, told reporters Wednesday. “It comes with the territory.”
With technology playing an increasingly important role in society and Google steering most of the Internets traffic, Wagner said its understandable why the Obama administration is taking a close look at the Mountain View-based company.
“They wouldnt be doing their job if they werent taking a look at all the industries people are telling them to take a look at,” said Wagner, who worked at the U.S. Justice Department for seven years before joining Google in 2007.
Wagner [...]

The Google Inc. unit will premiere “Home” tomorrow, a film about the environment produced by Besson, who has previously directed “The Fifth Element,” “Nikita” and “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.”
“Were more than just dogs on skateboards,” said Anthony Zameczkowski, a Paris-based partner development manager for YouTube in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “With us, you have the ability to reach 350 million unique users a month.”
As sales of [...]

McLaughlin, who was Googles first public policy executive, built Googles presence in Washington, helping promote the Mountain View, California-based companys position on topics such as online privacy, so-called net neutrality and copyrights.
McLaughlins departure highlights the connections between Google, the most popular Internet search engine, and the Obama administration. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt is part of the presidents council of advisers on science and technology. Schmidt also campaigned for the governments economic stimulus package, which was passed earlier this year.
[...]

The divorce, announced Thursday, will spin out AOL as a separate company run by former Google Inc. advertising executive Tim Armstrong. He was hired in March to try to restore the luster to a brand once known as America Online.
Although AOL has been eclipsed by Google and other Internet stars, Armstrong still can try to build on a wide-reaching online ad network as well as AOLs Web sites, which remain a relatively big draw.
Time Warner owns 95 percent of AOL and will buy out Googles 5 percent stake during the third quarter for an undisclosed amount. From there, AOL - [...]