Google Blogoscoped

Friday, June 9, 2006

Google Minesweeper (Humor)

Yeah, hurt Microsoft where it hurts, and release a Google Minesweeper web aplication...

Follow-up on Net Neutrality

From ZDNet:

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.

Google Books Sued by French Publisher

A French publisher is suing Google for showing off their books in Google Book Search. “La Martiniere accuses the technology company of ’counterfeiting and breach of intellectual property rights’ by digitising about 100 of its titles,” BBC writes on Wednesday.

According to the BBC, Google replied by saying, “the court case was not necessary as publishers [can] simply withdraw consent for their use in the service.” I don’t even understand that statement... either it’s fair use, or it’s not, and no one can opt out of fair use. After all Google Book Search just shows you bits and pieces unless the book publisher allows for more. [Thanks Joey.]

Google’s World Cup Onebox Results

Ionut spotted World Cup Onebox results on Google. For example, entering Germany Costa Rica results in the upcoming play times, showing next to a soccer ball icon. You can also enter [countryname] soccer, e.g. germany soccer.

Yahoo Gay Pride

Yahoo has launched a Gay & Lesbian pride portal site, Micro Persuasion reports. Multiple services, like Flickr, Upcoming or Yahoo Avatar (dress the avatar in gay pride shirts) are integrated into the theme.

Chinese Gov’t Replies to Google

The Chinese gov’t escalates the battle with Google, Support Freedom notes in the forum, after Sergey Brin recently stated Google was “wrestling” with the Chinese censorship issue. From Breitbart.com:

China welcomes foreign Internet companies working in China, but they must respect and abide by the country’s laws, including those on expression, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The comments by ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao followed remarks Tuesday by Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledging the Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands.

And from BBC.co.uk comes further validation that at least some Chinese users have troubles accessing Google.com lately:

Internet users in major Chinese cities faced difficulties accessing Google’s international site in the past week, Reporters Without Borders said.

But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected.

World Cup Module for Personalized Homepage

Google created a world cup module for the personalized homepage for you to track scores. Good timing... today’s the opening game in Munich. [Thanks Alex.]

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