
Portals & Search Engines
NewsFactor - After assuming the worst with its China operations, Google on Thursday evening backed off accusations of censorship in the communist nation. Google said earlier Thursday that the Chinese government was blocking its search engine, Google Mobile, and Google Ad products. Google also said its news and image services were being "partially blocked."
PC World - A legal battle is brewing between Microsoft and Google for control of Japan's lucrative search market.
PC World - Google's search engine in China appeared to have been partially blocked overnight Thursday, but a Google spokeswoman said the service was up and running again by Friday morning local time.
Reuters - Google Inc said its earlier report that Internet search services in China were being fully blocked could have been the result of a technical glitch that overstated the problem.
Reuters - Google Inc said its Web search and mobile services in China were blocked on Thursday, weeks after Beijing agree to extend the company's Chinese webpage license.
PC World - Companies that deal in shady free gift card offers have managed to game Google's sponsored search results so they can pass themselves off as representing the official sites of such huge brands as Walmart, Best Buy, McDonald's and Hooters, among others, PCWorld has found.
PC World - Ask.com hopes it's found the answer to increasing its market share -- and no, the plan doesn't involve a butler named Jeeves.
PC World - Google has secured a deal to provide search results and related advertising to Yahoo Japan, Japan's most popular Web site, the two companies said Tuesday.
PC World - Yahoo Japan's decision to replace Microsoft with Google as its main search partner has been met with protest from Microsoft, which called the deal "anticompetitive."
AP - THE REPLACEMENT: Yahoo Japan Corp. will use Google technology rather than Yahoo Inc.'s to run its search engine and search ad delivery system.
AP - Yahoo Japan Corp. will use Google technology to run its search engine and search ad delivery system, after a similar deal in the U.S. was derailed by regulators concerned about a monopoly.
Reuters - Yahoo Japan, Japan's largest Internet portal operator, will adopt Google's search engine, refusing to follow Yahoo Inc in choosing Microsoft as a partner.
PC Magazine - Yahoo Japan on Tuesday announced that is has signed a deal to use Google for its search engine and search ad delivery system. Microsoft quickly criticized the deal.
NewsFactor - Asking Ask.com may now result in answers, not just links. On Tuesday, the search engine launched a new version that it described as "the first step in a multi-pronged strategy" to provide answers to users' questions, either from content on the web or from "previously unpublished knowledge shared by any of the millions of Ask.com users."
AP - You won't be able to ask Jeeves, the butler that made the search engine now known as Ask.com famous in the late '90s. But in a bid to engage more users, Ask is returning to its question-and-answer roots by tapping its users and the Web.




