Google, Internet | featured news

France's government says it has persuaded a leading Internet provider to stop blocking online advertisements — a controversial move that would have hit online search giants such as Google.

The US state department says a planned visit to North Korea by Google chairman Eric Schmidt is not "particularly helpful".

U.S. regulators on Thursday closed a long-running investigation of Google with a relatively mild agreement that is likely to disappoint rivals and critics of the Web search giant. Under the agreement, Google agreed to end the practice of "scraping" reviews and other data from rivals' websites for its own products, and to allow advertisers to export data to independently evaluate advertising campaigns, the Federal Trade Commission said.

More than six decades since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls - and thousands of years after they were written - Israel on Tuesday put 5,000 images of the ancient biblical artifacts online in a partnership with Google.

Google once was seen as such a ripe target for investigation that the nation’s antitrust enforcers battled over the right to claim it as their own, as a potential high-tech pelt to be posted on the wall alongside Microsoft and AT&T.

Several Google Inc Web products, including the popular GMail service, appeared to go dark for users on several continents on Monday.

A Senate committee approved a measure Thursday that would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a court-approved search warrant before reviewing any e-mail or other electronic content. The measure would close what privacy advocates describe as a loophole in the law in which Internet service providers such as Yahoo and Google may turn over e-mail older than six months if authorities obtain a subpoena, which does not require a judge’s approval.

In its biannual report, Google reveals which countries are asking for the most data... Governments around the world made nearly 21,000 requests for access to Google data in the first six months of this year, according to the search engine. Its Transparency Report indicates government surveillance of online lives is rising sharply. The US government made the most demands, asking for details 7,969 times in the first six months of 2012.

Turkey topped the list for requests to remove content.

The idea behind mobile payments currently holds more appeal than the reality does. Can Google change that? Retailer support for mobile payments is hard to find outside major metropolitan areas, and even then, the gaggle of tap-to-pay options means your favorite NFC-friendly store may not accept your preferred mobile wallet technology. If a new leak proves true, Google may have worked its way around the hurdle, albeit in an NFC-free manner.

For Web sites that depend on their ranking in search results, Google’s secret — and frequently fluctuating — search algorithm can evoke a complex blend of admiration and fear.