Google

A federal judge has ordered a parenting Web site to compensate Google for certain legal fees resulting from a lawsuit that accused the search giant of discriminating in its search rankings.

In a written order dated Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose sided with Google in two of its three arguments that KinderStart, a directory and search engine focused on parenting information, should face monetary sanctions on the grounds that its allegations were "frivolous." The court plans to determine the amount of the fees after receiving a report from Google identifying its costs.

KinderStart … Read more

In what could be prove to be a solution to click fraud, Google is now offering U.S. advertisers the ability to pay only when someone signs up for a newsletter, makes a purchase or takes some other predetermined action after seeing an ad.

Google announced the limited beta test of Pay-Per-Action AdWords on Tuesday. Advertisers set the price they want to pay, and the ads are shown on Web sites enrolled in the Google AdSense network. AdSense publishers can choose whether they want to serve pay-per-action ads or stick with the traditional pay-per-click ads.

Many think charging advertisers only … Read more

A quest for global domination? Maybe. The Financial Times is reporting that Google is seeking to expand its European influence by starting a network of lobbyists. It's reportedly seeking out representatives in at least ten cities.

According to the Financial Times article, Google is simply trying to gain traction in Europe with regard to issues like "privacy, freedom of expression, copyrights, competition and security, regulation of online content, advertising and technology." Nevertheless, it should be noted that Google has its fair share of legal and political issues in Europe, like Gmail trademark problems in Switzerland, a copyright case … Read more

Want to add some pizzazz to your Google personalized home page? Google this week is offering six different themes that people can use to decorate their page. Google typically prefers simple, clean text-only pages for its sites, with the notable exception being the doodle on its main search page. With this announcement Google is recognizing that some people might want to add some some color to their personalized home pages.

The themes include a beach, cityscape, Japanese tea house, four seasons, sky and bus stop. They will change dynamically depending on the time of day and weather conditions. For example, … Read more

The latest Google press release isn't about a new Google Earth add-on or an advertising acquisition: rather, it sounds like it came from the Gates Foundation. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has announced two separate partnerships with organizations in two African countries, the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure in Kigali, Rwanda; and the non-governmental Kenya Education Network in Nairobi, Kenya. Google's goal is to provide free access to its Google Apps software suite to students in both countries as well as to government officials in Rwanda.

In Kenya, when the program is instituted, the 50,000 students at … Read more

On Friday, Google announced it acquired in-game advertising company Adscape, according to a posting on Google's official blog.

News of the acquisition comes a month after press reports cited a $23 million deal was in the works between the two companies.

In a blog posting, the Adscape folks note: "Our charge at Adscape has always been to honor the game that was developed and find new ways to enable that game to continue so others can enjoy it. That's why we are so stoked to join Google--because these guys get it and are committed to helping us … Read more

Yahoo hasn't officially announced its Brickhouse program dedicated to launching innovative new products, but word has leaked that it has hired a start-up veteran to head up the program.

Salim Ismail, chairman of Confabb.com, a directory of conferences, and co-founder of PubSub, confirms on his blog on Thursday that he's joining Yahoo.

"At Yahoo, I'll be running the Brickhouse, the program spearheaded and created by Caterina Fake, inside Bradley Horowitz's Advanced Development Division," that is launching products like Yahoo Pipes, an interactive feed aggregator, he writes.

"While I've gotten used to … Read more

update--The head of Google in Spain and Portugal has confirmed that Google is working on a mobile phone. "Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone," Isabel Aguilera is quoted as saying on the Spanish-news Web site Noticias.com.

A Google spokeswoman in the United States released this statement when asked for comment: "Mobile is an important area for Google and we remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce."

Google stateside … Read more

Which business model is likely to be the most successful: MySpace, YouTube, Facebook or Second Life?

According to a war game played out at London's Business School last week, MySpace wins. But, in a conclusion that was validated by this week's Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube for copyright infringement, the participants concluded that both MySpace and YouTube are vulnerable to legal attacks and government regulations that target illegal activities and objectionable content, like child pedophilia and pornography.

Copyright lawsuits will be a "major distraction at best or they could undermine" the businesses, says Leonard Fuld, … Read more