Internet search company Google Inc. has moved one step closer to its eagerly awaited initial public offering, choosing Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston to be lead underwriters, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday will call for making high-speed Internet access more affordable and stepping up hydrogen fuel cell research.

Behavioral targeting technology player Tacoda Systems is developing a pay-for-performance network of content sites that will run text ads and leverage its audience-profiling technology, ClickZ News has learned. The program, slated to launch in late spring or early summer, is a clear challenge to the contextual ad programs run by paid search players like Google and Overture.

An IPO can result in headaches such as stock-market pressure and employees who are too rich to need a job.

Driven largely by fears of copyright lawsuits, more than 17 million Americans, or 14 percent of adult Internet users, have stopped downloading music over the Internet, according to a survey released Sunday.

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs publicly dismissed on Thursday an overture from RealNetworks to open up the iPod, saying such a move does not make business sense.

PartsExpress.com proudly touts itself as the Net's No. 1 source for audio, video and speaker components--but online shoppers who rely on an optional feature in the Google search engine to block porn sites would never know it.

Instant messaging is beginning to follow the business model of e-mail: Slowly, but surely premium features are being offered on a subscription basis.

E-mail marketers may be surprised to learn what happens when recipients see their messages in Google's soon-to-debut, ad-supported e-mail application. Messages contain ads for competitors' products, ClickZ News tests revealed.

This year, most political experts predict the presidential election will again come down to who does better in 16 swing states, battlegrounds like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio that are expected to be up for grabs until Election Day. With that in mind, a series of independent Democratic voter-action groups have sprung up online. And although they have no connection to the Democratic Party, they're determined to leverage the organizing power of the Internet for the party's nominee-apparent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.