Today, the four major American Internet technology companies--Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems--face some tough questions about their business dealings in China from U.S. lawmakers, who are worried the Communist government is using American technology to violate basic human rights. "Cooperation with tyranny should not be embraced for the sake of profits," said New Jersey Representative Charles Smith, chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on global human rights. Smith and other lawmakers today will use a congressional hearing to convey their concerns over the companies' respective business relations with China. China obviously offers these companies tremendous revenue potential; the …

Eight out of ten advertisers buy online media, according to new research from California-based Outsell. The research firm polled 1,200 advertisers with a collective budget of $2.4 billion and said that number should rise to 90 percent by 2008. Outsell also predicted that online spending will increase 19 percent this year--eight times the pace of TV and radio. Other firms have forecasted online spending increases this year between 20-25 percent. Advertisers simply can no longer deny the broad reach and incredible tracking capabilities of the Internet, Outsell's CEO told Media Life. Not only that, but for smaller advertisers--those with budgets …

Google Video is a curiously anti-consumer approach to broadband video that diverges from the company's corporate ethos, writes the tech blog Boing Boing. "For the first time in the company's history, it has released a product designed to fill the needs of someone other than Google's users," the blog says. Google Video provides video search and video sales, but the company leaves the sales price and method completely up to the content provider. Moreover, the company slaps down its own Digital Rights Management system that restricts how users play and use the videos they buy. Without modeling any one type …

Today, the four major American Internet technology companies--Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems--face some tough questions about their business dealings in China from U.S. lawmakers, who are worried the Communist government is using American technology to violate basic human rights. "Cooperation with tyranny should not be embraced for the sake of profits," said New Jersey Representative Charles Smith, chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on global human rights. Smith and other lawmakers today will use a congressional hearing to convey their concerns over the companies' respective business relations with China. China obviously offers these companies tremendous revenue potential; the …

Both MSN and Yahoo have been discussing possible ways to bribe people to use their search engines in order to close the massive gap between Google and their respective second and third place services. Well, by the end of the month, MSN is officially kicking off a bribe-for-search campaign called MSN Search and Win. The promotion will reward random users who type in certain keywords over the course of the next several months. Prizes include gift certificates from the likes of American Express, Target, and Nike, as well as digital cameras and MP3 players. Three winners each month also get …

The media orgy surrounding U.S. Internet companies, online freedom of speech and China has got noted search expert John Battelle thinking. On the one hand, he says, it's ridiculous to leave it to private companies to set national and international policy. But what if Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Cisco all banded together and presented a united front to the Chinese government requesting that it respect the rights to free speech and free association, or else they would walk away from China altogether? What if, indeed. As Battelle says, you can't get these fiercely competitive companies to agree on a …

The online effort behind this year's Olympic Games is the biggest ever, ranging from broadband video clips on nbcolympics.com, tireless coverage from the likes of ESPN and Yahoo, and even podcasts and blogs from U.S. Olympic team members. For the first time, Internet users can follow the games live, getting near-instant results even long before the delayed TV broadcasts air.  For sports sites like ESPN and Yahoo Sports, this is one of the biggest online events of the year. The Athens Olympics in August 2004 gave Yahoo its highest traffic month that year, attracting 14 million users, which led …

High flying Google has finally hit a rough patch on Wall Street that looks to have some staying power. Its stock price fell more than 4 percent Monday, after Barron's published an article outlining several risks that could chop the company's market value in half. In fact, Google's overall market value has already dropped 27 percent in the last month, wiping out nearly $40 billion for its shareholders. Shares fell $16.91, or 4.7 percent, to close at $345.70 on the Nasdaq Stock Market after peaking at $475.11 on Jan. 11. Shortly after reaching that high, Google reported fourth quarter earnings …

Microsoft on Sunday said it would enter the mobile e-mail delivery market currently dominated by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. The market is small: just 10 million people get their corporate e-mail delivered to their phones worldwide. As one Microsoft executive said, " There is just a huge, huge opportunity yet to be met," in the so-called push e-mail delivery market. Push e-mail gets forwarded to a device as it comes in on a server as opposed to regular pull e-mail, which users have to manually retrieve. Microsoft said most of its business would come from companies that are just …

Police across the country are now scouring the Internet for criminals, investigating social networks like MySpace for crimes ranging from rape to murder. One of their main concerns is teens who carelessly provide personal information and photos of themselves to strangers. It's unknown whether or not the number of crimes against children on the Web is increasing because no organization keeps such statistics, but officials worry that teens who use public Web sites to socialize and plan activities are oblivious as to just how public their messages may be. One expert said kids just don't feel the need to be …