InternetNews Staff

Microsoft Corp. released on Tuesday a suite of free Web services that connect to its Windows operating system, delivering a major element of its strategy to maintain the dominance of its software while extending its reach on the Internet. The package of “Windows Live” services, which was first released in a test version in September, […]

A congressional hearing should be held to examine the privacy aspects of Google Inc’s plan to buy advertising company DoubleClick, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Tuesday. “Google is an information colossus already, but add on DoubleClick’s marketing power and you produce a single commercial entity that can know […]

WASHINGTON — Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Jerry Yang took a verbal lashing from lawmakers on Tuesday over the company’s role in helping identify a Chinese dissident who was later imprisoned by the government. “While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told […]

NEW YORK — Lenovo Group Ltd, the world’s third-biggest personal computer maker, on Tuesday unveiled its first new Think-branded products since buying the PC unit of International Business Machines in 2005. China’s top computer maker announced two products, the ThinkStation S10 and the ThinkStation D10, both aimed at professionals in industries such as oil and […]

As investors bet on the future of social networks, some of the biggest players in the field are due to unveil this week ways of piping in advertising to the most personal of media formats. MySpace, the world’s largest social network, is releasing on Monday details of how it is building discrete audiences out of […]

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Monday his firm’s acquisition of a 1.6 percent stake in socializing Web site Facebook for $240 million was an important investment, not a mistake. “We didn’t make a mistake,” Ballmer told reporters on the sidelines of a business conference in Mumbai. Analysts have said Microsoft paid a steep […]

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is rolling out a professional software package aimed at small and medium businesses with up to 30 wireless users, the company said on Monday. The BlackBerry software will let small or mid-sized companies have secure wireless access to e-mail, as well as Internet and intranet applications, “while meeting the need […]

Internet advertisers have fallen short of promised self-regulation in respecting Internet users’ privacy, a Federal Trade Commission official said on Thursday, even as one firm, Tacoda, said it decided to refrain from collecting some sensitive information. FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said Internet advertisers should tell consumers that information was being gathered, give them a choice […]

U.S. antitrust authorities are reviewing Google’s purchase of advertising company DoubleClick as quickly as possible, Federal Trade Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said on Thursday. “Our staff is working through the matter as expeditiously as possible given the complexity of the matter,” Leibowitz said. The agency’s antitrust review of the deal began in May. But Leibowitz warned […]

Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service, is in talks to put applications from Web search leader Google on its cell phones, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Google is in talks with some of the largest U.S. wireless carriers to make a deeper move into the mobile industry, an area […]

Google is in active talks with number-two U.S. mobile carrier Verizon Wireless about putting Google applications on phones it offers, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. “There are good useful talks going on and they could result in a deal,” one of the sources said. So far talks between the Web search […]

The House of Representatives approved legislation on Tuesday extending a moratorium on state Internet access taxes for seven years, sending the bill to the president to sign into law. The state tax ban has been in place since 1998 and is scheduled to expire Nov. 1. Internet service providers say the price of Internet access […]