search engines

China is moving to rein in Web sites it deems inappropriate. The Communist nation has targeted Google and Baidu, the two dominant search engines there. The charge is spreading pornography and vulgarity.

China's Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies launched the campaign on Monday.

The government "decided to launch a nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the Internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people," said a report on state television.

Yahoo has announced that it will no longer hold some personally identifiable search information for more than 90 days. The company is hoping that the new policy will give it a competitive advantage with users who care about privacy. It also is an encouraging development for the cause of Internet privacy.

In a move to one-up its search-engine rivals, Yahoo on Wednesday announced a new global data-retention policy that far surpasses what Google and Microsoft have proposed.

Indeed, Yahoo is setting the industry standard for data retention with its promise to anonymize user log data within 90 days -- with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo is also expanding its policy to apply not only to search-log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks.

Microsoft offered Monday to observe a European privacy panel's request to reduce the length of time it kept search queries made by individuals to six months if its rivals, Yahoo and Google, did the same.

Google and Yahoo, in separate statements, said they were unwilling for now to change their policies.

A new Internet domain, .tel, that became available Wednesday has the potential to become a mobile phone book because of the way it stores and encrypts contact information, industry executives and analysts said.

A .tel domain name would allow individuals, businesses and organizations to store contact information -- telephone numbers, links to Web sites, e-mail addresses, instant messaging names and even identities for virtual games, like Xbox Live or Second Life, directly into the Domain Name System, or DNS.

In a move to redefine the often testy relationship between online publishers and search engines, Microsoft plans to help European media owners protect and profit from copyrighted material online, the company's top intellectual property lawyer, Thomas Rubin, said Wednesday.

Rubin said Microsoft planned to work more closely with publishers on the development of a new technological standard that would give them more control over what happens to their material after it has been referenced by search engines like Microsoft's Live Search, Google and Yahoo.

“I use Twitter to follow key journalists all the time… never to pitch them.” That’s a note my colleague Luca Penati, who heads up our global technology practice, sent me following last week’s Twitter Bootcamp for PR webinar. That, in less than 140 characters, gets to the heart of how Twitter should be used to conduct media relations.

In the wake of shattered hopes for an advertising agreement with Google, Yahoo wants Microsoft to rescue it from its financial woes.

Google on Wednesday terminated its agreement with Yahoo following an indication that the Department of Justice would seek to block it. Yahoo was counting on the agreement to accelerate investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of cash.

The real time ability to connect with others and share experiences makes Twitter a great platform for individuals, or companies, to use in conjunction with a major event.

The Microsoft-Yahoo circus is open for business again. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Thursday said a Yahoo acquisition would still make sense for both companies. He spoke at the Gartner technology conference in Orlando, Fla.

While Ballmer insisted that Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo and is not currently holding any discussions with the search giant, he also said the companies could consider a partnership on search engines in the future.