So held federal District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan in yesterday’s Zhang v. Baidu, Inc. An excerpt (one paragraph break added): In this suit, a group of New York residents who advocate for increased democracy in China sue one of China’s largest companies, Baidu, Inc…. Plaintiffs contend that Baidu, which operates an Internet search engine akin to Google, unlawfully blocks from its search results here in the United States articles and other information concerning “the Democracy movement in China” and related topics.
Turkey has blocked access to YouTube just hours after the leak of a recording allegedly depicting a security meeting on Syria. Google, YouTube's parent company, had previously refused government requests to remove other videos alleging government corruption. #TurkeyBlockedYouTube began trending immediately across the country, with many sharing screenshots.
Google has created a special doodle in recognition of Colombia’s congressional elections. The doodle, live on the Colombian Google homepage since Sunday morning, features patriotic colors and a set of hands casting a vote into a ballot box and invites all Colombian citizens to exercise what President Juan Manuel Santos called their “right and duty” to vote.
Khaled al-Shaya, a top Saudi cleric, recently called on Islamic countries to ban and legislate against Google, after the internet search giant’s apparent “disrespect of Islamic beliefs” in continuing to display an inflammatory video against Islam, news website CNN Arabic reported on Saturday. Google - the parent company of video sharing site Youtube, which hosted the controversial video entitled “The Innocence of Muslims” - had “insulted the Prophet” by not removing the video, said Shaya.
Eager internet users shun Google in favour of other search engines in China, Russia and South Korea (among others). In countries using the Latin alphabet, however, there is only one place where Google comes second: the Czech Republic.
Google hasn't shied away in the past from taking political positions in its popular doodle images on its google.com homepage. Thursday's doodle is no exception. It features a rainbow-colored illustration of popular Winter Olympic sports, including alpine skiing, hockey, curling, and ice skating.
If not for a view of the ornate Uganda National Mosque or the sprawling, congested taxi park in the distance, it would be hard to tell that Outbox, a technology incubator and accelerator, is in a high-rise in Kampala (Uganda’s capital city) and not some non-descript office building in Silicon Valley. The vibe is intense and laid-back all at once. Modern, cushy chairs and long conference tables are used by casually-dressed young people typing furiously on MacBooks in a quest to create the next big thing.
Brazil's government tourism authority Embratur took advantage of today's live World Cup draw to start targeting online videos at potential visitors to Brazil from key tourism markets. The draw, eagerly awaited by soccer fans around the world, places the 32 national teams in 8 groups and determines which teams will play each other first, and in which of the 12 Brazilian cities that will host World Cup games starting in June 2014.