Despite weeks of talks that have supposedly taken place behind closed doors, the Chinese government still seems unwilling to compromise with respect to Google and censorship. Indeed, it may be growing hostile, as a minister talked about "consequences" today. The BBC reported that Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong adopted a tough stance during a legislation session.

Google Wave didn't do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz's privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after. But now that Google's addressed most of Buzz's faults, it's trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave. Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of functionality. Also, there are just 18 extensions listed at the moment,

If Yahoo has its way, it'll soon be the place to go for information about movies, TV shows, and the celebrities who star in them. Yahoo announced several upgrades to its search engine this morning, and they're all meant to make entertainment-related queries turn up much better results. A Yahoo representative told WebProNews, "Today Yahoo!

Last week, we reported that Facebook wanted to hire two people in Washington, D.C., and then dissected the official descriptions of the positions as best we could. Still, the bullet points left a lot unclear, so it's noteworthy that Facebook provided some clarifying paragraphs today. Adam Conner was the first member of Facebook's D.C. team, and a post he wrote for the company's internal blog was actually promoted to its public blog this afternoon.

YouTube Partners are, pretty much by definition, some of YouTube's most important users. They create original content, don't violate copyright laws, and have huge audiences. It makes sense, then, that YouTube is now looking hard for ways to improve its Partner Program. The hunt has taken the form of a crowdsourced project. Just as the Ideas Page for YouTube was created not too long ago for the sake of the whole site,

Pick a road, any road. So long as it's in the UK, there's a good chance Google will be able to provide you with pictures taken from it. Today, the search giant made much more Street View imagery available, meaning its photographs now cover about 238,000 miles - or 96 percent - of British roads. The figure below tells most of the story if those numbers don't do it for you. As you can see,

The "Facts about Google's acquisition of AdMob" page Google established in November of last year apparently hasn't satisfied the Federal Trade Commission's curiosity. A fresh report indicates that the FTC has stepped up its investigation of the deal by seeking sworn declarations from third parties. This isn't a good sign for Google. Todd Shields and Dina Bass heard about the FTC's move from "people with direct knowledge of the matter,

Google Books has done it again. Despite heavy opposition to its book-scanning project, another deal's been established, and this time, the agreement involves the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage )along with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome(. Up to one million out-of-copyright works may be digitized as a result of this arrangement, which is one reason it's important. There are probably some academics who would kill for access to just 20 or 30 of them,

Over the years, there have been more than a few arguments about whether online news sites are killing newspapers. Now, due to some almost startling comments made by the president of CNN, it looks like the next round of old media-new media disputes might concern social networks and cable news organizations. According to the AFP , Jonathan Klein's remarks on this subject were in no way ambiguous. He said at Bloomberg BusinessWeek's 2010 Media Summit New York,

Two Google executives have again assured onlookers that the company is dealing with the situation in China. While in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt indicated today that something will happen sooner rather than later, and Nicole Wong told politicians in D.C. that leaving China is still an option. Unfortunately, not a lot of other details and/or promises were forthcoming. Eric Schmidt's exact words, according to Jerry Dicolo , were "something will happen soon,

February was a quiet month for the search market; we're not going to suggest any companies either break out the champagne or fire their CEOs as a result of the small changes that took place. Still, for those who are curious, comScore believes it was Google and Bing that came out looking like winners. Google managed to increase its share of the U.S. search market to 65.5 percent, up from 65.4 percent in January, according to comScore's data. Bing, meanwhile,

Clicking on links that different people send can often be a cross-your-fingers experience, considering that there are malicious tricksters, unknowing victims, and hijacked accounts to watch out for. So Twitter's attempting to make the experience less dangerous by checking )and sometimes rewriting( the links found in direct messages and email notifications. Del Harvey, Director of Trust and Safety at Twitter, explained on the official corporate blog ,

While we normally don't comment on market share fluctuations that occur in places other than America, some recent changes in the UK may bear mentioning. According to the AT Internet Institute, Google's share of the search market slipped by 1.6 percent between January and February. That's a significant amount. Indeed, as the slightly upsized figure below shows )sorry for any blurriness(, if Ask and AOL had suffered similar losses, they'd have been wiped out, hitting zero.

It looks like Google may be ready to wade into another controversial censorship vs. availability of services situation. A high-ranking corporate representative has welcomed the U.S. Treasury's decision to allow the exportation of online communications tools to Cuba, Iran, and Sudan. According to Frank Jordans , Bob Boorstin, Director of Corporate and Policy Communications at Google, said during a human rights meeting in Geneva, "This is a great accomplishment.

At the first f8 conference, Facebook Platform was launched. Facebook Connect was announced the second time around. And now, as f8 2010 draws near, a report's indicated that Facebook will finally unveil a feature having to do with users' physical locations. Consider the difference someone's location can make. Here's one basic example: Many people would pass over the status update "Kate is warm," but something like "Kate is warm - Miami,

By and large, Google Maps is great, providing well-plotted directions and up-to-date contact information on demand and free of charge. But slight inaccuracies persist, and to fix this problem, Google will now allow people to reposition markers using Street View instead of just maps and satellite images. Perhaps this sounds familiar: you type an address into Google Maps, switch to Street View, and find yourself staring at a Wal-Mart instead of an Italian restaurant.

Investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs is more or less giving up on Google's Nexus One. A note Goldman Sachs published this week indicates that it's cut its 2010 sales forecast by a whopping 71.4 percent. As reported by the Wall Street Journal , the note stated, "We previously estimated that Google might sell 3.5 mn Nexus One units in 2010." Now, after seeing some data from Flurry, "We forecast that Google sells 1.0 mn Nexus One units in FY2010 . . .

Although this turned out to be a pretty "meh" day for the stock market as a whole - the Dow and S&P 500 slipped a little bit, while the Nasdaq didn't gain much - Yahoo investors should be feeling pleased. Yahoo's stock rose by a significant amount as an analyst rated it "market outperform," up from "market perform." Sameet Sinha of JMP Securities is the man who's responsible for making that change, and he attributed the move to Yahoo's relationship with Microsoft.

Four months ago, Facebook launched something called the Preferred Developer Consultant Program in an effort to point companies and celebrities towards the best developers. Now, the program's taking an important leap forward as Facebook's more than tripled the number of recommended developers. Facebook started things off with just 14 developers, which seemed like an interesting choice. Those dozen or so developers couldn't possibly design too many Facebook pages and/or apps,

Yahoo's approach to the mobile market is about to change in a very noticeable way. Indeed, Yahoo's mobile division will more or less cease to exist as a separate entity, with mobile becoming something of a company-wide concern. One important note: no layoffs have been announced. "We are infusing mobile throughout the organization, rather than having a specific team for mobile," Cory Pforzheimer, Yahoo's senior manager of corporate communications, explained to Tricia Duryee .