Google Inc stepped up its assault on Microsoft Corp’s productivity software business with the acquisition of a small start-up company that allows Microsoft users to edit and share their documents on the Web.

Google said on its company blog on Friday that it has acquired San Francisco-based DocVerse. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right — with those feelings particularly strong in South Korea and China — and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey.
A poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries for the BBC World Service showed 78 percent of Internet users believed the Web gave them greater freedom, while nine in 10 said it was a good place to learn.

The United States, pushing to promote global Internet freedom, on Tuesday declassified some of its initiatives on safeguarding government networks as it pursues partnerships in the effort. The move comes as Washington has become more vocal in opposing other governments’ censorship of the Internet and presses its argument that Internet access is a basic human right to express and gather online.

WASHINGTON – A Google Inc. executive said Tuesday that the company is still considering its next step in China – seven weeks after it pledged to stop censoring search results there and threatened to pull out of the country altogether.

Google Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the company is continuing to investigate a hacking attack that emanated from China and attempts to snoop on dissidents’ e-mail.

Since disclosing the incident in January, Google has called on the Chinese government to stop requiring it to remove links to Web sites that the government deems subversive or offensive. The company is in talks with Chinese officials to try to reach an agreement that would allow it to continue to do business there.

“The attack on our corporate infrastructure and the surveillance it uncovered – as well as attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web even further – led us to conclude that we are no longer willing to censor our search results in China and we are currently reviewing our options,” Wong said.

Xerox Corp has sued Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, accusing them of infringing the document management company’s patents related to Internet search. In a lawsuit filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Xerox said Google’s Web-based services such as Google Maps, YouTube and AdSense advertising software, as well as Web tools including Yahoo Shopping, infringe patents granted as far back as 2001.

Yahoo Inc plans to integrate Twitter into its collection of websites, as the company seeks to enhance the appeal of its online properties with popular social networking features.

Microsoft Corp’s assault on search engine leader Google Inc took a major step forward on Thursday as U.S. and European regulators cleared the software company’s search partnership with Yahoo Inc.

Vodafone chief Vittorio Colao worries about Google’s dominance. Google CEO Eric Schmidt holds out an olive branch to wireless carriers and says that the likes of Verizon, Vodafone and AT&T are key partners and everyone wins if the companies serve the consumer.

SUNNYVALE, Calif – Yahoo Inc executives defended the company’s commitment to Internet search on Wednesday, vowing to reverse the erosion of the company’s market share and to fix the “misconception” that the company has given up on the business it helped create.

Speaking at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters on Wednesday, a string of Yahoo executives took the stage to provide a peek at innovations that Yahoo said will distinguish its product after it completes a deal to let Microsoft Corp handle the back-end technology that powers its Internet search service.

“We have not been sitting on our backside doing nothing. We just have not been talking about it,” said Shashi Seth, Yahoo’s new Senior Vice President of Search, who joined the company last month.

“We are doing a lot to continue to invest in that space, continue to maintain our market share and grow the market share,” he said.

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI – A consortium led by Walt Disney Co. is in advanced talks to buy into China’s largest in-bus digital media and advertising company, a deal that could offer the U.S. entertainment giant a new platform to promote Mickey Mouse in China, three sources told Reuters.

Google Inc., the world’s No.1 Internet search company, which threatened to quit China last month over censorship and hacking concerns, was among investors in the Disney-led consortium, the sources said on Monday.

The consortium planned to buy a stake of between 30 and 40 percent in Bus Online for more than $100 million via a purchase of old and new shares to be issued by the company in private placements, said the sources.