Google Inc

Google Inc.'s Gmail electronic mail platform went offline Tuesday for more than an hour, prompting an outcry from tens of thousands of users and reminding consumers that the Mountain View, Calif., company is not immune from widespread outages. "Gmail is down & everyones having panic attacks," wrote Anna B., a Twitter user in Los Angeles. "Including myself." Later in the day, Google said it fixed the problem and was investigating the cause. Gmail is the third-most-visited e-mail service, with nearly 37 million unique visitors, according to ComScore Inc. Many of Google's services exist in what is known as the cloud, a style of computing that allows users to run Google programs through the Web rather than from their hard drives.

In an effort to quell its critics, Google Inc. on Thursday said it would open up its vast digital books archive to rival retailers who can access the books and sell them online. The announcement, made during a congressional hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Google's book-scanning project, involves digital copies of millions of so-called orphan books, works that are still under copyright but whose rights holders can't be tracked down. Since 2004, the Mountain View, Calif.

The good folk of Broughton don't take kindly to being photographed without permission. Just ask Google. When the search-engine giant sent one of its specially equipped cars to take pictures of the village for its Street View feature, residents swung into action. They stopped the car in its tracks, called the police and quizzed the bewildered driver for nearly two hours before letting him go. "I don't think this guy anticipated how angry people would get," said Edward Butler-Ellis, 28. "We didn't stand there with pitchforks or anything and block the road with bales of hay, but obviously people were agitated.

The Justice Department late Friday urged a federal judge to reject a controversial settlement between Google Inc., the Authors Guild and the American Assn. of Publishers, citing concerns that the agreement could run afoul of antitrust, class action and copyright laws. At the same time, Justice officials proposed modifications that would make the settlement pass muster, saying the proposal should not be entirely derailed because it has "potential for important societal benefits."

Google Inc. has endured the ire of the Chinese censorship machine. In its nine years in China, it has been slowed down, shut down and accused of peddling smut. The Mountain View, Calif., search engine also has been humbled by its main Chinese rival, the home-grown Baidu Inc., which enjoys double the market share and has long been suspected of receiving preferential treatment from the government. Now, with the resignation of its popular chief of China operations, Kai-Fu Lee, Google appears to have taken another punch to the chin in its quest to win over the world's largest and fastest-growing Internet market.

Seeking more time to iron out concerns raised last week by federal antitrust regulators, the Authors Guild and the Assn. of American Publishers on Tuesday asked a federal judge to delay an Oct. 7 hearing on a controversial settlement with Google Inc. The settlement, which requires court approval, would pave the way for the Mountain View, Calif., Internet search company to create a digital library containing millions of out-of-print books. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief Friday with the court outlining concerns that the agreement "as proposed" could run afoul of class-action, antitrust and copyright laws.

As Google and Microsoft battle for dominance in technology, a skirmish in Los Angeles City Hall is offering a rare public glimpse into a rivalry that could help determine the fortunes of both companies -- and, quite possibly, how workers in the future will communicate. The two tech giants are clashing over a $7.25-million contract to replace L.A.'s outdated e-mail system. The stakes are high enough that both companies have fielded teams of lobbyists and executives to press their case in City Hall.

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into complaints by AT&T Inc. that the Google Voice phone service blocks some calls within the United States to avoid a high connection fee. The FCC sent an inquiry to Google Inc. on Friday seeking information about the software's functionality, the number of users and the identity of its partners. Google Voice allows users to consolidate their home, office and cellphone numbers by routing the calls through a central Google number.

To Google or not to Google? That's the $7.25-million question the Los Angeles City Council is expected to answer today as it ponders handing over control of its massive e-mail system to Google Inc. Beyond questions of whether the city would save money, the decision is likely to influence other cities and businesses considering whether to stay with older e-mail programs, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook, or to jump into the future of cloud computing. Nearly six months after city technology officials selected Google's proposal to replace the city's e-mail system (which is from neither Microsoft nor Google)

Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to move to Google Inc.'s vision of online computing as the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to outsource e-mail to a Web-based system run by the Internet search giant. Despite a flurry of lobbying by arch rival Microsoft Corp., the council agreed to shut down the city's in-house messaging system and transfer e-mail operations for its 30,000 employees to Google's nationwide network of servers. The decision could have implications for other major cities and large corporations considering whether to stay with older e-mail programs, such as Microsoft's Outlook, or to embrace the "cloud" model championed by Google.