Google is drilling more deeply into the mobile advertising space. On Thursday, the search giant announced plans to acquire another mobile social network: Zingku. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.Zingku’s service lets users create and exchange information, such as invitations or mobile flyers. On the mobile phone, Zingku relies on standard text messaging. On the Web, the service uses a browser and instant-messaging application. That means there is nothing to install.
Zingku integrates the mobile phone with a personalized Web site so users can move things — or as the company likes to say, “zing” — back and forth between the Web and their mobile phone, and to connect with friends.
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October 1st, 2007
Google argued its privacy and competition case before regulators on Thursday. The search king hopes to convince the government its pending $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising firm DoubleClick won’t harm consumer interests.Microsoft 
put in its two cents to persuade regulators to put the kibosh on the deal. The software giant argued that the Internet’s very future is at stake. Microsoft claims that approving the deal would open the door for Google to collect “the largest database of user information the world has ever known.”
Thursday’s hearings mark the rival firms’ first public debate on the issue, though the drama has been playing out in the media for many months. Google and Microsoft executives might have been sitting together at the same Senate hearing, but their stances on the pending deal were anything but similar. The companies argued for about 90 minutes.
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October 1st, 2007
