Ever since Jane Longhurst was killed two years ago by a man obsessed with violent internet pornography, her family has campaigned for the British government to outlaw the viewing of extreme sexual material on the web. The government agreed, announcing plans -- the first, it said, by any Western country -- to ban the downloading and possession of violent sexual images.
Police and anti-porn campaigners welcomed the proposal but free-speech groups called it censorship, saying there was no proven link between violent imagery and violent behavior.
Home Office Minister Paul Goggins said the government felt a duty to prevent cases such as the murder of Longhurst, a 31-year-old teacher strangled by a friend who was obsessed with violent pornography he found on the internet.
The government's proposals would make it an offense to possess "extreme pornographic material which is graphic and sexually explicit and which contains actual scenes or realistic depictions of serious violence, bestiality or necrophilia."
The Internet Watch Foundation, an industry-funded watchdog that encourages internet users to report illegal content, says almost none of the obscene material it found on the net was hosted in Britain; the majority came from the United States.
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Google beatable?: A survey by a Chinese internet research group has found that Google is losing market share to its biggest Chinese rival, web search engine Baidu.com.
The survey, conducted by the Beijing-based China Internet Network Information Center, reported that Baidu.com boosted its market share in Beijing by 10.8 percentage points to 52 percent.
Google's share was at 33 percent, as the American internet search engine kept its customer base steady while the overall market grew.
The survey found that combined, Google and Baidu held 80 percent of the market in Beijing and Shanghai, and 75 percent in Guangzhou. The three cities account for most of Chinese internet use.
Google bought 2.6 percent of Baidu.com last year in a move outsiders thought might lead to the American giant taking over the tiny Chinese startup. But Baidu.com has stayed independent, striving to become Google's Chinese-language equivalent.
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Ill will for Microsoft: A Connecticut man known on the internet as "illwill" pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court Monday to charges relating to the theft of the source code to Microsoft's Windows operating software, considered among the company's crown jewels.
William Genovese Jr., 28, of Meriden, pleaded guilty to charges related to the unlawful sale and attempted sale of the source code for Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0. The code had previously been obtained by other people and unlawfully distributed over the internet.
Genovese was arrested when an investigator for an online security company hired by Microsoft and an undercover FBI agent downloaded the stolen source code from his website after sending him electronic payments for it, Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley said in a news release.
Genovese faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in the fall.
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Talking tunes: Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless service, is expected to reveal plans next week to sell a Motorola mobile phone that plays music using Apple Computer's iTunes software.
Cingular, the wireless venture of SBC Communications (SBC) and BellSouth (BLS), could introduce the phone at an Apple event scheduled for Sept. 7 in San Francisco, becoming the first mobile operator to offer such a product.
Music downloads are expected to be one of the hottest services for wireless providers in the next year as these companies bet that consumers will increase spending as they use their phones for activities other than talking.
Last month, Motorola (MOT) said the device would go on sale by the end of September, despite speculation among analysts that mobile operators were not interested in selling the device.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
