China has launched an initiative to push for the crackdown of pornography on search engines like Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU).  Pornography is illegal in China, but it is easy to get a hold of it on the Internet.  As ISPs in China discover pornography, they block it.  Seven government agencies in China have gotten together to “purify the Internet’s cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors.”

The announcement made by the government in China stated that Google and Baidu have failed to make efficient measures in removing links to pornography.  The statement also included Sina and Sohu, several video websites, and forums.  “If we find any violation, we will take action. So far, I haven’t seen any examples of violations,” stated Google China spokeswoman Cui Jin.

China has over 250 million Internet users.  Any website that seems offensive or political has been banned.  Within the last month, China blocked The New York Times website.  During the 2008 Summer Olympics, many websites were reopened for viewing as part of a way to appease tourists.

[via AP]

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has been taking a beating in the press lately about not appearing for the last sponsored Macworld.  Jobs stated that he has a hormone imbalance which is causing him to have weight loss.  This was proved by “sophisticated blood tests” that he had from a doctor several weeks ago.

“The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment,” stated Jobs. “Just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this spring to regain it.”

Prior to Jobs’ health confession, it was believed that the CEO wasn’t going to show up due to political reasons.   Media and IT company IDG usually runs the annual annual Macworld conference.

The reason why so many people were concerned about Jobs’ health is because he has certain design standards that helped Apple gain traction again.  Some analysts were worried about Apple’s long-term strategy without Jobs as the head of the company while others believed that this is a good reason for Jobs not to be at Macworld.  Regardless investors were satisfied with hearing an update on Jobs’ health as the company’s stock rose above 4% after the letter was released.

“I will be the first one to step up and tell our board of directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO,” stated Jobs in the letter.

Apple’s other co-founder Steve Wozniak will be appearing at Macworld this year too.  He will be representing Axiotron.

Below is the full letter sent by Apple and Steve Jobs:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Power.com is a social networking company with 5 million users and is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  The company raised $8 million Series A investment from Draper Fisher Jurvetson.  On December 30, Facebook sued Power.com.

Power.com aggregates all of the activities from different social networks and places it on one page.  Facebook claims that Power.com is violating copyright and trademarks.  Facebook also referenced the scraping of proprietary data from the social network in the lawsuit.

“After discussing the issues with Power.com for about a month without reaching a resolution, we filed a lawsuit to enforce our terms of service, maintain the integrity of our site and to assure our users’ privacy and security are protected,” stated Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook.

Steve Vachani, founder of Power.com stated that his company has been in discussions with Facebook to get their feedback.  Facebook suggested that Power.com uses Facebook Connect instead of scraping the data directly.

Facebook attempted to stop Power.com for using data without permission.  The first complaint was sent on December 1 when Power.com was first announced.  On December 12, Vachani stated that Facebook Connect would be implemented in two weeks but then asked for an extension.  After December 26, Power.com kept using Facebook in an unauthorized manner.

That was the last straw.  Stay tuned for more updates regarding this lawsuit.

[via TechCrunch]

Recently Jimmy Wales put up a plea for an increase in donations for Wikipedia. The open source online encyclopedia has reached its goal of raising $6 million in donations. The $6 million that Wikipedia has raised will keep operating expenses covered up until June 30, 2009.

Jimmy Wales stated that 125,000 have donated $4 million in personal donations and $2 million in gifts.  The $6 million will go towards bandwidth, 23 staff members, and other misc. costs.

“Any donations beyond our $6 million goal are put in a reserve fund, which will help us to offset operating costs beyond the current fiscal year,” stated Wales. “Your continued support will also serve as a much-needed financial safety net if economic conditions continue to worsen globally.”

E TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC) was fined about $1 million for having inadequate procedures in handling trades that might be used for money laundering. Between January 2003 and May 2007, two of E*Trade’s units E*Trade Securities and E*Trade Clearing were the ones involved.

E*Trade analysts and employees manually checked for suspicious trades, but the company did not give them automated tools. This was the second fine against E*Trade within the last 6 months.  Last July, E*Trade agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for violating the Patriot Act’s money-laundering clauses.  The identities of 65,000 customers were not properly identified.

“E*Trade upgraded its systems to provide an automated method to monitor for this particular activity, and those systems have been in place for over a year,” stated E*Trade spokeswoman Pamela Erickson.

[via Bloomberg]

I was just doing a little bit of domain name searching on Yahoo! Small Business.  After searching for DeviceMan.com, Yahoo! suggested some interesting alternatives.  EPIC FAIL, YAHOO!

Worlds.com has filed a lawsuit against South Korean game publisher NCSoft.  NCSoft is most famous for games such as City of Heroes, Lineage, Aion: Tower of Eternity and Guild Wars.  The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.  The patent in question is 7,181,690: System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space.  The patent was filed by Dave Leahy, Judith Challinger, B. Thomas Adler, and S.J. Ardron.  Below is an image from the filed patent.

Attorney Stephen Roth of Lerner David, Westfield, N.J. stated that he could not discuss what other companies that Worlds.com plans to bring into the lawsuit.  But he did mention that there are “certainly other companies that could come within the scope of our patent claims” according to Mediapost.com.  The patent allows Worlds.com to recover 6 years damages, but is only allowed to collect damages from the date the patent was issued.

Others that could be affected by this lawsuit includes Linden Lab for Second Life and Microsoft for their Xbox avatar system.

[via Mediapost]

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has a very unique way of pushing their products to various audiences.  I’ve heard of them sending laptops to random bloggers and showing people an “upcoming” operating system that turned out to be Vista.  But I think this marketing ploy takes the cake.  Microsoft sent an Xbox 360 to 1,000 women asking for in return to show the console to their neighbors and friends.

Microsoft wants to win the crowd of non-enthused gamers over.  Microsoft sent the console, popcorn, and the Scene It? game.

“We’ve sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago.  In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We’re going after them in ways that are different than ways we’ve done before” stated Heather Snavely, Director of Interactive Entertainment Business Global Platforms at Microsoft.

This promotional strategy was setup in partnership with an organization called House Party.  This organization helps set up parties in the living rooms of about 100,000 brand advocates.  The 1,000 women selected had to take a social networking quiz beforehand to qualify.

[via Slashgear]