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Hitwise announced that Google accounted for 59% of the volume of searches in the US for May 2006, followed by Yahoo! and MSN, with 22% and 12% respectively.

This year, Google will probably acquire a web-based PowerPoint-like presentation application, such as Thumbstacks, to complement its Google Spreadsheets online spreadsheet and Writely word processor, according to market research firm Gartner, writes TechWeb. But Google isn’t interested in going head to head with Microsoft’s Office products, particularly in the enterprise space……..More At……

Google has gone to many places and seen many things. Now, they are looking to go to the Government, and are releasing a search engine that is specifically for government agencies.

News Corp. is exploring a “strategic combination” to better monetize search at its MySpace.com property and is approaching Microsoft, Yahoo and Google to evaluate the optimal way to grow MySpace search revenues.

Google won an early round in a patent lawsuit regarding the technology that drives Google Earth, the search giant’s lawyer said on Monday.

Google announced the immediate availability of new versions of Google Earth and Google SketchUp at its Geo Developer Day on Monday. Google Earth 4 is available as a public beta, and is a Universal Binary application, bringing native PowerPC and Intel-based mac support to the world map and data tracking application.

Google touted the changes as the first major update to Google Earth since it was launched a year earlier.

GOOGLE Inc, the most-used Internet search engine, will start an online payment system this month that will challenge EBay Inc’s PayPal and let Google offer more targeted ads, an analyst wrote.

Google Inc.’s international Web site is available in China after authorities appeared to block the site around the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, a journalism advocacy group said.

The latest speculation on an impending Google payment system product launch is from RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan, as reported by Forbes.com. Rohan describes “GBuy”:

In an effort to further expand the number of sites running its advertising as part of the AdSense program, Google is beta testing a new feature that will enable companies to establish their own branded AdSense offering. Customers will be able to sign up for and manage AdSense without visiting Google……More At…..

This week’s launch of Google Spreadsheets, which is currently available to a limited set of users for testing, has stirred up a lot of controversy around the Internet.

The Chinese authorities are believed to have blocked a majority of domestic users from accessing Google.com.

Google’s new Google Spreadsheets offers users the ability to easily create, edit and share spreadsheets, but Microsoft needn’t worry about losing any business users to the beta.

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged the dominant internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course.

Spotted by one of the great Google bloggers, Philipp Lenssen, a link on the top of the Picasa site suggests a new feature is imminent — Picasa Web Albums.

Dell Inc.’s agreement to ship 10s of millions of computers with Google Inc.’s desktop search software could give the computer maker leverage in price negotiations over Vista with Microsoft Corp., a research firm said Friday.