After a seven-week-long hiatus, Google is now hosting content from the Associated Press again. The two have had a deal in place in the past, but AP content quietly went missing from Google, and that very fact became a topic of wide discussion last week. Now the deal appears to be renewed to some uncertain extent.

The AP is known for having some fairly unconventional tactics toward the use of their content online. Sure, a company should be concerned with how their content is being used online… but how far is too far?

Do you agree with the AP’s new strategy? Tell us.

The Associated Press has announced it is taking measures to protect its online content with a creation of a news registry to tag and track all AP content "to assure compliance with terms of use."

The AP says the system will register key information about each piece of content it distributes as well as terms of use of that content, and feature a built-in beacon to alert the AP about how the content is used.

The Associated Press (AP) is saying it hopes to negotiate more lucrative licensing deals with major web sites. Reporting for the AP itself, Michale Liedtke says that AP CEO Tom Curley discussed possible revenue initiatives to protect online content.

Here are some key facts from the Liedtke’s piece: 

The Associated Press plans soon to sic a scraper-bot on the Web to find swiped AP content. While no one would argue with taking on scraper sites, the vagueness of AP news editor Ted Bridis might be worth considering.

Twitter hit another milestone of sorts today, and thanks to this development, members of the mainstream media have more or less lost their last excuse for mangling terms related to the site.  Yes, believe it or not, the Associated Press Stylebook added Twitter. 

The AP launched an update to its AP Mobile app for the iPhone and iPod Touch today, which is now available in the Apple App Store. This is an update based on user feedback from a soft launch of version 2.0 last week.

"In the next release we will ensure that the update process is seamless, story scrolling is much more smooth, the edit button on the More screen is reinstated and that you do not lose any personally stored information," Benjamin Mosse said on the AP Mobile Blog after that launch.

The AP is launching an all out assault on any use of its content that is not licensed (purchased) for use by Internet publishers and search engines. As I have said in the past, the AP is not just focusing on the blatant violators such as spam blogs or sites that quote paragraphs without attribution or link. On the contrary, the AP is specifically going after bigger mainstream blogs, Internet publications and believe it or not search engines such as Google.