Thanks to a new deal involving News Digital Media (NDM), Google will power the web and site search functions of a number of Australian sites.  These sites will also display ads from Google.

International cooperation between the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Twentieth Century Fox led to the removal of a pirated copy of "The Simpsons Movie" from the Internet within 72 hours.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation will meet in Australia’s largest city in about three weeks’ time, but if you seek Google’s help to look at Sydney, you may be out of luck – Google Maps images of the area have become rather fuzzy.

Views of Australia’s well-known metropolis on Google Maps have diminished in their clarity, resulting in conspiracy theories and denials from the search company.

When I first wrote about Google Australia’s Doodle 4 Google contest, I thought it was a nice idea – “nice idea” meaning a warm-fuzzies PR initiative that not a lot of people would notice.  But people are noticing, and a new post on the Official Google Australia Blog quantifies the matter.

If you want to win a Macbook Pro, or get some artwork on the front page of Google Australia, a new contest will give you that chance.  There’s only one catch: to qualify, you must be an Australian child.

Australia’s all alone out there, thousands of miles from everything (except Papa New Guinea, Indonesia, and New Zealand), and most people don’t know too much about it.  It seems that, even within the continent, Google’s Australian branch is also one big question mark.  So the Australian Googlers have filled the public in on some of their accomplishments and quirks.

This is the problem with Yahoo’s name for “Panama”: it sounds quite strange when you discuss it in relation to other countries.  Nonetheless, the new ad system has found its way into Australia and New Zealand.

If you visit Google Australia’s home page today, you’ll see a nifty little image incorporated into the company’s logo – a few rings of black and red dots, and two human figures (one of whom is bearing a shield).  This was done in honor of National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week.

Internet hosting companies in Australia could be the focus of interest from major online players like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google.

“ninemsn is set to launch mobilise.”  Now, look closely at that sentence (or not closely at all, really), and you can guess three things – this development relates to mobile phones, Microsoft, and either Britain or Australia.

Compared to much of the rest of the world, the nation of Australia is pretty young – you might say it got off to a late start.  Google’s doing its best to help the country’s inhabitants catch up, however, and in Australia and New Zealand, the search engine company recently introduced AdWords Business Pages in an attempt to get more businesses online.

Beginning a piece of writing with a quote is bad, and using clichés can be worse, but a lot of intelligent, upright, and otherwise excellent people subscribe to the maxim that the dog is man’s best friend.  Google’s devotion to these animals – as recently demonstrated by its participation in the RSPCA Million Paws Walk – has, as a result, won the company a lot of fans.

Australia’s online population may be the smallest in the Asia-Pacific region, but in terms of Internet penetration, Australia has a solid presence.

In their new Australia Online report, eMarketer estimates that 66 percent of Australians will use the Internet in 2007, which is on par with more populated countries in the region such as Japan (69 %) and South Korea (72%).

eMarketer believes Australian Internet penetration will reach 72 percent in 2011.

Americans may not be familiar with the Fairfax Digital group, but it’s Australia’s “leading provider of online news and classifieds websites.”  And it’s now Google’s partner – Fairfax Digital has joined the Google Adsense network, will make some clips available through Google Video, and plans to integrate Google Maps throughout its properties.

Never mind the bat signal – cops in India have been equipped with a sort of “red phone” e-mail address at Google.  The search engine giant, according to various Indian sources, wants to help put a stop to hate speech and other objectionable content that’s been showing up on Orkut.

Strong mining = strong exports
Strong banking = strong commerce
Strong telecommunications = strong economy, society, connections.

There is a clear relationship between economic growth and investment in technology.

The building and construction industry has the lowest level of technology adoption and the lowest productivity growth. (Note: The new NextG network will help that)

The good news: Google has finally launched an Australia-specific version of Google Maps. The bad news: the service gives terrible directions. Also, Google kind of forgot to mention the release to Australia.

Google had announced that it would be flying over parts of Australia on Australia Day, last week Friday, in order to take photos for Google Earth and Google Maps (Microsoft was doing it, too). Australians were excites, with people planning to build giant signs and write words on the ground, or just wave at the sky, in order to live on for a while in Google’s maps of the country.

In Australia, the second highest court has ruled a website and the ISP hosting it committed copyright infringement when the website linked to songs hosted on other sites.

I conducted a teleseminar on business blogging for the Public Relations Institute of Australia a few days ago.