Google announced today that it has acquired reCAPTCHA, a company that provides CAPTCHAs to over 100,000 sites around the web.
Perhaps you're thinking that Google was inspired by a patent recently granted to Microsoft for advertising via the CAPTCHA. Maybe Google will be the first to offer AdWords in CAPTCHAs. Maybe "relevant" CAPTCHA text.
Google has introduced a new privacy policy for Google Books, to try and appease the critics of Google's enormous book indexing project. The company has also been in communication with the Federal Trade Commission, and has discussed both the new policy and a letter to the FTC on the Google Public Policy Blog.
Interread, the British company that owns CoolerBooks.com, has announced a partnership with Google in which it will include over a million public domain books from Google Books in its online library. This makes CoolerBooks the first ebookstore outside the US to partner with Google Books.
Google is now offering downloads of public domain books in Google Books in the EPUB format, which is an open and free industry standard for electronic books. This format is supported by a wide variety of different applications, so it should be easy for many people to access literature this way.
Users can download the public domain books by simply clicking the "download" button in the Google Books Toolbar, which provides a drop-down menu to choose the file format.
Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have reportedly banded together under the organization of the Internet Archive and antitrust lawyer Gary Reback, to try and put a stop to Google's settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over Google Book Search.
Google Book Search has not always had the largest of cheering sections; between authors wanting more money and watchdog organizations calling it a monopoly, the program's encountered a lot of challenges. But an important organization stood up for Google Book Search earlier this week.
Google signed a settlement agreement with authors and publishers last year over Google Books. Google says that if it is approved by the court, it will unlock access to millions of books for anyone in the United States.
Today, Google has addressed privacy concerns that users and potential users have voiced with regards to Google Books.
The world's largest university press has sided with Google in the ongoing Google Book Settlement debate. Yesterday, Tim Barton, the president of Oxford University Press, spent about 2,700 words explaining that he believes even a flawed settlement is better than nothing.
Google has added a couple features to Google News that make it easier for users to find content from specific authors and journalists. This is ideal for readers who like the work of a particular reporter, but would otherwise be unsure of where to find just that person's articles.
The Google Book Search team may have access to all sorts of literature, but the simple term "clear sailing" is probably fading from members' vocabulary. Another obstacle has come up as the European Union has decided to study if a recent settlement complies with local copyright law.
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