Close to half of all people in the UK will be members of a social networking site within four years, a new report indicates.

The study found that the UK has the highest number of users in Europe who are members of sites such as MySpace and Facebook. At least 9.6 million people in the UK use these sites and that is expected to increase to 27.1 million by 2012.

Online financial services are used by about a third of the total U.K. online population, according to a new comScore report.

Thirty-three percent of UK Internet users did online banking in January, accounting for 10.9 million customers who used at least one online account in the first month of the year.

The most popular online banking brand was the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) with 2.9 million visitors, driven largely by the 2 million people who accessed NatWest’s online banking service.

As UK businesses brace for Google’s policy change on trademark bidding, there’s a growing amount of evidence that they’ll be hit hard.  Today, Hitwise’s Robin Goad provided several solid examples.

Companies that create fake blogs in order to hawk products violate what most people would consider basic truthfulness.  Starting May 28th, they may also be violating UK law.

Some of the features Google introduces do little more than collect dust, while others become extremely popular.  The Books Viewability API appears to be part of this second set, as traffic to the UK version of Google Book Search has increased by a dramatic amount since its introduction.

It’s hard to believe data about 2007 is still being released, but a new Hitwise report is interesting, nonetheless.  It seems that social networks and YouTube were quite popular last year, with related terms dominating a list of the top ten UK searches.

Twenty percent of married Internet users in the UK have admitted to reading their spouses emails and text messages according to a survey from Oxford University.

A majority of respondents (94%) disapproved of their partners having cyber-sex, while 88 percent disapproved of sharing personal information about the other partner online. Flirting online was unpopular with 85 percent of married Internet users. Discussing relationship problems to others was frowned upon by 89 percent.

The spread of a particular policy towards trademarks has some AdWords users in the UK worried.  And if new data from Hitwise is accurate, they should be.

The Internet will surpass television as the largest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, according to a report from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the World Advertising Research Centre.

The report says that Britain has the most developed online advertising market in the world and was worth $5.6 billion in 2007.

Social networks are practically crawling with kids, according to a new report from the UK’s Office of Communications.  What’s more: the children are often on them in violation of the networks’ rules, and their parents pay little attention.

A UK man from Birmingham has had harassment charges dismissed over his contacting of an ex-girlfriend on Facebook. The case is thought to be a first in the UK involving a social networking site.

Forty-five percent of UK teenagers have been criticized by an adult for enjoying something that is not "proper" reading according to a new survey from the National Year of Reading.

Late last year, the British Prime Minister asked a clinical psychologist to look at the risks the Internet and video games pose to children.  Dr. Tanya Byron has now come back with several suggestions that the government has said it will follow.

If the line representing online video’s growth were a hill, even a Hummer might have trouble navigating it.  According to new Hitwise stats, UK traffic to video sites increased 178 percent between the two most recent Februarys.

A generation of young people are being "raised online" according to a new study by the UK based Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr).

New Hitwise data makes clear that current UK Internet traffic to Facebook is roughly seven times what it was one year ago.  Unfortunately for the social network, it also demonstrates that Facebook hasn’t done a great job of recovering from its most recent January lull.

A Birmingham man will be the first person in the UK to be put on trial for allegedly harassing his ex-girlfriend on Facebook.

Michael Hurst has entered a not guilty plea to harassing ex-girlfriend Sophie Sladden on the social networking site. He is accused of violating the Harassment Act 1997 when he contacted Sladden on Facebook on January 21.

In emergencies’ aftermaths, various Google services have become go-to resources.  Following an earthquake in the UK, Google Earth and Google News seem to be getting mixed reviews.

Some people are bound to find this list a little disappointing; UK companies didn’t rank either first or second among the UK’s top 500 business brands.  Instead, for better or for worse, Google and Microsoft got those honors.

Internet service providers in the UK must take tougher measures to prevent illegal downloading or face legal sanctions the government has warned.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, told Internet service providers he would introduce legislation in April of next year if they did not voluntarily take action to reduce online piracy.

The adCenter blog reported that Microsoft has announced at Search Engine Strategies in London, that the adCenter customers in the UK can now sign up and take the adExcellence exam.