Week in review: Play it again

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That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Google's Blogger, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, as well as Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.

Meanwhile, President Bush tried to quell a growing controversy over an electronic surveillance program he authorized, saying it is designed to track terrorists and not to intrude on the private telephone conversations of Americans. Bush said Americans' privacy is "fiercely protected," but he did not directly respond to an article published on Thursday in USA Today that said the National Security Agency is secretly collecting the phone call records of Americans' domestic calls, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon Communications and BellSouth.

Ever since news of the surveillance program became public in December, the president and members of his administration have stressed that it was limited to intercepting phone conversations and e-mail messages where one party to the conversation was outside the United States. In January, Bush assured Americans that "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."

However, Capitol Hill politicians reacted angrily to the report. In a sign that political opposition to surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency may be growing, a wide range of top Democrats took aim at the program throughout the day and called for immediate hearings to investigate the president's eavesdropping and data-mining efforts.

Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vowed to force executives from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to show up at a hearing and answer questions about data they quietly handed over to the NSA without court approval.

The goods on Google
Google unveiled an update to its Google Desktop product, as well as several new products designed to enhance information gathering on the Web. At its annual press day, the search giant took the lid off Google Desktop version 4, Google Notebook, Google Trends and Google Co-op.

The new version of Google Desktop lets people use small interactive applications from within the product's Sidebar without having to download software or open up a browser. Google Desktop 4 is integrated with other Google products to let people use the Sidebar to, for instance, easily see when their friends' birthdays are via the Orkut social network or see events they have scheduled on a particular day via Google Calendar.

Google executives also downplayed their battle with Microsoft but said they are keeping an eye on their larger rival's plans for embedding Web search functionality into Vista, its delayed next-generation operating system.

Asked during an executive question-and-answer session about the company's concerns about Vista, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Microsoft had behaved anticompetitively in the past when the Netscape browser was giving Internet Explorer stiff competition in the mid-1990s.

"We just see the history of that company behaving anticompetitively and...not playing fair," he said. "So I think we want to...look at the areas where that power can be abused."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer responded that Google seems to want special treatment on Internet Explorer. His remarks centered on the default search engine in the Web browser. Right now, when people update their version of IE, the software won't change their default search settings.

"If you pick Yahoo, it will stay on Yahoo," Ballmer said.

Google, however, has complained about how the system works. The complaints could be taken as a disguised way to help that company grow its segment in search, Ballmer suggested.

Also of note
A judge ruled in favor of Apple Computer in its long legal battle with Apple Corps, the record label launched by The Beatles...BitTorrent, creator of file-sharing software that for some has become synonymous with piracy, struck a landmark distribution deal with a Hollywood studio...TiVo inked an agreement that will let subscribers get videos on their digital video recorders in a deal that effectively lets select Web sites get onto your TV...Yahoo and Telemundo Network Group plan to merge their U.S. Spanish-language Web sites to try to expand their reach into the growing Hispanic market and bolster their presence among advertisers.