Microsoft Corp. has reportedly bid $1.2 billion for a Norwegian search engine company called Fast Search & Transfer ASA. The $2.97 a share offer is a 42% premium over the company’s most recent average share price according to The Associated Press. The board of Fast Search overwhelmingly recommended that shareholders accept Microsoft’s offer.

The company was founded in 1997 and has about 500 employees. The firm specializes in high-end online search and business intelligence systems used by companies globally.

President of Microsoft Business Division Jeff Raikes said in a release that “Enterprise search is becoming an indispensible tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly. Until now organizations have been forced to choose between powerful, high-end search technologies or more mainstream, infrastructure solutions. The combination of Microsoft and FAST gives customers a new choice: a single vendor with solutions that span the full range of customer needs.”

It is now being widely reported that recent new rules in China are restricting the broadcast of online videos to state-run sites. The privately owned Chinese video-streaming site population is growing and this could prove to be detrimental to their operations.

The new regulations decree that online videos can only be streamed or broadcast by state-owned/state-controlled companies according to WSJ.com. Sites that have online-content licenses in China are supposed to censor sites themselves before any complaints are filed by propaganda officials. Many video sites say that there is biggest problem is not propaganda, but pornography the report continues.

Besides figuring out exactly how to enforce these new regulations in the domestic market, there is also the question of the foreign market such as YouTube, which is popular in China. A spokesman for YouTube said to WSJ.com, “We believe that the Chinese government fully recognizes the enormous value of online video, and will not enforce regulations in a way that could deprive the Chinese people of its benefits and potential for business and economic development, education and culture, communication and entertainment.”

Also a concern is the threat online videos have to the control of the Communist Party over information said the report. The regulations say “Those who provide Internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism…and abide by the moral code of socialism.”

Members of the Network Advertising Initiative, a trade association representing companies in the online behavioral advertising marketplace, today announced a 2008 initiative designed to update key attributes of the NAI Principles code of conduct that has governed members of the trade association since 2000.

“Online behavioral advertising continues to provide significant benefits to internet users by supporting an amazing array of free content and services,” said Trevor Hughes, Executive Director of the NAI. “At the same time, NAI members believe that revisions to the NAI Principles are appropriate in response to the explosive growth of the field, and changes to technology, business models, and practices in the marketplace.”

In addition to addressing the elements of the suggested “self-regulatory principles” released recently by the Federal Trade Commission, the NAI will target discussion on specific attributes of their 2000 Principles program, including:

– Scope & enforcement
– Sensitive consumer characteristics
– Choice-enabling technologies
– Consumer education
– Standards for use of personally identifiable information
– Membership outreach

Input from stakeholders will be sought on proposed amendments in the early months of 2008.

CEO of Strategic News Service, an online newsletter that predicts the success of communications companies, Mark Anderson was recently quoted in the Telegraph to say that websites offering free products in exchange for targeting users with advertising will fail at a 9:1 ratio.

He continued to say that the tolerance for intrusion and capitalization of personal information for advertising has gone down. Anderson stated in an interview on BBC World Service to “Note the very humble pie apology from the founder of Facebook – terrified that in fact he might lose his entire franchise because he made a mistake with a new advertising product called Beacon.”

Although one of the latest trends in online advertising is investing in social networks, Anderson thinks that “There are more names than money so far. There are many more Web2.0 companies out there than will ever survive. We’ll see a lot of those companies failing this year.” The failure is coming from the reliance on advertising and a universal acceptance of it. There is a tipping point to everything, and for Web2.0 firms the time just may have come for theirs.

Jimmy Wales has received no shortage of praise and criticism for his latest controversial project Wikia Search. Traditionally Wiki sites have been free and not advertising supported, however the upcoming release of wikia search may betray that tradition.

Wikia Search relies on a community to enhance search listings and activities, bringing the human element to results. If a community member deems a search result to be more relevant than another it will have a direct impact to placement.

The community method of refinement isn’t new, but is a direct challenge to yahoo, google and other search sites that rely on computers to make those editorial decisions.

The future launch is expected in early January.