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Is this war? It looks trivial, sounds personal but at heart this is 2 key multinational corporations fighting for the domination of markets that may well define us culturally, socially, economically and eventually politically. Google's overt entry into the hardware domain merely underlines the scary power we know they have.

tactical withdrawal while maintaining a high threat level? or total showdown?

For Google, the project is a pre-emptive move to get a foothold in the living room as more consumers start exploring ways to bring web content to their TV sets.

"I think Google is gearing up to be potentially quite a formidable competitor to existing telcos and ISPs, given their moves into the infrastructure level," Warren Chaisatien, research director and principal analyst at Australian firm Telsyte, said. First they're making phones, now they're putting in the pipes.

'Freedom of speech' for one country is another country's 'propaganda attack'. Country is also a debatable term. Google is synonymous with the USA in most reports, and indeed the US Secretary of State is responding to China over this Google issue.

Highly detailed white paper on the underworld of cyber-espionage. Multinational corporation and state sponsored - all explore this backbone of the internet to get an advantage. Note: This gets quite technical at times. Very eye opening considering the recent events with the Australian/China cyber attacks on government and corporate targets.

Microsoft shares the same point of view on the limitations of the Flash product as Apple. Again, reliability, security and performance were identified as impediments of supporting the flawed software. Speaking about the mobile era Steve Jobs of Apple says 'low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards...' are areas where Flash is not currently accommodating. It's most interesting to watch powerful market players create pressure for change in the internet space. Adobe can ill afford to ignore these criticisms yet it's now taking opportunity to discredit the motives of the multinationals: "Apple's moves to block Flash and other technologies are designed to protect a business model that locks developers and consumers into a single, proprietary stack," Adobe spokeswoman Holly Campbell said.

The topic of domain names as a commodity isn't new, but the prices auctions are fetching for names is. When $2 million is refused for 'jeans.com' it paints a picture of the cost/benefit ratio of domain investment - where the potential financial benefits are clearly outweighing initial costs. The trend developing is for multinational companies to buy domain names with commonly understood verbs (eg dating.com) or nouns (eg books.com). It strengthens their own branded domain name and targets consumers who are undertaking searches on the net for the thing they want - be it a service or good - as opposed to searching for the company that sells that thing. Does it suggest that searching habits are changing? Is brand awareness and brand loyalty losing power?