The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center has released the latest list of “vulgar content” offenders (in Chinese). This time, Google (GOOG) escaped mention–but Yahoo (YHOO) China and a popular real-estate portal, Soufun, did not.

The list referred to user-generated content on a section of Yahoo China’s Web site called “Yahoo Space,” which is not currently in operation. But a subsequent notice released today by the center said remnants of the “vulgar” content from Yahoo Space could still be found in other parts of Yahoo’s portal.

The Web sites “didn’t continue to follow the government’s call to effectively crack down on vulgar content and information on the Internet, and relaxed supervision of their Web sites, which ultimately led to the appearance of a lot of vulgar content, which is against social morals and does harm to the physical and mental health of the youth,” the center said in a notice. “Such behavior…has led to the anger of our public and should be strongly condemned.”

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The success of private-sale sites like Gilt Groupe, which holds daily members-only sales of off-season luxury items, have led to imitators hoping to emulate the success of a business model that’s catching on with recession-strapped consumers.

Private-sale sites let shoppers experience the cachet of owning luxury items without paying full price. Their Web-only setting eliminates the public guilt of making big-ticket purchases down a down economy. And the short time in which items can be reserved in shopping carts means customers have to click fast, enhancing the allure for some.

One of the newest such sites is One Kings Lane, which focuses on furniture and other housewares. Like the Gilt model, it sells luxury goods from two or three brands a day at 50 percent to 70 percent off original prices.

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It’s long been hard for health-care consumers to learn how much doctor visits or hospital stays will cost them. That’s now beginning to change, as a growing array of Web sites try to lift the veil on pricing.

The online resources come from insurers, government agencies, Internet companies and medical-care providers. The sites aren’t perfect: Unlike online retailers that sell products such as televisions, the health sites can’t typically give exact prices for medical procedures and services. Still, consumers can get a rough idea of typical costs in their area, and that can help them choose doctors and hospitals, budget for medical costs and sort out disputed bills.

John Rogers, a funeral-home owner in Frankfort, Ky., says he checked pricing on HealthcareBlueBook.com in June after a hospital told him it would charge a facility fee of about $4,200 for his wife’s outpatient gastrointestinal surgery. The Web site suggested that a reasonable price would be closer to $1,300, based on what insurers paid facilities for such procedures in his region.

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The World Wide Web is about to start using the languages of the world.

Leaders of the private body that oversees the basic design of the Internet are expected to decide at a meeting here Friday to let Web addresses be expressed in characters other than those of the Roman alphabet. Already, portions of a Web address can be written in other languages. But the suffix, such as the “com” after the dot, must be typed in Roman letters.

The change will allow the suffix–known as a top-level domain in the architecture of the Internet–to be expressed in 17 other alphabets. They include traditional and simplified Chinese characters, Russian Cyrillic, Korean Hangul and Hebrew. Dozens of other alphabets are likely to be added in coming years.

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The number of Facebook users in China is dwindling. Or to be more exact: falling off a cliff. And not by choice, as anyone who has tried to access Facebook in China recently knows.

It’s no secret among people in the Internet business in China that Facebook was interested in the world’s largest Internet user population. But apparently–according to various parties that met with a delegation of Facebook officials some time in the last few years–they came, they saw, and they left Chinese social networking Web sites like Renren.com (formerly known as Xiaonei), Kaixin001 and 51.com to fight amongst themselves for the market.

Then, to the chagrin of both expatriate and Chinese users (the number of which appeared for a time to be growing), China’s censors blocked Facebook. Blocks of overseas Web sites such as YouTube.com are a fact of life here, barely acknowledged and never explained by the government. (Many of these sites actually matter very little to Chinese Internet users who have their own favorite Web sites to watch videos on.)

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Microsoft says a phishing scheme is behind the exposure of passwords to thousands of Hotmail accounts late last week and adds that it’s helping affected customers regain control of their accounts.

On Monday, the Neowin technology blog posted a story saying that an anonymous user on Oct. 1 had uploaded a list with password details of more than 10,000 Hotmail accounts to a Web site called pastebin.com, where developers typically share programming code with each other. Neowin said it had seen part of the list, which has since been removed, and notified Microsoft of the issue.

After an internal investigation into the leaked Hotmail credentials, Microsoft (MSFT) said in a statement that it determined the passwords were obtained through a phishing scam. In a phishing scam, hackers send out legitimate-looking emails under the letterhead of banks, eBay (EBAY) and other institutions, usually telling consumers they need to reset online passwords to their Web sites for security purposes.

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Thought China is loosening up its grip on information flow? Think again.

For the last two months, Internet users in China have been denied access to a dozen popular Web sites and bulletin boards. They have been shut down by the Chinese government for security purposes as part of the government’s preparations for the upcoming 60th anniversary of the proclamation of People’s Republic on Oct. 1.

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Silicon Valley has been talking for 15 years or so about marrying TV and the Internet. For the most part, it’s still just talk; most people still use their PCs when they want interactivity, and rely on their TVs when they want to be passive content-watchers.

But Intel (INTC) is not giving up. The chip giant, having run along with partners down most of the blind alleys of interactive television, gave an update this week about a reformulated TV strategy that might be paraphrased as follows: it’s the software, stupid.

In other words, people don’t want to visit Web sites or engage in other PC-like activities while relaxing in front of their big-screen TV.

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Google Inc. (GOOG) Friday announced a highly anticipated service that will make it a middleman for selling graphical ads over the Internet.

The technology, called the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, resembles a stock exchange for display ads, ads with images and text that appear alongside content on a Web page. It allows companies that buy ads to bid for ad space across lots of different Web sites, from blogs to major entertainment properties, in real-time based on what publishers want to sell that second. Today display ads are often purchased ahead of time through negotiations with individual Web sites or networks of sites, a process which leaves publishers with lots of unsold space.

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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has closed the technological gap with Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) in a battle over software for adding video and animation to Web sites. But Microsoft’s efforts to win customers in the market are moving much slower.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has poured resources into its technology for online video and animation–dubbed Silverlight–and has boosted its ability to deliver high-definition video with the technology. Silverlight is positioned as a rival to Adobe’s technology, which is known as Flash.

While Microsoft has nabbed some marquee Web customers for Silverlight, including the National Football League, most popular video sites like YouTube and Hulu continue to use Flash. That’s because the Adobe software is much more broadly installed on computers than Microsoft’s technology.

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Tax deadbeats are finding someone actually reads their MySpace and Facebook postings: the taxman.

State revenue agents have begun nabbing scofflaws by mining information posted on social-networking Web sites, from relocation announcements to professional profiles to financial boasts.

In Minnesota, authorities were able to levy back taxes on the wages of a long-sought tax evader after he announced on MySpace that he would be returning to his home town to work as a real-estate broker and gave his employer’s name. The state collected several thousand dollars, the full amount due.

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The country’s technology chief said that he would push the government to embrace blogs, wikis and social networking sites to achieve both greater efficiency and transparency.

“It’s a safe assumption that the federal government will be more likely to adopt Web 2.0 technologies in the months ahead,” said Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, in an interview. Projects he wants to implement include using the Web to solicit public feedback on improving Veterans Benefits Administration disbursements and overhauling the immigration services Web site. One plan includes sending visa applicants text-message notifications.

Chopra’s comments underscore the Obama administration’s hope to marshal the power of swiftly changing technologies.

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Cisco Systems (CSCO) on Wednesday held a news conference with Warner Music (WMG) to promote software to create and manage Web sites, one of nearly 30 new businesses the tech-equipment maker is getting into that it says has the potential to someday reach $1 billion in revenue.

Cisco still makes most of its money from sales of networking gear, such as routers and switches. But in the last several years, Cisco has expanded into new areas, some as far flung as consumer video cameras and big-screen TV systems for sports stadiums. The Journal wrote about the new businesses and the management structure necessary to manage them last week.

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Ryan Tracy thought he’d entered the Dark Ages when he graduated college and arrived in the working world.

His employer blocked access to Facebook, Gmail and other popular Internet sites.

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China’s critiques of Google (GOOG) have sparked an online backlash among some Web users in China, in the latest sign of discontent with the government’s Internet control tactics.

Google’s recent troubles began with a CCTV news broadcast on Thursday that chastised the company for allowing users to find pornography and other vulgar content via the Chinese version of its search engine, Google.cn. The program, which can be seen here (in Chinese), included an interview with a young man named Gao Ye, who was described as a university student.

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