Another acquisition by Thomson Reuters: it has acquired private equity backed Indlaw Communications, a Delhi-based legal information company, for an undisclosed amount. Indlaw runs a legal, tax and regulatory information database website at Indlaw.com. The site, founded by lawyer Joseph Pookkatt in 2002, had received early stage investment from private…

Bertelsmann, who all but exited out of music business when it sold its portion in Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG back to Sony last year, is back in it: it is ramping up its new-ish music rights/publishing venture BMG Rights Management in a deal with PE firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is expanding its real estate listings on Google Maps in a move that could pit it against existing listing sites and could also create additional tension with listing services. Starting Monday, users in Australia and New Zealand can search for available properties on Google Maps, according to…

Recent high-profile disputes with the Chinese government don’t seem to be cutting into Google’s revenue there. The company’s second-quarter ad revenue in China is expected to increase by 25 percent, compared to the first quarter according to BrandRepublic, which cites domestic reports (via Marketing Pilgrim). Operating revenue is also expected…

European online advertising network and marketing firm AdLink Group, part of Germany’s ISP firm United Internet, has finally been sold off its display ad unit, AdLink Media, about 18 months after its hired Morgan Staley to do it: Hi-Media, the increasingly acquisitive French online media group, has bought the unit.…

So how exactly does unlikely Pirate Bay bidder Global Gaming Factory X intend to profit from the scourge of the entertainment industry, and pay content owners? CEO Hans Pandeya, who offered SEK 60 million (£7.4 million) this week, tells paidContent:UK he wants to sell users’ unused hard disk space to…

The search for a new CEO for also-ran online video site Dailymotion has ended, as Cédric Tournay (pictured) has agreed to take the reins of the Paris-based site, the company said in an e-mailed announcement. Tournay is the former CEO of European health portal Doctissimo.

Swedish stock exchange officials are investigating whether there may have been insider trading around Global Factory X’s deal to buy Pirate Bay for $7.8 million. “There are reasons to suspect that information was leaked,” a stock market official at the AktieTorget exchange tells Swedish business paper Dagens Industri (via Swedish…

The Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle, a success if you believe the buzz around the device and some of the numbers analysts have come up with, is looking to expand internationally, and, as a part of that, Germany, Europe’s biggest book market, is believed to be among the first of those…

Swedish publicly listed software company Global Gaming Factory X says it wants to buy The Pirate Bay SEK60 million ($7.8 million) and will begin compensating copyright ownersfor material its users find and download. GGF announced today said it will also buy P2P technology company Peerialism and plans “to launch new…

First, China introduced a tax on real-world profits generated from the sale of virtual goods; now, China’s Ministry of Commerce has released its first regulation of virtual currency. The law explicitly bans the use of virtual money to buy real-world goods or services, and restricts minors from buying any virtual…

India’s government has banned the controversial and popular local cartoon porn site Savitabhabhi.com. The government’s telecom department has asked all Internet Service Providers to block the website in a communication earlier this month, according to documents seen by our sister site contentSutra. There has been mounting concern in India over…

The 2012 London Olympics will be the most wired yet but, true to its modest ambitions relative to Beijing, will focus on mass viewer appeal over cutting-edge online media, organisers say. “We don’t necessarily see this as, first and foremost, an opportunity to innovate,” Alex Balfour, new media head for…

Take-Two Interactive (NSDQ: TTWO) is ready to make its first big leap into the online gaming arena, and it’s partnering with Chinese internet and gaming portal Tencent to do it. The publisher has inked a multi-year deal with Tencent to launch the best-selling NBA 2K sports franchise in China. It’s…

A deal between Chinese portal SINA and Focus Media may be falling apart. SINA agreed to purchase some assets from Focus Media (NSDQ: FMCN) in December for roughly $1 billion, including the company’s digital out-of-home ad network. However, according to investment bank JLM Pacific Epoch, which cites a local news…

It’s been in the chase for some time, but now Disney-owned ESPN (NYSE: DIS) has finally got its hands on lucrative English Premier League soccer TV rights for the next four years. The broadcaster has long wanted to extend its footprint in the UK and Europe—and it was handed the…

Hoping to expand its already dominant position in the Chinese internet market, Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) is on the hunt for an acquisition. CFO Jennifer Li tells Bloomberg News that the “Internet is at an early stage of its development. It’s dynamic, and we need to stay ahead.” Li didn’t provide…

The Canadian local search market now has one less player. Directory publisher Canpages said Monday it would buy online directory ZipLocal.ca for about $2.45 million (US). Canpages said the deal would boost its rapidly-growing online search business, by adding ZipLocals’ user-generated reviews and ratings of businesses to its own search…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) executives will answer charges of criminal defamation in a Milan court on Tuesday, stemming from a three-minute Google Video of a boy being bullied for having Down Syndrome. The four execs are chief legal officer David Drummond, privacy chief Peter Fleischer (pictured), former CFO George Reyes (now…