Google hasn’t been out of the news of late, their recent controversy surrounds their lack of patience with the ever suspicious China. The internet giant has said it may end its dealings in China, after a “sophisticated and targeted” cyber attack originating from the country.

Google’s David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, made the big announcement on the Google blog. As it turns out, Google discovered that what first appeared to be a random cyber attack on their company, was actually a concerted effort against various organisations. The story took a darker twist as, Google claims that the primary target of the attack was the GMail accounts of Chinese human rights activists from all over the world.

Google did not accuse the Chinese government directly, probably as they are nervous of being kidnapped, but said they have said they are no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine - google.cn.

Google launched google.cn in 2006, agreeing to some censorship of the search results, as required by the Chinese government. It currently holds around a third of the Chinese search market, far behind Baidu with more than 60%.

 Apart from investing in quality promotional products from reputable suppliers such as Gift Selection or the Mug Store, a popular way for businesses to market themselves is via Google Adwords.

However Google faces taxes on its massive advertising revenue in France as part of president Nicolas Sarkozy’s ambition to regulate the internet. Proposals in a government-led report handed to culture minister Frederic Mitterrand recommend Google and other internet search providers should be forced to pay a levy every time a user clicks on their sponsored links.

Google France senior policy manager Olivier Esper said an additional tax on internet advertising would “slow down innovation” and the best way “to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work”.

Last year here in the UK, Google was accused of legally avoiding more than £450m in corporation tax on the £1.6bn advertising revenues in made here last year. The Sunday Times reported they had diverted all its advertising earnings from customers in Britain to its Irish subsidiary. It turns out that Google’s crafty accountants made sure they paid just £141,519 in Corporation Tax.

The NHS rolled out a £25,000 ‘Cocktales’ campaign designed to highlight the dangers of drink to young people specifically in Derbyshire, only to see it taken off YouTube.

The video shows a young woman who urinates in the street, falls over and is then jeered at by a group of passing young men. When I saw this clip, I just presumed it was a fly on the wall documentary about Preston, and didn’t think anything of it. However ‘Bloody Mary’ received 15,000 hits in the eight days it was on YouTube and was also distributed to local media.

Alison Pritchard, from Derbyshire Primary Care Trust said: ‘This video does have a dark humour in it designed to capture the imagination and show what can happen if you overstep the mark on a night out. ‘It has been banned from YouTube because of its content which we realise some people may find controversial. We want people to think about the main messages of safe drinking and use the information to make informed choices on their nights out, particularly around the Christmas period.’

If you’re the kind of person who likes to go out of their way to be offended, just to confirm they will be offended, it can still be viewed at the campaign website. The second instalment tantalizingly involves a man dressed as a turkey, who unfortunately gets run over.

The centre of everyone’s universe, Facebook is set to make a few more changes to its design, even though their tech people have only just finished re-jigging things. These are set to be alterations to their homepage, as well making their search function more important.

However there is no pleasing the general public, as people’s lives were turned upside down, when previous alteration about notifications and the general layout of things came into place. These tweaks have come from screen shots seen on a French technology blog PCinpact.com. However Facebook has not confirmed whether the pages shown by PCinpact are genuine.

Would you like some interesting facts about Facebook? Well you’ll get them anyway; more than 350 million active users, 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day, more than 35 million users update their status each day, more than 55 million status updates posted each day, more than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month and pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans!

For the first time ever, the internet is raking in more add revenue then any other medium, overtaking its traditional big brother – television. Marketing professionals shouldn’t get too excited however, as the UK spent £1.5bn less in the first half of 2009, compared to the same period last year.

Online advertising such as; paid for search, display and classifieds grew by 4.6%, within a market that fell by 16.6% to £7.5bn. Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: “Internet advertising has beaten all expectations to achieve growth in the most challenging market conditions.” To put it another way online advertising now has a 23.5% market share compared to TV’s 21.9%, with Google being the unsurprising top dog.The recession had accelerated the migration of advertising spending to digital technology - from more traditional media such as print, radio and television advertising to online, according to the report.

With relatively easy to use software like Adobe’s Flash, internet ads can be just as dynamic as traditional TV ads, and they can provide more information in a smaller space – keeping costs down. Interestingly the UK remains the world leader in terms of market share for online, while the results signal a significant restructure of marketing budgets as advertisers follow their audiences online.

The official “cool list” for hipsters to keep an eye on by Cool Brand’s, reveals a new but unsurprising champion in the shape of the Apple iPhone. Despite the so called credit crunch, the unprecedented success of the iPhone this year, which has sold five million units between March and June, led to it rising from second to the number one spot.

The last three previous years, Aston Martin has been the coolest kid around, probably as the luxury car manufacturer is immediately synomous with James Bond. The shortlist for the survey is compiled by 2,500 voters. The final twenty are voted on by a panel, which includes DJ Edith Bowman (I’m not entirely sure why she’s on it) and Adam & Eve founding partner James Murphy.

Technology was the dominant field, with BlackBerry and the BBC’s iPlayer being new entries into the top 20. The only real exception was kooky high end fashion label Vivienne Westwood. Other category winners include Channel 4 and Vogue, which took the title for top radio and TV station, and magazine respectively, while Google’s YouTube was the number one online brand.

Stephen Cheliotis, chief executive of the Centre for Brand Analysis, which administers the survey, said: “The iPhone is something everyone has been talking about. There has been so such a buzz around it and people who haven’t got one, want one.”

Remember when I reported news about Hula-Hoops requesting the public to send in videos of their fingers messing around with their favourite crisps on them?

Well they have recently launched their TV add to encourage us to get filming, which features two would be YMCA stars. Helen Warren-Piper, marketing director of Bagged Snacks at UBUK, said: “This new TV advertising campaign, along with the on-pack promotion and Hula Hoops website will drive further consumer engagement with the brand providing retailers with increased sales opportunities.

“Some brands are the keepers of undeniable truths. Hula Hoops is one of those brands — anyone who tells you they can eat a bag without first putting them on their fingers and giving them a wiggle, is a big fat fibber”.

If you have way too much time on your hands - visit their website to see people’s latest efforts and size up your competition.

The clever chaps at The Mugstore have just set up a Flickr account, showing off examples of their printed promotional mugs. These high quality images will act as a  great guide if your in the market for branded mugs, as they will give you a clear idea of what you may be investing it.

Click here to see their latest images of branded mugs they have produced, and of course feel free to get in contact with them if you have any questions. The beauty of having their branded mugs on Flickr, is that you can keep on eye on what client’s they have been working with. Also by looking at examples of their promotional mugs, you may pick up some inspiration about what you want to print yourself.

Just for a laugh they want you to send in images of your mugs and tea cups in random places, in return for a fantastic prize. So if you’ve recently been to the peak of Mount Everest, and boiled some snow for a cup of tea - send it in!

Hoola Hoops are launching a fun new competition, for any would be film directors with too much time on their hands.

Starting today, the popular crisp makers want you all to make a two minute film, with you larking about with Hoola Hoops on your fingers. If you’re interested in winning a family holiday to Hollywood, or just £50, then films can be uploaded via their micro-site.

Helen Warren-Piper, marketing director of bagged snacks at UBUK, says: “Hula Hoops is a well established brand with a loyal following. This new TV advertising campaign, along with the on-pack promotion will drive further consumer participation with the brand and will provide retailers with increased sales opportunities.”

Hoola Hoops are following in the footsteps of Barclaycard, who back in February launched a competition to recreate its waterslide ad via its own dedicated YouTube channel. It probably won’t be the most productive thing you’ll do all day, but have a go knocking some Hoola Hoops around here!

One of the brains behind the launch of MySpace in the UK has developed a social media course for secondary schools.

Andrew Davis has entitled it ‘Social Media Fundamentals’, which aims to explain the rise and relevance of social media, while at the same time integrating it with traditional subjects like maths and English. This thoroughly modern idea, will be the first time a formal social media course is to be taught in UK secondary schools.

Mr Davis inspiration for this came from when in 2007 he was diagnosed with repetitive strain injury, which sadly made simple day-to-day tasks a real challenge. After surgery on his hands and weekly physiotherapy sessions, his doctor’s have told him typing is completely out of the question. Due to this radical change of lifestyle forced upon him, he drew up this course, as it’s something he can deliver verbally.

London’s Bishop Challoner Catholic School is the first school to take part in the course. James Chinery, head of boys’ English at Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School said: “Social networking is one of the major media phenomena of our time and could be a key factor in helping us to equip our pupils with the skills they’ll need for the real world. Andrew, with his experience from MySpace, is well placed to explain how the internet and social networking sites can be used positively in their future careers.”

Social Media Fundamentals will cover six elements: blogging, microblogging services (such as Twitter), how to use social networking sites to launch a career, using content communities such as video sharing site YouTube effectively, creating and editing web pages and social bookmarking services like ‘Digg’.

If you’re interested in contacting Mr Davis, then to market his services as a consultant, he has a series of digital video podcasts (vlogs) and an amusing blog site here.