The BBC reports that Google is to provide search and advertising on MySpace.com and other websites owned by News Corporation’s Fox International Media. The deal will see Google pay Fox at least $900m (£472m), if specified web traffic targets are met.

Google said online community MySpace was an important site to be involved with given its rapid popularity growth.

From October, MySpace users will be able to use Google to search for groups and friends through the site. Google will also provide text-based adverts triggered by keywords found on the websites.

The deal ends speculation about which search engine would serve MySpace. Yahoo and MSN were also reported to have been in the running.

Earlier, Google struck a deal with MTV to distribute video footage from the music station to websites and blogs.

Hitwise has compiled “the volume of searches executed on the top search engines”, defined as 57 search engines used by U.S. internet users during a four week period.

The table above shows the top three engines Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search for the four weeks ending July 29, 2006.

Taken together with the recent spectacular financial results, is there anyone who can stop the onward march of Google?

It’s interesting how Google Earth, a mashup that seemed like a nice plaything when it first appeared, inevitably in beta, is now going seriously mainstream.

I recently watched ITN News in the UK screen a dynamic 3-D map of Lebanon and Israel on their main bulletin, badged “Google Earth”. It was excellent and a huge improvement on their usual drawn diagrams.

As Google’s many experiments in “Web 2.0″ become commonplace off the computer, how long before Google itself brands itself as mainstream media?

As Eric Schmidt said, Google will eventually run into every conceivable online problem. It’s had its troubles with China, now India is causing the Googlers grief.

ISPs in India are blocking Google’s popular Blogspot domain because of the vast horde of spam blogs hosted there.

A correspondent in India whose blog http://arunachalagrace.blogspot.com has had problems, has sent us this:

The current story is that as a result of the recent problems in Bombay, the Government instructed 11 sites to be taken down — one of which was linked to Blogspot — so they took down the whole of Blogspot instead of that one site linked to it. The Government then started on some more destructive creativity — but have run up against huge howls of protest. You cannot imagine the uproar here as a result of the censorship.

It’s a new time and the Government has responded in the China way — ban everything! But nowadays there’s a middle class and a large number of educated people — the old shock and awe methods don’t work anymore. But it takes time for that to sink in.

No doubt the matter will be speedily resolved especially as India is the largest call centre and outsourcing hub in the World - and 90% of those lucrative contracts are from the Western World. If India wishes to maintain a professional credibility they will have to choose. It is difficult for a naturally authoritative political structure to relax their grip but no doubt the commerical aspect will tilt the balance.

In the meantime I’ve already found ways of accessing Blogspot — its a new time — you have to be able to get into automatic zig-zag mode!

Google’s reaction must be weary acceptance that the spam takeover at Blogspot has damaged its reputation worldwide.