Baidu, the operator of China’s most popular search engine, has won the dismissal of a United States lawsuit brought by pro-democracy activists who claimed that the company violated their civil rights by preventing their writings from appearing in search results. In the most thorough and persuasive opinion on the issue of search engine bias to date, a federal court ruled that the First Amendment protects the editorial judgments of search engines, even when they censor political speech.

The nation's largest Internet service providers, in an unprecedented partnership with titans of the entertainment industry, have agreed to implement a uniform policy aimed at deterring online copyright infringement known as the Copyright Alert System. An agreement that sets forth extensive details about the program was finalized more than one year ago, but it has yet to take effect.