And for companies unaccustomed to the gravity-free environment of the Internet, the probable price tag of any of these money-losing search companies might seem ridiculously high.

Should our national laws protect the free and open environment of the Internet?

Lam explains that by studying closely how people navigate across contexts of socialization in the locality of the nation-state and the virtual environments of the Internet, we may discover how practices of English in the global sphere articulate with local practices of English in constituting the identities and life trajectories of people.

"Big content, through subscription services, are trying to adapt to the new economic environment of the Internet by giving consumers a legal, inexpensive way of buying their content," he said.

These once private albums are entering the public environment of the Internet more often due to the rapid development and adoption of technology.

The rub is that in an environment of 24-hour news and the Internet, overseas information operations easily become known to the American people, and any specific government-sponsored information campaign not based on fact risks damaging the nation's overall credibility.

Yet perhaps the bigger challenge will be the business issues raised by shifting a proprietary service toward the open-standards environment of the Internet.

A highly original novel by a lecturer in physics and professor of humanities at M.I.T.; its hero, immersed in an environment of cell phones, pagers and the Internet, suffers an illness both caused and made undiagnosable by excess information.

This reflection should also include and help global commercial players to better define their roles and their responsibilities in the promotion and strengthening of the fundamental freedom of expression in the global online environment of the Internet.