Internet

"The lack of transparency in politics in general and in media in particular is huge in this country," said the director of the government-supported Peruvian organization Citizen Participation. "Like everywhere else in the world, the big owners of communication chains aren't absolutely neutral or transparent.

"The Internet may be new, but not the issue of whether an American corporation should do business with bad people," writes Richard Cohen. He argues that the claims of Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Yahoo and other tech companies that they are assisting the Chinese government's attempts to censor information online because they must "comply with local laws" ring false. "The law in China is what the Chinese leaders say it is," Cohen counters.

"U.S. military websites that pay journalists to write articles and commentary supporting military activities in Europe and Africa do not violate U.S. law or Pentagon policies," concluded the Pentagon's inspector general.

"A humbler Microsoft" is "reinventing itself," writes Advertising Age. "It is enlisting young executives ... in a marketing-leadership program to help it overcome hurdles such as competition from free software; the challenge of competing against itself with new products; and getting consumers to trust the company once blames for security breaches." Microsoft's chief marketing officer, Mitch Mathews, was elevated so that he reports directly to CEO Steve Ballmer.