I am now seeing reports from several blogs that Google is expanding AdSense for Domains internationally. In December 2008, Google expanded the program to all US publishers. They promised to continue the expansion and seems to have done so, overnight, to all international publishers. Google has not confirmed this with a blog post yet, but this has happened.

Back when Google did the US expansion of this product, I blasted Google. I felt back then that Google expanded this program for one reason alone, to make a quick buck. That is fair and all, but back then, I thought that expanding this program would not only help Google become richer, but also help destroy the internet with an influx of wasted web pages that do not help searchers or advertisers.

Since then, I have watched the space, looking and expecting to hear complaints from the searcher, advertiser and even the publisher side. I was expecting searchers would be complaining about landing on these worthless domains. I was expecting to see advertisers complain about the quality of the traffic generated through these domains. I was expecting to see publishers complaining about the new set of arbitrageurs coming on board and clogging up their ad space.

But I have honestly not seen many complaints that warrant me to be upset about this latest expansion of this program. That doesn’t mean I am not worried about Google pushing this out internationally; I am worried. Like I promised at the Search Engine Roundtable, I will watch this space and report back any significant complaints related to this Domains for AdSense program.

Postscript: Google has confirmed with me that Google has indeed opened up AdSense for Domains internationally.

Google China: What’s Up G? from China Tech News reports that Google has launched their new domain in Google, G.cn. The domain name redirects to Google.cn, but is considered one of the “most important steps that Google has taken for localization in China,” according to China Tech News.

Google currently lags behind Baidu’s 74.5% market share in China with 14.3%. It is expected that the new short domain may help Google gain some share in China.

Google Sued in Domainer Lawsuit–Vulcan Golf v. Google from Eric Goldman covers a new lawsuit in which Google is being sued for allegedly violating trademarks by helping domainers monetize “typosquatter” domains.

Eric explains that this filing (4.3MB PDF) may be the first lawsuit against Google for its domainer relationships. The complaint considers Google as the domain name licensee, because AdSense for Domains effectively takes control of domains in the program.

Google’s policies aren’t supposed to allow typo domains to be in its program, but these get through. And since Google puts ads on them, the case alleges Google is contributing to trademark infringement.

Gary Price notes, as does Garett Rogers at Googling Google, that Google now owns the domain climatesaverpc.com. Garett speculates that Google may be thinking about building and selling personal computers that are green friendly, i.e. are climate and earth savers. We know Google has been active in environmental issues, though it has repeatedly stated to have no plans to sell hardware.