AFP – An Australian man has agreed to pay Nintendo 1.3 million US dollars for illegally uploading a game to the Internet six days before its global release, the firm said Tuesday.

Reuters – China plans to crack down on the online gambling industry, including the banks and websites that support it, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement posted on its website.

Reuters – With their paths through the Internet increasingly blocked by government filters, Nooshin and her fellow Iranian opposition-supporters say their information on planned protests now comes in emails.

NewsFactor – The Chinese government has arrested three hackers who were running an online hacker-training business. The trio of hackers operated Black Hawk Safety Net, a company that collected nearly $1 million from more than 120,000 members.

NewsFactor – Barnes & Noble said Monday that its popular nook e-book reader is back in stock online and will be rolling out in the majority of the bookseller’s U.S. stores this week. Customers also will be able to enjoy exclusive Valentine’s Day-themed online content this month, the company said.

AP – Hoping to boost revenue, MySpace Music has begun experimenting with audio advertisements that users must hear before listening to music for free online.

PC World – Google plans to tweak Gmail to make it easier for its users to post and share status updates, in an attempt to inject the Web mail service with social-networking capabilities popularized by Twitter and Facebook, according to The Wall Street Journal.

AP – Miley Cyrus has organized an online auction to benefit the relief effort in Haiti, and Britney Spears, Hugh Jackman, Ellen DeGeneres, Julianne Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Lovato and others will donate items and experiences.

AFP – A man who went by the Internet pseudonym “Devilfish579″ has been charged with threatening Hispanic groups in the United States in a series of hostile emails, the Justice Department said Monday.

AP – Spanish telecoms operator Telefonica says it is considering charging Internet search companies like Google and Yahoo for network use.

AFP – Google has filed an appeal of a court decision that ordered the US Internet giant to stop digitising French books without publishers’ approval, its lawyers said Monday.

AFP – China has sentenced a man who operated a porn website to 13 years in jail and fined him 100,000 yuan (15,000 dollars), state media said, amid an ongoing campaign to crack down on online sexual content.

AFP – In a rare foray into television advertising, Internet giant Google ran an ad during the Super Bowl.

PC Magazine – Google will be adding hooks to popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter via Gmail, according to reports. Is this a push version of Google’s Social Search?

Reuters – New York Governor David Paterson is not planning to resign, his spokeswoman Marissa Shorenstein said on Monday, calling blog reports to that effect “entirely fabricated.”

PC World – Google doesn’t tend to show itself off. Why would it need to? It’s a household name, often synonymous with search, the go-to search engine. Even if Google didn’t flood the news on an almost daily basis, at this point, it’d be impossible to ignore its influence. Yet still, Google dug deep into the television advertising gambit on Sunday, airing a heartwarming spot during the be-all, end-all destination for ads: the Super Bowl.

Reuters – The Internet is helping older British readers rekindle a love of books and writing, and an overwhelming majority of senior citizens see the medium as a positive development, according to a survey.

PC Magazine – Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book reader is now available online and will be in stores by mid-week, the book retailer announced Monday.

PC World – Google wants to pioneer the first smartphone technology to translate foreign languages almost instantly, the search giant told British daily The Times. The technology will be able to convert spoken words into a different language in real time, and could be ready within a few years.

PC World – PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country.

AFP – Google has warned a copycat Chinese website to stop using a logo that resembles the US Internet giant’s or face possible legal action, state media reported Monday.

PC World – Chinese police have shut down what they called the country’s biggest hacker training Web site and arrested three people linked to the site, local media said Saturday.

Reuters – China’s third-largest online game operator NetEase.com said it has suspended new user registration for World of Warcraft (WoW) in China and will reapply for a license to operate the expansion pack of Activision Blizzard’s hit game.