Internet search giant Google said yesterday it had recruited 100 engineers for its engineering centre in China and expected to double or even triple that number next year. Kaifu Lee, corporate vice-president and head of the engineering centre, said the company was expected to maintain that growth in the coming years.

MSN China said yesterday that it terminated its co-operation with Yahoo! Alibaba on a real-name search service, as the contract had expired. Microsoft had co-operated with 3721, a real-name search service that allows Internet users to put in the Chinese name of a website and directs the user to the website on Microsoft Internet Explorer's address bar.

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