Vivisimo, an enterprise search company based in Pennsylvania, announced Thursday that it has expanded its search affiliate program, which offers a free search engine for all government Web sites.

This search platform indexes more than 50 million government documents.

The platform covers news, images, frequently asked questions, maps, and weather forecasts. Searchers can also find government contact information, applications, and notices regarding jobs and benefits. Managers of web sites related to the government can add new features to their sites and even ambiguous search terms will extract useful information, Vivisimo said.

“Using Vivisimo’s superior search technology, and the expanded search affiliate program, anybody can easily access the vast amounts of information collected and generated by the U.S. government,” Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO and co-founder of Vivisimo, said in an announcement. “Vivisimo’s intuitive user-interface turns complexity into simplicity — and will help millions of people to get quick, authoritative answers to their questions.”

Social networking site ConnectU sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea. They allege he used the source code they hired him to create for their site.

Now four years later Facebook is celebrating their four year anniversary, and that the lawsuit against them is finally settled – in Facebook’s favor. Facebook asked that the case be dismissed, for lack of evidence, and that happened. ConnectU then filed another lawsuit against Facebook in March, which is now closed.

Yesterday Judge James Ware of Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., stood behind a February settlement between the companies. Also named were Zuckerberg’s Harvard classmates, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.

Facebook now has upwards of 39 million members and expanded to go beyond college students. ConnectU is said to have 15,000 members at 200 schools.

They may not allow domain tasting, however Internet regulator ICANN has voted unanimously to expand the number of top level domain names, as the BBC reports.

The decision provides companies the opportunity to turn their brands into web addresses, while individuals could potentially use their names. A second proposal, that would introduce domain names written in scripts such as Asian and Arabic, was also approved.

“We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated,”

said Roberto Gaetano, a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Another Domain Gold Rush!

ICANN has been working on the move for nearly six years.

It’s all quiet on the Pilgrim front. Until more news comes along, please ration these Picks:

• The Kelsey Group predicts online local video ad revenue will grow by 168% through 2012, reaching $1.5 billion. Does this mean local car dealerships will annoy us on the web too?
• Louis Gray reminds us not to believe everything we read on the web–especially Twitter rumors about Subway’s Jared kicking the bucket.
• Shari Thurow has never been afraid to stir up a hornets’ nest with her writing. Today, she takes a look at what makes you an "SEO Expert."
• Just because the economy is slowing, that doesn’t mean consumers are not still shopping online. They’re just focusing more on "used" search terms versus "new."
• Another great review for Trackur–w00t!

No Linky Withdrawal here, please—we’re back and better than decent as ever!

• Not terribly surprisingly, Google is launching the “Internet for Everyone” campaign. Because that’s a basic right. Really. I used to teach the Constitution; it’s in the 82nd Amendment*.
   
  What the rest of us with Internet want to know: will this bring our monthly bill down? (And as marketers: what is this new audience interested in researching/purchasing online?) (via).
• Publicis is creating an “Open Source” ad network by partnering with AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. I certainly hope they told all the parties involved that this was an “open relationship.”
• Oddly enough, Google’s blog post seems to have had little effect on the US Government, as members of Congress and the Department of Justice are taking a hard look at the Yahoo-Google deal. Will it be approved? Check it out next season on . . . The Young & the Profitless!