Google vice-president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong told a Senate judiciary committee hearing in Washington the company was continuing to investigate a hacking attack that emanated from China and alleged attempts to snoop on dissidents' email.
Since disclosing the incident in January, Google has called on the Chinese Government to stop requiring it to remove links to websites that the Government deemed subversive or offensive.
The company was in talks with Chinese officials to try and reach an agreement that would allow it to continue to do business there.
• Google also announced it had acquired online photo-editing site Picnik as it continued with a buying binge that included three acquisitions in about three weeks.
Google did not disclose the financial terms of the deal for Picnik, a five-year-old Seattle-based start-up which said on its website it had 20 employees.
Picnik allows users to edit online photographs from directly within a web browser, eliminating the need for special stand-alone editing software.
Last month, Google acquired Aardvark, a social search engine and mobile web email service reMail.
Since September, Google has acquired eight companies.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was earlier quoted as saying the company would resume its historic pace of acquiring one small company a month on average, with larger deals happening every year or two.
• Apple has sued Taiwanese phone maker HTC Corp, accusing the rival of violating patents related to the popular iPhone.
HTC was the first company to manufacture a cellphone based on Google's Android operating system, which has emerged as a significant competitor to the iPhone.
It is also making the Nexus One phone, which Google is selling directly to consumers.
Apple said HTC had infringed on 20 of its patents covering aspects of the iPhone's user interface and hardware.
• Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz says she hopes investors growing impatient for her to turn the slumping internet company around remember how long it took Steve Jobs to revive Apple.
In a meeting yesterday to celebrate Yahoo's 15th anniversary, Mrs Bartz reminded reporters Apple struggled for the first four years after Mr Jobs returned to that company as CEO in 1997.
It was not until Mr Jobs unveiled the iPod in late 2001 that Apple's profits and stock price began to soar.
Mrs Bartz said the challenges she faced in her first 14 months as Yahoo's chief executive had been compounded by the worst US recession in 70 years.
Nevertheless, Yahoo was making modest progress.
She expected the company's first quarter to show the first revenue gains since the northern summer of 2008.
- Additional reporting by AP
