Business Briefs

Google shifts search engine for China to Hong Kong

Google Inc. will shift its search engine for China off the mainland but will maintain engineering and sales offices in the country. Visitors to Google.cn are now being redirected to the Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong, where Google does not censor the search results. The move is an attempt to balance Google's stance against censorship with its desire to profit from an explosively growing market. The world's most powerful Internet company has been in a 21/2-month impasse with the government of the world's most populous country.

Pay czar to review 419 firms that got bailout funds

Obama administration pay czar Kenneth Feinberg plans to review past compensation at 419 firms that received bailout funds, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, according to a source close to the U.S. Treasury Department. Feinberg will "look back" at any pay for the top 25 earners that totaled more than $500,000 from October 2008, when firms first received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, through February 2009, when legislation was passed attaching pay restrictions to the funds.

Geithner: Bank overhaul must protect consumers

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the administration will not accept a financial overhaul bill that does not provide strong consumer protection and restraints on risk taking by large banks. Addressing the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank Monday, Geithner urged lawmakers to listen to the families and businesses that were harmed by the financial crisis and not the financial institutions that brought on the crisis, the most severe to hit the country since the 1930s.

Flying Continental coach? Bring your own meal

Continental Airlines Inc. will stop serving complimentary meals in coach for most domestic flights beginning this fall, marking the end of the free-meal era among most U.S. airlines. The Houston-based carrier is the last major airline in the continental United States to serve free meals in coach on most domestic flights. Continental will continue to serve free meals in first class and business class as well as on flights longer than six hours.

From wire reports