Two news items from Sharman Networks, parent company of the KaZaA file-sharing app. First, KaZaA is expanding multilingually, offering versions in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. Second, Sharman will not be distributing those versions, or the flagship English program, through Download.com as it has until now. KaZaA will be available for download from the KaZaA site.

Pulling out of Download.com has possible repercussions. Download.com acted as a sort of independent auditing company that verified KaZaA's status as the most popular application download in history. When KaZaA releases download numbers from its own servers, it will be like American Idol bragging about its own voting numbers. (I wonder if Ryan Seacrest uses KaZaA?)

KaZaA might have been miffed when Download.com announced that AdAware, a program used to block spyware attached to KaZaA, took over the top download spot recently—who needs that kind of publicity?