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WASHINGTON--Fresh off the news that Europe is formally investigating Google, a Silicon Valley antitrust expert today laid out the hypothetical case against Google that might play out should U.S. regulators decide to get involved.

Gary Reback, an attorney with Carr & Ferrell and a prominent figure in the antitrust trials involving Microsoft, told attendees at Consumer Watchdog's Future of Online Consumer Protections conference here that the European case, built off complaints by a comparison shopping engine, could demonstrate that Google has improperly penalized specialty search engines in its quest to maintain its leading search engine market share. The … Read more

WASHINGTON--The Federal Trade Commission is ready to release a key report on online privacy and the concept of a "do not track" approach to Web marketing, but it will probably have to get Congress involved to see any meaningful change, a FTC commissioner said today.

David Vladeck, head of the bureau of consumer protection at the FTC, told attendees at Consumer Watchdog's Future of Online Consumer Protections conference that the agency plans to release the report later this morning that will lay bare the FTC's commitment to giving U.S. consumers greater choice when it comes … Read more

Google executives like to say they celebrate their failures, reasoning that when something fails, at least they've learned something. Perhaps with Chrome OS, they're learning how to set expectations.

It's looking pretty clear that Google is going to miss its fourth-quarter target for the launch of Chrome OS, a lightweight Web-based operating system that is designed for Netbooks. The company hasn't said as much, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt referred to the Chrome OS launch as "a few months" away in mid-November, and Jim Wong, senior vice president for Acer, told reporters last week … Read more

Google is putting its DocVerse team to use, unleashing a new plug-in for Google Docs that lets offline Microsoft Word documents talk to Web-based Google Docs files.

DocVerse, acquired by Google earlier this year, has ported its software onto Google's network and is ready to let early testers get a crack at Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The software lets Microsoft Office users who also have Google Apps accounts sync their documents with Google without having to work within the Google Docs Web interface, creating a Web-based copy of that native document for sharing and collaboration.

Google's been trying for several years … Read more

At this point, it's almost embarrassing to be a Web company that hasn't been courted by Google.

Not a week goes by when news doesn't surface regarding Google's trolling the waters of Silicon Valley for a new acquisition; Friday's discussion surrounded daily-deals site Groupon. And for every big fish contemplating the Google bait, there are tons of smaller ones that don't get as much attention but are potentially just as important to Google's overall strategy.

At this point in its history, it's simply easier for Google to let outside firms nurture promising … Read more

MySpace further acknowledged today that social-media activity has shifted elsewhere by announcing a deal that lets MySpace users get updates from the place they are actually using: Facebook.

MySpace held a "Webinar" for the media to announce "Mashup with Facebook," which basically just means that MySpace users can use Facebook Connect to get updates streamed to their MySpace accounts from things they have "liked" on Facebook. It's not the first time MySpace has used its larger competitor's technology, but it's the most broad implementation of a strategy that makes it clear … Read more

Google has found another partner for its television advertising project in a familiar place.

Verizon Communications' Fios TV service has signed a deal with Google TV Ads to feature video ads uploaded to Google by advertisers wanting to use the search giant's self-service ad tools, the companies announced today.

Advertisers will be able to reach an additional 3.3 million homes with the deal, which will see Verizon and Google collaborating on yet another project, in line with their strong Android partnership and joint efforts on Net neutrality.

Google TV Ads doesn't get as much buzz as other … Read more

Google Apps customers are about to get a lot more options as part of their accounts, including one very interesting feature: Google Voice.

Google plans to announce today that it's adding several other Google services--more than 60 different Google services in total--to Google Apps accounts maintained by businesses and educational customers, which already include Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Sites. On a sour note, Google doesn't plan on extending its service-level agreements with Google Apps customers to cover the new services, and all customers will have to transfer their accounts to a new system to make … Read more

Google wants to give news publishers a way to highlight their original work to better stand out in a content-repurposing world, but it relies on the honor system.

Two new metatags are available for news publishers to use on their Web pages when they want to highlight two specific types of content: stories that are shared with syndication partners and scoops or stories that are completely original works. Google announced the new tags in a blog post, and more specific details on how to implement the tags can be found here.

Publishers of scoops or detailed investigative reporting have long … Read more