SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 7, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

French Wants To Tax Google & Others

France to explore “Google tax” to pay creative work from Reuters reports the French government wants to find a way to tax Google and other companies like them. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered even though they make [...]
Earthquake: Real-Time Results On Google Make Up For Lack Of Other Content

There was a small earthquake this morning near San Jose, California. According to the USGS, which now shows “real-time” information, the quake was relatively small: magnitude 4.1. Last year Google launched an Earthquake OneBox; however that OneBox didn’t catch this quake. Google is saved by integration of Twitter results (see below), which did report it:
Yahoo & American Airlines Settle Search Ad Suit

MediaPost reports Yahoo has settled a search ad keyword lawsuit with American Airlines. The suit dates back to October 2008 in a federal court and both were expecting a judgement on the case sometime this year. The two companies reached a settlement prior to judgement, although the terms of the settlement were not [...]
Armstrong: Google Gets “First Dibs” At AOL Search Deal

AOL’s CEO: Google To Get 1st Shot At New Search Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong saying that Google will get “first dibs” at a search deal. Armstrong said this at Citi’s annual entertainment, media and telecommunications conference today. This was prompted by a question about possibly using Microsoft Bing [...]
Why You Should Attend SMX West 2010: A Personal Preview, From Danny Sullivan

In less than two months, Search Engine Land’s SMX West search marketing conference will happen from March 2-4 in California. Anyone who is even remotely connected to gaining visitors, customers and driving sales should be attending. Experienced search marketer? Newbie? Web developer? Designer? Involved in public relations? Traditional marketer? There’s good stuff for all these [...]
CES: Microsoft Expands Scope Of HP Search Relationship To 42 Countries

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave the opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night. It was a review of Microsoft accomplishments and product launches during 2009 (e.g., Windows 7, Bing) as well as a preview of some products coming to market (e.g., Project Natal for Xbox) in the future. Ballmer spent some [...]
Bad Directions: Google Maps Sends Local Listing Reports To Wrong Business Owners

Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google [...]