US Homes Filled With Screens (eMarketer)

Nine out of 10 US households surveyed have a television in the living room, and nearly two-thirds of those living rooms also have PCs, according to JupiterResearch's recent "Digital Home: Moving Beyond the Concept of the Three Screens to Uncover New Revenue Opportunities" report.

JupiterResearch also found that 22% of homes have three or more PCs.

Google to Lay Off About 300 at DoubleClick
(The New York Times)

In the first sizable layoffs in its history, Google is cutting about 300 jobs from the American operations of DoubleClick, the advertising technology company that it acquired recently, according to a person with direct knowledge of Google’s plans.

The cuts represent about a quarter of DoubleClick’s American work force of about 1,200. The company has about 1,500 employees worldwide, and the chief executive of Google, Eric E. Schmidt, has suggested that job cuts would also affect DoubleClick’s overseas operations at a later date.

Google declined to confirm the number of layoffs.

Google said it also planned to sell a DoubleClick unit, Performics Search Marketing, that helps marketers place ads on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals, Yahoo and Microsoft.

The Google In The Basement (Strategy Page)

April 2, 2008: Google (the company) has a contract with the U.S. government to supply computer servers (hard drives) equipped with the software Google uses to run its popular Google search engine.

The CIA, NSA and Department of Defense use these servers in closed (cut off from the Internet) systems that hold classified information, and allow espionage and intelligence personnel to more quickly find, and share, information.

Major Web sites hit with growing Web attack (InfoWorld)

USAToday.com, Target.com, and Walmart.com among those affected by hackers using Web programming errors to inject malicious code into sites' search results pages

Google + DoubleClick = 69% of Online Advertising Market (Search Engine Watch)

When Google raised concerns over a possible Microsoft-Yahoo merger, it may have just been the pot calling the kettle black. According to new stats released by Attributor, Google's acquisition of DoubleClick gives them a whopping 69% of the online advertising market share. This comes in the wake of news that Google saw 59.2 percent of all US searches in February.

Furthermore, DoubleClick has 48% share of sites with 1 million unique visitors per month, while Google enjoys a whopping 71.38% share of sites with less than 100,000 unique visitors per month.

MSN has a lot of work to do if it wants to catch Google, as Steve Ballmer has declared in recent months. Currently, they only have 9.86% of the total market share. Even adding Yahoo, with an 11.54% market share, they will only come in at 21.4%.

Phishers Enlist Google 'Dorks' (Dark Reading)

Researcher finds most phishing sites use Google search terms to locate vulnerable sites

Life Beyond Google: Some of the Best of the Rest
(FUMSI, United Kingdom)

Google is still the behemoth of search engines, but there is a plethora of alternative search engines that provide features not readily available on Google. They may not have Google's range of products and services but, after all, how many free unlimited-storage email services do you need?

This article cannot cover all the alternatives to Google. For that, check out http://AltSearchEngines.com, a web site devoted to monitoring the world of alternative search engines, complete with reviews of all those other search tools, hosted discussions between search engine representatives, interviews with search engine CEOs and jobs for search engine IT pros.