One real benefit of the impending consolidation of Microsoft and Yahoo's paid search programs will be, I hope, added visibility into their true market share. The latest Hitwise report on search engine market share in the US shows Yahoo and Bing combined still managing to drive 24% of searches in the marketplace. Yet anecdotally, this doesn't stack up well with what businesses are actually managing to spend on clicks through the paid search platforms.

In the early days of fandom, studios routinely sent out cease and desist letters to fanzine publishers who were producing original works based on the characters from their favorite shows. It had a finger in the dyke effect, stopping one writer as twenty more popped up. In other words, it was useless. When video software became common and YouTube hit the web, the studios began battling another, bigger problem, that of the unauthorized use of clips from shows.

According to the EFF , the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that federal law allows judges the discretion to require that the government obtain a probable cause search warrant before accessing cell phone location data. Reuters reports that the U.S. Justice Department is looking into Google's acquisition of ITA software. Google made it pretty clear from the beginning that it expected heavy scrutiny.

Piper Jaffray, an investment banking firm that earned $7.4 million in net income last quarter, is betting on Android in a big way. Today, Piper Jaffray predicted that Android's market share will pass the 50 percent mark in the next five years. Don't look for the rise to the halfway mark to happen all at once. The report explained, "We estimate Google will control 14.9% of the smartphone market through Android in 2010, growing to 23.2% in 2012." Meanwhile,

About 7 months ago Google had a lawsuit brought against them by a Florida woman named Eva Hibnick over Google Buzz. Hibnick claimed that Google broke electronic communications laws related to the privacy of its users. Today it was announced that the company decided to pay a huge settlement to the tune of $8.5 million. Google Buzz has been riddled with criticism from its on-set and has made many changes to their privacy regulations since then.

Gowalla announced that it has some new trip tools and options today. "The Trips feature is one of our favorites on Gowalla, and it's also a favorite of users, universities, businesses, non-profit organizations, you name it," the company says . "Something we've been meaning to knock out for a while and have finally gotten around to is making Trip creation an easier and smoother process, and we're rolling it out today.

Hi All, Sam Shrauger PayPal's VP of Global Product Strategy, here. Last week we saw big digital content news from Apple, Amazon and Samsung further indicating that old payment models need to change to meet the increasing consumer desire to have digital content, TV shows and applications on demand. The new Apple TV will let you stream content right to your television at an inexpensive price, now only 99-cents for a TV show or movie.

To make it quick and easy for you to access the latest API news, weve created a one-stop online shop for the adCenter API. The adCenter API Developer Portal provides you with updates about the latest release, including features that can help you manage your Microsoft Advertising adCenter accounts more efficiently. If you subscribe to the RSS feed , youll be one of the first in the know when we post news. The portal can also connect you to webcast recordings,

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) policy allowing border agents to search laptops or other electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

by Claudine Zap Our top picks from the day's hottest searches. William Shatner (Searches increased by 3,827%). In case you missed this profile of the first "Star Trek" captain, here's one nugget: The actor never thought the show would be a hit. School uniforms (+1,4241%). Sorry, kids: It is officially the end of summer. Venus Williams (+677%). Almost as fun as watching the tennis pro play : Watching what she wears . Spaghetti sauce (+434%).