Google

This post was updated at 3 p.m. PST with comments from a conference call.

Google on Thursday said its fourth-quarter revenue rose more than 50 percent and profit rose 17 percent, but the figures were just short of Wall Street expectations. Shares were down more than 8 percent in after-hours trading as a result.

Meanwhile, executives said their business had not been affected by any slowdown in the U.S. economy, despite worries of spending cuts in online advertising during an economic downturn. In fact, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told analysts in a conference call that he is optimistic … Read more

European regulators are expected to approve Google's proposed acquisition of online ad firm DoubleClick in February despite circulation of a threat assessment report, according to a research note released Thursday by Stifel Nicolaus.

Google was given the go-ahead by U.S. regulators late last year, but it's still waiting for approval from the European Union.

Staff members in the competition department of the European Commission have prepared a draft "Statement of Objection" that assesses how the takeover could pose threats to competition. "It is a necessary, but not sufficient, step in the EC merger review … Read more

In the last few months, both Google and eBay unit PayPal have quietly rolled out new online-payment solutions that specifically target Internet-based political-campaign contributions.

While the companies primarily pitch their new products as methods for "attracting more supporters" and "increasing online giving to your campaign," the Internet titans have also laid the groundwork for phishing-resistant campaign contributions.

In a research paper released last year, Markus Jakobsson, Oliver Friedrichs, and I wrote about the looming threat of phishing Web sites posing as legitimate political-campaign sites.

The phishing problem is a particular threat to campaign sites, for a … Read more

The California Supreme Court said on Wednesday it will consider an age discrimination lawsuit filed against Google by a then-54-year-old manager who was fired six months before the company went public in 2004.

In his lawsuit, Brian Reid alleges he was told he was not a "cultural fit" when he was being fired from his job in February 2004. He also claims that his colleagues referred to him as "old man" and "fuddy-duddy."

Google has declined to comment on the matter but says Reid was let go because the in-house graduate degree program department … Read more

Dell has long been rumored to be working on a handset, and the latest speculation is that Google will be part of those plans.

MarketingWeek reported Wednesday that the two companies are teaming up on a handset based on Google's Android mobile platform, and the official announcement will come at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The report cites "senior industry sources," but notes that Google insiders are denying any such announcement is imminent.

Dell isn't talking either. Company spokesman David Frink told CNET News.com that the Marketing Week report is "speculative&… Read more

Correction, 2:05 p.m. PST: This blog initially misstated Google's 52-week high. It is $747.

On his way to China last week, RSA's top executive, Art Coviello, stopped off in San Francisco for a meet-and-greet with customers in the financial sector. What with all the pyrotechnics on Wall Street, you'd think the banks would be cutting back spending on everything from encryption software--RSA's bread and butter--to thumb tacks.

Maybe that's happening and they're just not 'fessing up, but Coviello says he's not seeing evidence of a big pullback in technology spending.

Like … Read more

Looks like Google is hard at work on offline access to Google Docs. Google Blogoscoped has screenshots of what looks like the beginnings of such a service.

No doubt Google will try to enable offline access for all of its Web apps. This was pretty apparent when the company announced Google Gears last May. Google Gears is a browser plug-in that lets people run Web applications even when they are not connected to the Internet. The Blogoscoped screenshots appear to be the first public evidence of such testing.

In response to questions, a Google representative said: "We're working … Read more