Google (GOOG) plans to buy back $750 million of its common stock to offset dilution from shares to be issued in the pending all-stock acquisition of AdMob, CEO Eric Schmidt told Bloomberg yesterday.

In a research note, Broadpoint.Amtech analyst Benjamin Schachter notes that this will be the first time Google has ever repurchased any of its own shares, despite its $22 billion cash position.

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Deutsche Telekom (DT), parent of U.S. mobile operator T-Mobile, is holding talks about gaining access to spectrum controlled by Clearwire (CLWR) and MetroPCS (PCS) as a way to build out 4G wireless service, according to Bloomberg, which cites “two people familiar with the matter.” The story says the company is also in talks with Sprint (S), which owns 51 percent of Clearwire. Recall that last week there were rumors that DT might want to acquire Sprint and merge it with T-Mobile.

The story notes that both MetroPCS and Clearwire own spectrum suitable for 4G networks. T-Mobile has yet to announce a 4G expansion plan; both Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) have begun upgrading their networks and plan to use the LTE standard.

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Facebook plans to grow headcount by as much as 50 percent amid a surplus of engineering talent, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg. “No one else has been hiring,” he said. “”It’s been a great environment for us because the economy has helped out.”

Facebook currently has 1,000 employees.

Zuckerberg said the company aims to eventually have 1 billion users, though he declined to give a time frame. He said he expects social networks to become as essential as Web browsers and operating systems.

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We all know that The New York Times (NYT) and other papers have been thinking hard about finding ways to charge readers for the news on their web sites, and there’s evidence that the decision-making process is moving along. Bloomberg has reported that a survey of print subscribers included this sentence:

The New York Times website, nytimes.com, is considering charging a monthly fee of $5.00 to access its content, including all its articles, blogs and multimedia.

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Not a good day for eBay (EBAY) shares, which are down 23 percent for the year to date, and now sit at their lowest level since 2001.

Highlighting the problem of counterfeit merchandise sold on the site, Bloomberg reports that the company provided a tip to German police that triggered the seizure of 20 tons of knock-off designer clothing last month. While it is certainly good to see eBay taking an aggressive posture on fake goods, the company clearly has an issue to resolve here. As Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay notes in the story, eBay is “only as good as its worst seller in the minds of its customers.”

The story also notes that eBay has been sued by a number of luxury brands for not doing enough to insure that sellers don’t peddle fakes.

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Could Intel (INTC) drop into the red in the March quarter?

In a memo to employees, Bloomberg reports, Intel CEO Paul Otellini wrote that after 87 quarters of profits, the first quarter is “too close to call.”

In reporting fourth-quarter results last week, Intel declined to give formal first-quarter guidance, but said that for “internal planning purposes” the company is assuming revenue for the quarter of $7 billion, which would be down almost 15 percent from the $8.2 billion posted in Q4, and off 28 percent versus a year earlier. Intel also cautioned that it expects gross margin for the quarter to drop to the low 40s from 53.1 percent in Q3 due to lower fab utilization and other factors.

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As initially reported over the past week by outlets including Reuters and Bloomberg, Qimonda (QI), the Munich-based maker of DRAM that’s been on death watch for some time, announced yesterday that it has obtained a 605 million euro investment from a combination of investors–including parent Infineon Technologies (IFX), which holds a 77.5 percent stake in the company, and the Federal Republic of Germany. That amounts to roughly $845 million at current exchange rates. The company said the financing comes in the form of a 150 million euro loan from the German state of Saxony, a 100 million loan from “a leading financial institution in Portugal” and a 75 million euro loan from Infineon, plus 280 million euros from the German Republic, of which Qimonda is in “advanced negotiations” concerning a 150 million euro portion.

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So, this is way off topic, I know, but really, I couldn’t stop myself.

As Bloomberg reports today, the SEC has sued National Lampoon, its CEO Daniel Laikin and three other people for allegedly participating in a plan to fraudulently manipulate trading in the company’s stock.

The SEC asserted in a civil suit filed in federal court in Philadelphia that Laikin paid kickbacks to a stock promoter and a witness cooperating with the FBI whom he believed had connections to “corrupt” brokers. Whoops! Fake mobsters!

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The House voted 257-to-166 today to pass H.R. 7060, the “Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008,” a measure that includes an eight-year extension for solar tax credits. But the measure differs in key ways from the Senate version of the bill approved earlier this week. As Bloomberg notes, that puts the extension of the credits in jeopardy, since the White House has threatened to veto the House version of the bill, which includes some provisions the Administration doesn’t want.

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In case you happen to think that Toshiba is going to outbid Samsung for SanDisk (SNDK), you ought to take note of the company’s currently grim view of the NAND flash memory market.

In fact, as Bloomberg reports, Toshiba today cut its full-year net income forecast for the March 31, 2009, fiscal year by 46 percent to 70 billion yen, which would be a four-year low. The company also cut its sales projection by 3.8 percent to 7.7 trillion yen, and its operating profit forecast by 48 percent to 105 billion yen.

Toshiba is the world’s second-largest producer of NAND flash memory chips. The company said its semiconductor division will lose 65 billion yen for the year due to weak NAND pricing.

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Fifty to a hundred thousand high-paying jobs are going to go up in smoke in NYC before this is all over. It’s a mess for this city, tax revenues are going to be down, real estate prices are going to be down, restaurants will fail, etc, etc. We’ll get through it for sure, we always have, but it’s going to suck for a while. As my friend Mo said, “I sure wish Bloomberg would get another four years because we are going to need him.”

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I have nothing but deep collegial empathy for the folks at the Bloomberg financial newswire after they accidentally let their pre-prepared Steve Jobs obituary slip momentarily onto the Web yesterday. The sophisticated publishing systems used in newsrooms today have many advantages, but they can also disrupt the old-fashioned, linear workflow with its series of checkpoints and enable more people along the line to accidentally and instantly publish a file before its time, leading to its equally instant dissemination across the Net. Add in the need for news organizations to stand ready with quick responses to scheduled, foreseeable or, in the case of obituaries, inevitable events, and you can expect to see A-matter leaking out on a semi-regular basis.

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Here’s the follow-up to last Friday’s article reporting that Netflix (NFLX), after experiencing a technical difficulty that prevented sending out DVDs for several days, said it would refund 15 percent of monthly subscription fees to a subset of customers. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter lowered estimates for the company this morning, while maintaining a “Buy” rating on its stock and writing that “Netflix is positioned for dramatic EPS growth as streaming adoption increases.”

There’s still no official printed notice from Netflix. You can see the company’s comments in an interview Bloomberg conducted on Friday.

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Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein has voted to oppose the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) and Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), leaving the current tally tied at 2-2, with only Deborah Taylor Tate yet to decide. If she votes yes, the deal goes through. If she votes no, the deal dies.

According to Bloomberg, Adelstein said in a statement that the combination would create “a monopoly with window dressing.” Adelstein and Michael Copps, both Democrats, have voted no. Chairman Kevin Martin and Robert McDowell, both Republicans, have voted yes. That leaves the decision up to Tate–a Republican.

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Solar stocks are again feeling the heat from a report that Spain plans sharp reductions in subsidies for solar power. On Friday, a number of solar stocks dropped sharply after Lehman’s Vishal Shah asserted in a research note that the country was considering sharp cuts in its solar subsidy program. Today, there were further reports on the same theme.

According to Bloomberg, the Spanish newspaper Cinco Dias reported that the Spanish industry ministry is considering cutting the electricity rate paid to photovoltaic installations by as much as 35%.

The story reports that the ministry would set a limit of 300 megawatts of new capacity for the industry for next year, 200 for roof-top installations and the rest for ground equipment. The new tariff would be 33 Euro cents per kilowatt-hour for roof installations and 29 cents for ground panels, down from about 45 cents. (Shah last week had said the proposal could be 33 cents for roof-top installations, and 25 euro cents for ground-mounted.)

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