Saying the host site was serving malware to users, Google (GOOG) has removed a controversial photo of First Lady Michelle Obama from Google Image Search. The site itself, however, remains listed in Google web search results without any visible malware warning.

Welcome to the murky world of free speech, politics, and Google.

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Yet another News Corporation (NWS) executive is talking about Google (GOOG), and yet again, I feel like they have no concept about how Google interacts with their web pages. Which is frightening, since they’re being very vocal about how they’re supposedly wronged by Google. Please, someone, give them a search marketing 101 course.

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After today’s Google (GOOG) search press briefing, where I raised the issue of some poor quality search results in Google at one point, Sergey Brin asked me to demonstrate a few. My pleasure! Below, what we reviewed and comments from Google’s cofounder.

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Google (GOOG) is a scourge to many newspaper executives, who blame the Internet behemoth for taking all their ad money and readers. CEO Eric Schmidt gave another spirited defense of why it’s the Internet, not Google, that is hurting newspapers, and how his company is trying to help.

Google is being unfairly blamed for the declining newspaper-industry revenue resulting from shifting reader habits, Schmidt told Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan in an interview posted over the weekend.

“Because we play such a central role in information, we’ve become somewhat used to being blamed for everything,” Schmidt said. “Imagine if Google didn’t exist. Would the same criticism still exist? You betcha.”

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Is Google a newspaper killer? Not by a long shot, says Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt. Nor does he want it to be.

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Back in April, I became one of the rare people to run out of Gmail space. Due to a glitch with Google, I was also unable to purchase more space for several weeks. As a result, I became hyperaware of how much email space gets eaten up each day routinely. Newsletters, product offers, Facebook and Twitter notifications, that person you don’t know who emails you a 7MB file. It adds up. And Gmail’s supposedly “endless” space might not be keeping pace.

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And then there were two. Make no mistake, Yahoo’s (YHOO) out of the search game. I know the spin. Better user interface, new ways to innovate, a winning play. Let’s not kid ourselves. They’re done. Not today, not necessarily in a year but down the line at some point. Done.

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Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz has been talking a lot over the past two weeks about Yahoo and how it competes against Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Each time she does, I feel like she’s digging the hole even deeper for Yahoo’s prospects in search.

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The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today [April 20]–and sincere congrats to the hard-working journalists who’ve won those highest of prizes. But with no online-only publications winning–in the first year they were eligible to enter–I wonder if it’s time for an online-only version of the Pulitzers to be offered.

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Why should location-based social networks be worried about Google (GOOG)? Because its new Latitude product was able to gain over a million users in just a week, Google’s vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra told an audience at the Mobile World Congress today.

Latitude is Google’s service that uses your location to place you on a Google Map. If you have friends who are also using the service, you can see how close they are to you on your map and read their status updates. It’s a similar idea to what start-ups like Loopt and Pelago’s Whrrl do.

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I told you so. Or I told anyone who cared. I even tried to reach the Obama administration in four or five different ways. Do a search on Yahoo (YHOO) right now for “miserable failure” and you’ll find President Barack Obama’s page ranking either in the top spot or the second spot. Given a redirect that Obama’s Web team has put into place, he should solidify into that number one spot over time. Eventually, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Live Search should reflect that, as well. And over at Google (GOOG), Obama will likely gain a top page listing for a search on failure.
I know. There are bigger issues Obama has to deal with. But then again, this is supposed to be the tech-savvy presidency. It should be search-engine-optimization savvy, as well.

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Few realize that outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush has left behind a unique legacy for future presidents, including Barack Obama–that they are all condemned to rank tops for a search on “miserable failure” in major search engines. It’s my hope that Bush will correct this before leaving office, or that Obama will fix it soon after he’s inaugurated.

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Last night, Yahoo (YHOO) emailed their search advertisers about new terms and conditions, including a controversial provision that they are allowed to create ads, remove or add keywords to campaigns and “optimize” accounts–which could allow for bid changes. All of this can be done without seeking the advertiser’s permission beforehand. Though the provision is at least six months old, it finally got noticed due to the recent email–and is attracting some outcry.

Here is the snippet in the terms and conditions that states this:

Sponsored Search 3. OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request.”

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At long last, Google owns DoubleClick. In doing so, the company has done something else that many people would have never believed possible. Become an SEO. That’s right–Google’s in the SEO business now, selling services through DoubleClick’s Performics to people who want to rank well on–um–Google. Conflict of interest? You bet. And worse from an image perspective, the purchase puts Google in the paid inclusion business, something it dissed as evil back in 2004, when it went public. Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with Performics as a company and have good friends that work there. But Google shouldn’t own it. The Google announcement yesterday should have said that Performics was being quickly spun off. Larry, Sergey, Eric, Google! Please do the right thing and make this a priority.

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Goodbye, Ask.com. You caught my eye back in 1997 as an unusual meta search engine that asked questions to get answers. By 1998, I counted you alongside Google and Direct Hit as shining examples of what to watch in search. You’d dumped depending on others for search results and started providing answers using your own human editors. I hung with you over the years, cheered when you acquired the impressive Teoma crawler in 2001. I was thrilled when you alone among the major search engines dumped the traditional search metaphor for the Ask3D view last year. Now you’re just for women, apparently. No more appealing to the “West Coast elite” or “digerati” you say. You can tell yourself that, if it helps. The truth is, you’re dead. You’re about to join the legion of other has-been search engines, some of which you own or power, like Excite and iWon.

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