It’s looking as if the Justice Department could make a final decision on the Google-Yahoo advertising deal next week. But an influential politician says the deal should kept under close scrutiny even if they get the thumbs up.

Every move we make online is tracked, and some people may argue that if they aren’t doing anything wrong then there’s nothing to worry about. That’s great until someone with less discerning morals decides to use your personal information to finance a new boat, or abducts your social networking account and destroys your good name. A new survey from Consumer Reports confirms that Americans are very concerned about privacy online.

A major global group of advertisers is seeking to block the Yahoo-Google ad deal through Europe’s legal system. Meanwhile an anti-trust group says the deal should be allowed, but only with tighter restrictions.

The FBI has searched a college apartment of David Kernell, the man suspected of hacking into Republican vice-president Sarah Palin’s e-mail account. It appears he, like Palin, has been caught out by some fairly simple detective work.

The New York Times has sparked controversy with a column arguing that the Google-Yahoo advertising hook-up won’t mean higher prices for advertisers. Critics say that defies basic economics – and point to the writer’s close links with Google.

Rhapsody is an excellent service.  Never since the days of Napster have so many songs been available through one portal so easily.  Yahoo has leveraged that power to bring full-length songs to its search results.

Yahoo is in the midst of rolling out a major redesign of its portal page and has begun testing the new format with a small percentage of users. Changes to the user interface add an emphasis on a more engaging personal experience rather than highlighting Yahoo’s other properties.

The Internet group that calls itself, Anonymous, has hacked in to John McCain running mate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account. While the emails published on the Web are anything but revelatory, they do show that Palin was potentially conducting official government business through the account, which could spell serious trouble for the possible future Vice-President of the USA.

Yahoo has decided to shutter its Mash social networking service in another botched attempt at competing with Myspace and Facebook. Mash will go offline on September 29, less than a year after it launched and months after Yahoo stock dropped in the wake of the botched Microsoft deal.

Intel and Yahoo are teaming up for the latest attempt to bring the internet to television schemes. Their twist is to produce information displays which appear at the bottom or side of the screen so that viewers can still watch broadcasts.

While NBC has been the clear winner in prime-time TV coverage of the Olympics, its online counterpart hasn’t been so lucky.  Video and technical difficulties may be to blame, but sites such as Yahoo seem to be wooing viewers better than the company that paid nearly $1 billion for sole broadcast rights.

SportsFanLive.com is a new startup aiming to take on large sports sites such as ESPN and Fox, while adding a social aspect to the mix.  Combine this with fantasy gaming, and unique user-generated content and customization, and you might have yourself a variable Facebook for sports fans.

Location awareness and geo-spatial technologies are becoming more prevalent in today’s technology.  Most notably in the realm of mobile devices.  Yahoo’s new Fire Eagle “open” platform aims to let users take their location to the Web while giving them the ability to easily control how and where that location data is shared.

Both Google and Yahoo announced recently ways to let its users “opt-out” of receiving targeted advertising on both their respective networks and across the internet at large.  Why the move so quickly?  Both companies are fearing a possible law that would require each company to force users to “opt-in” to targeted advertising, which could be detrimental to the ad-businesses of each company.

Yahoo! has announced plans to provide coupons for customers who have purchased music from the Yahoo! Music Store that enable them to re-purchase their music from Rhapsody (Yahoo’s new music partner) when the store officially shuts down.

Billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens has dumped all of his 10 million shares in Yahoo for an undisclosed loss, stating management issues and a non-merger with Microsoft as reasons for the sudden sale. 

Steve Ballmer’s finally put the lid on any more Yahoo acquisition rumours by saying Microsoft was “done” with its attempt to acquire Yahoo.