Google hasannouncedthat its Social Search feature is now being rolled-out across the globe. Social Search was initially introduced to Google.com back in 2009. The feature is designed to give search results a more personalised flavor, with data from users’ social sphere feeding into search results. So, if you’re Googling for information on local restaurants and one of your social connections has blogged, tweeted or otherwise discussed this subject, it will be displayed in your search results....

David Drummond, Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, has updated hisblog postfrom yesterday that claimed that Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and ‘other companies’ wereengaged in a ‘hostile’ patent war against the search giant. In the update, Drummond explains the reason why it didn’t bid against Microsoft and Apple in the Novell patents auction.Updated with Microsoft response below. Drummond comments on Microsoft’s Frank Shaw releasing a letter showing that Google declined to bid on some of the patents that they are now complaining about being used against them, saying that it was “not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false “gotcha!...

Google plans toditch third-party cookies on Chromenext year — just like Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browser has done. To replace the cookies system, the company introduced a new productcalled Privacy Sandboxthat will let advertisers gather some amount of data without compromising users’ data integrity. Last week, the company has assured that it won’t build any backdoors to this sandbox for its own apps.Jerry Dischler, the company’s VP for Ads, said ata virtual marketing eventthat the company’s own app won’t take any shortcuts:...

YesterdayTechcrunch reportedthat CR-48 Notebook owners were besieged with a flood of Google Group Spam. There were 100+ emails sent between 12.55am and 1.15 am PT My husband is part of a select group of alpha testers that received the Notebook earlier this year. He was also a recipient of the emails that were sent out by Google last night. The situation was bemusing but also a little confusing. Some of the messages contained the F*bomb as some irate users were woken up in the middle of the night....

Although the Google Search homepage has received a few visual updates over the years, its overall design has remained consistent: It’s a colorful Google logo over a white background. That’s finally changing — for users that opt-in, anyway. After rolling out a dark theme for Google’s mobile apps, the company is finally bringing some eye reliefto desktop userstoo. You know, so you look up critical information like the history of the empanada at 3 AM without blinding yourself in a sea of white nothingness....