Google pulls the plug on AdSense for Feedburner, other services

Google trimmed news "badges" and more as part of year-long house cleaning aimed at sweeping out unpopular, outdated or unneeded features at its online properties.
"It is really important to focus or we end up doing too much with too little impact," Google senior engineering director Yossi Matias said in a blog post.

"So today, we're winding down a bunch more features bringing the total to nearly 60 since we started our 'spring' clean last fall."

Features being eliminated included AdSense for Feeds, which let website publishers earn revenue by placing ads in RSS feeds, and Classic Plus, which allowed users to upload images to use as backgrounds at Google.com.

Google will consolidate online storage of data in Picasa and Drive, giving users five gigabytes of memory space for free overall for both services and options to pay for more capacity, according to Matias.

On October 15, the company will stop displaying "Badges" awarded for story-reading achievements at its online news pages and no longer show recommended sections

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Google AdSense European Antitrust Woes Are Far From Over

Google has struggled for years to settle an antitrust investigation in the European Union, to avoid a huge fine and the stigma that would come with breaking the law.
Now it appears there may be no end in sight to the Internet search giant's antitrust problems in Europe even if it does finalize a tentative accord reached in that case, according to a letter from Joaquin Almunia, the competition commissioner and the most powerful antitrust enforcer in the 28-country bloc.

Almunia has not given up on reaching a final settlement with Google in the case, in which the U.S. company is accused of abusing its dominance in the online search and adverting business. But the letter, made available by a person who did not want to be identified because the document had not been made public, indicates that Almunia is trying to marshal support for an unpopular provisional deal by emphasizing to critics that new investigations await Google.

In the letter, written June 11 to his commission colleagues, Almunia said that the European Commission was prepared to investigate "many allegations, the various practices that they cover, and the new types of markets that are affected." He mentioned social networks, streaming, cellphone operating systems and mobile apps as areas that could face scrutiny.

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