Here's one to fan the flames of the Google-recession debate: ComScore is reporting "shockingly bad" paid search performance for Google in January. Being a panel-based traffic measurement firm, comScore's won't be exact, but as Silicon Alley Insider's notes, "Even if Comscore is only half right, this is a disaster." The surprising news broke in a flash note from Bear Sterns analyst Bob Peck. ComScore reported 532 million domestic paid clicks in January, flat year-over-year, but down 12 percent since October. Click-throughs were the lowest since comScore started reporting the data, which only came from Google.com (not the …

eBay sellers went on strike earlier this month after the ecommerce giant raised fees and implemented other policies that sellers claim silence them. The one-week strike ended today after the company, surprisingly, said it didn't care--they need us more than we need them. In an interview with USA Today (link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080225/tc_usatoday/onlineauctionlistingsdown13inboycottofebay), Jim Griffith, dean of eBay Education, said the protest had little to no impact and that the hated policies would remain. However, third-party data says eBay is bluffing. Dealscart.com says auctions dropped to around 13 million since the strike began, while medved.net says reports an estimated …

Yahoo is taking direct aim at social-news aggregators like Digg and Reddit with a new tool called Yahoo Buzz that calls up the most popular articles voted on by the Web site's massive user base. As part of the Buzz launch, Yahoo is also introducing previews of content on other sites. For example, a search for a LinkedIn user could return links to that person's connections or their full profile; a search for a restaurant could include links to a reservation page or a review. The moves are in line with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's wish to open the …

Analysts and investors continue to be bearish about the prospect of Microsoft paying $40 billion-plus for Web giant Yahoo. The two companies are locked in a pricing standoff that's now lasted several weeks, but most analysts believe that Microsoft will ultimately prevail. One source says the Yahoo board is crazy not to accept the offer. Investors and analysts say Microsoft would be better off buying a series of smaller companies whose services don't overlap. RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Breza said: "It's possible to argue that without Yahoo and a blank check for $45 billion, Microsoft could …

Yahoo is preparing to launch a new search platform that would allow third parties to modify results by adding images, data and links. Listings can be modified, but the order of results cannot. Codenamed "SearchMonkey", Yahoo execs say the effect is supposed to be similar to that of Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that lets users see modified versions of Web sites. Similarly, SearchMonkey would be a series of search add-ons that users could turn on and off (though some will be turned on by default). Open search would certainly open the door to more information for a given …