Major advertisers in the U.S. cut search spending in the first quarter by 13% despite a spending rally in March, says a new report from search marketing firm Efficient Frontier. This is the second consecutive quarter of reduced spending by Efficient Frontier's advertising customers, the results of which could spark fresh concerns about Google's first quarter performance. The search giant presents earnings tomorrow. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Efficient Frontier Chief Executive David Karnstedt said he wasn't sure if the weak February data represented a bottom. "Any kind of positive bounce, like we did see in March, …

As BusinessWeek's Michael Orey notes, "it can be downright infuriating" when your brand is used to generate business for a rival. But that's exactly what happens on Google, where advertisers can attract customers by bidding on competing brand names. However, Rescuecom, an opponent of the practice, won a legal victory against Google, as reported in Online Media Daily. It could result in new limits on how Internet companies use brand names to sell search ads. Rescuecom's complaint was that letting rivals show ads against keyword searches for its brand name infringed on its trademark. On April 3, the U.S. …

Google is expected to pass "an ignominous milestone" when it delivers first quarter earnings tomorrow, says Forbes' Quentin Hardy: analysts are expecting the search giant's first-ever decline in sequential revenue. The Street consensus is revenues of $4.1 billion, down 3% from the fourth quarter of 2008, though still up 11% from a year ago. Despite this "black eye," Hardy says that everyone is blaming the economy, and not Google, for the expected decline. But the reality is, "there's still much for investors to watch when Google reports its numbers," he says, particularly ad performance by vertical sector, and how well …

Bloomberg has a story about the genesis of Vevo.com, the new joint music video venture from Universal Music Group and Google's YouTube. Apparently, the meeting between UMG Chairman Doug Morris and Google CEO Eric Schmidt that ultimately culminated in the deal, came at the urging of U2 frontman Bono, according to a source. Now, Vevo.com, which was announced last week, will stream videos from U2 and other UMG artists like Beck and the Rolling Stones. YouTube and UMG will split advertising revenues. As Bloomberg points out, the record labels used to view music videos, which would appear on cable networks …

The consensus on Wall Street is that search giant Google had a rough first quarter. Yesterday, J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan put out a research note predicting that revenues would actually decline 2% from 2008, and 13% from last quarter. His previous estimate was for growth of 5%. So what sparked such a massive revision? For starters, comScore is showing declines in U.S. query volume, and various reports from search engine marketers including Khan's own contacts lead him to believe that commercial-oriented searches took a big hit during the quarter. So far in this recession, search has remained the healthiest …