That Microsoft, and various other Google rivals, would like nothing more than to "screw" the search giant is self evident. The idea that Microsoft lobbyists and representatives of other unnamed interests are holding regular "screw Google" meetings in D.C. to "discredit" the company enters Watergate territory. Yet, one modern-day Deep Throat tells Daily Finance: "Microsoft is trying to harm Google in the regulatory, legal, and litigation arenas because they're having problems with Google in the competitive marketplace." Whether any laws are being broken is still unclear, but, at this rate, Microsoft seems prepared to do a lot worse than breaking …

Facebook's overhauled 3.0 iPhone app is officially live, but speculation that this latest version would somehow marginalize Twitter seems to have been premature. Analysts praise 3.0 for allowing users to reach out directly to friends via text and phone, but Twitter is hardly a texting or direct messaging service. "One of the best new features," writes GigaOm, "is the ability to send texts and call your Facebook friends directly from the app, a functionality that's been in the works for awhile." Also, as PC World notes, 3.0 fails to offer push notifications, …

Facebook is apparently trying to patent the process of crowd-sourcing the translation of content into different languages, even though other social networks like Hi5 have already rolled out their own implementations of the system, which asks members of a community to translate words by popular vote. Would such a patent incentivize the ingenious innovation of Facebook's developers or curtail the boundless innovation that the free spread of such a system would facilitate? A judge may decide.

Slate -- once owned by Internet Explorer-maker Microsoft -- asks why so many offices restrict their employees from using the Web browsers of their choice. Because of administration costs and unseen dangers lurking on the Web? Perhaps, but these threats are generally overstated, and such restrictions do far more harm that good, Slate argues, in the form of resentment, reduced morale, inefficiencies, and discouraged productivity.

As the debate rages over Google's book search program, the merits of its selection process and its fair compensation of authors, Forbes suggests that the search giant might have already won the so-called "book war." How, exactly? By scanning first and asking questions later.

With a population bigger than most countries, it only makes sense that Facebook would have its own currency. Figuring out what form that currency should take, and how it should be valued remain unanswered questions, but Facebook and its community have come up with some pretty good ideas.

For the first time ever, Google plans to open up AdSense to third-party ad networks. The move is seen as an attempt by the search giant to appease AdSense users disgruntled over sagging CPM rates. But not just any ad network will be able to participate -- Google plans to hand pick the program's members. Still, more competition can't hurt. May the best bidder win.

Just when you thought Google couldn't work another pet project into the mix, the search giant has gone and decided to get into the mortgage-quote business. Yes, perhaps by as soon as the end of the month, Google plans to start offering loan quotes, according to a lawsuit filed by mortgage-quote leader LendingTree against technology company Mortech, and obtained by The New York Times. (LendingTree claims that Mortech is violating the terms of a contract between the two companies by providing Google will similar mortgage-quote-facilitating technology.)Calling Google's latest venture a "head-scratcher," Fast Company does concede that …

A "secret ratio" has emerged among Twitter users to determine who is worth following on the service. It holds that a person who has more followers than they are following is probably a good person to at least consider following. The system could have certain flaws, however, like the increasingly apparent fact that a person can only follow so many people on Twitter before the idea of following starts to become meaningless.

Could Facebook be one minor design misstep away from jumping the social networking shark? Probably not, but it's increasingly irksome to hear its users grumble over every little tweak -- including its latest decision to stop alerting users to design tweaks -- even as the network's membership continues to skyrocket.