Michael Bloomberg, the New York City mayor and majority owner in financial data-services firm -- Bloomberg L.P.,  is considering a bid for The Financial Times Group, which includes the eponymously named paper and a half interest in The Economist. That’s according to The New York Times, citing sources. “Bloomberg has long adored The Economist, and his affinity for The Financial Times, at least as a reader, has deepened lately,” NYTimes reports.  

Good thing Google isn’t running for public office, as Bloomberg is reporting that the search giant avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting nearly $10 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company. “By legally funneling profits from overseas subsidiaries into Bermuda … Google cut its overall tax rate almost in half,” Bloomberg reports. Needless to say, governments around the world are likely to be bothered by the news. 

Ending a highly scrutinized hunt, Gilt Groupe this week named its next CEO: Michelle Peluso, a Gilt board member and global consumer chief marketing and Internet officer at Citigroup. “Peluso takes the helm at a critical time for Gilt,” Mashable reports. “The company has had several rounds of layoffs over the past few years as it seeks profitability.” 

Following the lead of some respectable publishers, The Washington Post “will probably” start charging readers for access to digital content, The Washington Post reports. “Long reluctant to charge for online content, the newspaper is close to a decision to introduce digital subscriptions and charge online readers once they surpass a certain number of articles or multimedia features a month,” WaPo writes, citing sources. 

Google is through giving away Google Apps -- its suite of Web-based services for businesses, which competes against Microsoft’s Office software and various enterprise services. “Over the past year [by charging larger businesses for the suite], Google generated around $1 billion from the sale of Google Apps and separate mapping software,” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. 

In other Google+ news, Google’s social network also released new user data, this week. According to the search giant, Google+ now has over 500 million members, 235 million of whom are active across Google other properties. That said, “Numbers are tricky, for any service, specifically Google+,” notes TechCrunch. Why? “Because a lot of the usage is private, among people who share things just with friends.” 

More than any other factor, poor distribution is preventing Microsoft and its Surface tablet from taking on Apple. That’s according to Detwiler Fenton. “Lack of retail exposure at Best Buy and others is severely depressing sales,” the Boston-based brokerage firm said in a new research note. As a result, as AllThingsD point out, Microsoft is expected to sell a measly 500,000 to 600,000 Surface RTs in the December quarter. 

Giving some mobile marketers cause for concern, Senator Al Franken reportedly plans to reintroduce legislation that would require companies to obtain clear consent from users before collecting, obtaining, or sharing mobile-users location data. The Democrat from Minnesota is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, and sees presently legal tracking practices as a clear violation of personal privacy, The Verge reports. 

Google+ this week debuted a Communities feature, which looks a lot like the social network’s response to Facebook Groups. “If there’s something you’re interested in or you’re an expert about, Google+ wants to help give you a chance to connect with others who share your passion and interests,” The Next Web writes regarding Communities.

President Obama this week signed a bill that reauthorizes the FTC's authority to crack down on foreign-based Internet fraud and online scams. The U.S. Safe Web Act, so-called, expands the FTC's powers so it can share information about cross-border online fraud with foreign law enforcement, The Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog reports. Originally passed by Congress in 2006, the president's signature reauthorizes the bill through 2020.