Amid all the sturm und drang coming from Detroit these days, automakers are more focused than ever on economic efficiencies. While the Web can't help with the human cost of the fallout, it's increasingly an important tool for consumers researching vehicle purchases.

For Google, fallout from the government attempt to subpoena the company's records isn't likely to end any time soon.

Retailers are risking significant damage to their brands when they fail to deliver a positive online experience.

Consumer advocates have targeted adware for several years but, so far, the Federal Trade Commission has only taken action against smaller players. Now a major player is being challenged.

Interbrand's brandchannel.com reports that Google yanked back its first-place ranking from Apple in a poll of the world's most influential brands.

So, as the Minute pointed out yesterday, the feds are trying to force Google to surrender data on all searches conducted during an unspecified one-week period, along with information on 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from the Google databases.

It has just come to light that the federal government is trying to force Google to reveal all searches conducted in a one-week period, as well as records for 1 million Web addresses.

There's news today that Universal Music, the world's biggest record label, will release download-only recordings from its vast music archives.

The latest news out of Mountain View, Calif. today is that Google has purchased radio ad company dMarc Broadcasting Inc. Google will pay $102 million now, and a total of up to $1.14 billion over the next three years.

For those of you who are working on this day celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., the folks at Yahoo!'s Buzz Log-Search Spikes and Trends today report on the diverse queries on every possible variation of Dr. King's name.