Google's antitrust troubles in Europe aren't even close to being over, according to a man who would know. Vice President of the European Commission Joaquin Almunia - who's also the organization's competition commissioner - indicated that more complaints are on the way, and he intends to take them seriously. Aoife White reported this morning after attending a competition law conference in Switzerland, "Joaquin Almunia . . .

Whoever's responsible for printing Googlers' business cards now has a lot more work to do. Larry Page, exercising his newfound power as CEO in a big way, promoted five employees to the level of "senior vice president" yesterday. In case you're wondering: yes, Google already had six SVPs )or five if you take Jonathan Rosenberg's recent departure into account(, and it's unclear what will happen to them. One )Alan Eustace( just got a new title. Otherwise,

Got friends at Google who like pick up checks and let you play with their toys? If so, consider embracing Google's +1 initiative and whatever other social products the company rolls out, because a fresh report claims all employees' bonuses are now in part tied to their performance. Nicholas Carlson wrote this afternoon, "New Google CEO Larry Page, who stepped into the job this week, believes that Google needs to go 'social' to compete. . . . To that end,

We're not too sure what to say here, except maybe "uh-oh" or "whoops." Less than six months after Yahoo's previous mergers and acquisitions head left , it seems the new guy - Taylor Barada - has also decided to quit, joining Zynga. That sort of turnover would be less than encouraging even if the role in question was janitorial in nature.

A California city associated with rich, beautiful, and not always brilliant people will now also act as home to some of Google's certified geniuses. The company intends to open an office in Beverly Hills as it continues to establish relationships with the entertainment industry. Google will lease over 13,000 square feet of a city-owned building located at 331 Foothill Road, according to Marie Cunningham .

So long as German competition authorities prove agreeable, it seems that Google will soon be in part responsible for powering the lights )and computers( at a number of German homes. Google announced this morning that it intends to invest about $5 million in a local solar photovoltaic power plant. A note to cynics, worrywarts, and shareholders: this move isn't as random as it may seem. Although it does mark Google's first clean tech investment outside the U.S.,

Any programmers who would enjoy winning $10,000, the title "Code Jam Champion," and - maybe - a job offer from Google should get moving. Today, the registration window for Google Code Jam 2011 opened. To go ahead and provide interested parties with the complete schedule: registration starts today, a 24-hour qualification round will take place starting May 6th, and successive online rounds are scheduled for May 21st, May 22nd, June 4th, and June 11th.

A company that's frequently associated with poor performance and instability had a pleasant surprise for users today. Twitter announced this afternoon that it's managed to make Twitter Search three times faster. A post on the Twitter Engineering blog explained the unexpected development by stating, "Last week, we launched a replacement for our Ruby-on-Rails front-end: a Java server we call Blender.

Lately, it's seemed like just about everyone is interested in investigating and/or prosecuting Google. French courts , Swiss courts , and )perhaps( America's own FTC have all been offended by different practices. Google may be spared an antitrust probe in the UK, however, as a minister there has declined to pursue the matter. Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries,

At this point, everyone knows that the iPad 2 was a big sales success. The task that remains is quantifying its success, and a new report may do just that. Anonymous sources hint Apple sold somewhere between 2.4 million and 2.6 million iPad 2s in March. Yenting Chen and Steve Shen wrote earlier this morning after speaking with "sources at upstream touch panel suppliers," "Sales of iPad 2 are running at a rate faster than its predecessor, and Apple took delivery of 2.4-2.

Newspapers have proven to be surprisingly resilient on many college campuses. There's almost always a school paper, for example, and different groups of students are drawn to other publications. But in a real victory for LinkedIn, its professional network has now caught up with newspapers in terms of what students intend to use as a job search tool. Career center website specialist Experience Inc.

In an objective sense, Amazon's an impressive company, and its stock's performance )up 41 percent in the last year( means investors who value money should respect it. But Amazon seems to have done a great job balancing financial acumen with people smarts, earning the top spot on a "reputable companies" list today. Forbes Media and a consulting firm known as the Reputation Institute awarded Amazon that spot after surveying almost 33,

Today, a major change to the way Google deals with advertisers' questions and problems is taking place. AdWords users will no longer be limited to receiving support via email and various online resources; now they can call a toll-free number and speak to a live AdWords specialist. A post on the Official Google Blog announced the option this morning, and explained, "We're adding phone support for a simple reason: you asked for it!

Fans of group deals site LivingSocial should be pleased to know that some important organizations believe it'll continue to grow and succeed. Reports indicate LivingSocial has raised $400 million in a new round of funding that values it at more than $3 billion. Evelyn M. Rusli wrote late yesterday, "LivingSocial last week raised an additional $400 million from existing investors like Amazon and Lightspeed Venture Partners, and several new ones including T.

The growth rate of Quora )and we mean the actual company, not just the Q&A site( may soon increase at a rapid pace. Quora has hired Andy Barton, a recruiter with an interesting resume, and presumably wants him to do more than turn away random applicants. A quick note on the current state of Barton's professional network: as of this moment, he has four recommendations )good( and over 500 connections )way above average( on LinkedIn .

The way Google's Street View program operates in Switzerland may soon change in dramatic fashion. A Swiss court has ordered that )among other things( Google must ensure all faces and license plates are unrecognizable, even if that means employees have to review all images manually. That represents a potential problem for Google. The company's automated blurring software catches most - but not all - faces and license plates.

Although the timing may be coincidental, Larry Page's new career as CEO of Google has gotten off to an interesting start. Google announced this morning that it's bid $900 million for about 6,000 patents and patent applications owned by Nortel. Before anyone gets too excited: this development shouldn't signal that Google intends to either branch into telecommunications equipment or sue its biggest rivals out of existence. Kent Walker,

Relations between Microsoft and Yahoo may sour as a result, but it's a good bet Yahoo execs are going to brag a bit about a new hire. It seems a Microsoft executive charged with working on the companies' search alliance is switching sides. Kara Swisher reported earlier this morning, "[Brett] Wayn must have liked what he saw at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, since he is bouncing there from his job at the Redmond, Wash. software giant to run local efforts at Yahoo.

Less than a month ago, a security incident involving SSL certificates and at least one Iranian hacker took place, startling more than a few experts in the process. Now, demonstrating its technical expertise and general goodwill )along with a sense of self-preservation(, Google's stepped forward with some thoughts. Researchers at the search giant are apparently working on two projects, the first of which is called the Google Certificate Catalog.

In case anyone was wondering, YouTube hasn't decided to wave a white flag with respect to the legal battle that Viacom started in early 2007. Indeed, lawyers representing the site have filed a new 94-page document defending YouTube's approach to handling copyright infringement. One quick reminder: YouTube already won this case once, with a court deciding last year that the site's protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.