The U.S. Department of Justice is in the early stages of an investigation into how Apple runs its digital music business, according to several reports. While the probe is broad in scope, reportedly of particular interest to the Feds are alleged heavy handed tactics used against labels that participated in Amazon’s Daily Deal promotion, which Hypebot reported in early March.

A new concept in online flight search officially takes off in the UK today with the launch of Fly.com.

LinkedIn users who are interested in what their professional contacts are thinking on a minute-to-minute basis should now find it much easier to track down their tweets.  Late yesterday, LinkedIn upgraded its Tweets application by improving the app’s people-finding features.

That’s right – no more having to go to Twitter and perform a search every time you forge a connection on LinkedIn.  Or worse yet, having to go to Twitter, perform a search, and sort through 2,031 Jim Smiths, comparing thumbnail pics and bios.

Security firm Symantec tells WebProNews that nine out of ten spam emails now contain a URL link in the message, and this month, around 5% of all domains found in spam URLs belonged to genuine websites. The top four of those belong to well-known social networking, blogging, file sharing and user-generated content sites.

Google has kept its AdSense revenue share numbers a secret for quite some time, but has now decided to disclose them – or at least some of them. They’ve revealed the percentages for AdSense for Content and AdSense for Search, but are remaining mum on some of the other offerings. Still, content and search are the two biggies.

Is Google’s revenue split better or worse than you expected? Let us know.

Facebook’s employees in Washington, D.C. are going to be in a very uncomfortable position if whatever privacy changes the social network implements tomorrow aren’t well-received.  Facebook has invited members of the House and Senate to attend a special, privacy-centric briefing later this week.

Google has been named in a new class action lawsuit filed by Carp Law Offices on behalf of Galaxy Internet Services and it WiFi users in Massachusetts.

The suit is focused on the collection and storage of WiFi information by Google’s Street View team. The suit alleges Google had covert packet sniffing WiFi receivers to help gather data on WiFi users. The suit says the practice is in violation of both federal privacy laws and Massachusetts’s new data privacy law.

During the keynote at Google I/O last week, in which Google introduced both Google TV and the latest version of Android (Froyo), VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra talked about advertising with regards to mobile (and this was before the AdMob acquisition got the green light from the FTC).

Polls are tricky things under the best of circumstances, and extra caution is necessary when the results of a poll appear to favor the same company that sponsored it.  However, Google seems to have demonstrated that a significant majority of Americans are interested in seeing their state and local governments adopt Google Apps.

People who are interested in evading Google Analytics can now easily do so thanks to Google itself.  This afternoon, the company released a beta version of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, and there’s a new option for site owners who feel protective of their visitors, too.

An interesting product for publishers was launched this week, and it’s goal is to take out the Associated Press. This may be easier said than done, but the concept is intriguing and is bound to get people talking.

Online travel website TripAdvisor has launched a new TripAdvisor iPhone application, available on Apple’s App Store.

The free applications allow users to search for popular hotels, restaurants, attractions and cheap airfares. The application is available in 13 languages, giving users a localized experience on TripAdvisor.

"Our iPhone app gives people in 20 countries and 13 languages a new way to access the more than 35 million traveler reviews and opinions available on TripAdvisor," said Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor.

Google has launched new stable versions of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

"Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

Back in January, the New York Times announced that it would be gravitating to a metered paywall system at the beginning of 2011. This would let readers access an as-of-yet unspecified number of articles for free each month, until requiring payment for further access. Meanwhile, print subscribers would have full access to content online.

Dating website Match.com, owned by Internet company IAC/InterActiveCorp, has reached a deal to become the exclusive online dating site on Yahoo.

Match.com will replace Yahoo Personals, allowing existing users to switch over to the new service "Match.com on Yahoo." The two companies say they are working together to help users make a smooth transition to Match.com on Yahoo.

As many people predicted it would, Yahoo’s acquired a location-based social network, announcing the deal this morning.  But rather than buy Foursquare, which was the subject of numerous acquisition rumors, Yahoo picked up Koprol, an organization based in Indonesia.

In my last article titled, “Keyword Research Basics for SEO” I discussed keyword research and the basics of keyword selection. Of course – you can’t solidify your targets until you understand what you’re up against. All the keyword research in the world won’t help you rank for the keyword phrase “windows” in 6 months with a brand new site.

Privacy is always a concern when you are spending time on the internet. Facebook is one company who has landed itself in some hot water over privacy of late and it has just gotten worse.

Google has released a report that details its economic impact in each of the 50 states in the U.S. In the report, Google says it generated $54 billion of economic activity for American businesses, website publishers, and non-profits in 2009.

"In a time of tighter budgets and a slow economic recovery, we’re glad to support so many small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country by helping them find new customers more efficiently and monetize their websites through targeted advertising," says Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales.

Update 2:  Microsoft has decided to give Bing a little bit more prominence on the recently redesigned MSN homepage. Probably not a bad idea, considering MSN.com had nearly 90 million unique visitors in March, according to Compete. Bing had 52 million.