Google’s new privacy policy has been the topic of some discussion — although, perhaps not as much as expected — as their new multi-platform approach resulted in the creation of one privacy policy to rule them all, much like Sauron’s …

Yesterday, we looked at a video Danny Sullivan posted at Search Engine Land, in which he grilled Google CEO Eric Schmidt about listing Google’s 200 ranking signals. 

Danny Sullivan has posted a few videos from Google’s Zeitgeist event, and one of them is a fairly entertaining banter between Sullivan and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  Sullivan  asks why Google doesn’t list its 200 ranking factors. Schmidt’s response:

Should mainstream media be held to different standards than bloggers when it comes to crediting sources? Mainstream media agencies have frequently turned their noses up at bloggers, essentially claiming that they steal and repurpose the work of their hard working journalists. While this may be true in some cases, it is hardly fair to say that this is true in general. In fact, this week, we’ve seen a clear example of the hypocrisy of this notion, because mainstream media publications are clearly just as guilty as blogs when it comes to improper crediting of sources.

Lots of bloggers and online reporters have experienced this at one time or another. We’ve certainly had it happen to us here at WebProNews more than a few times. You break a story, then it’s all over the web, but you don’t get the credit.

Update: Google is now showing suggestions for "Islam is". They can be seen in the screenshot below.

Update: According to reports, it took Google about six minutes to gather it’s "real-time" search results for a San Franciso earthquake.

If you use Twitter or create content, you have probably figured out by now that it can be a great tool for driving traffic to your site. There are measures you can take to expand this if your content is not bringing in the Twitter traffic on its own.

Is Twitter a significant traffic source for your site? Comment here.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hosting a 2-day workshop on "Journalism and the Internet Age" today and tomorrow. Featured at the event are a number of high profile media executives and gurus. The cast ranges from News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch to Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington.

As you’ve more than likely heard by now, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch in an interview last week talked about the possibility of blocking search engines from indexing News Corp. publications’ content. While this may or may not actually happen, it is one of the latest (and biggest) examples of a publisher taking the position of search engines hurting them rather than helping them.

As you may know, the SMX Advanced event in Seattle took place recently, and interestingly enough, two of the hottest topics frequently discussed were not Google-related (not that Google was discussed frequently too). Odd for a search marketing event isn’t it?

Mike McDonald of WebProNews discussed these hot topics – Bing and Twitter search with one of the biggest names in the industry – Danny Sullivan.

Last night Hulu ran the live telethon style infomercial for Bing called the "Bingathon".

So how did it perform?

Well, it appears nothing "official" has been released yet. So let’s see what some Twitter users (a co-host, industry professionals and everyday users) are saying about the Bingathon.

PageRank sculpting is a pretty advanced SEO tactic, and it has been widely used by SEO pros since Google’s Matt Cutts described its use on YouTube, giving the strategy the official green light. At SMX Advanced in Seattle, the same harbinger of Google insider information offered a stunning revelation: Google changed the way it handled link structures intended for sculpting.

At the All Things Digital Conference, otherwise known as D7, Twitter Co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone talked about possibilities for making money in the future, but once again, did not want to give too many details away.

Williams said the company is working on a form for people to fill out to give them money, so evidently something is in motion. TheStreet.com reports: