Google CEO Eric Schmidt and cofounder Larry Page sat down with reporters for over an hour during an impromptu press conference while playing Bilderbergers at Allen & Co.'s exclusive Sun Valley getaway yesterday. There was talk of Google's Android cell-phone operating system; of China; of the search-ads deal with Yahoo. But it was fitness enthusiast Sergey Brin, rushing in late after a reported flat bicycle tire, who stole the show with feel-good blather:

CEO Eric Schmidt's Apple board seat is only the beginning of Google's high-level conflicts of interests. Once Google's directors get done recusing themselves, there might not be anyone left in the boardroom. [Portfolio]

There's desperate — and then there's "paying $15 billion for second-place has-been social network MySpace" desperate. Not even Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, under pressure from a mixed-up Microsoft, angry shareholders, and crazy-old-coot corporate raider Carl Icahn to do some kind of deal, is that desperate. Yang is taking so much heat for blowing merger negotiations with Microsoft, botching the company's reorg, and losing top talent that he's probably going to lose his job come August 1, when the company holds an annual shareholder meeting. But despite all that, a source close to the company told Reuters that Yang refused a bailout deal with News Corp. that would have combined Yahoo with MySpace because "News Corp. sought a value of as much as $15 billion for those assets." At long last, we're happy to credit Yang for a smart move!

Keeping Oracle CEO and cofounder Larry Ellison safe cost the company $1.7 million over the fiscal year ending May 31, 2007. Most of that money went to guards at his homes as well as installing and repairing home security systems, according to Oracle's SEC filings. Part of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos's 2007 compensation included $1.2 milion for personal security. Google CEO Eric Schmidt spent $475,000 on security in 2007. A lot of the money probably goes to security precautions that might seem a lot more like luxuries than necessities.

With the cool confidence inspired by sitting more than a little above the fray in the whole Microsoft-Yahoo fracas, Eric Schmidt sat down on Tuesday for a taped interview with Fox Business's Liz Claman, resulting in fifteen minutes of the smooth talker on video. Schmidt has been working a press tour leading up to the cessation of talks between Microsoft and Yahoo. At the beginning of this clip, he praises Microsoft's leadership and then suggests that they could be "hostile" with their market power. By the end, he's downplaying any presumption of antitrust litigation arising in the event of any partnership between Google and Yahoo, citing how competitive the space is. It's almost convincing.

All these people who accidentally destroyed the newspaper industry feel so bad about it! Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist decimated the classifieds sections of the nation, endowed some chair at Berkeley's journalism school to assuage his guilty conscience. Now Google, whose ad company is destroying the revenue model newspapers depend on, is hopping on the "we totally love journalism" bandwagon. Google head Eric Schmidt claimed that their DoubleClick ad service will aid newspapers! In getting more online revenue, obv, not with the whole "saving newspapers themselves" thing. "It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Eric said. Too little, too late, Google! ONCE A WHORE, ALWAYS A WHORE.

Her favorite quotes:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt shared his deep thoughts in a conversation with the New Yorker's Ken Auletta, and News.com's Dan Farber was there to transcribe the sermon. Shareholders might be a little surprised by statements like "Our goal is to change the world. Monetization is a technology to pay for it." But the real nut is how Google executives have been slowly backing away from the company's "Don't be evil" pledge.

What does a poorly received speech today by Eric Schmidt at the Economic Club of Washington have to do with Hispanic IT workers? Nothing, really, and that's what Lista, the Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association, wants you to know. One has to admire the sheer Valley-like opportunism of Lista's Jose Marquez, who sent us five questions Schmidt didn't answer about the threat a search deal between Google and Yahoo poses to the people his organization claims to represent. One question we have for Marquez: Does your close scrutiny of a potential Google-Yahoo deal have anything to do with Microsoft's many partnerships with your organization? Marquez's curiously loaded queries:

Google's announcement today of a massive campus expansion was inevitable. Having taken over every last scrap of office park around it not occupied by neighbor Intuit, Google is expanding the Mountain View Googleplex to the west — and, more controversially, to the east, on land owned but poorly used by Nasa. Ignore the happy talk about Google and Nasa's scientific partnerships; those are an obvious fig leaf to cover the use of public land by a private entity. (Let's not even get started on Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt's sweetheart deal to park their party plane on Nasa grounds.) Google has grown to be a powerful employer in the Bay Area, and its wealthy executives donate freely to local politicians, so we should hardly expect the powers that be to stop it. What's good for Google is good for America, or so we'll be told.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said it has been "harder than we thought" for Google to make money selling ads for News Corp.-owned social network MySpace. Perhaps we've discovered one small reason why. As this screenshot from Search Engine Journal demonstrates, Google searches for the terms "MySpace Advertising" turn up Google ads for Facebook advertising instead.

Business strategist Gary Hamel interviews surprisingly effusive Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments. The best one will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: TemplaHeron, for "Google I/O afterparty, May 29, 1977." (Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

How did we miss this at D6? Mark Zuckerberg said he'd had Google cofounder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt over for dinner recently; his digs were so Spartan, Zuckerberg said, that Page got a chair, and Schmidt wound up on the floor. Zuckerberg likes to point to his one-bedroom apartment as proof that he hasn't profited from Facebook. But according to Sarah Lacy in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Zuckerberg cashed out $1 million in Facebook shares in an early financing round. He can afford some nice furniture, in other words; he's just too busy, or lazy, to hire an interior decorator.

CARLSBAD, CA — I'll be unabashed about it: Part of the fun of a conference like D6 are the casual mogul sightings. Look! Barry Diller in a schlumpy brown sweater! Say, isn't that Jeff Bezos chatting up a Googler? But my favorite happenstances are the reunions of frenemies. Take, for example, this chance encounter between Marcy Simon, the former girlfriend of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Elliot Schrage, the head of Facebook PR. (Sandwiched awkwardly in the middle is Google VP Susan Wojcicki.) Simon and Schrage's back story, and more pictures from the hotel lobby at D6, after the jump.

Los Angeles-based law firm Kabateck Brown Kellner filed a class action suit against IAC property Citysearch, alleging the site charges pay-per-click advertisers for fraudulent clicks. The firm has won similar cases against Yahoo and Google. All the major search firms now belong to anti-click fraud coalitions and make lots of nice noises about the problem. Truth is, click fraud isn't much of one. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained during an unguarded moment a couple years ago, click fraud will never be that much of a problem because if fraudulent clicks devalue the worth of click for an advertiser, that advertiser can always pay less per click.

Back in August 2006, when Google agreed to pay News Corp. $900 million to serve ads against MySpace, News Corp. COO Peter Chernin bragged, "Whoever said it remains to be seen whether we can monetize [MySpace], hopefully it's a little clearer this week." Almost two years later, "monetizing" MySpace seems more difficult than ever. At least, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "MySpace did not monetize as well as we thought," Schmidt told a German reporter.

CARLSBAD, CA — D, the Wall Street Journal schmoozefest which opened today with a round of golf at the Four Seasons Aviara Resort, is not the conference for the rest of us. It attracts a host of tech and media CEOs who agree to be harangued onstage by Walt Mossberg, the sexagenarian of sexy gadgets, and Kara Swisher, the diminutive media commentaterrorist of AllThingsD.com. In exchange, they get to seem classy and witty, if only by comparison. It is the sort of elite event to which Valleywag is not invited. We showed up anyway.

Proud Google CEO and father figure Eric Schmidt looks on as Sergey Brin and Larry Page announce their undying love for each other in the wake of the California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. We kid! Or fantasize, what have you. But we couldn't resist when our tipster pointed out how the young founders' outfits matched a little too well while speaking at a Google Zeitgeist event. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments, and the winning one will become the new headline on this post. Friday's winner: Torley, for "Our hero travels back in time to star in Breakfast Club 2." (Photo by Joi Ito)

advertisers can't use Buzz Targeting to serve ads against popular videos uploaded by regular YouTube users, only those uploaded by "content partners" — probably because regular users often don't own the copyright to the videos they upload and it's hard for Google's lawyers to justify YouTube making money off those.

We'd grown so accustomed to seeing Google CEO Eric Schmidt squiring girlfriends to events that we couldn't believe our eyes. Was that attractive blonde on his arm actually his wife, Wendy? The couple eschewed the red carpet when entering the Castro Theater for last night's Vanity Fair-sponsored screening of Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson for the San Francisco International Film Festival, but our paparazzo still managed to snap a shot of the publicity-averse Mrs. Schmidt. (Some insiders suggest that Wendy, a graduate of UC Berkeley's journalism school, was behind Eric's temporary boycott of News.com after the website published their home address.) Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments. Yesterday's winner: "Handvertising is the new banner ad," by loganvision. (Photo by Steve Rhodes)