Yahoo has started its latest round of layoffs, which hit its pixel-cute photo-sharing site Flickr, a formerly sacrosanct fiefdom. We hear Google has its eyes on some of the Flickr employees Yahoo let slip.

Megan Smith, a Google executive little known outside Silicon Valley, is taking a high-profile role running the search engine's in-house charity. She's part of a power couple whose louder half is AllThingsD blogger Kara Swisher.

A disclosure statement is an odd place for a wedding announcement. But that is where conference organizer and AllThingsD blogger Kara Swisher has buried the news that she married her longtime partner, Google vice president Megan Smith, last night, before the passage of Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, made same-sex marriages illegal once more. (The couple had had previous ceremonies — including, while we're disclosing things, one that I attended — but this was the first one that was a legal marriage under California law.) This would be no one's business but their own, except for the fact that Swisher actively covers Google and its rivals.

The Justice Department met with Google and Yahoo's customers and competitors this week as it continues to build an antitrust case for its litigious hired gun Sandy Litvack. On top of that, Canada is now on Google's case too, having hired antitrust lawyer David Kent. Never heard of him, sure he's a hoser, eh. In response to all the haters, Google just made itself another enemy: Kara Swisher, the mean lesbian mommyblogger employed by Rupert Murdoch and partnered to Google executive Megan Smith. Fun times at home!Google's mistake: Creating a PowerPoint presentation and posting it to a site with the search-engine-optimized name "Facts about the Yahoo-Google advertising agreement." In the presentation, which we've embedded below, Google explained that the deal is not a merger and that Ford uses Toyota engines in some of its cars. It also misquoted Swisher, making her really mad. The presentation cites Swisher as saying:

CENTURY SAN FRANCISCO CENTRE 9 — Where are the girls? An event producer and I both nervously paced through the lobby. Where was Marissa Mayer? The Google executive had rented a theater for the 8:50 screening of Sex and the City, but she and 300 of her closest friends were nowhere to be seen. Late, of course — have you tried to walk the block-long distance between Mayer's Four Seasons penthouse and the Westfield Centre in a pair of Manolo Blahniks? Finally, I spotted someone I knew — gorgeous Googler Brittany Bohnet, girlfriend of Facebooker Dave Morin, above. ("People are saying I look like Charlotte," said Bohnet, pictured above. "Do you think so?" Yes. Cuter than Charlotte, actually.

The latest issue of Marie Claire profiles Google's top female executives. You've got to pick up a copy, if just for the fashion credits. From left to right: Shona Brown, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Megan Smith, Francoise Brougher, Susan Wojcicki, and Marissa Mayer. With the exception of Mayer's getup, never has a greater work of fiction appeared in this old gal rag. I've known Megan Smith for years, and cannot recall ever seeing her wearing something that was not (a) made of denim and (b) priced at less than $100. But more interesting than what they're wearing is who's not in the picture: Top executive Sheryl Sandberg, Google's plugged-in D.C. connection. We'd heard Sandberg can't stand Shona Brown, but would she really have refused to get a photo taken with her? (Photo by Neal Kirk)

A fictional character on The L Word, Megan Swisher, was named after power-lesbian couple Kara Swisher, the AllThingsD blogger, and Megan Smith, a vice president at Google, Mombian readers note. Not mentioned: That Swisher serves on the board of OurChart.com, a lesbian social network tied to the show, a fact she prominently discloses. [Mombian]

After Valleywag broke the news that Google cofounder Sergey Brin had rushed up to San Francisco for an impromptu dinner with a Facebook investor, protestations issued from his tablemates that nothing was afoot. Why, some random Russians — Brin's countrymen — got invited! Tom Rielly, the teddy-bear Ted conference organizer, was there! Absolutely no talk of Facebook all night! Oh, really. Never was an elephant in the room less mentioned, then.

THE PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO — Thursday evening, Google cofounder Sergey Brin strode down the main hallway of this historic hotel. Pacing him step for step was Google executive Megan Smith, part of the team negotiating a fraught deal with Facebook. A Valleywag spy camera caught the pair heading into Maxfield's for dinner with an associate from Greylock closely involved in the firm's investment in Facebook. The meeting was hastily arranged only hours after Brin participated in Google's quarterly earnings call, with Brin rushing up to San Francisco. Why the hurry?

WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — "I'm happy to say I'll have a job for the next two years," says Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, on stage with conference organizer John Battelle and his boss, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, confirming widespread rumors that he and MySpace cohort Tom Anderson had renewed their contract to run the social network for another two years. "I had to go from the nickel-and-dime newspaper culture, to the magazine culture ... to Hollywood and the Internet culture," says Murdoch, nodding to the reported — but unconfirmed — figure that DeWolfe and Anderson would make: $30 million over two years. More live coverage, after the jump.

Google is racing with Yahoo and Microsoft to take a stake in Facebook, and win some of its advertising business. As with YouTube, Google was late to get in on the Facebook deal — but again, it's making a full-court press, with some of its top people. Negotiating the deal: Tim Armstrong, Google's chief of ad sales; Susan Wojcicki, Google's VP in charge of product management for advertising; Joan Braddi, a Google VP involved with search; and Megan Smith, a veteran Google dealmaker. Armstong is leading Google's approach, but we hear Smith is playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role. She was also, coincidentally, spotted by many chatting up Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a recent party thrown by Facebook app-developer iLike.