Here’s this week’s main headlines from the world of search engines and searching. This week’s major news was, of course, the launch of Google Latitude, the GPS phone friend tracker.

• Another Bad French Ruling Against Google Over Trademarked Adwords

  This time Google is being fined hundreds of thousands of euros for allowing certain trademarked words to have advertisements run against them. (TechDirt Feb 5 2009)

• Google Unveils Multiple Inbox Feature for Gmail

  The feature will split an inbox into selected windows based on what you want to see, like starred or draft messages (AppScout Feb 6 2009)

• SEOs Lose Rankings Due to New “Did You Mean” Feature

  “Did you mean” pushes sites lower down in rankings (SE Roundtable Feb 4 2009)

• BoomTown on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker: Apple, Blogging, MicroHooGoogOl and the Econalypse

  BoomTown visited Henry Blodget at Yahoo’s Tech Ticker studio in Times Square in Manhattan to talk about a range of digital topics. (Feb 6 2009)

• Dataopedia Reports on Your Website Statistics

  Unlike other tools aggregating a lot of website-wise data on one page, Dataopedia also adds useful stats regarding the domain social media popularity (SEJ Feb 6 2009)

• Privacy Critics Don’t Give Google Enough ‘Latitude’

  Google has built very explicit and easy-to-use privacy controls into Latitude. (SE Land Feb 6 2009)

• Google’s Latitude Has Vast Mobile Marketing Potential

  As soon as Google wanted to it could adapt a pay-per-click service for Google Maps where merchants with Google local profiles could pay to get a Latitude user’s attention

• Google Website Optimizer Launches New YouTube Channel

  This is a great way for you visual learners to get tips on how to set up landing page tests and how to interpret the results. (Latest SEM News Feb 7 2009)

• Thirty Free Image Resources on the Web

  Here are thirty sites where you can find completely free images, available for use on your blog or web site. (About.com Feb 3 2009)

• See where your friends are with Google Latitude

  Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. (Google Blog Feb 2 2009)

• Google’s new Ajax-powered search results breaks search keyword tracking for everyone

  A major update that Google is testing has completely broken the ability for any external analytics service like Clicky to determine the search query used (Clicky Feb 13 2009)

• Google Earth - Now With Oceans and Mars

  Image Courtesy Google Google Earth just released version 5.0. The latest release has a realistic ocean. (About Google Feb 7 2009)

• Yandex.ru revenues up 80% and growing

  Russian Yandex generated revenues of more than $300 million in 2008, up 80 percent from 2007. (AltSearchEngines Feb 5 2009)

• Google Latitude: Search without Entering Keywords

  The tracking service has significant implications for medical device vendors, shipping companies, and law enforcement. (Beyond Search Feb 5 2009)

• Ask.com Parent IAC Sees Disappointing Revenues, Plans Vertical Search Strategy

  Instead of attempting to take on Google head-on, Ask.com will follow a vertical search strategy, which kicked off last month with deal where Ask will power the search experience on NASCAR.com (SEW Feb 5 2009)

• Microsoft Adds Instant Answers to IE8 Live Search Box

  Live Instant Answers will serve results in a toolbar drop down when users search for specific queries associated with financial information, weather conditions, movie show times, calculations, equations, conversions, and definitions directly in the IE8 se

• Google Latitude

  See where your friends are on a map (John Battelle Feb 6 2009)

• IBM & Google Partner for Google Health Records

  IBM and Google has just reached an agreement allowing an IBM software to stream medical and health records of patients to their Google Health record (SE Journal Feb 5 2009)

• 1.5 million books in your pocket

  Google Book Search for mobile phones (Inside Google Book Search Feb 5 2009)

• His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama Joins Twitter

  From Twitter: I’m sure HH will be just as inquisitive about technology as he has been over the past 14 reincarnations. (ReadWriteWeb Feb 7 2009)

• Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

  The Google User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously (Offical Google Blog Feb 6 2009)

• Microsoft Keeps a Close Eye on Windows Live Servers

  Users are encouraged to report abuse (Softpad Feb 6 2009)