According to the Wall Street Journal, Cutts is in South Korea this week and, in a presentation Monday night for about 80 government officials, webmasters, lawyers and journalists, managed to singlehandedly convince some government reps to let Googlebot crawl and index their websites.

One of those in the audience was Kang Min-koo, a senior judge in the Seoul High Court. When he saw the court’s Web site was on Mr. Cutts’ list of government sites that couldn’t be indexed by Google – and thus couldn’t be found on a Google search – he sent a text message by phone to the court’s webmaster ordering it to be changed.

Since the change can be made by altering just a few lines of software code, the webmaster had it done in no time. When it came time for questions, Mr. Kang asked Mr. Cutts to check if the High Court’s site showed up on Google – and it did.

Cutts’ visit to South Korea comes on the heels of tension between the government and Google. Earlier this month, the Korean Fair Trade Commission accused Google of interfering with its Android antitrust investigation. The commission alleges that Google deleted documents pertinent to its investigation into whether Google is limiting access to local search engines on Android smartphones.

There’s also the matter that South Korea is one of only a handful of countries where Google isn’t the dominant search engine. And, as the WSJ points out, Google isn’t likely to gain market share in Korea if prominent websites aren’t in its index.

While Cutts may have the title of being Google’s chief spam cop, he’s long been one of the companies go-to public faces. A little more than a year ago, Google sent him to Washington, DC on an “educational tour” aimed at telling government officials that Google’s search results don’t need to be regulated.

Beyond Blame, Believing In Cooperation

Let’s set aside blame, because blame isn’t going to move anything forward.

Let’s also assume that all the players can be taken to some degree at their word, that they do indeed want to work together in some ways.

What does everyone want?

The Wants & A Game Changer

Google has wanted its own social graph for some time. By social graph, I mean a way for it to see how people are interconnected, which could potentially improve Google’s search results. Better ways to target ads, new “sticky” content where people spend huge amounts of time are other things it wants, but let’s focus on the search aspects.

Twitter has wanted, well, clearly money along with other non-disclosed things for what is mistakenly assumed to be its most valuable asset, its “firehose” of tweets. What’s really Twitter’s most valuable asset is actually its sharing activity, but I’ll get back to that.

Facebook has wanted, well, I don’t know — maybe to be the best social network out there. Don’t laugh. If Google once had a laser-like focus on being the best search engine out there, Facebook can have the same focus on social. That’s a vision that Facebook probably doesn’t want ruined by Google encroaching on its territory. A vision that, of course, makes Facebook plenty of money by tapping into social actions.

We also now have something new that both Facebook and Twitter say they want — to be better represented in Google’s search results. It’s not as if they haven’t been there. But releasing today’s Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet — which alters the Google’s Search Plus Your World service — was a game changer in these Cold War years between the search and social superpowers.

The Bill Of Social Data Rights

Can everyone get what they want, all succeeding in their own ways, without further banging of virtual shoes in outrage?

I think they can. Or at least, I think there are some ways forward, some common ground that has emerged. I’ll lay these out in what I’ll call a Bill Of Social Data Rights. I’m open to better names, believe me — that name I know has been used for other things than I’m covering. But hopefully you get the point.

1) Public Is Public

If someone posts something public on a social network, that’s public for any search engine to index. It’s not up to Twitter or Facebook or Google+ to decide if Google or Bing get to index it through some special deal. The content of what was written belongs to the person who wrote it. If that person publishes publicly, then search engines can spider what they find.

Posts are, after all, web pages. People who create them can choose to block them from search engines if they want. People can choose to withdraw public posts after they’ve been published and know that, like with any web page, the posts will eventually be dropped from search engines.

Social networks have lots of content. Search engines like Google and Bing could bring them to a halt, if they tried to grab everything without special arrangements. So make the “firehose” arrangements, and make them on behalf of the users, who might actually want to find their own content in the search engines of their choice.

This helps solves, by the way, the concerns that Facebook and Twitter have raised about not being included enough in Google. Much of their content is included. Much more of it could be included, if deal making was set aside in favor of the Public Is Public principle.

2) Profiles Are Meta Data

If someone creates a public profile, certain types of information from that profile should be expressed in an easy, machine-readable format. Any social network should provide the profile’s name, the number of followers, the number of people being followed, as well as a flag to indicate if a profile is somehow verified or trusted. A trusted way to link that profile to other profiles or web sites should be implemented.

Search engines need this type of information, so that they really know who someone is, in order to return search results. That’s true even if the person is using a pseudonym. You still want to know that the pseudonym account that comes up is the right one, not some faker.

Providing meta data abut profiles will help. Search engines won’t have to guess where to scrape for key information such as follower counts, which can be used to tell if an account might be real or not, in the case of celebrities. Cross-linkage can help avoid problems that both Google and the Don’t Be Evil tool have, where Larry Page gets listed with Facebook and Twitter profiles that aren’t really his.

If Facebook and Twitter really want better inclusion in things like “People & Pages” listings at Google, this type of data will help. Similarly, if Bing wants to include Google+ profiles, it could use the information as well.

3) Your Friends Are Yours

If I have friends on one service, I should be able to import those friends in some machine-readable format to another service. That doesn’t mean a list of text names, as Facebook’s tool will kick out for me.

It might mean email addresses, as Facebook will give me for Yahoo or Microsoft but not for Google.

It really means some way that the geniuses at our social networks can concoct, I’m sure, so that if I want to find my Twitter friends at Google+, I can. If I want Path to know a particular Google+ circle of friends I have, I can do that. If Pinterest wants to know my Facebook friends, they are my friends to take — not Facebook’s to decide.

What is there really to fear, by allowing this? Even if I take my 50 friends to a new social network, if that social network is crap, no great victory has been won. Heck, taking the names doesn’t mean any of the 50 will actually follow me over.

4) Social Shares & Social Actions Are Proprietary

The real gem each of the social networks has isn’t our posts, isn’t our profiles, isn’t our friends. It’s knowing what we do, how we interact with our friends, how we interact with content.

That’s where the walls should remain. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have real reasons to fear that handing over streams of data to Google might allow it to better understand how people are acting on their services.

So don’t. Make content public, yes. But find a way to agree that the actions — the number of tweets, the number of likes, whatever — are declared off-limits for use by other search engines. If things like robots.txt and the nofollow attribute can work for search, the social networks can figure out their own mechanisms.

Moving Forward

Does everyone get what they really want with this?

Google already has a social graph that’s building in Google+. It really doesn’t need to be worried about getting social shares or actions from the other services — though if they want to offer this, that’s their option. But giving Google the additional information I’ve outlined will allow it to do a better job of exposing content from these other services in search.

Twitter doesn’t get some big payday for its feed, but it’s not getting that now. What it does gain is people who stop complaining they can’t find their own tweets. It gains the chance that with decent meta data, Google will rethink the Google+ification of its search results and return to the idea that search results can be social using anyone’s network. And Twitter’s content gains more exposure, important for a service that more and more talks about itself as being a content play.

Facebook gets even more exposure within Google than it has now. Opening up keeps pressure on Google, as with Twitter, that there can’t just be some Google+ification with the excuse that Google has no choice, because Facebook won’t do a deal. And Facebook potentially avoids the anti-trust critics that almost certainly will come for it in a few years, just as they’ve come for Google now, claiming that Facebook is staying to closed and using its market dominance to keep others out.

I know these proposals may sound naive. Some of what I describe might already exist. But we do need a way forward. Search and social have been colliding, but we don’t need a collision. We need a collusion, and not in the negative sense but a collusion where the users really are being served best by the services they depend on. That can happen, even supporting healthy competition, but without the social superpowers going to war.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used under license.)

Related Stories

Looking to understand more about some of the issues in the data war between Google, Facebook and Twitter? See especially the first two articles:

• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
• “Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+

That being said, part of those earning results showed that paid clicks on Google’s network is up 34% year over year but cost per click (CPC) is down 8% year over year. In other words, more people are clicking on ads, but those clicks are costing advertisers less money per click.

The paid clicks also increased from Q3 to Q4 by 17%, while CPC dropped 8% from Q3 to Q4.

• Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, increased approximately 34% over the fourth quarter of 2010 and increased approximately 17% over the third quarter of 2011.

• Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, decreased approximately 8% over the fourth quarter of 2010 and decreased approximately 8% over the third quarter of 2011.

This lead to Google increasing revenue year over year by 25%.

Related Articles:

• Google Earnings: GOOG Made Nearly $10 Billion Revenue For Q3 2011, Nearly $3 Billion Net
• Report: Paid Search Rebounded In Q3 2011
• Google’s $8B Earnings Overshadowed By Leadership Change

On Thursday, January 5th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila turned down the class action suit brought against Google. He said he would not allow the suit because “it was more appropriate for companies who had bought the ads to show any alleged harm on an individual basis,” according to paidContent.

Here is the 25-page court document with the ruling:

Google Parked Domain Class Action

We covered the suit back when it was first filed in July 2008.

Related Stories:

• Updated: Google Settles DOJ Pharmacy Ad Investigation With $500 Million
• Australian Watchdog Loses Case Against Google Over Deceptive Ads
• Google Working With U.S. Treasury Department To Shut Down AdWords Mortgage Scams
• Google Instant Costs Google $65,000 In France
• RIAA Scolds Google, Wants Search Algorithm Changed To Fight Online Piracy
• Google Braces For Early 2012 (400-Page) EU Antitrust Report
• US Senators Call For FTC Investigation Into Google’s Search Results
• Google Sued By buySAFE Over Trusted Stores Program
• EU Signaling It May Tolerate Google’s “Dominance” Of Search
• Google Wins Potentially Significant Antitrust Victory In Ohio

Image credit to ShutterStock for lawsuit graphic.

[Page] reorganized the company’s management structure, redesigned the face of the company’s products and pushed forward with a multibillion dollar deal to acquire a cellphone manufacturing outfit.

He also launched two other products aiming at Groupon, the leader of online coupons, and Facebook, the top social networking site.

Google (GOOG) in the past two quarters blew away analyst views while boosting revenue by 32% and 33%, respectively.

Page officially took over from Eric Schmidt in April (with the CEO switch announcement almost exactly a year ago). We wrote a number of articles at the time speculating about the rationale for the change and outlook for Google under Page’s leadership:

• Larry Page Takes The Helm As Google CEO Today
• Was It Time For A Fresh Face? Thoughts On Larry Page As The New Google CEO
• A To Do List For Google’s New CEO Larry Page
• Larry Page And The Reinvention Of “The Google”
• Google Turns To Page: The Day Two Narrative

Page has done a number of major things since taking over in April:

• Reorganized Google’s management structure for efficiency and faster decision-making
• Launched Google+ (and Google Offers)
• Shuttered numerous products and initiatives (and brought more focus)
• Bought Motorola Mobility (for $12.5 billion)

Most impressively however Page (and team) were conscious of the dangers of falling into a kind of bureaucratic malaise as the company matured — and sought to intervene in real time. There was already some evidence that it was happening. But to a large degree bureaucracy and its related challenges are a natural function of growth and maturation.

Companies periodically need to be “reinvented” or “shaken up” or they lose the qualities and momentum that made them successful. But reorgs can also go badly wrong. And while Page hasn’t “reinvented” Google he certainly has brought decisiveness and clarity, which seems to have reinvigorated the company in several respects.

What’s also interesting is that these changes internally are mirrored in a different way externally in Google’s increasing marketing polish and sophistication. Google’s consumer-facing TV commercials are an example — in particular its recent Muppet-themed TV promotion of Google+:

The commercial is not only clever it was likely expensive to produce. Google had to obtain the rights to the Queen-David Bowie song “Under Pressure” and gain agreement from Disney for use of the Muppets in the spot. It’s also not something that one would have imagined from Google as recently as a couple of years ago and reflects a philosophical shift toward consumer marketing. We can see it in the way Google is now marketing Android too.

Having said all that, Page still faces many challenges and the road ahead is lined with legal potholes. Indeed, Page is under more legal pressure, so to speak, than was his predecessor Eric Schmidt. And 2012 should bring some of that to a head, at least in Europe.

Yet, so far, Page’s tenure has been impressive. In less than a year, he has managed to accomplish almost everything he set out to do.

buySafe claims several strong things in this law suit:

(1) Patent Infringement (2) Stealing proprietary business information (3) Pushing buySafe customers to switch to Google Trusted Stores (4) Google is trying to squash the company from growing (5) Google had interest in partnering with buySafe since 2006 (6) Google obtained confidential customer information from a former buySafe customer and current Google Trusted Stores Group Product Manager (7) Google is allegedly offering higher search result rankings for those that participate in the Trusted Stores program

Here is the lawsuit:

Complaint _5_

Related Stories:

• Google Gets Into Ratings Game With Trusted Stores
• Google Overhauls Product Search, Plans To Close Boutiques.com
• Google Trusted Stores: For Organic Rankings & Search Ads?
• Updated: Google Reinvents Its Catalog Search As iPad App
• Google: Product Extension Ads Now Available For Mobile
• Google Shopping, Product Extensions, Come To Four New Countries
• Google Adding Local Product Data To Place Pages
• Google Rolls Out Shopper App For iPhone

Facebook tops Google with the number 3 listing, whereas Google moved up for their 2011 spot of 30 to number 5. In 2010 Google was rated number 14, and in 2009 Google was rated number 7.

Glassdoor.com developed a 20-question company survey that captures employees’ attitudes about: Career Opportunities, Communication, Compensation & Benefits, Employee Morale, Recognition & Feedback, Senior Leadership, Work/Life Balance, and Fairness & Respect. This survey is what makes up the final score for where a company is ranked.

Google’s overall score was a 4.0, whereas Facebook scored a 4.3. Google’s CEO had a 92% approval rating and Facebook’s CEO scored a 89% approval ratings from their employees.

I should note, while Google had 99 ratings, Facebook only had 28.

Related Stories:

• Report: Google Still Top Desired Place To Work
• Study: Google, The “Most Attractive Employer”
• Google To Hire 6,000 Plus, While Yahoo Cuts Additional 1%
• Yahoo Search Engineers, Google Wants To Hire You
• Amongst Google Layoffs, Google Continues To Hire
• Google Changes Hiring Process To Meet Job Opening Needs
• Google’s Hiring Again
• More Yahoo Layoffs Coming Soon
• Updated: Yahoo Layoffs Happening Now
• Search Biz: AOL Spin Off, Yahoo Layoffs, Google Losses, IAC Spoons …
• Yahoo Layoffs Happening Live Online
• Yahoo Laying Off About 600 Employees
• Yahoo Cuts Positions, Shifting Search Emphasis

Here is a list of services Google is closing in the near future or has already closed:

• Google Bookmarks Lists closing on December 19, 2011, which leaves searchers with no way to recoup their Google starred results.
• Google Friend Connect is shutting down March 1, 2012 and sending people to Google +.
• Google Gears will lose all support on December 1, 2011 but Chrome now has offline support.
• Google Search Timeline is currently not working anymore.
• Google Wave becomes read only on January 31, 2012 and on April 30, 2012 it goes offline.
• Google Knol will work until April 30, 2012 and then you have until October 1, 2012 to export your data off Knol.
• Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE

Related Stories:

• Google Shutters Fast Flip, Sidewiki, Aardvark, Subscribed Links & More Google Labs Projects
• Google Ends Google Video Uploads, Shutters Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball & Jaiku
• Google Squared, News Timeline Get Added To Google’s Chopping Block
• Google Wave Crashes
• You Can Hate (Block) But No Longer Love (Star) Google’s Search Results
• Google Bookmarks Lists
• Google Gears Brings Offline Web Applications To Life
• Google’s Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation

In an analysis of a large, random sample of search queries, the study from Josh Wright, Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University, found that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently, and far more prominently, than Google favors its own content. According to the findings, Google references its own content in its first results position in just 6.7% of queries, while Bing provides search result links to Microsoft content more than twice as often (14.3%).

The results from the new study by Wright, sponsored by the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) are important, especially given the challenges Google has recently faced from an FTC Inquiry over its business practices, antitrust complaints and Senate hearings looking into its alleged anti-competitive behavior.

The findings of the new study are in stark contrast with a study on search engine “bias” released earlier this year. That study, conducted by Harvard professor Ben Edelman concluded that “by comparing results across multiple search engines, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first.”

How can the conclusions from two prominent scholars be so different? And, perhaps more importantly, given recent interest (and potential oversight) by lawmakers and regulators in search engine activities, what’s going on behind the scenes here?

A Tale Of Two Studies

First, some background. Harvard’s Ben Edelman has serious chops when it comes to search. He’s done thoughtful research into many important issues involving the dark side of the internet, including deceptive advertising, spyware, and so on. But: He’s also been a longtime paid consultant to Microsoft.

The new research from professor Wright, who has a deep interest in antitrust law and economics, was sponsored by the International Center for Law & Economics, with a mission “to create the academic underpinnings for a regulatory environment that ensures the protection of property rights from inefficient interference by government agencies and private parties in high priority markets.”

So, Microsoft has a paid consultant in its court. Did Google sponsor the new research, or influence its outcome? Google continues to increase spending on lobbying U.S. government officials to advocate its interests and ward off the attacks from competitors—was this another, more subtle approach to fend off critics?

Apparently not.

Although ICLE, which sponsored the research, has received financial support from several companies, organizations and individuals (including Google) Geoffrey A. Manne, Executive Director organization responded to my inquiry with this statement:

“The study was not done at Google’s request, and they had no involvement in the design, methodology or conclusions. Rather, the idea for the study and its execution were entirely Josh’s. It was undertaken independently and supported, as all of our affiliates’ supported work is, with an unrestricted grant from ICLE.”

Harvard’s Edelman released the results of his study in January of this year. As said above, Edelman concluded that he found “prima facie evidence of bias” that Google was promoting itself when it “shouldn’t” have been based on other alternative search results.

Search Engine Land’s editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan skewered Edelman’s results, writing that “statistics can easily be turned to whatever you want them to be. I feel like Edelman is turning his study into the most negative view possible. I’m just looking to provide some balance to that.”

Wright’s study had two missions: First, replicate the Edelman study to test its findings, and second, expand on it to eliminate perceived problems with methodology and conclusions. For the first part—replicating the Edelman study, Wright found that Google references its own content more favorably than rival search engines for only a small fraction of terms, whereas Bing is more likely to do so. “For example, in our replication of Edelman & Lockwood, Google refers to its own content in its first page of results when its rivals do not for only 7.9% of the queries, whereas Bing does so nearly twice as often (13.2%),” the report said.

For the second part of the study, Wright employed a much larger, random sample of search queries, rather than the small set (32 different searches) that Edelman performed. Wright’s expanded study found that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently—and far more prominently—than Google favors its own content. Google references own content in its first results position when no other engine does in just 6.7% of queries, while Bing does so over twice as often (14.3%).

So, what conclusions to draw? Wright says that “analysis finds that own-content bias is a relatively infrequent phenomenon”—meaning that although Microsoft appears to favor its own sites more often than Google, it’s not really a major issue, at least in terms of “bias” or “fairness” of search results that the engines present. Reasonable conclusion: Google (and Bing, though less so) really are trying to deliver the best results possible, regardless of whether they come from their own services (local search, product search, etc) or not.

The Bigger Issue: Is “Search Neutrality” A Good Thing?

The study also looked at the whether search engines should be “neutral”—being “fair” to websites in terms of ranking rather than attempting to ferret out the best results for searchers.

It’s both a tradition and a blood sport in the U.S. for traditional media to transform the popular image of scrappy startups into “evil empires” when they’ve grown successfully into a dominant player. Microsoft has been through this; Google is now on the cusp of being the new creepy champ in the minds of many.

A large part of the media and regulatory oversight is now focused on whether Google is “anti-competitive“—typically shorthand for favoring its own content over that of other search engines. The Wright study concludes that the complaintants are simply wrong, saying “many of these complaints ignore the fact that search engine users self-select into different engines or use multiple sources for different types of searches when considering the competitive implications of search rankings.” Well said, and for most sophisticated internet users, probably true.

Why? Consider this scenario: You are going out to dinner in a new town tonight. So, to get recommended restaurants, are you going to Google that—or tweet a request for suggestions, or look up reviews on Yelp or Open Table or Chowhound or… My guess is that most people are going somewhere other than Google for this type of information. Or, for other types of information, going to WebMD or SeatGuru or IMDB or Wikipedia or countless other specialized sites (or mobile apps like Alfred or Ness) when they want more nuanced results than Google typically delivers. No question: Google has a lock on basic queries, and it’s really, really good for those. But the web is huge and asking Google is more often than not like asking the gas station attendant how to get somewhere when your GPS has died. In other words, internet users are smarter than critics give them credit for. We have options, and many are increasingly aware of our non-Google options (hello, Siri?).

But just because a company has grown into a dominant position doesn’t mean they’re doing wrong, or that governments should intervene and force changes that may or may not be “beneficial” to users or customers. I’m not going to rant about this. But in light of the findings of these studies, the pedigree of the researchers and the starkly contrasting opinions they offer, I’d encourage you all to read these analysis pieces, and form your own opinion—and contribute to the comments in the dialog below.

• Deconstructing “Search Neutrality”
• Some Skepticism About Search Neutrality
• Once Again: Should Google Be Allowed To Send Itself Traffic?

Link to the full study from professor Wright: Defining and Measuring Search Bias: Some Preliminary Evidence (pdf).

More reading (thanks to Gary Price for the links):

• Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google
• If Search Neutrality is the Answer, What’s the Question?
• The Problem of Search Engines as Essential Facilities: An Economic & Legal Assessment

The AP obtained a copy of the authorized Jobs bio that comes out next week. In its story, the AP details tidbits of Jobs being so angered by Android:

Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson [his biographer] in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Jobs wasn’t happy with Google Docs either, using an expletive about it, apparently calling them sh*t.

No Détente From The Calafia Meeting

As for a famed meeting at Palo Alto’s Calafia Cafe in May 2010 (picture above from Gizmodo), between Jobs and his former board member, Eric Schmidt, who was also Google’s CEO at the time, there was to be no rapprochement:

“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.

Yet The Search Deals Continued

The bizarre thing is that Jobs was almost certainly taking Google’s money after that.  In June of this year, Schmidt touted the fact that Apple had chosen to renew a deal that puts Google search as the default on iOS devices like the iPad and the iPhone.

Apple is almost certainly earning off that deal. However angry Jobs was over Android, it clearly did not prevent his company from renewing with Google.

If it’s just a case of enough time passing, Schmidt also said in September 2010 — just four months after the Calafia meeting — that the two companies has recently extended their search deal. That deal, where more details weren’t given, probably was for making Google the default on Apple computers, rather than iOS.

Google-competitor Bing was added as a native choice within the iPhone, and just a month after the Jobs-Schmidt meeting, in June 2010. But Google remained the default, despite earlier rumors that Apple might ditch Google for Bing. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had called these rumors “wild stuff” after they came out.

Jobs Gave Advice To Page, Despite Wanting To Say “F You”

AP reporter Michael Leidtke also tweeted some additional things relating to Google that aren’t in the AP write-up. In particular, he says that while Jobs never seemed to like Schmidt, he had “mended the fences” with Googe cofounder and current CEO Larry Page:

The bio says Page came to Jobs for advice on how to be a good CEO and Jobs evidently gave Page advice that he has taken to heart (see here)

The bio quotes Jobs telling Page: “Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map.” (see here)

Jobs told Page Google had been putting out too many products “that are adequate but not great. They’re turning you into Microsoft.” Ouch (see here)

Jobs says he initially wanted to say “f-you” to Page, but remembered how Bill Hewlett advised him when he was young (see here)

Page was originally Google’s CEO before handing over to Schmidt in 2001, then resuming the role earlier this year. He’s known to have spoken to Jobs during the early years at Google. But I’m pretty sure the references above are all about Page and Jobs talking after Page resumed the CEO role this year.

Postscript: Liedtke tweeted to me that the meeting happened after Page became CEO this year, at the home of Jobs, which was three blocks away from where Page lives.

The New York Times has also obtained a copy of the bio, but its review so far in terms of Google hasn’t shed any new details in its story, other than in 2008, Jobs had  a shouting match with Page, Schmidt and Google cofounder Sergey Brin.

The Jobs bio goes on sale on October 24 in various places — here’s a link to it at Amazon, where it’s currently number 1 in best sellers, based on pre-sales. See also related coverage at Techmeme.