Search Biz: Schmidt Turns Down Obama; Google Stock Tumbling & More

Google CEO Eric Schmidt may have endorsed Barack Obama for president, but that doesn’t mean he wants to work in the Obama administration. According to Reuters, Schmidt told CNBC that he would not take on the role of “technology czar” if Obama were to ask him. “I love working at Google and I’m very happy to stay at Google, so the answer is no,” Schmidt said. He is, however, serving on Obama’s 17-person economic advisory board.

As I type this, Google stock is currently trading at its lowest price in three years, according to a Bloomberg report today. Today’s drop is said to be in response to comments from a Barclays analyst who cut his estimates on Google’s Q4 revenue and said that the economy is “finally catching up with Google and search.” Entering today’s trading, Google shares have already fallen 52 percent this year. Ouch.

Yahoo’s negotiations with both Google and Microsoft have cost the company $110 million, according to TG Daily. That’s a lot of cash that has, to this point, led Yahoo nowhere. The Google-Yahoo ad deal died last week, and Yahoo now seems to be begging Microsoft to re-open purchase talks.

GlobeSt.com is reporting that Yahoo will build two facilities in the Omaha, Nebraska, area at a cost of $100 million. One facility will be a 150,000-square-foot data center, and the other will be a customer care center. Yahoo did not comment on the reports.

Former Time Inc. executive Robin Domeniconi will take over U.S. advertising sales for Microsoft, according to a report in AdAge. Domeniconi’s new gig will include overseeing ad sales for Microsoft’s Live.com search engine, the MSN.com portal, mobile ads, ads on Facebook, and all of the company’s other advertising products.

Finally, from paidContent.org we learn that Razorfish CEO Clark Kokich says Microsoft has no plans to sell the online ad agency. But Kokich admits it might happen “two to three to four years from now.”