Gates and co have admitted that a weakness in Internet Explorer allowed the Chinese government (allegedly) to attack the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, prompting Google to leave the country. And potentially causing a diplomatic incident.

News Corp, ever the online contrarian, is considering pulling all of its news content off of Google and doing an exclusive deal with Microsoft's Bing. For this, Rupert Murdoch would receive a pittance. Welcome to the future of paid media.

A National Security Agency director just bragged to a Senate subcommittee about his agency's close "cooperation" with Microsoft to, err, "enhance" how Windows 7 guards a user's privacy. Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Don Dodge used to be an official evangelist for Microsoft, hyping the company's software and insulting its competitor Google. Then Microsoft laid him off, and Google hired him. Cue the bitter, flip-flopping blog post in which Dodge loudly switches sides.

Paul Allen has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It's more tough news for the Microsoft co-founder, who has overcome more than his share of health problems before.

For the second time this week, News Corp. has promised to yank its content from Google, this time within "months." The conglomerate said loudly that search is profitless. But maybe that's just its way of making search hugely profitable.

No one likes Yahoo's search deal with Microsoft. Wall Street wanted more up front money; tech elites called it an abdication, a "shame" and "seppuku." Now Yahoo is losing a programming icon over the embarrassing arrangement.

Michael Arrington, the TechCrunch publisher and noted feuding diva, has "banned" Microsoft's PR firm Waggener Edstrom for a blown embargo. Forever. What huge scoop was stolen from him, by Microsoft's terrorist network?

Microsoft will begin its third 2009 layoff round as soon as this morning, TechFlash reports, because the software giant's growth has slowed. Conference rooms are already reserved. If you learn anything about the reboot, email us. (UPDATE: Social networking hit.)

Google takes it all back, baby. The company now acknowledges it was wrong to begrudge programmer Jon Skeet a Microsoft MVP Award, just because it came from The Enemy. He can accept the prize. But no whispering sweet nothings.

After much deliberation, Microsoft has decided against sponsoring the upcoming Family Guy special, 'Seth MacFarlane's Holocaust Incest Tampon Hour.' They join an illustrious list of Family Guy haters.

Business Insider thought to ask CNBC if they planned on apologizing for the network's epic snafu on Friday, when reporter Jim Goldman misreported Microsoft's announced expense reductions as revenue reductions, news that "bombed" the NASDAQ. Guess what? Nope.

It's been ten years since Microsoft decisively buried Netscape, and Silicon Valley is still frightened of the monster in Redmond, Washington. Even giant Google is paranoid; the company is increasingly said to be chasing Microsoft's tail lights.

With great power comes great responsibility, and with great responsibility comes great headaches. So after years as the hottest, most talked about startup in Silicon Valley, Twitter is ready to relinquish some control of the national conversation.

The Associated Press, self-declared enemy of internet evildoers, says it has seen some awesome new Microsoft search technology — top secret stuff — that will return its content to a position of total world domination. Google is so history.

Tech bloggers are in a tizzy over the prospect of tech giants Google or Microsoft getting real-time access to the thoughts of Twitterers, but Valleywag has learned that cash-hungry Twitter is already selling access to its "firehose" of data.

Each year starting in 2003, Microsoft has honored Jon Skeet for his extensive work helping people code in a Microsoft-developed programming language. But Skeet joined Google last year, and his new employer is apparently the jealous type.