In terms of search wars, Microsoft may not win but they are investing over $1 Billion dollars into there search products, things like the new Beta version of IE7 and the Windows Live live.com are huge improvements which will eat at G’s share when ever Windows Vista is finally launched.
Chockee,
Yeah, you would think that there is a lot of stake, and that they would combat it. However, I think that they are thinking bottom line, and choose to ignore the problems. Spam sites (MFA and others) have proliferated through Google at alarming rates, and the whole click fraud thing is an other arena that is going against them these days at alarming proportions.
To me, Google appears to be saying that the bottom line rules all, and until they see some dropoff from that element, they will let things go as is. I seriously believe that this decision will be the (long-term) demise of Google.