Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Read More..

Bob Dylan predicts Obama 'in a landslide'

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Bob Dylan says he thinks President Barack Obama is going to win a landslide.

Dylan made the prediction Monday night midway through the song "Blowin' in the Wind" during a concert in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

Dylan spoke to the Madison audience as he was wrapping up his concert that came just hours after Obama appeared at a morning rally in the same city with rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Dylan made his comments during his encore when he said, "We tried to play good tonight since the president was here today."

He went on to say he thinks Obama will prevail Tuesday.

Dylan says, "Don't believe the media. I think it's going to be a landslide."

After his comments, Dylan completed the song to the roar of the crowd.

Read More..

DealBook Column: The Election Won't Solve All Puzzles

Here comes more uncertainty.

It may sound counterintuitive, but whatever the outcome of the election — whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins — the economy and markets are likely to face more uncertainty, not less, over the coming year.

“Uncertainty” has become the watchword over the last several years for many chief executives, politicians and economists as an explanation — or perhaps an excuse — for the economy’s slow growth, for the lack of hiring by business and for the volatility in the stock market.

“The claim is that businesses and households are uncertain about future taxes, spending levels, regulations, health care reform and interest rates. In turn, this uncertainty leads them to postpone spending on investment and consumption goods and to slow hiring, impeding the recovery,” a group of professors from Stanford University and the University of Chicago wrote in a study that found “current levels of economic policy uncertainty are at extremely elevated levels compared to recent history.” (The professors have created a Web site, policyuncertainty.com, where you can track the “uncertainty” levels.)

Come Wednesday morning, we should know who our president will be. But the uncertainty hardly ends there.

Almost immediately after the elections, the next big talking point on Wall Street and in Washington is going to be the now infamous “fiscal cliff,” a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that was the result of a Congressional compromise reached last summer and is to take effect on Jan. 1, unless Congress finds an alternative. Some economists say the tax increases and spending cuts in the existing agreement could shave as much as 4 percent off G.D.P. if they are not renegotiated. Already, executives say that the uncertainty over the outcome of the fiscal cliff is causing them to hold back from making new investments.

But the greatest likelihood is that the fiscal cliff isn’t going to be resolved soon at all —the betting line of the political cognoscenti is that no matter who wins, Congress will find a way to kick the issue down the road, perhaps as far as the fall of 2013, providing a new cloud of uncertainty over the economy.

For investors, the fiscal cliff includes a tax increase on dividends (making them the equivalent of ordinary income, on which rates could rise to as high as 39.6 percent) and capital gains (up to 20 percent from 15 percent). In a note to clients sent out on Sunday night, Goldman Sachs said that it expected the rate for both dividends and capital gains to be negotiated to 20 percent in either a second Obama term or a Romney presidency. But more important, Goldman noted that when similar tax increases were on the table in 1970 and 1986, “the S.& P. 500 posted negative returns in the December prior to implementation as investors locked in the lower rate.” December, the report said, “has the second-highest average monthly return” since 1928.

Many investors have already begun selling stocks and companies in anticipation of tax increases. Speculation was rampant last week that one of the reasons for the timing of the sale of George Lucas’s company, Lucasfilm, to Disney for $4.1 billion in cash and stock, was the impending changes in tax policy. (Mr. Lucas has said that he plans to donate a majority of his wealth to charity.)

Once we get past the fiscal cliff, if we do at all, there is Europe. Remember Europe? The issues in Greece and Spain have managed to stay off the front pages during the election run-up, but they have not gone away. Some economists have argued that things have gotten worse. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, who will face election in 2013, said on Monday that the fiscal crisis in Europe was likely to last at least five years. “Whoever thinks this can be fixed in one or two years is wrong,” she said.

And don’t forget the Middle East. That “uncertainty” for the world — and the global economy — isn’t going away anytime soon either. Questions about a possible attack on Iran will persist under either candidate.

And finally, there is Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, one of the biggest uncertainties of them all. As I reported in this column two weeks ago, the greatest likelihood is that Mr. Bernanke will step down at the end of his term in early 2014 no matter who wins the election.

It’s possible — though unlikely — that his departure could happen even sooner if Mr. Romney wins. Over the next year and a half, Mr. Bernanke’s future as the Fed chairman will feed a sense of uncertainty among investors who have become accustomed to his easy money policies. If President Obama wins, he is likely to appoint a successor to Mr. Bernanke who is dovish on monetary policy, and more likely to keep printing money as Mr. Bernanke has, a strategy that comes with its own risks. If Mr. Romney wins, he may appoint a more hawkish chairman, a move that could create a different sense of uncertainty about how the Federal Reserve will unwind itself from Mr. Bernanke’s policies.

None of these issues are new. President Obama took office facing a fiscal policy dispute that was not and probably could not be settled given the gridlock in Congress. No solution is in sight for Europe’s problems. Tension in the Middle East is escalating as fast as nuclear technology. And the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is at its most opaque since the Reagan administration.

All of which shows that the comedian Jon Stewart is more on target than ever with the cheeky title of his election coverage on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. Carrying on a tradition, it is known as “Indecision 2012.”

Update that to 2013, and it’s good for another year.

A version of this article appeared in print on 11/06/2012, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: The Election Won’t Solve All Puzzles.
Read More..

Back to School, Bundled Up, but With Lingering Questions


Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times


George L. Egbert Intermediate School in Staten Island, deemed unable to reopen on Monday, is serving as a donation center.







Cots lined the hallways, and toilets were limited or clogged, so some evacuees went to the bathroom on the floor. Volunteers, gagging at air made more fetid by unwashed bodies, took to wearing masks. “We gave them wipes,” a volunteer said, “but there’s only so much you can do with wipes.”




Custodians spent Sunday scrubbing and mopping, preparing this makeshift storm shelter in Hell’s Kitchen, which at one point housed some 1,000 displaced men, women and children, for the return to its day job — as the High School of Graphic Communication Arts.


The rush to sanitize the school was just one piece of the sprawling, shifting logistical puzzle, some would say nightmare, as the city’s 1.1 million public school students faced an educational landscape drastically altered by Hurricane Sandy. The city said that 57 schools were too damaged to reopen, which meant the city had to find new places for their 34,000 students. Eight buildings that normally house 24,000 students currently serve as shelters, and are set to reopen on Wednesday, a target several educators believed unfeasible. It was still unclear on Sunday whether students and teachers would be sharing their buildings with people now using them for shelter. (Graphic Communication Arts housed people evacuated from Bellevue Hospital Center.)


As of Sunday afternoon, 29 schools remained without power, with parents, teachers and students — many of them storm victims themselves — unsure when classes might resume, though the Department of Education said they were hoping to open Wednesday. Some of those that will reopen Monday might not have heat; the mayor advised that students wear extra sweaters.


The state Education Department was updating its schools Web site Sunday with the latest information and placing full-page advertisements in some newspapers. The mayor said the city made 1.1 million robocalls to parents over the weekend, telling them the status of their schools, though many families received follow-up calls with different information as situations changed by the hour.


“It is complex and people are going to make mistakes, and people are going to get misinformed,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference Sunday. Noting that schools would be closed, as planned, for Election Day, he added: “We know that, but it’s better to have another day of school, get most kids to school, find out where we need more resources, and then we’ll have Tuesday to try to adjust.”


Around 300 of New Jersey’s 589 school districts were to remain closed on Monday, said Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the state Education Department. In a message Friday, John Bulina, president of the New Jersey School Boards Association, said it was possible some schools would “be unusable as educational facilities for quite some time.”


Some officials said they hoped to open schools by Wednesday, but cautioned against too much optimism. “Not all roads are safe for travel, student walkers, pickups and buses,” said an online note from Anthony Cacciola, the superintendent of the West Babylon school district, one of several on Long Island that were to be closed Monday. “The gas crisis,” he said, “has added another layer of great concern for staff travel and bus fuel.”


Students at the 57 New York City schools that cannot reopen will not relocate to their new schools until Wednesday. Sixteen schools in the eight buildings that have doubled as shelters were supposed to reopen Monday, but that date got bumped back two days after Department of Education officials toured the sites.


At Susan E. Wagner High School on Staten Island on Sunday, row upon row of cots made the gym look more like a Civil War field hospital than a high school. Piles of clothes and canned goods competed for space in the cafeteria with evacuees eating and milling about. Several dozen dogs, cats and birds — evacuees themselves — had taken up residence in the basement.


Because Staten Island was so brutally hit by Hurricane Sandy, it was not clear where all of the people housed in Wagner High School, which has 3,400 students, would go: many no longer had homes to return to.


Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, said the city was working with the Department of Homeless Services to ensure safe reopenings on Wednesday. But some staff members at schools being used as shelters were skeptical.


Read More..

The app's the thing as Shakespeare goes digital

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Dizzying array of media streams spotlight election

NEW YORK (AP) — The days of watching Election Night coverage on a single television set may soon be a quaint anachronism.

Americans have an array of alternatives for following returns on Tuesday night. Television news divisions are throwing everything they have into the story, and second-screen options are abounding.

People will be able to construct their own media experiences, seek out desired information instead of waiting for it, participate in conversations and hear analysis that reflects their own perspectives or none in particular.

Virtually all of the media organizations covering the election promise a huge amount of information available online, from interactive maps that display state-by-state results to data from exit polls.

It's expected to be a big night for social media, and news organizations say they will monitor the conversations and have their own journalists actively participate.

Don't forget show biz: NBC is turning the Rockefeller Center skating rink into a giant map of the United States to be filled in with results. ABC will make Times Square into a virtual studio, displaying results and coverage on huge video screens and having Josh Elliott prowl around gathering reactions.

Here's a quick guide to the lineup:

—Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos are ABC's anchor team, handling the job on Election Night for the first time. They have some big-name firepower: Barbara Walters is offering historical perspective and Katie Couric monitoring social media. A separate live stream, anchored by Dan Harris, will be shown on ABC and partner Yahoo!'s web sites. Clearly anticipating a late night, ABC has scheduled a special "Nightline" for 2:35 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

NBC's Brian Williams is the sole returning anchor from past Election Nights among the top three networks. David Gregory and Savannah Guthrie will join him, with anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw talking about trends and history. Chuck Todd will fill the nuts-and-bolts-numbers role handled memorably by the late Tim Russert. NBC will live stream its coverage on various platforms, including Facebook.

—Scott Pelley of CBS News will also be anchoring his first Election Night broadcast, with Bob Schieffer, Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson will join him. Byron Pitts is monitoring congressional races, and Anthony Mason analyzing exit poll data.

—CNN is activating a battalion for its coverage from its new Washington studio. Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper are the anchors, with 10 analysts lined up to deliver opinions. The network is also dispatching 29 reporters to 20 separate locations across the country, including five in Ohio and two in New Hampshire.

—Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly are co-anchors for Fox News Channel's coverage, with analysis from Chris Wallace and Brit Hume. Bill O'Reilly and Greta Van Susteren will appear, the latter assigned to interview Sarah Palin throughout the evening. Fox also appears to be the only network with a reporter, Eric Shawn, assigned to cover voter fraud. The Fox broadcasting network airs separate coverage anchored by Shepard Smith. The Fox Business Network will also have its own coverage, anchored by Neil Cavuto with Stuart Varney and Lou Dobbs.

—Rachel Maddow is the star of MSNBC's show, with the rest of the network's prime-time team chiming in. Like big brother NBC, MSNBC's coverage will originate from the Democracy Plaza set at Rockefeller Center.

—PBS is offering online coverage all day Election Day, switching to TV in the evening. Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff will be co-anchors. PBS has its own team of historians, Michael Beschloss and Richard Norton Smith, to take the big picture approach.

—C-SPAN will also take its minimalist approach to coverage on its two separate networks, offering results and victory and concession speeches from around the country.

—Former Vice President Al Gore, the star of his own Election Night drama 12 years ago, will spend Tuesday leading Current's coverage, which also prominently features live Twitter streams.

—For those who want specific ideological filters, Glenn Beck is in charge of Election Night coverage on his website The Blaze, and The Daily Kos website is promoting its own radio commentary.

—Longtime CNN anchor Larry King will be on duty Election Night on the digital network Ora TV.

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Chelation Therapy Shows Slight Benefit in Heart Disease Clinical Trial


LOS ANGELES — To the surprise of many cardiologists, a controversial alternative therapy proved beneficial to people with heart disease, reducing the rate of death and cardiovascular problems in a clinical trial, researchers said on Sunday.


The benefit of the treatment, known as chelation therapy, barely reached statistical significance, and there were questions about the reliability of the study. Even the investigators in the trial said the results were insufficient by themselves to justify recommending use of the treatment.


Still, the unexpected finding should provide some vindication to the National Institutes of Health for sponsoring the $30 million study, which was plagued by delays and problems.


“There may be a biological effect and that biological effect should be taken seriously,” and “pursued with additional research,” Dr. Gervasio A. Lamas of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, the lead investigator, said at a news conference here at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association.


Dr. Elliott Antman, representing the heart association, applauded the National Institutes of Health for sponsoring the study while also expressing caution. “Intriguing as these results are, they are unexpected and should not be interpreted as an indication to adopt chelation therapy into clinical practice,” said Dr. Antman, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.


Chelation therapy involves the infusion of agents that remove metals from the bloodstream.


More than 100,000 Americans with heart disease undergo chelation therapy each year, at a cost of about $5,000 per course of treatment, experts here said. The hypothesis is that chelation can remove the calcium that is a contributor to arterial plaques.


But skeptics said there was not enough evidence backing chelation therapy to even begin a clinical trial. Proponents of the study said that since chelation therapy was already widely used, it should be subject to the same rigorous scientific testing used to study conventional pharmaceuticals.


And some skeptics were not persuaded at all. Dr. Steven Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said the study was “fatally flawed,” with many of the doctors involved being on the fringes of medicine and many patients dropping out of the trial. He said if people got the mistaken idea from the study that chelation was beneficial “it would be a public health catastrophe.”


The study, which began enrolling patients in 2003, was plagued by problems from the start. It fell way behind its goal of recruiting nearly 2,400 patients in three years. The trial was also suspended in 2008 for investigations by government agencies, one over conduct at trial sites and the other about whether patients were being adequately informed that chelation can cause death. The study was allowed to resume the next year, after some changes were made.


The trial ended up with 1,708 patients at 134 centers in the United States and Canada. The patients all had had previous heart attacks.


Half the patients received the chelation therapy, a synthetic amino acid called disodium ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid, or EDTA, as well as other substances. These were given by infusion every week for 30 weeks, followed by 10 more infusions at intervals of two to eight weeks. The other half received infusions of placebo.


After a follow-up of 55 months, 26 percent of those who received chelation therapy had died, suffered a heart attack or stroke, had a procedure to reopen a coronary artery or had been hospitalized for angina. That was less than the 30 percent for those who received a placebo, a difference that was barely statistically significant.


Doctors said there were reasons for caution.


Virtually all the of difference between the treatment and the placebo groups occurred in the third of patients who had diabetes. The placebo contained some sugar, which conceivably could have harmed the diabetics. Also, at least within the first two years, the chelation therapy did not improve physical functioning or psychological well being, according to surveys of the patients.


Dr. Mark A. Creager, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was not involved in the study, said the chelation infusion also contained a high dose of vitamin C and the blood thinner heparin. It could be that one of those ingredients, not the chelation agent, were responsible for any benefit, he said.


Dr. Lamas, the lead investigator, said the chelation treatment was well tolerated. But he said investigators did not yet know why some patients receiving the therapy dropped out of the trial.


Another study presented at the heart meeting on Sunday found coronary bypass surgery superior to the use of stents for patients with diabetes and multiple heart blockages.


The trial involved 1,900 patients followed for five yeas. About 27 percent of those who received stents either died or had a heart attack or stroke, compared with about 19 percent of those undergoing bypass surgery. There was an increase in stroke risk with surgery, but that was outweighed by fewer deaths and heart attacks.


Previous studies had already suggested that surgery was better for diabetic patients with severe coronary disease, and practice guidelines already say it is “reasonable” to choose surgery. But the new study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, shows the same result even using modern drug-covered stents.


About 700,000 Americans undergo artery opening procedures for more than one blood vessel each year, and about 25 percent of them have diabetes, according to the investigators.


The study results were also published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific provided the stents used in the study.


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In Ohio, 2 Campaigns Offer a Study in Contrasts




The Ohio Ground Game:
In the final days of the presidential race, Ohio voters are being courted and pestered on the airwaves, on the phone and at their homes.







CINCINNATI — Inside a peeling former nightclub here, Obama volunteers are perched on any seats they can find, trays of half-eaten sandwiches line an old mirrored bar and a hand-scrawled list of “office needs” includes toilet paper and Teddy Grahams.




But if this campaign office conveys a casual, ragtag feel, it belies a sprawling operation with an intricate chain of command, volunteers who have been here for years and a lexicon worthy of the military. Volunteer red, white and blue team captains bear particular duties for getting voters to the polls, not to mention “comfort captains,” assigned to tend to coffee, meals and sore feet.


After extensive test runs the past few weekends for this Election Day get-out-the-vote machine, an Obama staff member held one final meeting with volunteers in a back room the other night, saying, “Next Tuesday, it’s showtime!”


The Kenwood Romney Victory Center — one of but three in this county around Cincinnati, five fewer than the Obama camp — is 10 miles and a world away. Inside a suburban office building populated by insurance firms and walk-in medical clinics, there are no dry runs, no flowchart bureaucracy and fewer young faces; many of the 20 or so volunteers are north of middle age.


What there is, is passion.


As a marathon campaign in Ohio nears a conclusion that its weary residents surely yearn for, the contest between President Obama and Mitt Romney has devolved into political trench warfare. It is a close-quarters fight: Mr. Obama’s operation, built over four years with more than a hundred offices around Ohio and hundreds more living rooms, office basements and even garages set aside as Election Day “staging locations,” versus the raw anger, worry and drive of a more recent set of Romney organizers.


At age 62 still as earnest as a college student, Edward R. O’Donnell left his music production company in the hands of associates to walk neighborhoods for Mr. Romney, driven by a growing panic that government debt is dragging the nation into bankruptcy. Like many here, “I have never been involved in an election campaign before,” he said. But, he added, “I committed months ago to doing anything and everything I can to try to change that direction.”


The outcome rides largely on which campaign succeeds in getting its supporters to the polls by pestering, begging, calling, offering early-voting instructions or Election Day buses and then pestering some more. It is a competition that has played out here with paid workers and volunteers in a strange universe of sleep deprivation, interminable door-to-door marches through cold rains, borrowed guest rooms and donated junk food.


In Cincinnati, the signs of the showdown are everywhere — not just from the campaigns, but also from a vast array of groups that have descended, knocking on the doors of residents so exhausted by all the knocks that one resident warded off more by posting an announcement on her front door that she had voted early and was, thank you very much, done.


The fight is bitter, with reports of yard signs stolen, run over and even set afire, political phone calls so endless that at least one man was answering his home telephone by barking “Romney” rather than hello, and tales of front-door confrontations ending in curse words or worse.


“There’s nothing coming in this house that has the word ‘Obama’ on it,” one man told Liz Ping, an Obama volunteer, when she appeared at a doorstep. After the two disagreed over who ought to be blamed for the nation’s debt, Ms. Ping, who is 61 and retired, was chased from the porch and down the driveway, she recalled.


“We’re the tip of the spear,” she said.


One rejected Romney door knocker said, “I just tell them, ‘You can run me out of here, but somebody will be back next week unless you vote.’ ”


Publicly, at least, strategists on both sides here claim the edge.


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Foxx, Wonder among stars honoring Eddie Murphy

LOS ANGELES (AP) — However riotous the Eddie Murphy stories from Arsenio Hall, Tracy Morgan, Adam Sandler and Russell Brand, the highlight of Spike TV's tribute to Eddie Murphy was the comedian's duet with Stevie Wonder.

Murphy joined the subject of one of his most classic impressions for a rousing rendition of Wonder's 1973 hit "Higher Ground" during the taping of the Spike TV special "Eddie Murphy: One Night Only," which is set to air Nov. 14. The Roots served as the house band.

Jamie Foxx, Tyler Perry, Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock and Keenan Ivory Wayans were also among those paying tribute to Murphy Saturday at the Saban Theater.

Accompanied by a pretty blonde, Murphy beamed throughout the two-hour program Saturday, saying he was touched by the tribute.

"I am a very, very bitter man," he said with a beguiling smile. "I don't get touched easily, and I am really touched."

Morgan called Murphy "my comic hero" and came onstage wearing a replica of Murphy's red leather suit from his standup show "Delirious."

"He set the tone for the whole industry a long time ago," Morgan said before Saturday's tribute. "He inspired me in a fearless way."

Sandler said he was still in high school when he first saw "Delirious," which he described as "one of the most legendary standup specials of all time."

"Everybody on the planet wanted to be Eddie," he said. "He funnier than us. He's cooler than any of us."

Samuel L. Jackson said Murphy "changed the course of American film history" by giving Jackson his first speaking role on the big screen, in 1988's "Coming to America."

"If it weren't for Eddie, we might not have all the wonderful films that I've made," Jackson said.

"He is a true movie star," Jackson continued, lauding Murphy's performance in "48 Hours" and "Beverly Hills Cop." ''You became an inspiration for all young African-American actors."

The program featured clips of Murphy's standup shows, his film appearances in "Shrek" and "Nutty Professor" and his work on "Saturday Night Live."

Murphy insisted before the tribute that he is retired.

"I'm just a retired old song and dance man," he said, adding that he only makes rare appearances these days. "That's what you do when you're retired: You come out every now and then and talk about the old days."

The 51-year-old entertainer took the stage at the conclusion of the tribute to say that he was moved by the honor.

"This is really a touching moving thing, and I really appreciate it," he said. "You know what it's like when you have something like this? You know when they sing happy birthday to you? It's like that for, like, two hours... and I am Eddied out."

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites


Annie Tritt for The New York Times


Jeffrey G. Katz, the chief executive of Wize Commerce, seen with employees. He says that about 60 percent of the traffic for the company’s Nextag comparison-shopping site comes from Google.





In a geeky fire drill, engineers and outside consultants at Nextag scrambled to see if the problem was its own fault. Maybe some inadvertent change had prompted Google’s algorithm to demote Nextag when a person typed in shopping-related search terms like “kitchen table” or “lawn mower.”


But no, the engineers determined. And traffic from Google’s search engine continued to decline, by half.


Nextag’s response? It doubled its spending on Google paid search advertising in the last five months.


The move was costly but necessary to retain shoppers, Mr. Katz says, because an estimated 60 percent of Nextag’s traffic comes from Google, both from free search and paid search ads, which are ads that are related to search results and appear next to them. “We had to do it,” says Mr. Katz, chief executive of Wize Commerce, owner of Nextag. “We’re living in Google’s world.”


Regulators in the United States and Europe are conducting sweeping inquiries of Google, the dominant Internet search and advertising company. Google rose by technological innovation and business acumen; in the United States, it has 67 percent of the search market and collects 75 percent of search ad dollars. Being big is no crime, but if a powerful company uses market muscle to stifle competition, that is an antitrust violation.


So the government is focusing on life in Google’s world for the sprawling economic ecosystem of Web sites that depend on their ranking in search results. What is it like to live this way, in a giant’s shadow? The experience of its inhabitants is nuanced and complex, a blend of admiration and fear.


The relationship between Google and Web sites, publishers and advertisers often seems lopsided, if not unfair. Yet Google has also provided and nurtured a landscape of opportunity. Its ecosystem generates $80 billion a year in revenue for 1.8 million businesses, Web sites and nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, it estimates.


The government’s scrutiny of Google is the most exhaustive investigation of a major corporation since the pursuit of Microsoft in the late 1990s.


The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has recommended preparing an antitrust suit against Google, according to people briefed on the inquiry, who spoke on the condition they not be identified. But the commissioners must vote to proceed. Even if they do, the government and Google could settle.


Google has drawn the attention of antitrust officials as it has moved aggressively beyond its dominant product — search and search advertising — into fields like online commerce and local reviews. The antitrust issue is whether Google uses its search engine to favor its offerings like Google Shopping and Google Plus Local over rivals.


For policy makers, Google is a tough call.


“What to do with an attractive monopolist, like Google, is a really challenging issue for antitrust,” says Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former senior adviser to the F.T.C. “The goal is to encourage them to stay in power by continuing to innovate instead of excluding competitors.”


SPEAKING at a Google Zeitgeist conference in Arizona last month, Larry Page, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said he understood the government scrutiny of his company, given Google’s size and reach. “There’s very many decisions we make that really impact a lot of people,” he acknowledged.


The main reason is that Google is continually adjusting its search algorithm — the smart software that determines the relevance, ranking and presentation of search results, typically links to other Web sites.


Google says it makes the changes to improve its service, and has long maintained that its algorithm weeds out low-quality sites and shows the most useful results, whether or not they link to Google products.


“Our first and highest goal has to be to get the user the information they want as quickly and easily as possible,” says Matt Cutts, leader of the Web spam team at Google.


But Google’s algorithm is secret, and changes can leave Web sites scrambling.


Consider Vote-USA.org, a nonprofit group started in 2003. It provides online information for voters to avoid the frustration of arriving at a polling booth and barely recognizing half the names on the ballot. The site posts free sample ballots for federal, state and local elections with candidates’ pictures, biographies and views on issues.


In the 2004 and 2006 elections, users created tens of thousands of sample ballots. By 2008, traffic had fallen sharply, says Ron Kahlow, who runs Vote-USA.org, because “we dropped off the face of the map on Google.”


As founder of a search-engine optimization company and a recipient of grants that Google gives nonprofits to advertise free, Mr. Kahlow knows a thing or two about how to operate in Google’s world. He pored over Google’s guidelines for Web sites, made changes and e-mailed Google. Yet he received no response.


“I lost all donations to support the operation,” he said. “It was very, very painful.”


A breakthrough came through a personal connection. A friend of Mr. Kahlow knew Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google. Mr. Black made an inquiry on Mr. Kahlow’s behalf, and a Google engineer investigated.


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