Zoe Lofgren (D-CA, @RepZoeLofgren) and Anna Eshoo (D-PhRMA, @RepAnnaEshoo) add their names to the list of members of Congress telling the FTC to abdicate their responsibility to oversee antitrust activity and just let Google do whatever the heck it wants.

I had the opportunity to speak with Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer Gary Reback yesterday, who filed the amicus brief on behalf of Consumer Watchdog opposing the proposed settlement between Google and the FTC over the Safari hack. He will be in court tomorrow presenting arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston.

While the American commentariat (including us, guilty as charged) were obsessively sniffing the Petraeus panty drawer, the British tabloids were in high dudgeon over the appearance of Google VP for Northern Europe Matt Brittin before the Public Accounts Select Committee.

Hollande was apparently not amused with this monopolistic high-handedness, and so today the French tax authorities filed a $1.3 billion dollar claim against Google to pressure them into a settlement, per France’s weekly Canard Enchaine.

The only exception is “sensitive” data about you, which they define as your “race, religion, sexual orientation or health.” Anything else is apparently fair game, so if you decide to “get your Google back,” make sure you control how they “get” you.

Google revenues from outside of the United States totaled $6.11 billion for the third quarter, or 53% of their total revenues. It’s difficult to see how the EU challenging the legality of their practices is not a threat to both Google’s business plan and as well as their bottom line.

Google’s incredible profits didn’t materialize out of nothing. They are derived because as the news audience has migrated online, Google has skimmed the lion’s share of news advertizing revenues for itself. That money used to go to pay for investigative reporting. Google’s glittering balance sheet basically comes from driving the 4th estate out of business.

Some tech reporters rightly noted that with the formation of the Internet Association, it looks like Google is getting the SOPA band back together again. But nobody asked the rather obvious question: why an industry that spent $129 million on lobbying in 2011 needed yet another lobbing shop, especially when the Net Coalition already exists.

Ahem. Allow Bytegeist to read the tea leaves.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney has issued a press release, congratulating Google for “doing the right thing” and removing the Utoopi Android Sex App targeted at students from Google Play:

Now that big players like Craigslist and The Village Voice have been pushed out of the sex advertising marketplace, the Utoopi episode has the appearance of Google not looking too hard in order to sweep up the business they left behind.