HP CEO Mark Hurd has joined the board of directors at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media conglomerate, which should give him a nice view of any possible Microsoft-avoiding tie-up between News Corp. and Yahoo considering HP's printer chief Vyomesh Joshi sits on Yahoo's board. Reuters notes that Hurd will get to see a bit of Tom Perkins now. He's the VC who used to be on HP's board and let the cat out of the bag about its spying caper. Reuters was told Perkins suggested Hurd to Murdoch. Ironically Hurd will serve on the corporate governance committee. Speaking of pretexting, HP just settled up with a few of the reporters it spied on for an undisclosed amount of money. There's unsettled suits lodged by still other reporters.

Apple To Open Stores in New Countries
Apple is going to open stores in Munich, Geneva, Zurich and Belfast. It's a little bit vague on exactly when. Apple now has stores in the US, Canada, Japan, Italy and England.

Google Loses Half-a-Point of Share
Google's share of US online advertising dropped in Q4, its first setback in two years, according to IDC, which says the overall American market was up 28% to $7.3 billion. Google's estimated ad sales grew around 40%, but the quarter before it was 50% so IDC gave it 23.7% of the market in Q4, down a half point. A combined Yahoo-Microsoft, IDC says, would have had ~17% in Q4, described as a "fighting chance."