I’ve been taking a look around Larry Chase’s excellent Web Digest For Marketers. WDFM is a weekly email newsletter that delivers short reviews of marketing-oriented web sites. Scrolling to the bottom of the page, you’ll find short reviews of top tools, sites and companies across more than 40 categories.

As an example, take a look at Larry’s pick of the top SEO tools available for free.

Verne Kopytoff of the San Francisco Chronicle is one of the first journalists to cover news that Google has settled the class action suit on click fraud for $90m.

Lost in the breaking news was how this affects Ask.com and Yahoo, both defendents in the same suit.

Ask.com, the Oakland search engine, and also a defendant in the class action, said Wednesday that it expects to be removed from the lawsuit because of Google’s settlement. Ask.com was part of the litigation only because it displayed Google’s ads.

The lawsuit also named Yahoo Inc. as a defendant. However, unlike Google, the Sunnyvale Web portal said Wednesday that it plans to defend itself vigorously against the accusations.

Exclusive! In what appears to be a response to MSN adCenter’s demographic tools, Google has just added demographic targeting to AdWords campaigns. The feature is starting to show up for AdWords users.

From the AdWords site…

With the AdWords site tool, you can pick your preferences in up to three different demographic categories. The system will analyze your preferences and create a list of available Google Network sites that are popular with that audience. If you select multiple demographics, the AdWords system will look for sites that match all of your preferences. For instance, you might ask the site tool to look for sites popular with users who have children, or for sites popular with men earning a high income. The site tool will then return a list of sites whose audience tends to match those demographic descriptions.

English soccer player, Ashely Cole, is a little upset that when Google users searched for his name they were given the alternative “See results for: Ashley Cole gay”.

Obviously, Google’s just showing the most commonly searched phrase, they’re not actually suggesting anything. Still, Cole’s lawyer wants an explanation…

“…he is waiting for Google to respond to a request for “data” behind the searches.”

Hah! Let me know how that works out for you. The DOJ will be happy to share their experience on the subject.

According to a new report from eMarketer, paid search spend will slow to a paltry 26.2% growth this year.

If this is the “doom and gloom”, I’ll take it! What other industry can claim that despite slowing down, growth will still be double digits come 2010?

With thanks to MarktingVOX.

Danny Sullivan claims to have details of a $90 million settlement between Google and a click fraud class law suit.

That’s a big chunk of change and an amount that will surely encourage other companies to make a claim.

UPDATE: Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel for Google has revealed more details of the settlement.

Under the agreement with the plaintiffs, we are going to open up that window for all advertisers, regardless of when the questionable clicks occurred. For all eligible invalid clicks, we will offer credits which can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. We do not know how many will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million.

It looks like Michael Arrington has real screenshots and info on the new Google calendar, named CL2.

From the About page…

CL2 makes it easy — even effortless — to keep track of all the events in your life and compare them to what your friends and family have going on in theirs. We’ve designed a calendar that works for you — helping you add events from email, friends, and other public calendars — so you don’t have to spend all your time maintaining your schedule. CL2 even helps you discover new events you might be interested in.

Head over to TechCrunch for lots of screenshots.

UPDATE: Valleywag alleges a Yahoo employee is responsible for leaking the details of the Google calendar project.