When in extreme profound adoration or reverence to something, people are known devote a lot of time and attention to it. Religion is one of those areas. And if you’re wondering what this has to do with online marketing I’ll get to the point. Some people worship Google and one has started a church about it called The Google Church.

Is Google God? It asks. Is God female? I ask. I’m not going to take that on, but in the Church of Google she is. She organizes the world’s information. She is everywhere. She is always expanding. She doesn’t forget either (a trait I love mostly and hate sometimes). We turn to her when we are in need or want answers.

Microsoft Office Live Small Business offers a suite of services to help small businesses register domains, put up websites, direct PPC campaigns and establish a presence on the Internet. And now they’re offering search engine marketing services and education.

In the announcement today, Microsoft said they’ve reached an agreement with The Search Agency to add search engine marketing services to their Office Live Small Business offerings. Microsoft explains their logic:

“As more and more small businesses get online, marketing their Web sites is crucial to business success,” said Baris Cetinok, director of project management and marketing for Office Live Small Business at Microsoft Corp. “Our goal is to make search engine marketing and optimization accessible to the small-business owner who recognizes their importance but may not be sure where to start.”

Last week Google and Microsoft were at Senate hearings in the US about Google’s plan to buy DoubleClick. Google is to spend $3.1 billion in a deal that was first announced in April. This week the news is focused on the same deal in Germany.

According to Google the acquisition will enable more innovation and competition. It will help businesses and consumers. Microsoft is crying monopoly and there are frequent concerns from Microsoft and others about privacy. And there is the now-famous Amazon.com and UPS/FedEx analogy.

This is the way Google put it: we sell ads, Doubleclick delivers ads. In Germany the data protection commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein doesn’t agree. He is opposing the deal.

Google is showing the rest of the world how to be model corporate citizens. It’s encouraging to see their dedication to social issues like the environment. They have just announced International Cleanup Weekend on October 13-14th. That’s next Saturday and Sunday.

The project started with Google employees. They cleaned up local beaches, parks, and trails in California and tracked their progress using My Maps. Now it’s a much bigger effort. They have partnered with community action organizations in fifteen countries to encourage the same thing on a bigger scale. I envision the same thing again in April for Earth Day. No word if it will be an annual event.