Google Value Questions Burn Bright

Reuters, which reported the Drummond story, quotes Google as saying Monday, "We have the utmost confidence in David's integrity, as well as his abilities as a Google executive. We do not expect that this matter will have any bearing on Google, Google's IPO or David Drummond's performance as Vice President, Corporate Development and General Counsel."

Meanwhile, Google's search engine was intermittently unavailable Monday as a result of a virus attack.

"The Google search engine experienced slowness for a short period of time early today because of the MyDoom virus, which flooded major search engines with automated searches," the company said in a statement. "At no point was the Google website significantly impaired, and service for all users and networks is expected to be restored shortly."