Yahoo claimed 20.6 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, according to comScore (SCOR).

But a year from now it will claim just 17.51 percent or less, its share gutted by the loss of deals that once made Yahoo’s the default search toolbar on new Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Acer PCs. With those spots now claimed by Microsoft Live Search and Google (GOOG), respectively, Yahoo stands to see an estimated decline of 15 percent in search traffic, according to some reports.

A nasty blow for a company with a search volume as long in decline as Yahoo’s. Nastier when you consider that a fair portion of that lost traffic will end up with Microsoft (MSFT), which will also be accruing traffic from a similar toolbar deal with Dell (DELL). And nastier still, because Yahoo (YHOO) is certain to lose premium advertising dollars if its market share dips below 20 percent.

Yahoo, of course, disputes such suggestions. And it insists the loss in traffic it will suffer from its failure to renew these toolbar deals won’t be as high as that 15 percent figure.

We’ll see, I suppose. As one former Yahoo search exec told Dow Jones, “[toolbar deals are] the cleanest driver of market share. It’s a really important way to get in front of people.”

Good thing too, because that uncertainty was pretty worrisome. Buried in the company’s recent Notification of Late Filing with the SEC, along with the now standard warning about the souring economy’s effect on business, was this little disclosure:

Management has not yet completed its evaluation as to whether substantial doubt exists relative to the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time. A significant element of that evaluation relates to uncertainties associated with funding of amounts stipulated in the aforementioned Investment Agreements. These uncertainties may not be resolved by the time the Company files its Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the event such uncertainties remain unresolved, management anticipates that KPMG LLP’s auditors’ report relative to the Company’s 2008 consolidated financial statements will contain an explanatory paragraph indicating substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

In addition to resulting in termination of further funding pursuant to the Investment Agreements, the inclusion of such a paragraph by KPMG LLP would result in a default under certain indebtedness of the Company, XM Holdings and XM Satellite Radio Inc. (“XM Inc.”) which defaults, if not cured or waived prior to the expiration of the applicable grace period, would result in an event of default under other indebtedness of the Company, XM Holdings and XM Inc. Such events of default, if they occur, provide the lenders the right to demand all amounts due under the respective agreements immediately due and payable.

What this means is that if KPMG’s assessment of the company is that it’s not able to continue as a “going concern” and the company had not at that time resolved its debt issues, it would automatically default. Presumably, now that Sirius (SIRI) has closed the Liberty (LINTA) deal, that’s no longer a possibility. Looming crisis averted.

Facebook really is That company. Which company? That one. That company that shows up once in a very long while–the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago. That company where large numbers of stunningly-brilliant people congregate and feed off each other’s genius. That company that’s doing with 60 engineers what teams of 600 can’t pull off. That company that’s on the cusp of Changing The World, that’s still small enough where each employee has a huge impact on the organization, where you think about working now and again, and where you know you’ll kick yourself in three years if you don’t jump on the bandwagon now, even after someone had told you that it was rolling toward the promised land. That company where everyone seems to be having the time of their life. … I’m serious. I have drunk from the Kool-Aid, and it is delicious.”

– Facebook manager Justin Rosenstein, June 15, 2007

Facebook manager Justin Rosenstein once described the social network as “the Google (GOOG) of yesterday, the Microsoft (MSFT) of long ago.” Today, Rosenstein perhaps views it as the Facebook of So Totally Last Week because he’s leaving the company, along with departing Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. Together the two hope to develop some sort of new extensible enterprise productivity suite, something that will be “to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life,” according to a post on Rosenstein’s Facebook page.

“We see this new venture as very complementary to Facebook,” Rosenstein explained. “We hope our products will become to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life. Our software will use Facebook Connect as the default option for identity and authentication. Our user interface will adopt many of Facebook’s conventions, creating a seamless and familiar experience for current Facebook users. And if our new development tools turn out to be useful, we hope the Facebook engineering team will come to adopt them.”

The departures are a blow to Facebook, which has been suffering something of a brain drain recently, and more specifically, to CEO Mark Zuckerberg who founded the company with Moskovitz while the two were undergraduates at Harvard.

The judgment is believed to be the largest anti-spam award to date. Not that it really matters, because MySpace (NWS) is unlikely to collect it. Wallace–who was by some estimates responsible for 80% of the spam on the Net back in his heyday–has rarely paid the judgments against him. Moreover, he has a bad habit of disappearing at the first sign of legal trouble.

And that appears to be exactly what he’s done here. Because the $230 million award given MySpace in this case is a default judgment meted out after Wallace failed to appear in court. “It is … a defendant’s responsibility to respond to discovery, obey court orders and avoid dilatory tactics,” the court wrote in its order. “Taking all of the above factors into account, a default is appropriate. The court finds that Wallace’s noncompliance is due to willfulness, fault or bad faith. … Wallace has had every opportunity to avoid the sanction of default. (He) has never provided any explanation for his behavior to the court.”