It’s a little stunning to contemplate how wrong things have gone for Google (NSDQ: GOOG) in just the first month of 2012, as the company hopes to put a disastrous January in the rear-view mirror with perhaps another tear-jerking Super Bowl ad this Sunday. Larry Page and Sergey Brin haven’t turned into Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis or anything, but Google just endured the worst month in the company’s history and nothing will get easier as rivals and the government take aim at what used to be such a delightful fuzzy little tech success story.

Even if you throw the exploding tablet market in with the staid PC market, shipments of smartphones surpassed those of “client PCs” in 2011, a milestone for the computer industry.

When Apple first released its free iBooks Author software, some were upset about its end-user licensing agreement, which states that works created in the program must be sold exclusively through Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The company has now tweaked the EULA to make it a bit more clear.

The U.S. government likes to do things its own way. Along those lines, it has decided to embrace Android as a smartphone platform for soldiers and other government employees because of the control it can exert over the software, which in turn underscores how much control Android partners have over the software.

About.com is in free fall. The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) revealed yesterday that its network of information sites suffered a 67% drop in profits and that revenues had fallen by a quarter.

Books-A-Million—the nation’s second largest bookstore chain after Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS)—announced today that, like B&N, it will not carry Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Publishing titles in its stores.

Much has been made of the mobile risks that Facebook laid out in its S-1 IPO filing earlier this week. Essentially, it’s seeing/pushing massive growth in mobile, but it still hasn’t tried out advertising, its most effective route to revenues, on this platform. That’s not to say it won’t. But meanwhile, there is another area where Facebook is already making money through mobile.

The French are kicking Google (NSDQ: GOOG) again. This time, in a strange ruling, Paris’ commercial court has found the company is anti-competitive because it offers Google Maps for free to businesses.

In the mid-2000s, a technology called Kaleidescape was all the rage among the Hollywood intelligensia. Fillmakers like Brett Ratner and high-end consumers raved about Kaleidescape, which lets owners upload their entire DVD collections onto one centralized hard drive that can be accessed from any screening room in their swanky homes.

The company behind the service had big plans to take it to the mass market, but then the studios set out to block the move, touching off an eight-year legal battle.

Random House is now the only big six publisher to allow unrestricted access to all of its e-books in libraries—and it said yesterday it will continue to do so, though it is raising prices.

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:

»  10 Key Statistics about Facebook (Experian Hitwise)

»  Analysis: A sobering look at Facebook (Reuters)

»  Advertisers’ Free Ride May End On Facebook (Wall Street Journal)

»  Europe Wants Google (NSDQ: GOOG) To Freeze Its New Privacy Policy (paidContent)

»  Yammer Time: In 2011 “Pretty Much Everything Tripled” (Tech Crunch)

An influential European privacy body has urged Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to “pause” its new privacy policy due to be implemented in March. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party wrote a letter to Larry Page…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) in the last 24 hours has been dealt not one but two blows in court cases involving Motorola (NYSE: MMI) and patents in Germany, one involving IP licensing on older iPhone models (not the 4S) and one involving iCloud. However, as the day progressed, an injunction on the sale of the older iPhone models was lifted as the cases continue to develop.

In what is becoming a ritual akin to Superbowl Week itself, federal prosecutors today announced the seizure of 16 websites that offered live streaming of sporting events and 291 others that sold counterfeit sports merchandise.

The hacking investigation that led to the shutdown of News of the World has spread to another News International newspaper, The Times,  police correspondence sent to campaigning MP Tom Watson shows. And its editor has been recalled to discuss it at the government’s hearings on media ethics.