Search giant's privacy boast proves too tempting

Google was left red-faced on Saturday when a bug in its Blogger software allowed an unauthorised user to post a comment on the official Google blog.

The post, which stayed up for around an hour before being pulled, claimed that Google had abandoned its click-to-call and Adwords partnership with eBay because of "monopolistic" concerns.

A post on the Google blog on Sunday confirmed that a bug in Blogger had enabled an unauthorised user to make a fake post on the Google Blog.

"The bug was fixed quickly and the post removed. As for the click-to-call test, it is progressing on schedule and we're pleased with the results thus far, " the blog said.

The day before the hack, Google had launched a new security page where it waxed lyrical on how the firm "takes security very seriously and designs all of its services and applications to protect your privacy and data security".

But the killer promise was: "We keep the bad guys out of our systems."