Gary and others alert me to the depth and approach taken by what Andy has noted seems to be denial of service attacks on Google - in fact, it's a virus that uses search engines in a clever and rather simple way to find more addresses. From a message forwarded to me by Gary (full text in continuation below):

MyDoom.O searches user files (DOC TXT HTM and HTML) for domain names, then
uses search engines (Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google) to search for
"e-mail" and the harvested domain in order to gain access to other email
addresses.

There is a strong likelihood that web-based lists such as phone books,
memberships, discussion boards and general user home pages will be
harvested by the machine and in turn infect others.

A search on Google using the same "e-mail" + domain method has generated a
"Forbidden" message, which may indicate activity on the part of the search
engines to thwart the virus.

Continue reading "The MyDoom Attack(s)" »