A Facebook user logs into his account in Ottawa,Canada. Credit: Sean Kilpatrick / Associated Press

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, was on leave from her job at IBM for the last year and a half because of a diagnosis of major depression. When the payments suddenly stopped recently, she called her employer's insurance company to find out why. In an interview with the CBC, Blanchard said she was told "I'm available to work because of Facebook."

She said the insurance company representative described photos on her Facebook page that showed her at her birthday party, on vacation and at the all-male revue. The company stripped her of her benefits, saying the photos were evidence she was no longer depressed.

Blanchard didn't deny the existence of the photos, but she said they were not a true indication that she had been cured. "In the moment I'm happy," she said in the interview, "but before and after I have the same problems."

She also said her doctor had advised her to have nights out with friends to help her forget her problems. Blanchard is fighting the cutting off of her benefits, and to that end has filed a civil suit in Quebec Superior Court.

Insurer Manulife declined to comment on the case, but in a statement to the CBC it said, "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

-- David Colker

A crudely altered photograph of Michelle Obama, which often comes up as the first result on a Google image search of her name, will not be removed from the company's search process despite protests that the depiction is racist and repugnant.

"It's offensive to many people, but that alone is not a reason to remove it from our search index," Google spokesman Scott Rubin said. "We have, in general, a bias toward free speech."

The image, which depicts the first lady as having monkey-like features, is posted on a blog called "Hot Girls" without explanation. The blog post also contains several legitimate photographs of Michelle Obama. (The image is also posted on other sites that get high spots.)

Although Google won't alter the search result process that places the offending image in top spots, the company placed a house advertisement above it with the headline, "Offensive Search Results." Clicking on the ad takes the user to a statement that says, "We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google."

The statement apologizes "if you've had an upsetting experience using Google," but it states that a site is not removed from its process unless the content is illegal or violates the company's webmaster guidelines. Rubin said there was nothing in the guidelines that deals with this kind of imagery.

Google has posted similar statements in rare instances, most notably in 2004 when searches on "Jew" resulted in the top spot going to a virulently anti-Semitic site. Rubin said the statement is sometimes used in situations when there are "offensive search results on an innocuous query."

The "Hot Girls" blog has an additional Google connection: It was produced using Blogger, an online tool owned by the search company. And it resides on the Blogger platform, which provides online real estate for blogs and is also owned by Google.

Rubin said Blogger users have to adhere to the site's terms of service, but he was unaware of any language in that agreement that would affect the use of the Obama depiction.

A different website containing the same depiction was banned by Google several days ago, but only because the site was deemed to contain malware that could spread a virus or similar online malady. When a site is dropped from Google's index, the search engine will not present it as a result.

-- David Colker

Today’s links of interest:

• For Wal-Mart and Amazon, the First Round of a Price Fight
  In the fight to the bottom, the two are willing to destroy their own businesses for the dubious privilege of, um, selling below cost. May not be the customer builder they anticipate. Bonus: photo of Stephen King signing at Wal-Mart; funny because he denounced low book prices as killing publishing.
• Record exec arrested for refusing to send a tweet asking Bieber-maddened crowd to disperse
  Really?
• The Coming Search Engine Media Wars
  Yay. Can’t wait. Oh, right, don’t have to. This will only harm News Corp and cost Microsoft money. It won’t actually slow down process for the rest of us, since the news will be on Twitter first.
• RIP Joost
  Which finally answers the burning question: whatever happened to Joost?
• WMG’s Bronfman Still Disappointed By Video Game Income
  Breaking: video game industry disappointed by Warner Music.
• Time Inc.’s Squires Assembles Team of Rivals to Harness Digital Media
  Which will be challenging you. Digital media loves to run wild!
• Disney Studios drama might alter the industry
  Disney looks to major restructuring of business, business practices. Worry? What may get lost in the shuffle are non-branded original ideas that have no pre-awareness. Once we figure out what that means, we’ll start worrying.

When I learned how to ride a bike, my father ran behind me screaming as I precariously teeter-tottered over an unforgiving cement surface. He was followed by my mother, who was hysterically screaming at him because her daughter was, well, inches away from needing a skin graft on her face. 

According to GyroBike, a company based in San Francisco, my family's momentary hysteria could have been avoided.

GyroBike is releasing a wheel in December that allegedly trains kids how to ride bikes. Inside the wheel there is a disk that spins like a top, using a force called gyroscopic precession to stay upright. When a rider wobbles, the wheel re-centers the bike.

"It simulates fast riding at low speeds," said Ashleigh Harris, GyroBike's marketing director.

Harris said that unlike training wheels, Gyrowheels teach riders correct riding techniques and enforce muscle memory. She added that most of the kids who tested the product learned how to ride a bike within an hour.

The Gyrowheel comes with internal rechargeable batteries and a charger. It has three stability settings -- high, medium and low -- and works like a regular wheel when shutoff. The company will release the 12-inch wheel Dec. 1 for $99.95. The 16-inch wheel will be released in the spring.

The concept for this product was developed by four undergraduate Dartmouth students. Daniella Reichstetter, who was in Dartmouth's business school at the time, took on the project and founded GyroBike in 2007.

-- Melissa Rohlin

Sony has a fun little Facebook-app that lets you post auto-tuned audio-status-updates to your wall …the best thing to happen since the T-Pain iPhone app.