Google is talking to news service CNET after refusing to speak to any of its reporters for the last two months.

Elinor Mills, a reporter for News.com, earned the wrath of Google by writing a piece about privacy concerns raised by some of Google's business practises. To illustrate the point she spent half-an-hour finding some "private" info about Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. The search firm took exception to this despite the fact that all the information came from...you've guessed it...Google's search engine.

In early August, the search engine said it would not speak to any CNET reporters until July 2006. The year-long ban didn't seem to have much impact on news.com although they did add a slightly sarky paragraph to Google stories noting that the search giant had sent them to Coventry.

But now they're all friends again. Eric Schmidt was interviewed not just by CNET but by the privacy-busting Ms Mills. He was happy to talk about the size of his enormous index and Google's seventh birthday. Read the piece here. ®