And some memos are “confidential”–meaning there’s no real expectation that they’ll stay within the family.

You’d assume that Eric Schmidt’s memo to “Googlers” announcing big raises falls in the latter category. If that’s all Googlers, that’s some 23,300 people, so that’s pretty much the same thing as issuing a press release, right?

But Google thinks otherwise, says CNNMoney’s David Goldman. He reports that the company has fired an engineer who passed the information along to Business Insider yesterday:

Within hours, Google notified its staff that it had terminated the leaker, several sources told CNNMoney. A Google spokesman declined to comment on the issue, or on the memo.

I’ve gone ahead and asked Google for comment as well, but I’m not hopeful. (UPDATE: I can see the future! No comment from Google.) In the absence of one, I’ll speculate that Google was freaked out that the “leak” would cause it problems with Wall Street and/or the SEC.

But again, if that’s the case, that makes no sense–you can’t hand out big fat checks to 23,300 people and keep it quiet indefinitely.

And since the point of the raises is to keep Googlers happy in a hot job market–and presumably, to help recruit new Googlers–you’d think Google would want the “confidential” memo distributed. Right?

I gather that some of you agree with Google on this one. Since the company won’t talk, feel free to make their case for them in the comments below.

The layoffs at Fox Interactive Media moved on to Photobucket today, as one-third of its staff of about 120 were let go, sources close to the situation said.

The photo- and video-hosting service was bought for $250 million in mid-2007 by News Corp. (NWS).

A FIM spokesperson confirmed the layoffs after being contacted by BoomTown, but declined to give specific numbers. But sources told me a total of up to 75 people were fired.

“As part of our continuing review of each of the FIM business units, employees were informed of job cuts today at several of our sites. We made these cuts to ensure that our resources are aligned properly with our business goals, and at a scale that will enable us to operate as efficiently as possible,” said the FIM spokesperson.

It is all part of a series of job cuts that are now hitting FIM properties other than MySpace.

The social-networking site has seen massive layoffs over the last two weeks, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Photobucket was hardest kicked, with 35 people fired, while other properties, such as the IGN videogame and entertainment unit, had the other layoffs spread among them.

Cuts at IGN, for example, were minimal, and it was also hiring in other parts of its business.

FIM’s whole structure itself is undergoing a shift, along with a likely name change, as BoomTown previously reported.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Bear with me, because it’s a bit knotty: Last week, Friedman, a gossip columnist for News Corp.’s FoxNews.com, wrote up a glowing review of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” the newest X-Men movie from News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox studio. The problem is that the movie won’t be released until May, and Friedman was reviewing an unfinished “work copy” that got leaked to the Web last week amid much hubbub.

And the real problem, according to Friedman’s employers, was that his review appeared to endorse online movie piracy. So he’s been fired.

Or has he? News Corp. (NWS) officials say he’s already gone. Here’s their official statement:

“Roger Friedman’s views in no way reflect the views of News Corporation. We, along with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy. When we advised Fox News of the facts they took immediate action, removed the post, and promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.”

But Fox News’s statement is more circumspect and less specific: “This is an internal matter that we’re not prepared to discuss at this time.” I haven’t heard back from Friedman yet, but last night he was telling Variety that he hadn’t been canned.

We should know more soon: A person familiar with the matter told me that Fox News officials will be meeting to discuss Friedman’s fate this morning. The Huffington Post and Gawker have heard the same thing. No idea whether this is just a formality, necessitated by the fact that the scandal broke over the weekend, or whether Fox News chief Roger Ailes is really considering keeping Friedman on. I’ll update when I hear more.

UPDATE: It’s official. Friedman is out. Per Fox News: “Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately.  Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman’s ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors.  Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.”

Until then, I encourage anyone who’s interested in this to head to RopesofSilicon.com and check out Friedman’s original post, which Fox News has now taken down (you’ll need to zoom in with your browser to make the thing legible). I see why Friedman’s employers (who are ultimately my employers too since this site is owned by News Corp.’s Dow Jones) are arguing that his column “promotes piracy.” It does wax on about how easy it is to watch pirated stuff on the Web these days.

But since he’s obviously not the first person to note that–I don’t think we can even call it an open secret at this point–I’m wondering if there isn’t something else at work here. Anyone have any bright ideas?

Meanwhile, here’s a preview of the film. Go ahead, and press play if you’d like–it’s officially sanctioned.

A few weeks ago, BoomTown got a rather compelling email from Marion Vermazen, who once worked at Sun Microsystems with new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

Sun (JAVA) was one of the many companies where Bartz was an exec, before heading Autodesk (ADSK) and, now, Yahoo (YHOO)–and where Bartz actually fired Vermazen.

Her take on the experience?

“Amazing,” said Vermazen, whose last name was Brown at the time, given how Bartz handled it herself–driving 30 minutes to Vermazen’s office–in a very straightforward way that made the pain of the firing easier.

In other words, a kinder, classier Donald Trump “Apprentice” style, but without the cameras and bad hair.

It’s instructive, given that Bartz is likely to have to give several big Yahoo execs the heave-ho in the days ahead as she unveils her new management structure soon.

(By the way, though big change is a-coming, Yahoo sources said that Bartz will not be making a noisy announcement about her reorganization. Instead, she apparently will just do it–letting the internal memos leak, presumably–and move on to “putting some points on the board” before talking publicly.)

In any case, here’s Vermazen’s email, which she said I could post. She sent it to me after some pieces I did about Bartz’s take-charge style (also, you can see the now-retired Vermazen’s blog here):

This all sounds very familiar. 20+ years ago I was in the service organization at Sun when Bartz took over. In a staff meeting of the Service directors, she said that if we didn’t get our act together we’d be gone. I was in way over my head and a couple of weeks later she came to my office for a meeting with me and told me that I was being replaced. She said they weren’t going to take me out and shoot me, but that I would no longer be managing the software support group. I have enormous respect for her that she told me this to my face in my office. Most executives would have had HR do it or whatever. She is an amazing person.”

Alas, the owner has asked me not to publish the salary he was offering, so I’m not going to act as his headhunter. Though I will say that he says he’s really looking for someone to buy his paper, and that “I always tell people that journalism is a dead-end job unless you own your own newspaper.” So this may not have been the job for you, anyway.

Instead, we’re back to layoffs. I hesitate to say that we’re done with layoffs for the year because the last time I did that, I got feedback from freshly fired readers who said I was premature. But even if we are done canning media workers in 2008, we are most assuredly going to be at it again in January.

With that in mind, here’s one way to send off your employees. Here’s southern gentleman Charlie Rose’s broadcast from last week: