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Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt acknowledges sliding share values and a shortage of credit in financial markets is "a very serious issue" and that many people are expecting a global economic slowdown.

"It's too early to say if there's (already) been any specific impact but if there were I don't think

"We believe that if there were (a US recession), we'll be well positioned. We're not particularly dependent on any particular one market. There's not a lot of advertising for any one market over another," he claims.

Direct marketing has historically performed well in times of economic recession, Schmidt adds. "There tends to be a flight in a global slowdown to higher quality advertising and higher quality advertising is determined by what sells," he claims.

Google, which earned $4.827 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, makes around 98% of its income from text ads but is exploring new formats, such as advertising on You Tube videos.

Google has a $900 million, three-year deal to sell advertising to News Corp's MySpace customers under which it must pay the social networking site whether or not it makes money selling ads on the site.