The European Union has been trying to get Google to cut the time it retains users’ IP addresses and related search query logs. In response to EU requests and pressure, the company adopted a compromise position (in March, 2007). Google said it would still retain data but would make it anonymous after 18-24 months. Google […]
After finally getting the new Internet Explorer 8 beta installed (demands to upgrade Windows, verify Windows, sigh), I spent some time playing with the new search functionality and checking to see if Microsoft was going to try to stack the deck in its favor with the new browser. So far, it remains pretty even handed. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
I was thrilled when I got invited to speak at Chris Pirillo’s Gnomedex event happening in Seattle this August 21-23. Gnomedex is legendary to me, and to present at it — well, wow! Plus some nervousness, which I hope this post will help with. I’m looking for some thoughts on my topic of "Search Life […]
Yahoo has announced that they will begin giving their users the ability to opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com. The feature will be added to the Yahoo privacy center by the end of August. This is an expansion of Yahoo’s opt-out program for third-party networks. This was done in response to the inquiry by the […]
The Google Blog announced that Google is improving the content network (aka AdSense) by leveraging the technology they have acquired with DoubleClick. First I’ll discuss the feature and then I will get into the privacy issues.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google is now showing "search customization" messages to inform searchers when their search results have been modified from "normal" due to a searcher’s geographic location, previous query or web surfing and search history. It’s a nice move to help searchers know what exactly is going on "under the hood" at Google and override it if […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google and Viacom have reached an agreement meant to ease privacy concerns about YouTube records being handed over to Viacom through a court order. However, there remain some questions about how exactly the “anonymizing” of these records will actually work. Until those are answered, I wouldn’t breathe a complete privacy sigh of relief yet.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Privacy has re-emerged as one of the most pressing and complex issues for everyone online, including search engines, after a sustained period of relative calm. However, the rise of behavioral targeting, domestic spying/wiretapping by the Bush administration, attempts by states to regulate privacy, and more aggressive moves by Europeans to protect consumers have created conflicting […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Privacy issues are back with a vengeance. Everywhere you look now NGOs, legal experts, and government officials are raising questions about this or that online or ad initiative and privacy. The most recent privacy debacle was the Viacom-YouTube ruling, which is being circumvented by cooperation between the parties. Now, as Google formally launches StreetView images […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google’s finally added a privacy link to its home page, explaining in 613 words why the company apparently can’t have more than 28 words on its home page. So important is this number that adding the privacy link was an issue that had to go up two Google’s co-founders. Please. On the same day that […]
Since writing my WTF! US Court Declares You Have No Privacy On YouTube article, more information has come out suggesting that Google will be able to turn over information to Viacom about what’s watched on YouTube without having to say who exactly who was watching it. Nor, does it seem, that Viacom itself wants that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
You have no privacy on YouTube. So effectively declared a US judge yesterday. And now somebody in the US government better stop grandstanding about search and privacy protection and actually get some laws enacted. Yesterday’s move might be the ultimate incentive, as US politicians realize that what they’ve watched on YouTube may now be open […]
Privacy is dead, get used to it. In the effort to rescue display advertising from its historically dismal performance and so-called “banner blindness,” behavioral targeting (BT) was born a few years ago with Tacoda. It has both increased in popularity and infamy since that time. Consumers prefer more “relevant” ads but they also dislike being […]
About two seconds after Google Trends For Websites came out, people started noticing that one company’s websites oddly had no data available — Google’s own. Google will tell you all about the traffic to competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft but gives away nothing about itself. The same is true for the newly-released Google Ad Planner […]
Google recently came under fire for not providing a link to its privacy policy right from its home page, as Yahoo and Microsoft do. Ask.com, apparently hoping to ride the issue to some consumer gains, has emailed us that it now proudly sports a privacy link on its home page, along with some new privacy […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Remember when AOL released private search information back in August of 2006? Well, that story is now back in the news, after a two-year hiatus. Ars Technica reports that a play has been created around one of those searches, specifically searcher number 927. The play is named “USER 927: U are what U Seek” and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Lawmaker questions Google over privacy practices from Reuters reports Texas Rep. Joe Barton from the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee quizzed Google on how they will integrate DoubleClick’s data with their own. Some questions posed include how user data from DoubleClick would be merged into Google’s data, how that data would be […]
TechCrunch reports that Google has aided in the arrest of an Indian man who wrote in an Orkut community, “I hate Sonia Gandhi.” Sonia Gandhi is a politician in India. Google reportedly handed over IP information to the Indian government, to help the government track down and arrest this individual. The man was charged under […]
Yahoo just started redirecting people in the UK who are trying to reach Yahoo.com instead to its Yahoo UK web site, something that Google has done for a long time. With the change, this seemed a good time to revisit how all the major search engines may intercept people trying to reach their ".com" versions […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web
Yahoo’s mantra these days is openness. To that end, Yahoo may create the ability for users to view their ad profiles — the data that’s being used to target them with advertising on Yahoo and its extended network. Yahoo EVP Jeff Weiner, who spoke at the Economics of Social Media conference in LA yesterday, suggested […]
Bill Slawski analyzed a newly published patent application by Google named Rendering Advertisements with Documents Having One or More Topics Using User Topic Interest Information. In short, the patent application documents methods Google can use to make Google’s contextual ads, AdSense, more behaviorally relevant to the user based on Google Toolbar data. Of course, this […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google and the other major search engines have all been criticized in both the US and Europe over privacy issues and consumer data retention. More generally, there’s an intensifying debate about behavioral ad targeting and privacy occurring on both sides of the Atlantic. The European authorities have been considerably more aggressive, however, in demanding action […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Microsoft has added its input to that of a host of other stakeholders in the growing debate over consumer privacy, online ad targeting, and potential US (and local) government regulation. (Here’s a related WSJ story on search engine efforts to block a proposed anti-tracking law in the New York state legislature.) In a filing today […]
Brazil Senate orders Google to identify website pedophiles via AFP reports a Brazilian Senate has ordered Google to hand over the profiles of 3,261 suspected pedophiles yesterday. However, according to The Inquirer, Google is willing to help Brazilian authorities but not hand over users’ personal information. Sergio Suiama, Sao Paulo’s federal prosecutor, said that over […]
Google, Yahoo Keep User Data Too Long, EU Group Says from Bloomberg reports that 27 EU nations privacy officials unanimously are supporting a new proposal that may require search companies to delete search data before six months. The proposal, Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, requires “valid justification” to store any search data, and says […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
A privacy law taking shape in the New York legislature will make it a crime for internet companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent. And because of the generally boundary-free nature of the internet, it would effectively set a national precedent for companies collecting data about internet use. The New […]