The closing session for the first day of SMX Social Media is a keynote conversation with Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us & Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon. We’re going to learn more about the landscape and future of social networking. More coverage at Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal.
After all the buildup to yesterday’s hearing in the US Senate on the Google-DoubleClick deal, the actual hearing itself sounded to be a bit anti-climatic. Below, a look at what was said and how it doesn’t seem like it will influence the ultimate decision by the US Federal Trade Commission one way or the other.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Following on last month’s search privacy video from Google, the Google Blog announced that a new installment dealing with personalized results is now available. Meanwhile, two new articles about privacy issues and naming Google in particular have also come out today.
I won’t repeat verbatim the cliche about politics and strange bedfellows, but that’s exactly what we’ll have on parade next week as the public hearings in the US Senate begin about Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick. As News.com succinctly and ironically points out, “an unlikely alliance of former antitrust defendants like Microsoft and […]
Google is calling for a discussion on international privacy standards to take place, both through a blog post on its site today and in a speech that was given to a Unesco conference today. From the post by Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel:
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.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Yahoo!, Microsoft ink web pact with Chinese government from The Register reports Yahoo China and MSN China have signed a pact with the Chinese government that “encourages” rather than requires bloggers to identify themselves to the companies with real names, contact details and for the companies to censor material. Reporters Without Borders claims the new […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
The Wall Street Journal explores Yahoo’s recently debuted “SmartAds” (prior coverage here), which mix behavioral targeting with other forms of targeting and dynamic elements to deliver a reportedly better response to display advertisers. The new ad platform was tested in Yahoo Travel and reportedly performed well (2x to 3x CTRs of normal display ads) and […]
Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog features an interesting debate and discussion about whether algorithmic search results should be subject to regulation. On one side is Goldman, who says “no.” On the other are law professors Frank Pasquale and Oren Bracha who argue “yes” in a recent paper entitled “Federal Search Commission: Access, Fairness […]
How search engines rate on privacy has a report from News.com on how the various search engines rate on privacy. On August 6th, News.com sent eight questions to AOL, Ask.com, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, based on their responses, News.com rated Ask.com the best in terms of being the most protective of privacy.
Some webmasters may know of Google’s Maile Ohye through her work in Google Webmaster Central, but now she plays a new role explaining issues about search privacy, in a new video from Google. It’s the first of several videos on the subject that Google has announced that it will be doing. I found the first […]
The US Federal Trade Commission is going to have a public forum in Washington, DC on Nov. 1-2 to bring together various consumer groups, academics and interested parties to address concerns “raised by the practice of tracking consumers’ activities online to target advertising.” The last time the FTC looked into “online profiling” for the purposes […]
The L.A. Times writes about the issue of privacy and Google’s StreetView photography, in the wake of more cities getting StreetView coverage. It covers much of the same territory as when the service initially launched (here’s our original article). But the service has become one of the focal points in the discussion of the Internet […]
We explained last week how Google was using search history to refine the ads it shows to searchers. But for now, Google says that’s as far as it plans to go to behaviorally target people. Google wary of behavioral targeting in online ads from Reuters goes into more about this, from a talk between reporters […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
First Google, then Ask.com and now Microsoft have jumped onto the privacy protection train. Late yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was going to follow Google’s lead and anonymize search log data after 18 months. In addition, it has partnered with Ask to call for an industry effort to develop privacy principles. There’s a tinge of […]
Ask.com announced that they will be launching "AskEraser" in the near future, a feature to allow you to erase your search history. Ask also said it will be implementing a new 18 month data retention policy, where searches will be disassociated from IP addresses or cookies that might possibly be used to link them back […]
News.com reports on a positive but cautious response from the European Union to Google’s previous announcement that it would reduce its data/cookie retention time to two years. A prominent member of the EU’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party told ZDNet that there would be discussion regarding whether Google had “gone far enough.” Microsoft and […]
I am a Wikipedia administrator, and I specialize in complex investigations. When Jonathan Hochman suggested I write an article for Search Engine Land, he mentioned that this publication and its readers regard Wikipedia as a search engine. It probably comes as no surprise that my spine stiffens at that concept, but media professionals and Wikipedia […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Consumer group hits at Google $3bn move from the Financial Times reports a large European consumers rights group, Beuc, has joined with others that oppose Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from June 2007:
Google sued over defamatory postings found on web search from The Independent reports that the company could be held liable for the publication of inaccurate, malicious or damaging material on the internet, even though Google did not create the content and is simply listing what’s found on the web. The plaintiff, Brian Retkin, claims he […]
Flickr has recently introduced content filters, allowing users more control over what images they view, and to ensure that they don’t get nasty surprises by accidently viewing some of the more adult images that are hosted. However, while this is a useful option, the option of turning it off has been removed in Germany, which […]
Back in 2002, I called Google the "Marcia Brady" of search. Fans of the Brady Bunch know that Marcia was one of six children, and middle daughter Jan felt Marcia got all the attention. "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," she’d often complain, just as today, it often seems to be "Google, Google, Google" that’s all you hear […]
As part of today’s Google International Press Day, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is doing Q&A with journalists. Here’s a live blogging highlight of what was said, which covered a range of issues from privacy, censorship, whether Google is too big and scary and more.
There are two projects going on today to see if we can survive without the major search engines. The first project is for searchers, to see if they can search alternative search engines without using the five major engines. The second project is for search marketers, to see if they can generate enough traffic and […]
In response to an EU letter over data retention, Google has announced that it will now anonymize server log data after 18 months, rather than the previous maximum time it had announced of 24 months. It is also reconsidering how long its cookies last. It’s nice to see Google make such a fast, responsive move, […]
It’s a bad privacy day for Google, with Privacy International first accusing the company of having the worst privacy performance of any internet service company in a study it has just released and then accusing Google of conducting a smear campaign against it. But if you actually read the report, Privacy International itself comes off […]
Groups want limits on Google from the San Francisco Chronicle reports that privacy groups have amended their complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the Google & DoubleClick acquisition. The amendment (PDF format) requests that Google first obtain permission from their users before collecting any information about them. In addition, the privacy group would like […]
Privacy is back – or at least the issue is back. A range of events, announcements and investigations over the past several months have put privacy back in the headlines. And today, the links are coming in showing funny, revealing or potentially embarrassing photos of people on Google’s new Street View photography. (To a large […]
Back at the beginning of this year, my 14 "Is Google Evil?" Tipping Points Since 2001 covered the history of how Google has been deemed to be too Big Brotherish or too dominant over the years. Another wave of Google hatred and fear is washing across the great sea of Blog. Here’s a look at […]
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from April 2007:
Google draws privacy complaint to FTC from News.com reports three organizations are going to file a joint complaint today with the Federal Trade Commission over Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), along with the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG) are all […]
Google’s Search History feature, which was switched on as a default option for many Google searchers in February, has now been renamed Web History to reflect how it has expanded to track what Google users do as they surf the web. It’s a huge move for Google and raises anew privacy issues. Below, a detailed […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: