Google’s made a significant move toward trying to have a Facebook-like news feed and beef up its social networking aspirations by integrating Google Talk / Gmail contacts with Google Reader. I’d seen the discussion earlier, but after now experiencing it first-hand, it’s kind of scary that it isn’t more opt-in rather than opt-out.
Lisa Barone posted today about being surprised to discover that some of her Facebook activities were showing up in Bloglines. How? She’s friends with John Harmon, and his Facebook notifications feed was apparently submitted over there. The odd thing is, Facebook says these feeds shouldn’t show up in Bloglines at all. After poking at it […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Can you imagine trying to sort through billions of web pages without a search engine? Inconceivable! They make it easy and fast to find information. Now how about finding one of the six billion people on the planet. Where’s the Google of people search? As it turns out, an entire industry of people search engines […]
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 […]
Gizmodo, in something of a tongue-in-cheek post, compares the cars and cameras Google is using to capture its StreetView imagery with those being used by Microsoft for what has been known as StreetSide. StreetSide is a Live Local product that predated Google’s StreetView but has been limited to San Francisco and Seattle. What this post […]
EU data protection group questions other search engines from InfoWorld reports that the European Union will expand their investigation beyond just Google and investigate other search engine providers data retention policies. Danny is quoted in the article, explaining that it makes sense for the EU to look at other search engines, and not just Google. […]
Google has been doing more and more over the past few years to actively influence public policy issues (such as on net neutrality or recently, US immigration) as well becoming more of a potential public policy target (such as on privacy last week). As part of its outreach, the company has now launched the Google […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web:
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 […]
Google Deal Said to Bring U.S. Scrutiny from the New York Times reports the Federal Trade Commission will be reviewing the proposed Google and DoubleClick acquisition. The preliminary antitrust investigation is to be conducted by the FTC and not the Justice Department, which is what privacy advocates wanted. The FTC will decide if they should […]
Google may use games to analyse net users from The Guardian reports that Google is considering the idea of using gaming behavior to display targeted ads to that user. Privacy advocates are already voicing their distaste for the idea of gleaning information on users based on their gaming behaviors. To me, this is just like […]
Via Boing Boing, LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US from The Tyee covers how Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar was denied entry into the United States after being pulled aside during a border crossing for a random check. One of those fancy explosive sniffing machines then get him stopped? Metal in his […]
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 […]
Google Operating Systems reports that Google has added your sponsored link click activity to Google Search History. For example, I looked at my search history and limited it to just sponsored links, and I noticed I search for “gift dad” and clicked on an ad, yes my dad and father-in-law’s birthdays are coming up. Here […]
CIO reports that Microsoft, Google, along with Yahoo will be developing a code of conduct with the coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to “promote freedom of expression and privacy rights.” This move is to help the companies’ ventures into China and help paint a better picture for the search giants in the public view.