Search Scandals

Google making people sick?

2007-01-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

The Register has an interesting article titled "When Google sneezes, the internet gets flu."

I would add to the above,

"... and Google sneezes on purpose"

Google Patents Search

2006-12-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

Forbes is reporting that Google has launched a patents search.

I gave it a quick try and it's ok. You could search patents either at USPTO site or by limiting google search to its domain.

Google buys Neven Vision

2006-08-16T15:53:00.000-05:00

So I haven't been able to post for some time for which I apologize.

Big news today is that Google has bought Neven Vision and immediately after buying it, Neven Vision has virtually shut down their site. Upon visiting the site the following message is displayed:

"Thank you for your interest. Neven Vision was recently acquired by Google Inc. and Neven Vision product information is no longer available on this site. Click here to learn more."

However a search for cached pages revealed the information that Google is trying to hide:

So what exactly does this company do:

Computer Vision, also known as Machine Vision, is a field of technology engaged in teaching computers to "see" and understand visual imagery. Neven Vision is primarily focused on the subset of computer vision known as visual sensing, which is the automated extraction of information about objects or scenes in one or more images.

Neven Vision's computer vision technology is the fastest in the industry and represents leading accomplishments in this field. Several U.S. patents have been granted to Neven Vision for its unique inventions. U.S. government and independent observers have recognized the underlying technology as most advanced with respect to accuracy, speed and efficiency.

The core building blocks of the company's vision-enabled products and services are our patented face and object recognition engines. Below is a simple representation of how each of these engines work.

1. Faces in an image are automatically detected by a robust face finder component that determines the position and size of the face in real world conditions (varying illumination, pose and expression).
2. A second processing stage determines the position of local features on the face, called “landmark finding”.
3. Then a Gabor Wavelet transformation takes place to compute the “face
4. -template” from the local features by extracting the template from an image that contains the essential, condensed facial information needed to determine a person's identity (a “face-template” is only about 1kByte in size;

The company has the following patents


EP1072018

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
1072014

Face Recognition from Video Images
EP1072018

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
218457

Face Recognition from Video Images
218458

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
EP1072018

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
1072014

Face Recognition from Video Images
6714661

Method & System for Customizing Facial Feature Tracking Using Precise Landmark
6222939

Labeled Bunch Graphs for Image Analysis (EYEM1160/ NE01)
6356659

Labeled Bunch Graphs for Image Analysis
6563950

Labeled Bunch Graphs for Image Analysis
6466695

Procedure for Automatic Analysis of Images & Image Sequences Based on Two Dimensional Shape Primitives
6272231

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
6580811

Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture for Avatar Animation
6301370

Face Recognition from Video Images

From this page:

 Field Identification Tool for Law Enforcement and Security Teams

The Mobile Identifier™ platform provides effective identification resources in the palm of your hand. The compact, ruggedized Mobile Identifier™ handheld employs industry-leading face recognition and fingerprint matching technology. Additional recognition engines provide the ability to recognize and compare other identifiers such as tattoos or license plates.

Efficiency and Productivity
Using the Mobile Identifier™ face images and fingerprints can be scanned and checked against the on-board databases on-the-spot, saving valuable man hours and expediting investigations.

Management and Reporting
Easily import, synchronize, and manage existing image galleries through a secure web interface. Daily event logs provide detailed activity tracking and reporting.

Advantages

   * A force multiplier: Saves law enforcement personnel time
   * Helps prevent human errors in identification
   * Expedites investigations
   * Alerts instances of false identity/assumed identity
   * Compatible with existing databases
   * Accelerates learning curve
   * Equips all officers with the latest field intelligence

More on how the technology is being used by the Law Enforcement:

02-JAN-2006 || eWEEK.COM
LAPD Systems Keep an Eye on Crime
Case Study: Video surveillance and criminal recognition software are put to the test on the streets of Los Angeles.

A drug deal is happening right now in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park, and there are no cops around. But that hasn't been such a problem since the Los Angeles Police Department installed 12 surveillance cameras, said Sgt. Dan Gomez of the LAPD's Tactical Technology Unit, Office of Operations.

From a remote location, Gomez, an officer with 13 years' experience, watches the monitors: "All of a sudden, you see a drug dealer going back and forth. [You can see] where he's hiding his stash, where he's hiding his rocks of cocaine."

"In the past, you would never be able to see [all the details of a crime] because you couldn't get close enough. Now I can see it," Gomez said.

When Gomez sees a crime going down, he calls in officers and remotely guides them, step by step: "Hey, this individual just put that in his right pocket. Oh, he just saw you; he's turning. I saw him. He dropped it right by that bench."

The question I leave you with is that why does Google feel the need to hide this from us by taking down Neven Vision's site?

About one of the company's products called iScout:

iScout allows camera phone users to simply snap photos to initiate a search process and get relevant information or content sent to their phone. Shoot the CD cover of your favorite artist and get a sample MP3 or ring tone or enter to win concert tickets. Shoot an ad in the newspaper and get a coupon or product information. Traditional print media and packaging can become visually hyperlinked and provide a rich interactive experience for both consumers and marketers.

Brands, studios, publications, and content providers can setup iScout enabled campaigns through a simple web interface. First, input the images to be recognized, then the content to send to the user, and it's done.

The iScout client application can be installed on most camera phones. To run iScout, the user only requires a data plan. Once installed, look for the iScout icon and start shooting.

And a FAQ

  

+ iScout FAQ's

What is iScout?
iScout is an object recognition platform that enables camera phones to “recognize” objects and provide relevant content to the user.

What type of phone do I need to use iScout?
Virtually any device having a camera and network connection is compatible. iScout interaction can be accomplished via MMS or by using a downloadable Java or BREW application.

What are the benefits of an iScout mobile marketing campaign?
Visual/printed media is one of the largest industries in the world, but the value has been difficult to exactly quantify. iScout-enabled campaigns provide a rich customer experience with instant gratification, while gathering superior market data, qualification and quantifiable feedback. As with online pay-per-click advertising, user costs are only incurred when interested parties click on an image.

What types of images will iScout recognize?
Any still image can be used, including print media, camera photos, or TV/Video screen capture. With its ability to recognize most any image, iScout reinforces your brands, images and logos. Barcodes/symbols can be used as well, but are not necessary.

What technologies does iScout use to send requests?
iScout image requests can be sent via MMS, HTTP, or email, depending on the cellular network, phone, service, etc.

Will Yahoo Let Google Buy Sun?

2006-02-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

Blogcritics.org: Is Google About To Buy Sun Microsystems?: "Google is about to buy Sun Microsystems.Last year Google announced a potential partnership with the ailing technology giant and has since announced such a deal with Dell - such announcements indicate a need for more technological capacity on Google's part than they currently have. And they could hardly be better placed right now to acquire those capacities."

Yahoo will be pretty stupid if it lets Google Buy Sun.
Frank

India ready to feed the hand that bites

2006-02-26T21:35:00.000-05:00

It’s time for an Indian rival to Google- The Economic Times: "The erosion of trust towards the US-based internet companies on the question of privacy offers an opportunity for others to step in and India is ideally placed to offer those substitutes.

WHO is illegally downloading thousands of copyrighted songs? Who is sending threatening e-mail to a teenager? Who is saying disparaging things about the ruling party on an Internet message board? These questions, and many more like them, are being asked every day of the companies that provide internet service and run web sites."

Should an Indian company become a Google rival, do you think Americans will trust it?

WebmasterWorld or WebloserWorld?

2006-02-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

Jen Sense has been blocked on WebmasterWorld.
Reason 423 why webmasterworld is dying a fast death : Shoemoney Marketing Thoughts

"WMW is just full of **** (you get it). It's the best living example of a good community gone bad.

Yet another stupid decision by folks who *think* they know all. If they would stop kissing ass of G and other engines, and use their brain, they might have a future.

BT, IMO is the best example of a guy being self centered. Charging members but not providing a search function.

May be it's time WMW should change its name to WebloserWorld.

Frank
"

Yahoo, Google Fail to attend meeting on Internet Censorship

2006-02-13T13:21:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! speaks out on Chinese censorship - WebWatch - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com: "Earlier this month US politicians attacked Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for failing to attend a meeting on internet censorship."

And some wrongfully think that search engines are all good.
Frank

Privacy: Going Once, Going Twice, Gone

2006-02-12T20:11:00.000-05:00

Did you know your privacy is up for sale? And the seller is no one else but the owner, you?

What's the cost of your privacy? You may think that it's priceless but is it really?

What if I said that the cost of your privacy is a few features? No way, you may reply, but isn't that the truth, especially if you are a passionate Google user like millions of other users? Feeding the company at the expense of your privacy? Helping it make billions as it bends down to communist governments while refusing to fullfil US government's legitimate requests?

Not only your privacy is for sale but also that of your business and your web site, and your friends, and your family.

In an earlier post I pointed out some of the tools Google uses to collect your personal data

1. Google Analytics: so we can spy on your traffic, referrals, surfing habits and eventually take over your market.
2. Google Mail: so we can know everything there is to know about your email usage patterns, including the conversation and chat history.
3. Google Mail for business: so we can get to know all your business secrets and eventually drive you off your own business.
4. Google Adsense: so we can give you a bait and then make your web site vanish from the SERPs.
5. Google Toolbar: so we can spy on you from the moment you open your web browser.
6. Google Pack: Some people are getting really knowledgeable about how we keep data about them and never delete that data. This really hurts our software installation on their computers. So to overcome that, we have partnered with Dell (and paid them $1bn) to have all our software pre-installed. This way people will just have our software installed and won't have to care about the term we like to refer at Googleplex as privacy. Our payment of $1bn to Dell should show our users how much we care about having our software installed on their computers.
7. Google Desktop Search: so we can just have your hard drive. It’s too painful to know about you in pieces, why don’t you just hand us over the hard drive.
8. Google Word Processor (Upcoming): You know all this knowledge we collect about you (and never delete) is really good but imagine how wonderful it will be if we could just know what you are thinking right when you are thinking about it. That's why with the release of our word processor, we will send all your typed documents to our servers as you type them so we can show you related ads (and so you can click on them like a good Net citizen). That way you won't even have to open the browser. Imagine, you start typing about "sex" or how your last night went, and we will start showing you related ads.

Some people are just damn smart. No matter what we do, they won't install our software.

Don't worry, Google protects your privacy very much and for that reason we will delete your information right when you delete it.

Oops, scratch the last point and please read it as follows:

1. "If you cancel your Google Account or uninstall Google Desktop, the files indexed in the Search Across Computers feature will no longer be accessible through Google Desktop and may remain on our servers for up to 60 days before being deleted".

We hope you agree that we should be allowed to keep your hard drive information for 60 more days. Remember we gave you the features to search your computer from multiple locations, and after all there is a cost for that.

And finally, we figured it would be really cool to know how and when you are visiting web sites even when you are just using our Desktop search. So for that reason, we put the following line in our privacy policy:

"... Google Desktop may send information about the websites that you visit ... ... collect a limited amount of non-personal information from your computer and send it to Google.

... This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do"

Did you notice how cleverly we have put "non-personal information" in our privacy policy? All we hope is that you don't pay attention to the following lines in our privacy policy:

"Your copy of Google Desktop includes a unique application number. The unique application number is required for Google Desktop to work and cannot be disabled."

And we also hope you don't have the brain to put 2 and 2 together and realize that using the above mentioned application number with the various cookies we store on your computer + your Social Security Number that you gave us for AdSense + your Google Analytics account + your IP address + your Gmail account will eventually let us know a little bit more details about you than we mentioned. But that shouldn't surprise you as we are giving you free features and organizing the world's information for you.

--Frank

[The above is a work in progress]

Google Desktop Search -- EFF's Attorney, Kevin Bankston writes back.

2006-02-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

Worried about the privacy concerns of using Google Desktop Searh, I wrote to Kevin Bankston of EFF.

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for raising your voice against Google's Desktop Search Feature. As a software engineer and professional search engine consultant I would like to draw your attention to the possible motives behind Google offering this service, based on my experience.

The new Desktop feature is not about offering users a great service. It's about Google being able to predict more efficiently what type of ads users would click on.

Predicting what ads to show to consumers
So for example, lets say Joe uses Google Desktop Search Feature and as a result has the contents of his hard drive(s) stored on Google's server. Google can then not only actively monitor what content Joe has on his computer but also what content Joe created or accessed recently. If Joe, for instance, recently created or downloaded five documents about "web hosting", Google could predict that wherever Joe goes online, "web hosting" ads would be the ones that Joe is most likely to click on. Predicting users demand in this way can help Google rake in billions at the cost of mine and your privacy.

On the other hand if a user creates documents about pregnancy, or mentions keywords about "pregnancy" in their recent documents, Google could guess that the user is most likely to click on "pregnancy" related ads.

Many people use the same password for multiple services
As a professional consultant I am surprised to see how many people use the same password for multiple services, which is a very insecure practice. Some of these passwords are shared with other people (such as a web site owner who may share his passwords with his webmaster).

People who follow such insecure practice may open their entire computers to prying eyes, thanks to Google Desktop Search.

I once again appreciate your efforts in raising awareness about this important issue.

In case you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via this email address.

Frank Mash

To my surprise, and delight, Kevin wrote me back the very same day:

Hi [Frank]--thanks for writing. We actually mentioned the ad-scanning
threat in our PR, so we're with you on that. And although it was not
in our PR, we also are concerned about people using a single account
for multiple services--not only as a single point of failure in
security terms, but because it means they can track your behavior
across all of their services in a personally identifiable way. So, it
looks like we're on the same page, and thanks for your words of
support.

Kevin

So if you still choose to use the Google Desktop Search 3, know what you are getting into and the applicable risks to you.

--Frank
Tags: Google Desktop Search | Privacy | EFF

Gmail for your domain: Give Google All Your Company Secrets

2006-02-12T01:38:00.000-05:00

Google is aparently testing a new Gmail for business since they couldn't think of a better and legal way to "spy" on your business secrets.

So if you haven't applied for their beta test yet, go and apply now so they can drive you quickly out of your own business at no cost to you.

And then people wonder how and why Google enters all these crazy industries.

Here's a comment I posted on Amr's blog:

Mr X,
People don't hate Google because they were denied jobs (Heck I created my resume for them and decided not to send it).

People hate Google because like others I believe that if there was one word to describe Google, it would be "parasite."

My five years of experience dealing with Google tells me that dealing with Google in any capacity is basically equal to shooting yourself in the foot. I would rather get a straight bullet rather than be left off dying over the years.

Look at the services Google provides:

1. Google Analytics: so we can spy on your traffic, referrals, surfing habits and eventually take over your market.
2. Google Mail: so we can know everything there is to know about your email usage patterns, including the conversation and chat history.
3. Google Mail for business: so we can get to know all your business secrets and eventually drive you off your own business.
4. Google Adsense: so we can give you a bait and then make your web site vanish from the SERPs.
5. Google Toolbar: so we can spy on you from the moment you open your web browser.

If you still don't get it, wait, and like others your eyes will be opened.

I mean come on. My worst decision in the last five years was to trust this company. All I got in return was regret.

Frank

Gmail
Google privacy

No barrier to Google's low

2006-02-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

It feels so good when industry professionals share the same thoughts. Amr, my second favorite blogger at Yahoo! (after Jeremy) writes in a post titled "How low can Google go":

Google is now testing longer abstracts for the ads above the web results, these abstracts go as long as 200 characters (2 to 4 lines on some screens). This is opposite to what Yahoo is doing, in mid January Yahoo moved towards shorter abstracts. The only reason to do longer abstracts for ads is to make more money by pushing the good web results further below the fold. The first time I heard about these longer abstract tests, I said to my self Google must be doing this for the adsense network, and then I was blown away to see them actually testing them on the main Google SERP."

Then Amr goes on to say:

It seems that Google ran out of innovations for the algorithms matching ads to queries, so now the main way to create more growth is to change their SERP.

Google literally destroyed a web site of mine after I made $67K in a year with them, without providing any reason. I wrote again and again to them but they kept sending me templated replies. They treated me worse than any company I have ever dealt with. Google put a scraper site and a cybersquatter at number one and two position for my company name. No problem Google, I took my business to Yahoo!. Since then Google has sent me three invitations to participate in their various programs but guess what? My eyes are open now. I am never going to trust Google again.

Google, I am sorry to say this but you disgust me.

Frank

Google

David Ogletree - SEO Advice and Internet News » Google has lost it’s edge

2006-02-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

I found this comment via Amr's blog

Google has lost it’s edge: "The people investing in Google have no idea what the company really does or is capable of. It is the 90’s all over again. It will be ugly when it all falls down. They are spending tons of money on all kinds of projects and they have no idea if those projects will generate revenue. Everything they make they offer for free. When has that ever been a successful business model? They will always be known for search and will always be the most searched website but that is a company with one product. They give things away for free and put advertising on it. That is all they do."

I second the thoughts of David in saying that Google stock holders really don't know what they are investing in. People are preparing themselves for another depression.

Frank

Search engines will do any thing to please the Chinese Government: Yahoo Writer Jailed in China | RED HERRING

2006-02-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

RED HERRING | Yahoo Writer Jailed in China: "Internet portal Yahoo provided information about another of its members to the Chinese government, leading to the second such arrest uncovered in recent months, a journalist rights group charged on Thursday.

Reporters Without Borders said Li Zhi, a Yahoo customer and “cyberdissident,” received an eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records supplied by Yahoo.

The group claims 49 cyberdissidents and 32 journalists are currently in prison in China for posting articles and criticism of the authorities on the Internet. It believes that the identities of many of these people were revealed by companies like Yahoo."

This is a sad, sad day for search engines who will do just about anything to please Chinese government. Where are your morals Yahoo and Google? Where are your ethics? Dead?

Frank

Google Desktop Search: The real reasons behind Google wanting to store your hard drive on its servers?

2006-02-10T14:17:00.000-05:00

Tell everything about yourself to Google so Google can earn money and possibly some day turn you in!

EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is coming out with a very strong warning to consumers urging them to not use the new Google Desktop Search feature as it "greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy."

With the new Google Desktop Search, your "Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents" stored on Google's servers which means you are not the only one who knows what's on your computer.

As a software engineer and professional search engine consultant I would like to draw your attention to the possible motives behind Google offering this service, based on my experience.

The new Desktop feature is not about offering users a great service. It's about Google being able to predict more efficiently what type of ads users would click on.

Predicting what ads to show to consumers
So for example, lets say Joe uses Google Desktop Search Feature and as a result has the contents of his hard drive(s) stored on Google's server. Google can then not only actively monitor what content Joe has on his computer but also what content Joe created or accessed recently. If Joe, for instance, recently created or downloaded five documents about "web hosting", Google could predict that wherever Joe goes online, "web hosting" ads would be the ones that Joe is most likely to click on. Predicting users demand in this way can help Google rake in billions at the cost of mine and your privacy.

On the other hand if a user creates documents about pregnancy, or mentions keywords about "pregnancy" in their recent documents, Google could guess that the user is most likely to click on "pregnancy" related ads.

Many people use the same password for multiple services
As a professional consultant I am surprised to see how many people use the same password for multiple services, which is a very insecure practice. Some of these passwords are shared with other people (such as a web site owner who may share his passwords with his webmaster).

People who follow such insecure practice may open their entire computers to prying eyes, thanks to Google Desktop Search.

ZDNET quotes Peter Sommers, a research fellow at LSE.

"If a law enforcement agency wants this information from Google, legally they're entitled to do that provide they comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. From a practical perspective, law enforcement agencies are always looking for places where they can get a great deal of information without much effort."

EFF: Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation
Censorship Justifications From Brin - Do No Evil Hypocrisy
Google Desktop Boycott Urged by Privacy Watchdog Redherring
Google Desktop Search: The Feds Own Your Data by Preston Gralla of Networking Pipeline
Google Desktop: Friend Or Foe? asks Tom Smith of Information Week
Dell PCs to have pre-installed Google toolbar and desktop search by Earth Times

Google Desktop Search Google Desktop Privacy

GOOG, Google and GAAP

2006-02-03T03:20:00.000-05:00

A commenter named GOOG Skeptic said on Amr's blog:

Can we talk about the discrepency between GOOG’s pro-forma shenangians and their GAAP performance? Pro-forma earnings are supposed to reflect one-off events that don’t have anything to do with the on-going performance of the company. However, in each quarter, GOOG keeps adding back an increasingly large stock based compensation expense, an expense which is certainly not a one time occurrence. After all, SBC is THE way that GOOG recruits and retains their employees (anyone who knows anyone at that company can tell you that). When you look beyond these “everything but the bad stuff” earnings and view the actual GAAP earnings, it is apparent that quarter to quarter growth has not improved at all over the past four quarters. Thoughts?

I will present my analysis soon on this.

Frank

It's not Yahoo's goal to be No. 1 in Internet search???

2006-02-03T02:53:00.000-05:00

The comments of Yahoo's CFO, Susan Decker, caused the blood to boil in me, and I am just a passionate Yahoo! fan with a blogspot blog (No crime in doing that, right?).

In case you missed the comments, Susan Decker said:

"It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share"

I was wondering what would have been the reaction at Yahoo!, a company that is very conversative in making public statements, especially like this one.

Today, things are getting a lot clearer:

Are you kidding? Say the VPs of Yahoo! Engineering and Products, Search.
Yahoo! CFO blasted by Yahoo! Search Executives
Yahoo! responds on Digg
Yahoo! gives up quest for search dominance: Seattle
Yahoo! happy with it's share: Search Engine Lowdown

My comment on Yahoo! Blog (I couldn't post it since I kept getting objectionable content error or 500 Internal server error)

I was just appalled at Susan's comments and as I said on my blog, I am just a passionate Yahoo! fan who converted from Google after being a passionate Google lover ever since Google started. Today, my believe in Yahoo! is much stronger. Yahoo! is thinking where none of it's rivals are. It is the company of the future. Yahoo's innovations are second to none.

It really hurts the passionate fans, and the management alike when words are said that are contrary to what Yahoo's goal is.

Go Yahoo! Your fans are with you!
Frank Mash

Google's Math Gone Wrong?

2006-02-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

I just saw this on Amr's blog:

Funny Google rounding error: "Try this search on Google: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1

the answer they give is: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.77555756 × 10-17"

Amr rightfully points that the right answer should've been 0.

Rob has a screenshot here.
Really funny stuff!
Frank
Update: It's fixed now. The query [1 - 0.9 - 0.1] returns [0] on Google.

GOOG: Google's analysis by Amr Awadallah- A Yahoo! Programmer.

2006-02-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

I found a link to Amr's blog about Google will miss 2005-Q4 quarter revenue estimates. on Jeremy's blog. Amr definitely has some very interesting points about Goog's future performance. Also read CNN's article about Amr.

If only Jeremy would let me comment on his blog....
Frank

Censorship Justifications from Brin, Do No Evil hypocrisy

2006-01-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

Gary Price has been doing a good job of covering Google's China censorship debacle, and has posted a good recap of everything that's been going down on the Search Engine Watch blog post entitled, 'Brin Speaks On China & Looking At What's Filtered'. There is a rundown of what is being censored and a few other tidbits of note, like that Congress will ask Google to attend a hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Human Rights, after being bashed by the committee's chairman Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.

In a CNN interview given by David Kirkpatrick, Sergey Brin commented on Google's justification for the censorship, saying that:

We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by participating there, and making our services more available, even if not to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information, though not quite all of it.

Brin goes onto say that they do the same thing in the US and Germany. But I must mention that the things that they are by law required to censor in these countries are not topics that a communist government wants censored to oppress its people from thinking in a way that is subversive to their way of governing. The U.S. requires the blocking of child porn. GREAT. The Germans block Nazi materials, NO PROBLEM. But blocking human rights and materials on democracy, NOT OK! There is a huge difference in what they are blocking, and to compare them like they're equitable is a bunch of baloney.

Kirkpatrick then ran into Human Rights Watch's boss, Ken Roth, who made this comment:

"I'm sure Google justifies this by saying it's just a couple of search words that people can't get to, but it's very difficult for Google to do what they just did and avoid the slippery slope. The next thing they'll do is ask them to tell them who is searching for 'Taiwan' or 'independence' or 'human rights.' And then it's going to find itself in the position of turning over the names of dissidents or simply of inquisitive individuals, for imprisonment.

The key in my view is that every company faces the same dilemma -- how do you maintain your principles while benefiting from the enormous Chinese market. And the answer is only going to come through safety in numbers. And it's going to require all of the search engines to get together and say "None of us will do this." And China needs search engines. If it can pick them off one at a time, it wins. If it faces all of the search engines at once banding together, the search engines win.

I think Google has totally missed the mark here.

In the US, the Department of Justice subpoenas them to give over nonspecific things that will aid an investigation and they refuse. Microsoft has announced exactly what kind of queries they are asking for, and guess what? They do not identify any IP addresses or leak private information. So why act all high and mighty like they're more ethical than the other companies who turned over what the government was asking for, but then agree to censor subjects for a communist government to exert control over its citizens?

They're selling themselves in the wrong way. They'd rather go against the US government and sleep in the pocket of China's.

Do No Evil my ass.

It's very funny to note that Google has removed their help article about them not censoring search results. It once read:

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.

Tags: Google, china, censorship, censored search results, oppression, communist, human rights, democracy, DOJ, search engine, Sergey Brin, CNN, congress

Is Yahoo Looking to Acquire Digg?

2006-01-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

Michael Arrington has posted a rumor on his TechCrunch blog, speculating as to whether Yahoo is looking to acquire Digg.

Are these Digg acquisition rumors founded, or is it bloggers stirring up trouble? There are a few people who say yes, Yahoo is setting their sites on this company. Some within Digg have denied the rumors, but that can be common when company's are talking about things like this.

I say go Yahoo!. Digg would be another smart acquisition for the Internet media giant. I admire Yahoo!'s strtegic acquisitions, the companies they buy are intelligent additions to their portfolio of services. I wonder when they will buy Technorati.

Tags: Yahoo, Digg, merger, acquisition, rumor, social bookmarking

Google Caves to China Communists - Censors Results

2006-01-25T14:51:00.000-05:00

Google, like Yahoo and MSN before them, has caved in to Communist China's demands to censor search results on their Chinese search engine.

The move is seen as a gross mockery of the freedom of speech the Internet allows, and organizations like Reporters Without Borders see it as a way for the communist government to exert unfounded control over the Internet.

"When a search engine collaborates with the government like this, it makes it much easier for the Chinese government to control what is being said on the Internet," said Julien Pain, head of the group's Internet desk.

So what type of search results will Google be censoring for China's internet searchers? Google has agreed to censor searches for subjects like [human rights], [Tibet], [democracy], [Taiwan independence] and the like.

I can somewhat understand censoring porn, or things that are illegal. Maybe. But censoring topics that are considered "subversive" to your government's reign of control, in an vain attempt to control the Chinese people's thoughts and feelings, well that's just evil.

Google really should drop their "Do no evil" slogan because that's all they've been doing since they went public.

I am sorry that the Chinese people continue to be oppressed by their government and now have all major search engines aiding in that oppression. Shame on you all.

Tags: China, Google, yahoo, MSN, censor, censorship, government, communist, search results, chinese, search engines

Yahoo! Doesn't Think They Can Beat Google?

2006-01-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

A new interview by Yahoo's CFO reports that those planning Yahoo!'s stragegic direction don't think it's viable to beat Google in the search market.

"We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

Now I must interject that I think Yahoo! is a much superior search engine than Google, especially after the last 3 - 4 Google updates have continued to kick legitamite sites out of rankings. Yahoo!'s search is quality, and with their myriad of other services, I think they easily beat Google when you look at their company's side by side.

I don't know why their CFO should feel the need to come out and say things like this. Terry Semel should have stopped this interview from being published. Does the CFO really understand the search market when they're dealing with financial outlooks and figures?

For them to give up their quest for search dominance, means that they are cowed by Google's purported superiority, which I don't think is the case at all.

Yahoo! beats Google in many ways, even in the search market. Their publisher network offers telephone support, and offers higher revenue sharing than Google. Ever since Google lowered their CPC threshold to just 1 cent, AdSense partners are probably getting 1/3 of a penny per click on the lowest end, while Yahoo's lower end threshold is still 10 cents, meaning publishers get more money per click on Yahoo!.

I have never been able to get someone on the phone at Google. With Yahoo!, it takes less than a minute to have a real IT person talking on the phone with me. Yahoo! is so accessible and willing to help.

Yahoo! also holds integral patents for search engines and search queries, especially after having acquired Alta Vista who were the real pioneers in search engines. They also have Overture's SEM patents. Google has nothing like Yahoo!'s patent portfolio.

I don't think they should sell themselves short. Yahoo! may be a little behind in the actual SERPs, but I do believe their satellite services more than beat Google's lackluster service record.

The future is theirs for the taking. Yahoo is a company that stands up for its people. Google will become increasingly hard to deal with in the coming years. Hell, it's impossible to deal with them already.

In the end I must say that Google is for sheep, Yahoo! is for real people.

Tags: Yahoo, Google, Search Engines, SEM, search, AdSense, Yahoo Publisher, strtegic direction, CFO, Terry Semel

Google Does Radio Advertising - Acquires dMarc

2006-01-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

Unlike Yahoo!, which is busy in buying consumer oriented companies like Del.icio.us, Flickr, Blo.gs and WebJay, Google is after pleasing its advertisers.

Today Google has announced it is buying dMarc broadcasting for $102 million in cash. Google may end up paying as much as $1.136 billion over the next three years in contingent payments.

Tim Armstrong, vice president of Advertising Sales, Google says

"Google is committed to exploring new ways to extend targeted,
measurable advertising to other forms of media. We anticipate that
this acquisition will bring new ad dollars and accountability to radio
by combining Google's expansive network of advertisers with dMarc's
talented team and innovative radio advertising technology. We look
forward to working together to continue to grow and improve the
ecosystem of the radio industry."

Do you think this was a good acquisition for Google? Why is Google not going after consumer oriented companies? Will such ignorance of consumer oriented companies hurt Google in the long run? Regardles, media giants need to watch Google carefully.

Frank
Tags: Open Encyclopaedia dmarc
google radio

Old and New Meanings of Words

2006-01-16T19:49:00.000-05:00

Old Meaning
1. google it: To find something using a search engine
2. you've been googled: someone has found your site using google.

New Meaning (2006)
google it: To destroy something
you've been googled: Your site has vanished from the Internet

Satire by FM

Phone records for sale

2006-01-08T17:45:00.000-05:00

Somewhat related to "Search Scandals", the Chicago SunTimes is reporting that your cell phone records may be for sale on numerous online services.

Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official.

Suspicious spouses can see if their husband or wife is calling a certain someone a bit too often.

And employers can check whether a worker is regularly calling a psychologist -- or a competing company.

This must be a violation of laws, and privacy concerns need to be addressed by some authority. However it seems that the law is currently not doing what it needs to do.

"Though this problem is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of crime," -- Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Please pass some laws to protect against this, I do not want my phone records available to purchase for less than $200.

Reading: Your phone records are for sale

A site selling phone records: LocateCell (shut these guys down someone!!)

Tags: phone records, phone, privacy, online, cell phone, illegal

Google steps boundaries with Google Pack

2006-01-06T19:58:00.000-05:00

At CES 2006, Google Inc accounced the release of Google Pack. Google Pack is nothing new or innovative, just a collection of software packages bundled together. The idea behind Google Pack seems to be to let users download a bundle of software packages (regardless of whether they need it or not) by downloading a single package.

Google is marketing Google Pack as a "free Software Package" that "offers users One Stop to Discover, Install and Maintain a Wide Range of Essential PC Programs."

One of the funniest parts of the press release was that Google Public Relations people forgot to change the year on their press release template. Hey, its 2006 now. The dateline on the press release read,

"CES, LAS VEGAS, Nev., January 6, 2005 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)"

Seems like Google needs some people to double check their press releases. It makes them seem like a dumb company that outsources their press releases and then the press releases are published without any proof reading. Not something to be expected from a company that claims to have hired the "smartest brains" on earth. But then, PR is the area where IMHO, Google has always been seriously lacking.

My rant about professional PR aside. Marissa Mayer, VP of search products reportedly said, "We've heard from countless new computer owners that it can take
days or weeks to install all the software they need to make their
computer useful. We developed Google Pack to give users a way
to painlessly install all the essential software they need -
pre-configured in a sensible way - in a matter of minutes. Better yet,
users don't have to keep track of software updates or new programs
- we maintain and update all the software for them."

Now, I don't know about you but to me, this is a big bologny that "it can take days or weeks to install all the [f*cking] software they need to make their computer useful."

Excuse my frankness, but what kind of an idiot do you have to be that it will take you days to download a handful of free software?

Now the scary part:

Google Pack also includes Google Updater, a new tool that intelligently
downloads, installs and maintains all the software in the Google Pack.
Google Updater alerts users when updates and new programs become
available and ensures each program is always up-to-date. Google Updater
can also be used to monitor the status of installation, run software
that's been installed, or easily uninstall software.

Users can easily select which programs they want to install. For
programs already installed on a computer, Google Updater checks whether
the latest version is running. If not, Google Updater will install the
latest version.

Every program included in the Google Pack is free, has earned a
reputation for excellence, and was evaluated to ensure it meets
Google's Software Principles. Google respects users' rights to
control their own computers and does not include software that is
spyware, generates pop-ups, or that is difficult to uninstall.
Additional information on Google's Software Principles is available
at http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/software_principles.html.
"

Whatever Google. You are just trying to shove your software by bundling it with a few other packages, something that most seasoned users DON'T like. If I want to download Real Player, I can do so myself. You don't need to freaking shove it on my computer. No thanks, I'll pass on that.

Expect Google to start ripping people off by charging a fee to include their software in Google Pack. After all its a company that will sell itself for anything. Go look at the ads they show when you search for [Google]. All ads are crap, but the company markets them as "highly relevant" and useful to the user. Go F*** yourself.

----------------
Frankly Speaking
----------------

google google pack google installer
google+updater CES

Top on Google and Yahoo!

2005-12-27T00:47:00.000-05:00

Today, while checking the projects on RAC, I came across this project

make our web site appear in top 1-10 on google and yahoo

We want our website to appear in top 1 - 10 on google and yahoo. Currently its position on yahoo is about 15 for some key words and 25 for some other key words, poorer on google. If you are interested in our project, please let us know, we will offer you details of our web sites, so that you can make a bid. The payment will be made after the results are demonstrated.

So why I am blogging about this? Because:

Max Accepted Bid: $100.00

Time for the person who posted the project to wake up and live in real life :)

Time Warner decides in Google's favor for Advertising Partnership

2005-12-17T00:39:00.000-05:00

AOL will be partnering with Google after all, according to media reports. Time Warner reportedly ditched Microsoft in favor of Google. To many, this is bad news for Microsoft. Other says that this is not a big deal. I think that Microsoft is dumb to not offer some money for money hungry AOL. They made a mistake years ago by not buying Overture and Altavista when they had a chance. For more, read the Google Wish List article on Search Marketing Ambassador.

Time Warner Google AOL ppc Advertising

Google eyeing Opera?

2005-12-15T15:47:00.000-05:00

Opera Watch is reporting that Pierre Chappaz, a former president of Yahoo! Europe is claiming that Google is in the process of buying Opera. Facing increased pressure from both Internet Explorer and Firefox, Opera recently started making its browser available for free.

A translation of Chappaz's post about Google to buy Opera and more coverage at SearchMarketingAmbassador.com

Tags: [google] [yahoo] [web browser] [search engine] [gbrowser] [firefox]

Google Analytics hurting a web site?

2005-12-13T18:22:00.000-05:00

When Google launched Urchin Analytics as Google Analytics, I really wanted to try it but a very close friend told me to hold on as this will just give search engines more data about my site and that 'extra intelligence' may be used to come back at me (some companies are really famous for coming back). Long story short, I didn't use GA. Now there is a thread at Webmaster world by Tolachi about whether Google Analytics is bad for business. Now I'm definitely going to wait and watch this thread for experiences of other web masters to see whether there is a connection.

Google

Google asking crazy prices for bids

2005-12-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

There is an active thread on WebmasterWorld about Google Adwords quality score including rating of landing page. Overall, this seems to be another ploy of Google to make more money. A comment below caught my eye:

I cannot understand why the minimum bid for some keywords like a toy that I am selling are $10.00. That's insane! Could it be a glitch?
iPo

I am so happy that I don't use junkwords anymore :).

Who knows more about you? Google, MSN or Yahoo?

2005-12-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

I just came across this post documenting a Q&A session with Matt Cutts, which says that Yahoo! reportedly collects 10TB of data daily, and that:

"Google knows a lot less about the specific user then Yahoo or MSN"

Give me a break, would you? I don't buy that for a minute Matt, unless you provide proof. Google's almost every engineer is obsessed with data collection. The people who buy this don't have a brain and can just believe anything. IMHO, unless Matt agrees that Yahoo! and MSN are bigger than Google, this is the biggest lie of 2005. If there is an even bigger one, I still have to hear it.

WebmasterWorld: Can you really justify this?

2005-12-01T19:36:00.000-05:00

Following are my thoughts and may not please everyone. If you cannot stand constructive criticism, please do me a favor and don't read.

First, let me say that there are few, if any, resources online like Webmasterworld.com. Like many other webmasters, I am very thankful to Brett Tabke and the WebmasterWorld community for working very hard on creating this unmatched community.

Now, that I have thanked and expressed my gratitude, lets get down and dirty.

A whole eternity to transfer a site

I mean come on. How difficult and hard can the migration process be? Well as we see from the case of WMW, it can be very difficult and time consuming. I remember three days seeing the message that they have selected the host and are now transferring the site. Three days? Wow! IMHO, if a site takes more than 24 hours to transfer, hire someone else.

Banning all robots

Regardless of what Brett and other WMW loyalists say, IMHO, no "sensible" argument can be made in the defense of WMW's dumb decision to ban all search bots from indexing it. IMO, the folks at WMW chose the worst possible solution to a simple problem. One would think that a place like WMW will have no shortage of engineers and developers to help them make an informed decision. Imagine if the management of every community online thinks like the management of WMW. Soon we'd have no content.

Could the reason be bandwidth costs?

I have heard people saying that the decision to ban all robots was made because "unauthorized" bots had taken millions of pages from WMW within a short period of time. So is it bandwidth cost thats worrying folks at WMW? But then why didn't they go with a hosting provider like EV1 that can give them 2000GB bandwidth a month for literally pennies? If bandwidth was the reason behind this dumb decision, then may be the folks at WMW don't really know where to shop. They would rather ban all the robots from indexing rather than make an intelligent business decision to choose a hosting provider that does not charge them huge amount of money for bandwidth. I read somewhere on WMW that Brett had his own reasons for not going with EV1.

Could the reason be processing power?

OK. If WMW management was worried about the processing power, there are many options to deal with it, with the dumbest being to block the robots. I mean, talk about paranoia. Here is a sensible solution: write a script that checks for bot abuse. If a bot is found abusing, ban it temporarily or permanently. I am sure even if WMW cannot write the script themselves there must be many volunteers (like me) who would be willing to write and "donate" such a script.

Could WMW management be worried about content theft?

OK. If content theft is an issue, still a simple script can solve the issue. Again the dumbest option being to block the bots.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have serious reservation as to the technical capabilities of the WMW management. I love the resource but by making such dumb decisions, WMW is only paving the way for WMW2.

Brett, if you are reading this, I just want to point the other options you had available. Sometimes it does pay off to really think things over. I still cannot believe you made this decision. What if someone tries a brute force attack on your server? Will you ask the hosting provider to unplug your server so the attacks won't happen. That's definitely a solution -- but not an intelligent one. Every action has an opportunity cost. Sure you have gotten rid of the abusing bot problem. But did you think about what opportunities you are creating for a competitor? If your content is not in search engines, someone else's will be. If you start giving in to industry pressures like this (like abusing bots) then IMHO, someone is done doing business.

WebmasterWorld lost traffic

Technorati: WebmasterWorld

Google hurts!

2005-12-01T15:49:00.000-05:00

Yet another example of a frustrated small business owner.

No one can help you with that, they will only try to explain away the infamous/famous algorithim. With an MBA from Northwestern University I don't want to hear about their software, I want my site given fair ranking for it's legitimacy and my fair play as owner, merchant and
blog author. In Googles zeal to offer relevant search results something has gone amiss or my blog would have gone North not South. Would their 60 Phd's care to debate that with me? -- Glass Cottage (google.public.support.general )

Google launches Google Space at London's Heathrow Airport

2005-11-24T22:02:00.000-05:00

Google is testing Google Space at terminal one of London's Heathrow Airport. This can bring some extra advertising revenue to Google as Heathrow gets a lot of traffic.

"Google don’t care about the security of our data": Jim Ley

2005-11-21T12:11:00.000-05:00

Google apparently didn't plan properly any of their new services.
1. Google Analytics (formerly Urchin web analytics) suspends new registrations as Google can currently no longer handle the load. If you go to the Google Analytics signup screen, the following message is displayed:

Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.

2. Google fixes a privacy flaw in Google Sitemaps which allowed people to look at just about anyone's statistics. (David Naylor)
3. Last, but not least, Google also had a security flaw in their Google Base services.

Instead of running after launching "me too" products in a hurry, why can't this company test and scale products fully before releasing it to public? This certainly does not make Google look like a company with smartest brains in the world.

Jim Ley, who is credited with discovering some of the flaws writes:

Like the yahoo programmer last week, the incompetent google base programmer had simply taken a parameter from the querystring, and written it unencoded into the document. So a query http://base.google.com/base/search?a_n427=<script>alert(1)</script>&a_y427=0&a_s427=0&a_r=2 performed the alert, this was fixed about 5 hours after I reported it, showing again that google don’t care about the security of our data enough to not release clearly insecure software.

Google's Vanessa Fox, said in a blog posting:

When we first started showing statistics a couple of months ago, we put a system in place to prevent anyone other than site owners from seeing stats for a site. We ask each site owner to place a unique file on the site and then we check to see if that file exists. When we do that check, we first make sure that the server isn't misconfigured to return a valid page when a request is made for a page that doesn't exist. We only verify sites that are configured correctly. You can read more about that process in our documentation.

Unfortunately, with our latest release, a bug prevented this process from working correctly. We fixed this as soon as we found out about the problem. We take your privacy very seriously and are currently investigating other approaches to further enhance security.

IMHO, I don't believe the bug was introduced in the latest release, rather I believe the bug went undetected until it was reported, but again, that's just my opinion.

Google patches its Google Base software

Google
Google Analytics
online marketing
advertising
publishing
tracking
statistics
web site
Google Base

Smart Google ... or are they? -- Online dating companies sued

2005-11-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

Google Ireland: Turnover: €359 million - Proft: €2.74 million
Ireland.com is reporting about Google Ireland making revenues of €359 million but only making a net profit of €2.74 million after tax. From the article:

An effect of the arrangement is that Google Ireland, the operating company, made an after-tax profit of only €2.74 million on a turnover of €603 million. It had operating expenses of €359 million which are understood to include the royalty payments to the other Irish company. Google Ireland paid Irish corporation tax of €1.6 million.

Having studied auditing in college, I would for sure love to look at the financial reports of Google Ireland. I tried searching, but so far no luck (benefit of moving to Ireland?). As I locate the original statements I will talk more.

Yahoo! Personals service and Match.com are being sued in two separate lawsuits by online daters. According to this and this report, both lawsuits claim false profiles created by companies. Match.com is also being accused of misleading their customers base.

A lawyer representing Los Angeles law firm Arias, Ozzello & Gignac LLP, which brought the suit against Match.com, said in a statement:

"This is a grossly fraudulent practice that Match.com is engaged in"
and that Match.com "promotes the policies of integrity to protect members, and yet they themselves, we allege, are misleading their entire customer base."

Google online dating Match Yahoo Personals accounting auditing corporate

Yahoo Shoposphere - Truly Innovative

2005-11-18T00:52:00.000-05:00

Today, I noticed that Yahoo! Shopping has launched a very cool and innovative, social shopping service, Yahoo! Shoposphere. Here is an interesting comment posted on Yahoo Search Blog:

I today got a chance to check Google Base and Yahoo!'s Shoposphere. What I saw at Google Base was disappointing to say the least. Just splogosphere version 2. I searched for some test keywords and already found thousands of pages of homepages. Not worth my time at the moment. May be later things will improve.

Yahoo's Shoposphere is a truly innovative and not a "me too" product. Kudos to David, Gupta and the entire Yahoo! team for something that is truly innovative.

Good job. Keep it up :)
Frank Mash / SoftwareEngineer99

Yahoo Shoposphere
Yahoo Shoposphere Google Base Shopping

Google search history to be used as evidence in murder case

2005-11-13T01:20:00.000-05:00

Wral.com is reporting that Google searches (search history) will be used as evidence in murder case. According to the news report,

Robert Petrick searched for the words "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold" on an Internet search engine before his wife died, according to prosecutors Wednesday.

It's good that there is some evidence to hold the person responsible but people need to be aware of privacy concerns of Google keeping an extended search history of every search ever performed.

Read more at Wral.com and CNET.com
neck+snap+break
Google Murder case Evidence Saarch
Privacy

Google Advertising and Organic Results - Then and Now

2005-11-10T20:55:00.000-05:00

A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. - Brin and Page

Google and advertising, two words that were conceptually hard to put together just a few years ago. Today, Google reportedly is the top media company generating billions in profits and exceeding investor expectations.

For good or bad, Google has changed.

Advertising and Search Engines - Then

This causes search engine technology to remain largely a black art and to be advertising oriented (see Appendix A). With Google, we have a strong goal to push more development and understanding into the academic realm. - TASE*

Brin and Page wrote in TASE

Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising.

This couldn't have been more true now. Looking at Google's SERPs, it feels like Google has been hacked by advertising world.

Through the following statement, Brin and Page communicated to us that having advertising as the primary business model of a search engine may not always result in quality search results.

The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.

"Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers" - Larry Page / Sergey Brin
And then...

It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.

Forgetting who "deserves" to be there

Brin and Page wrote in their paper:

Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search engines, search engine bias is particularly insidious. A good example was OpenText, which was reported to be selling companies the right to be listed at the top of the search results for particular queries [Marchiori 97]. This type of bias is much more insidious than advertising, because it is not clear who "deserves" to be there, and who is willing to pay money to be listed. This business model resulted in an uproar, and OpenText has ceased to be a viable search engine. But less blatant bias are likely to be tolerated by the market. For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies, and subtract a factor from results from competitors. This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.

By combining paid results with organic results, Google is doing the exact same mistake, their founders warned about in TASE*. Google is selling itself to advertisers. Where is the good Google? If you ask me, probably long dead.

* Sources:
TASE = http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html | The Anatomy of a Search Engine

Google Base and Google Automat - Threat or Opportunity?

2005-11-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

Should Google Base and Google Automat be perceived by webmasters as a threat or as an opportunity?

Riva Richmond, of Dow Jones Newswires, says that Google's test of advertising in print media may mean that Google "could also become an ally," of the print industry.

Google Automat patent images are available online. Images show how Google plans to sell classified advertising in less than a minute.

SearchMarketingAmbassador.com is reporting that Classifieds Intelligence issued the following statement:

It's crystal clear Google is planning for an all-out move into classified advertising. These patent filings and the disclosure of Google Base a few weeks ago show the company is actively preparing to offer free listings for cars, homes, jobs and 'stuff,' even for merchants, among its services

Google Update 11/10

2005-11-10T20:27:00.000-05:00

I was browsing a newsgroup and found some interesting posts about Google updates. Something seems to have changed in the SERPS 11/10/05. This is one incarnation of the by now infamous Jagger update, and more sites have taken an unexpected hit.

Matt Weir writes, "We ranked consistently at #5 or #6 for years and our company is the third largest in our market space. Now we are gone." He goes on to add that the changes seem to have taken place overnight, "We were in Google on Wednesday 11/9 and on Thursday 11/10 we are gone."

"arunra..." writes, "My website had brilliant natural first page listings with Google and now everything seems to have gone mad! My links can now be found on page 4 or later. Also, I have found that the shopping pages of the site are being 'scorned' - any ideas? Has anyone faced similar probs in the past few days. Google accounts for 90% of our revenue and this situation is clearly very distressing."

Online shopping sites are being hit hard at this critical time. One can hope that small online retail businesses survive this shopping season.

View the google.public.support.general newsgroup.

Tags: Google, Jagger, Google Update, Jagger Update, SERPS, Search Engine, Shopping, Ecommerce, Retail, Small Business

"The press should continue to feed [Google's] arrogance as much as possible": Bill Gates

2005-11-08T10:16:00.000-05:00

"We don’t think that is our job": Bill Gates

I just came across this article while searching on Yahoo!, my search engine of choice. Bill Gates recently gave an exclusive interview to Computing.co.uk. In his interview Bill Gates completely dismissed Google as a serious threat. Gates said,

‘Google is great, they are smart people, the press should continue to feed their arrogance as much as possible.’

Bill Gates later said about Google:

‘They say they are going to organise the world’s information. Well, we don’t think that is our job. We think you need to get tools to editors and subject experts to let them organise the world’s information. There is a bit of a philosophy difference here. The only sure winner is the consumer.’

microsoft google press webmaster journalist interview

GGG - Google's googole greed?

2005-11-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

Here is an excerpt of a comment from me that I made on a forum:

IMO, one main factor in the demise of Enron was greed. Unfortunately, today we are getting the same message from Google.

I read a story in my childhood about a monkey who happens to break into a house and finds a jar with a narrow opening, full of almonds. The monkey successfully slides his hand in the narrow opening of the jar and instead of grabbing a couple of almonds, the monkey tries to grab as many almonds as he can. The result: His hand gets stuck and he cannot get his hand out of the jar. The monkey will not let go of the almonds and keeps trying unsuccessfully to get his hand out of the jar without loosing any almonds. The owner of the jar comes and catches the monkey red handed.

IMO, Google is acting like the monkey. Eager to "hijack" clicks that would have otherwise gone to legitimate publishers without any advertising cost.

Is Google devaluing content? Tom asks

2005-11-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

Tom Foremski is reporting on how Google Base aims to devalue content by valuing machine generated content. Tom writes

GOOG is devaluing the value of content by insisting the only value is in aggregation. People dump content or free into GOOGbase, but GOOG monetizes the index.
That's like saying the value of a book is in its index, not the content it points to.

Where is the "not-evil" Google we used to know?

Google content

Is Google becoming an image campaign company?

2005-11-02T11:36:00.000-05:00

Google, which is becoming notoriously famous for penalizing websites is now apparently charging firms for creating their image online.

InformationWeek is reporting:

"A firm is paying Google an undisclosed sum to make available on its sponsored search pages some white papers that paint an upbeat picture of all things having to do with RFID technology."

IMO, Google should first concentrate on its own image that is gaining negative publicitiy faster than any other company due to unjustified penalties on mom and pop websites.

Google RFID Advertising

Is Google crossing the line with Google Print?

2005-11-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

Google Print is a project by Google that aims to digitize library books by scanning them without their author's express permission, destroying the concept of copyright and permissions. Google had earlier announced a self-imposed penalty till today. As is clear from a post made on Official Google Blog yesterday, Google is "in the process of resuming scanning."

Google thinks they can do everything they want. Despite the lawsuits brought against the company in recent past by Author's Guild and AAP (publishers.org), Google decided to continue the project.

Blue Magnolia made a post asking "Who do Google think they are?." Following is an excerpt from the post:

I'm not sure what there is to say about Google and their digitisation project, except do they think the rules don't apply to them? I don't think I've ever seen such blatant disregard for the law.

Whether or not Google intend only to make small portions of the texts available to users, they're missing the point that the very act of making the unauthorised copy is illegal. Now they seem to think that out of print and out of copyright are the same thing.

I totally agree with Blue magnolia. Google is not above the law and they need to realize this. The sooner they realize, the better for them.

In related news, Google has been "cleaning" the web by kicking off innocent mom and pop websites from its index. Google search results seem to be full of sites *they* consider authoritative.

As far as relevancy is concerned, Google's results are full of junk for many sectors. Heck, not even a single page is returned from Google when searching for [adsense feedback].

Faeriebell writes in a post titled Google's Jagger Update and Christmas Shopping:

Google's strategy has shifted to advertising. Instead of delivering the quality search results they became popular for, they are instead delivering very poor search results, which drives users of their search engine to click on the advertisements on the right side of the results. It makes Google money. A lot of money.

For the past two updates, Google has targeted small mom and pop websites that are trying to make an honest living on the Internet. Companies that felt Google's burn in the Bourbon update are still reeling, their rankings forever lost. While Bourbon targeted directory and travel sites, Jagger1 and Jagger2 have been equally decimating to honest retail and online shopping websites. Google's timing is impeccable, travel season rolls around and they penalize travel sites, forcing them to pay for advertising. Shopping season rolls around, and shopping outlets are in Google's sights.

Tags: search google SEM SEO SEM advertising copyright digitization

Where's the diversity? Graywolf asks Google

2005-11-01T15:29:00.000-05:00

Today, I came across Graywolf's site and really enjoyed reading his article as it raises some serious questions for Google. Under the heading of Captain Ahab and the White Whale named SEO, GrayWolf writes:

There was a time when you were pretty easy to game, and you've made it considerably harder lately, in fact many would say too hard. However like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick, in this all consuming attempt to keep the SEO/spammer crowd out, you've placed way to much emphasis on authoritativeness. In fact your SERPS are really starting to become incestuous lately. I'm tired of seeing Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist, and Wikipedia for the searches I do. Where's the diversity? I know where those sites are and I know how to find them, so again stop dumbing down the web for me.

To read the full article, please go to GrayWolf's Wolf Howl.

Tags: search google SEM SEO SEM advertising
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Why Search Scandals?

2005-11-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

There was a time search used to suck. Then came Google and suddenly people found themselves being able to find information online.

Today, unfortunately, search industry has started sucking again, thanks to greediness of some of the biggest media companies.

SearchScandals will feature your reviews, your opinions and your thoughts put together in one place for the world to read.

If you are a webmaster penalized by a search engine this year, I feel sorry for you. If you haven't been penalized yet, wait and see.

Please, add your comments and help spread the word.

Tags: search google yahoo SEM SEO
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