[google] Forum Topics

It would appear that [URL="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hq6FlGb4RaKA8uNU0xIMPsrNOgPAD8VR8Q8G0"]Google is being sued[/URL] by the owners of a house in the Franklin Park suburb of Pittsburgh because the search giants photographed the property and included it in the [URL="http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/"]Google Maps street view[/URL] feature. Why anyone would want to take an interest in the boring house, …

[URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/insight-into-youtube-videos.html"]Google has today announced[/URL] the launch a tool to answer the kind of questions anyone posting video clips to YouTube are always asking, such as: who viewed my video, how did they find it, where did they come from? YouTube Insight is free, and enables anyone with a YouTube account …

Figures released earlier by ComScore reveal that Google's web-search market share dipped Janurary to Feburay overall; even though the US share was up slightly. Google's lions share of the search world still sits at 62.8% though; down from 63.1% in Janurary. The number of searches going through Google is also …

Information Week is out with a new story ranking the top Internet search firms (by number of searches) for the month of February, 2008. The results may indicate why Microsoft wants a piece of Yahoo so badly, even though Bill Gates & Co. seem unwilling to up their share-per-price bid …

According to a [url=http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1325839520080313]story on Reuters[/url], it appears that Google is planning on using their newfound acquisition of the DoubleClick ad server to launch a new (and free) Ad Manager service ... essentially providing a free ad server to publishers (mind you a service that mid to large size online …

I was so wrapped up in the AOL hoopla yesterday that I forgot to mention how well technology stocks are doing so far this week. Sure, today's trading session wasn't exactly stellar: Microsoft, Apple, AOL and others all lost ground - but only by a little. Monday and Tuesday were …

The [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/11/BU10VHR0N.DTL&type=business"]San Francisco Chronicle reports[/URL] that Google has finally got the go ahead from European regulators to close the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. The deal has immediately been closed, therefore, as the decision by the European Commission removes the last hurdle standing in Google's way.

More turmoil at AOL today, as the technology giant fired the head of its Platform A ad-network business yesterday. Blodget, reporting on the ever-valuable Tech Ticker portal on Yahoo.com’s finance site, says that Curt Viebranz, was canned, but there was little love for AOL's senior management. One reason why Viebranz …

According to messaging security experts [URL="http://www.messagelabs.com/intelligence.aspx"]MessageLabs[/URL] there has been a 100 percent rise in the amount of spam from Gmail during February, along with a worrying 200 percent increase in targeted Trojan attacks. The February MessageLabs Intelligence Report, published today, paints a sorry picture as far as IT security is …

Google, in my opinion, made a couple of mistakes in Q1 with the way they've handled changes in Google AdSense. For example, they made the change of making only AdSense titles and urls clickable instead of the entire ad unit, saying that it will lead to fewer people clicking accidentally, …

Google has opened a new research and development centre, based in Zurich (Switzerland), which is home to more than 300 engineers which makes it Google's largest engineering centre outside the U.S. and promises to be a hub for ongoing product innovation and development. Google has announced its intention to hire …

The Cult of the Dead Cow, the infamous hacking collective, has released a Google hacking utility called Goolag Scan that brings the ability to search the information engine for web-based data that is normally hidden to anyone wannabe with a web browser and half a brain. It does this by …

Nobody has ever accused Microsoft of not knowing how to play hardball. From its history of monopolistic practices, of elbowing competitors out of the marketplace (hello, Netscape!), or lifting ideas it likes from adversaries like Apple without shame, Microsoft is more than ready to throw the first punch. With that …

An update on the Microsoft & Yahoo merger comes today in the form of an email from a member of the Yahoo board of directors to shareholders. The email, which was published on Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog earlier this morning, gives a good inside account of why Yahoo shareholders may …

Microsoft’s CEO has a message to Google: watch out. In a wide-ranging phone meeting with analysts and business journalists this morning, Steve Balmer, Bill Gates’ right-hand man and the chief executive officer at Microsoft says that the company’s recently-announced deal with Yahoo would foster stronger competition with industry leader Google. …

Lots to talk about today. You've probably already have read about Microsoft's $45 billion buyout of Yahoo. Obviously, Microsoft is giving up on its MSN web portal and throwing it's weight and capital behind Yahoo. For Yahoo, which has seen its stock slide precipitously in the last year, the deep …

In an attempt to wean her students off of what she calls ‘white bread for the mind’ one University of Brighton professor has banned her students from using either Google or Wikipedia in their research for the first year of study. Instead, in what many will consider a neo-Luddite move, …

According to security researchers at [URL="http://news.bitdefender.com"]BitDefender[/URL] a new Trojan has been discovered which hijacks text based Google adverts and replaces them with ads from a totally different provider. Trojan.Qhost.WU acts by modifying the infected computers' Hosts file to include a line which redirects the web browser from the expected .googlesyndication.com …

Yesterday I wrote that Google was ranked dead last in a national survey of Internet search engine companies when it comes to consumer privacy rights. I also notes how Congress was taking a closer look at Google's privacy practices, particularly in light of its proposed merger with Doubleclick. Now it …

A recent study on the privacy rankings of big internet search engine providers reveals that Google might have some ‘splainin to do, especially if Congress gets its way. In the process, its proposed merger/buyout with Doubleclick might be in trouble. First, Google’s privacy problems, as defined by some privacy experts. …

The last few days have been interesting ones for those of us who have nothing better to do than follow online gossip and trends. Especially so when you consider that the big gossip in the world of search has been how some rather well known sites have seen their PageRank …

According to the [URL="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/10/coming-soon-make-ad-changes-without.html"]Inside AdSense blog[/URL] better management tools for AdSense users are on the way. The new tools will allow you to manage your ad units from within your AdSense account, meaning that settings such as colors and channels will be saved in your AdSense account every time you …

Google has [URL="http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12760"]added IMAP support[/URL] to its free webmail service Gmail. Users can now access email from client applications using the Internet Message Access Protocol, and at the same time automatically update the message status within Gmail itself. This is something that many people who access Gmail messages via the …

Many of the world's leading Internet and media companies, including CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks Inc., Viacom Inc. and The Walt Disney Company, have pledged their support to a set of collaborative principles that are designed to foster the growth and development …

Yahoo! has complained to the [URL="http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/m94.html#m_4731"]European Commission[/URL] that Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of Doubleclick, the online advertising business, could reduce competition and ultimately push up pricing for European customers. The fear, naturally enough considering that Google has always been in the advertising business just as much as it has the …

Google has announced a new feature for users of its Google Earth application, and it goes by the name of Sky. Thankfully Rupert Murdoch has not done some dastardly deal with the search giants, but rather Google is enabling users to 'float through the skies' via Google Earth. What this …

Dan Meredith and Andy Golding are software engineers at Google, working as part of the News Team responsible for developing the Google News service. They might just have made one of the most important statements to come from the direction of Google for a long time. Posting on the official …

There has been much online speculation about how Microsoft is going to head off the Google Apps free office software attack, much of it focusing on an advertising supported version of Microsoft Office. While this may, at some point, feature in the Microsoft strategy it is not going to appear …

Although Google itself refuses to budge from the official company line of confirming or denying nothing, it looks increasingly likely that a Googlephone is in the offing. Several sources are now claiming that prototype phone devices have been touted around the US mobile carriers in recent weeks (ironically you need …

[URL="http://www.privacyinternational.org"]Privacy International[/URL] has accused Google of embarking upon a smear campaign within the media to discredit both PI and a report, to be published in full later in the year, which ranks the privacy performance of the top Internet service companies. The interim results which were [URL="http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-553961"]published[/URL] on the 9th …