Western Pennsylvania couple Aaron and Christine Boring only want privacy. Why else do you think they bought a home with a long, private driveway to keep snoops away? Then Google, with its Street View mapping feature, went and allegedly violated their privacy, by sending a camera-equipped van on the Borings' private road and snapping pics of their house.
Google's talking heads say any homeowner's request to have images removed from their database would be honored, but it's unclear whether the couple ever made such a request.
Instead, they've filed a lawsuit against the search giant.
"Isn't litigation the only way to change a big business' conduct with the public?" asks attorney Dennis Moskal. Perhaps. It's also the best way not to stay out of the public eye.
In February, Barack Obama spent $1 million on Internet advertising, much of it devoted to Google search terms. It's a decent tactic: Replace organic search results with paid listings.
Jason Binn appears to be doing the same.
A Google search for his name used to show this Copyranter blog post as the first result. Now it's an ad for the luxe mag guru's Niche Media. Even more troublesome: That pushes Jossip down from 7th to 8th.
The Obama campaign spent $1 million on Google search terms, compared to Clinton's $67,000. From what we can tell, most of the money was spent making search searches for "Obama" or "Clinton" turned up the candidate's website, which Google's standard search results already offered. Search terms "economy," "recession," "Iraq," and "health care" were not advertised on. [MP]
Viacom sued Google for $1 billion over copyright infringement charges, claiming all those Daily Show clips were posted illegally. So sad news for Viacom chief Philippe Dauman: A judge ruled he's entitled to exactly zero dollars punitive damages. The only award he can receive are for the actual costs of infringement. Meanwhile, wasn't Viacom one of those big media companies arguing they weren't making any cash from their online content? The full ruling follows. CONTINUED »
JuicyCampus.com, the website that is a definitive example of why you should not have sex in college, is looking at dire financial straits. So controversial is the site – where university students post sex gossip about their peers and answer complicated questions like "Who is the sluttiest girl??????" – that Google has banned it from its contextual advertising program AdSense, leaving GlaxoSmithKline to find another outlet to push its herpes-fighting wonder drug Valtrex. [Daily Skiff]
Google Docs is here to remind you:
Thanks, Google! Without you, we may have forgotten all about our fear of dying alone.
ANTI-TRUST, SHMANTI-TRUST Yahoo! must really hate Microsoft. Following Microsoft's unsolicited, inflated bid, Yahoo! has been chatting it up with its chief rival, Google. Everything is on the hush-hush, but it's likely the talks center around giving Google reign over its advertising. But a deal would ultimately about Yahoo! hating Microsoft. It's so nice that rivals like Google and Yahoo! are able to connect over a common enemy. [LAT]
DEALS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo!, you know that other search engine/email provider. Yeah, the one that's not Google. Microsoft is willing to pay $44.6 billion, a 62 percent premium, for a company that is becoming obsolete. We get that Microsoft and Yahoo! share an enemy, but this deal seems like it will end in tears. Then again, if we understood how deals like this work, we wouldn't be working from home in our pajamas in deep Brooklyn. [NYT]
I don't actually say that there's no reason why anyone should feel threatened. Frankly, I think that's a little patronizing to the people running these companies.
There's a complex ecosystem that involves advertisers, people who own content and companies like Google that are there to try to connect content and advertisers and users. There's lots of reasons why they're worried.
I think another way to say it is that I don't think they should be concerned about Google being a competitor, or a source of headache. We're part of the Internet; we're part of the technological transformation that everyone's experiencing.
-David Eun, head of Google's content partnerships, I Want Media
LINK IT UP "Hey wouldn't it be cool if Google bought the New York Times? No, there's no reason to believe that Google is actually going to buy the New York Times or that the Sulzbergers would sell. I'm just saying it would be really interesting if that happened. I mean, everyone is crazy about the New York Times and Google, people use that website all the time. So why not link to my story about that subject, even though it has no real relevance?" [RealClearMarkets]
Screenshot of Google News, snapped at 10am EST, while searching for Heath Ledger.
OH FUCK YOU, GOOGLE Look, so we can't afford an iPhone. Whatever, AT&T service sucks anyway. What good is having a GPS on you at all times, anyway? And besides, that touch screen is impossible to type on. Yeah, we're totally content with our generic flip phone. Oh, so what that the T9 feature doesn't really work. Whatever. We can still send and receive text messages with it. Look, if we wanted to surf the internet, we'd get a computer. Just stop rubbing it in.
CRAPS! Search giants Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google are ponying up $31.5 million to settle charges they promoted gambling by accepting ads from illegal online gaming companies. As for promoting risky subprime home loans? In the clear! [Bloomberg]
So, like everybody else with a basic understanding of the internet, we understand that convenience is often more important than privacy. In the case of Gmail, all that storage is worth the fact that Google reads our email for ads. It’s a bit awkward when relationship advice ads pop up on the side of emails with boyfriends, but whatever. CONTINUED »
Despite evidence to the contrary, ie our inbox, Google says it’s got the whole spam thing under control. The company claims that spam has leveled off and may even be declining. The reason: Gmail's success at catching junk mail has discouraged spammers.
Organizing all of the world’s information is one thing, but claiming to end spam, that’s a hubris the Greek Gods would punish.
[Wired]
With Google reading your email, tracking your web searches, and coming soon to your mobile phone, the Google empire, while brilliant, is a bit diabolical. Ignoring the company is impossible, but you can have some revenge with the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Since feature takes users directly to the first site on the Google search, Google does not profit from the ads on the search page. The button costs the company an estimated $110 million a year. Considering even their masseuse is a millionaire, $110 million is nothing, but each lucky search makes a difference.
With Google stock peaking at $747.24 this Tuesday, the New York Times is running out of ways to explain just how rich everyone at Google is. By some estimates, 1,000 people have become multi-millionaires off of their Google stock.
The Times’s is fresh angle for this story is that even the Google masseuse is a millionaire. After working as the in house rub-downer for five years, Bonnie Brown cashed in most of her stock and is now retired.
We don’t know that much about computers, but we run a mean vacuum. Maintenance gets stock options, right?
• Magician Hans Klok comes out of the closet; pledges to leave all the man-on-female sex crimes to (alleged) rapist David Copperfield.
• Jodie Foster's best performance to date.
• Tyra Banks to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about her vagina.
• Courteney Cox is a surprisingly caring mother! Especially for someone who named her innocent newborn "Coco."
• And speaking of Cocos, Ice-T's wife accidentally forgets her Halloween costume at home. A pity.
• Meanwhile, Google accidentally confuses outgoing Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons with…two monkeys. Even better? The ensuing Newsweek article is entitled "Google: Glitch, Not Racism."
After losing Facebook to Microsoft, Google has teamed with MySpace to develop a standard platform for third party developers called OpenSocial.
Small programmers will be able to create single application that will work on Orkut and MySpace, as well as smaller networking sites like Bebo, LinkedIn and Friendster.
Google is putting their money into the wrong technology. A cross-platform application that collects relationship status updates from all the social networking sites would be a lot more exciting than a universal Scrabble app.
Editorial Director
