Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Google, Yahoo Revise Key Data Strategy, Privacy Rules
Google and Yahoo issued separate announcements about visitor data and the plans for use at each respective company.
Google said it will revise its privacy policies and terms of service, effective March 1, making them shorter and easier to understand. The new privacy policy makes it clear that Google can use information shared on one service in other Google services.
"If you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," explains Alma Whitten, director of privacy, product and engineering at Google. "In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience."
Today, Google has about 70 documents governing policies, but the company will introduce a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of its products and explains the information it collects and how it intends to use it.
Users will start receiving an email to alert them of the changes, according to Whitten, who wrote in a blog post that the company had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, but intends to consolidate more than 60 into one main Privacy Policy.
Data owned by search companies and publishers has become the big ticket for ad targeting and support.
During the Q4 2011 earnings call, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson and other company execs said data will become the key component for driving innovation at the company that holds bits and bytes from more than 702 million unique visitors and users of its products and services.
"We can use data to render the experience exactly the way you want it to create uniquely relevant experiences in everything from content to the layout of the page to the flow between pages and, of course, the advertising," Thompson said.
Thompson called Yahoo's data the "single most underrated, underappreciated and underused asset."
By Lauren Sullivan
Google said it will revise its privacy policies and terms of service, effective March 1, making them shorter and easier to understand. The new privacy policy makes it clear that Google can use information shared on one service in other Google services.
"If you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," explains Alma Whitten, director of privacy, product and engineering at Google. "In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience."
Today, Google has about 70 documents governing policies, but the company will introduce a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of its products and explains the information it collects and how it intends to use it.
Users will start receiving an email to alert them of the changes, according to Whitten, who wrote in a blog post that the company had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, but intends to consolidate more than 60 into one main Privacy Policy.
Data owned by search companies and publishers has become the big ticket for ad targeting and support.
During the Q4 2011 earnings call, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson and other company execs said data will become the key component for driving innovation at the company that holds bits and bytes from more than 702 million unique visitors and users of its products and services.
"We can use data to render the experience exactly the way you want it to create uniquely relevant experiences in everything from content to the layout of the page to the flow between pages and, of course, the advertising," Thompson said.
Thompson called Yahoo's data the "single most underrated, underappreciated and underused asset."
By Lauren Sullivan
Monday, October 31, 2011
Google Introduces New Encryption Process for Organic Search Queries: Results May Vary
Google announced that starting October 18, 2011 a new privacy protection process for organic search analytics. Organic search queries executed by those consumers logged into Google products will no longer be available to web analytics systems (including Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst, WebTrends, Coremetrics, etc.) or other Google products (Keyword Tool, Trends, etc.). Note: this does NOT impact paid search analytics, even if a searcher is logged in to a Google property. Google’s view is that advertisers pay for this information in order to optimize their programs. Google will continue to provide total search volume on the platform, and it will continue to serve query level data for those organic search queries executed on the system that are from consumers not-logged into its web products. The purpose of this note is to discuss why they are doing this, and what search marketers should expect and do.
Why is Google implementing this? The answer is simple. Privacy. Searchers logged into Google through any of its products (Gmail, Google+, YouTube) receive search results that are customized to their search history—they are personalized. Even though the data that is passed on to web analytics products is, in most cases, impossible to reconcile to an individual searcher – this is a proactive move by Google to reduce privacy concerns (both in the US as well as the EU) by saying “no search queries that have been personalized will be available to any third party.”
What is the impact of this on search marketers? Google reported that less than 10% of search queries that are executed are done by consumers logged into Google products. We have no reason to dispute this statistic, so we recommend that advertisers assume that 5 – 10% of search queries are from personalized results. So any keyword level organic analysis reporting that advertisers use from their web analytics systems will start to show 5 – 10% lower referral volumes starting immediately. We do believe that this percentage will continue to increase over time, so this statistic will require on-going adjustments as additional benchmark statistics on personalization use come available. On a technical level, the process by which Google reports referential data is still unclear. For example, in Organic Search Insight™, we get data that is unique to the data, search engine, entry URL and search query. Google is saying they will continue to provide all of this data except the search query. We are in the process of testing how this is formatted through analysis of weblogs for our own site and will report on results when they come available.
It is our understanding that this encryption process is being rolled out globally. To understand the impact, we recommend that our customers do a benchmark for their top 25 organic search queries by analyzing daily variations over a 2 – 3 week period within each geography, as personalization percentages will be different by country. The purpose should be to see if there is a substantial fall off in daily keyword level referential volume—on Google only—for a particular geography. If the results for the post effective data (October 18, 2011) query volume are lower, this should be determined using 25 days prior and post the change date and this can be used as the best proxy for how to adjust query level volumes upward.
This will impact the ability of systems to look at paid and organic synergy as these types of analytics require query level granularity to see how individual searches interact between the paid and organic listing. Search advertisers may get more traffic from organic search than is reported. They may erroneously conclude that they need to purchase additional PPC volume for particular keywords when in fact their shortfalls on organic are the results of this encryption process. No changes should be made to process until the benchmarking process above is completed – again, by geography.
by Jeff MacGurn
Why is Google implementing this? The answer is simple. Privacy. Searchers logged into Google through any of its products (Gmail, Google+, YouTube) receive search results that are customized to their search history—they are personalized. Even though the data that is passed on to web analytics products is, in most cases, impossible to reconcile to an individual searcher – this is a proactive move by Google to reduce privacy concerns (both in the US as well as the EU) by saying “no search queries that have been personalized will be available to any third party.”
What is the impact of this on search marketers? Google reported that less than 10% of search queries that are executed are done by consumers logged into Google products. We have no reason to dispute this statistic, so we recommend that advertisers assume that 5 – 10% of search queries are from personalized results. So any keyword level organic analysis reporting that advertisers use from their web analytics systems will start to show 5 – 10% lower referral volumes starting immediately. We do believe that this percentage will continue to increase over time, so this statistic will require on-going adjustments as additional benchmark statistics on personalization use come available. On a technical level, the process by which Google reports referential data is still unclear. For example, in Organic Search Insight™, we get data that is unique to the data, search engine, entry URL and search query. Google is saying they will continue to provide all of this data except the search query. We are in the process of testing how this is formatted through analysis of weblogs for our own site and will report on results when they come available.
It is our understanding that this encryption process is being rolled out globally. To understand the impact, we recommend that our customers do a benchmark for their top 25 organic search queries by analyzing daily variations over a 2 – 3 week period within each geography, as personalization percentages will be different by country. The purpose should be to see if there is a substantial fall off in daily keyword level referential volume—on Google only—for a particular geography. If the results for the post effective data (October 18, 2011) query volume are lower, this should be determined using 25 days prior and post the change date and this can be used as the best proxy for how to adjust query level volumes upward.
This will impact the ability of systems to look at paid and organic synergy as these types of analytics require query level granularity to see how individual searches interact between the paid and organic listing. Search advertisers may get more traffic from organic search than is reported. They may erroneously conclude that they need to purchase additional PPC volume for particular keywords when in fact their shortfalls on organic are the results of this encryption process. No changes should be made to process until the benchmarking process above is completed – again, by geography.
by Jeff MacGurn
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Google Sued For Click Fraud For First Time In Five Years
A Seattle locksmith has sued Google for click fraud for allegedly charging the company for clicks on paid-search ads that it believes were made by a competitor.
In a complaint filed in King County state court last week, 123 Lock & Key argues that Google breached its contract and also violated Washington state laws by charging for allegedly questionable clicks.
This lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind in more than five years, when Google settled a class-action click-fraud lawsuit.
A Google spokesperson said the company had not yet been served with the lawsuit and couldn't comment on 123 Lock's allegations. But he said Google has "devoted significant resources to protect advertisers from invalid clicks." He added that the company "will continue to fight click fraud and work with our advertisers to investigate every click fraud claim and credit them retroactively, as appropriate."
123 Lock says in its court papers that it began advertising with Google last October, at which time it received around 15 clicks a day -- a figure that remained stable through March. Between October and March, around 80% of the people who clicked through followed up with a phone call, according to the lawsuit.
Last March, however, 123 Lock began receiving between 100 and 150 clicks a day. "123 would often receive a flurry of clicks within a single minute," the lawsuit alleges. "These clicks never converted into phone calls. Because of the click fraud, 123 was forced to cease advertising on Google."
123 Lock owner Guy Aloni said through a spokesman that he informed Google he suspected that the uptick in clicks was the result of actions by a competitor, but that Google did not satisfactorily respond.
The lawsuit alleges that Google's AdWords agreement with marketers provides that Google has sole discretion over whether to offer a refund for suspected click fraud. But 123 Lock's lawyer, Aric Bomsztyk, argues that Google still has to exercise that discretion in good faith.
Several years ago, allegations of click fraud frequently drew headlines. But in 2006, Google settled a class-action click-fraud lawsuit by agreeing to provide ad credits to marketers that had been charged for improper clicks. The agreement called for up to $60 million in total ad credits.
Since then, Google has faced several cases challenging its placement of paid-search ads on supposedly low-quality sites, but hasn't faced other lawsuits by marketers that alleged that a competitor was driving up search costs by clicking on ads on the main search results page.
In July of 2006, Google began offering a reporting feature that tells marketers how many clicks are being filtered out of Google's system. Overall, Google says it currently filters out less than 10% of clicks. The company estimates that undetected click-fraud accounts for less than .02% of clicks.
By Wendy Davis
In a complaint filed in King County state court last week, 123 Lock & Key argues that Google breached its contract and also violated Washington state laws by charging for allegedly questionable clicks.
This lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind in more than five years, when Google settled a class-action click-fraud lawsuit.
A Google spokesperson said the company had not yet been served with the lawsuit and couldn't comment on 123 Lock's allegations. But he said Google has "devoted significant resources to protect advertisers from invalid clicks." He added that the company "will continue to fight click fraud and work with our advertisers to investigate every click fraud claim and credit them retroactively, as appropriate."
123 Lock says in its court papers that it began advertising with Google last October, at which time it received around 15 clicks a day -- a figure that remained stable through March. Between October and March, around 80% of the people who clicked through followed up with a phone call, according to the lawsuit.
Last March, however, 123 Lock began receiving between 100 and 150 clicks a day. "123 would often receive a flurry of clicks within a single minute," the lawsuit alleges. "These clicks never converted into phone calls. Because of the click fraud, 123 was forced to cease advertising on Google."
123 Lock owner Guy Aloni said through a spokesman that he informed Google he suspected that the uptick in clicks was the result of actions by a competitor, but that Google did not satisfactorily respond.
The lawsuit alleges that Google's AdWords agreement with marketers provides that Google has sole discretion over whether to offer a refund for suspected click fraud. But 123 Lock's lawyer, Aric Bomsztyk, argues that Google still has to exercise that discretion in good faith.
Several years ago, allegations of click fraud frequently drew headlines. But in 2006, Google settled a class-action click-fraud lawsuit by agreeing to provide ad credits to marketers that had been charged for improper clicks. The agreement called for up to $60 million in total ad credits.
Since then, Google has faced several cases challenging its placement of paid-search ads on supposedly low-quality sites, but hasn't faced other lawsuits by marketers that alleged that a competitor was driving up search costs by clicking on ads on the main search results page.
In July of 2006, Google began offering a reporting feature that tells marketers how many clicks are being filtered out of Google's system. Overall, Google says it currently filters out less than 10% of clicks. The company estimates that undetected click-fraud accounts for less than .02% of clicks.
By Wendy Davis
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Obama Goes After Google: Google’s Buzz Launch Was ‘Irresponsible Conduct’
An outgoing FTC commissioner has slammed Google over the way it launched Google Buzz last month, calling the episode a case of “irresponsible conduct.” According to PC World, FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour also said Google and other online companies may face tougher penalties if they don’t do a better job of protecting consumer privacy.
The PC World article includes some strongly-worded criticisms about how Google launched its Buzz social networking service:
“Google consistently tells the public to ‘just trust us,’” she said. “But based on my observations, I do not believe consumer privacy played any significant role in the release of Buzz.”
A reasonable consumer would conclude that the launch of Buzz was a “material change” their relationship with Google’s Gmail, she said. “When users created Gmail accounts, they signed up for e-mail services,” she said. “Their expectations did not include social networking.”
Negative reaction to Buzz was quick and widespread after its February 9th launch. Google immediately began changing how Buzz works, and eventually issued a public apology that said Google “failed to appreciate that users have differing privacy expectations.”
But Commissioner Harbour also took exception to that approach during today’s FTC privacy workshop.
“I would like to see the commission take the position of intolerance toward companies that push the privacy envelop, then backtrack and modify their offerings after facing consumer and regulator backlash.”
Harbour, whom PC World says is leaving the FTC next month, also spoke critically of Facebook’s long-running privacy issues, and called for online companies to use encryption more often to protect their users personal data.
The PC World article includes some strongly-worded criticisms about how Google launched its Buzz social networking service:
“Google consistently tells the public to ‘just trust us,’” she said. “But based on my observations, I do not believe consumer privacy played any significant role in the release of Buzz.”
A reasonable consumer would conclude that the launch of Buzz was a “material change” their relationship with Google’s Gmail, she said. “When users created Gmail accounts, they signed up for e-mail services,” she said. “Their expectations did not include social networking.”
Negative reaction to Buzz was quick and widespread after its February 9th launch. Google immediately began changing how Buzz works, and eventually issued a public apology that said Google “failed to appreciate that users have differing privacy expectations.”
But Commissioner Harbour also took exception to that approach during today’s FTC privacy workshop.
“I would like to see the commission take the position of intolerance toward companies that push the privacy envelop, then backtrack and modify their offerings after facing consumer and regulator backlash.”
Harbour, whom PC World says is leaving the FTC next month, also spoke critically of Facebook’s long-running privacy issues, and called for online companies to use encryption more often to protect their users personal data.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Google Revisits Privacy Controls On Buzz, Again
Google engineers have been working on three updates to Buzz during the weekend that address privacy concerns. The changes will become the second set that the Mountain View, Calif. search engine will implement since launching the social network last week. The first set of changes focused on limiting access to public profiles.
The latest round of changes based on feedback from people using the tool provides better privacy controls, and makes the setting more visible. Google spokesperson Victoria Katsarou says Google engineers have been working overtime to get the features implemented quickly. "The changes should go live within the next couple of days," Katsarou told MediaPost Sunday afternoon. "This is important. Our entire team has been working nonstop to respond as quickly as possible. We want to respond to their complaints and have been listening closely to their feedback."
Katsarou says Google wants to improve the product and remains open to receiving feedback from people using Buzz.
Replacing the auto-follow with an auto-suggest feature is one of three updates in this group. Google decided to make the change after people complained that the feature revealed names of people on private email lists. Todd Jackson explains in a blog post that instead of Buzz automatically setting the follows to the people the person emails and chats with most, the tool makes suggestions and asks the user to click on "Follow selected people and start using Buzz."
Aside from changing auto-follow to auto-request, Buzz will no longer connect a user's public Picasa Web album and Google Research shared items automatically. The change, also based on feedback shared with Google by users, replaces an auto-connect feature that shared already public content. Jackson explains that "if you had previously shared photos in an unlisted album or set the Google Reader shared items as 'Protected,' no one except the people you'd explicitly allowed to see your stuff has been able to see it."
Google also will add a Buzz tab to Gmail settings. In the tab, users can hide Buzz from Gmail or disable it completely. A link to these settings will become available from the initial start-up page to easily decide from the start to turn it off if you don't want to use Buzz.
Katsarou says the addition of Buzz tab under "Settings" not only makes it easier to hide Buzz from Gmail or disable it completely, but it gives people another easy way to decide if you want your followers -- the people you follow -- to remain public or private. "Another way to change this is by editing your profile," she adds.
Aside from privacy concerns, a host of posts on the Buzz social network describe requests for upgrade and improvements. Buzz user wish lists include everything from increasing search options to translating foreign languages within the network and rebuzz tools similar to the retweet tool in Twitter.
Google Buzz users have also begun to develop tricks, such as a "@" before the person's name or Gmail address helps to locate all the posts from the person (For instance, @Janek Mann or @Laurie Sullivan). Searching in the "Search Buzz" tool allows people to find user-posted tips on everything from sending direct messages, to saving searches.
The latest round of changes based on feedback from people using the tool provides better privacy controls, and makes the setting more visible. Google spokesperson Victoria Katsarou says Google engineers have been working overtime to get the features implemented quickly. "The changes should go live within the next couple of days," Katsarou told MediaPost Sunday afternoon. "This is important. Our entire team has been working nonstop to respond as quickly as possible. We want to respond to their complaints and have been listening closely to their feedback."
Katsarou says Google wants to improve the product and remains open to receiving feedback from people using Buzz.
Replacing the auto-follow with an auto-suggest feature is one of three updates in this group. Google decided to make the change after people complained that the feature revealed names of people on private email lists. Todd Jackson explains in a blog post that instead of Buzz automatically setting the follows to the people the person emails and chats with most, the tool makes suggestions and asks the user to click on "Follow selected people and start using Buzz."
Aside from changing auto-follow to auto-request, Buzz will no longer connect a user's public Picasa Web album and Google Research shared items automatically. The change, also based on feedback shared with Google by users, replaces an auto-connect feature that shared already public content. Jackson explains that "if you had previously shared photos in an unlisted album or set the Google Reader shared items as 'Protected,' no one except the people you'd explicitly allowed to see your stuff has been able to see it."
Google also will add a Buzz tab to Gmail settings. In the tab, users can hide Buzz from Gmail or disable it completely. A link to these settings will become available from the initial start-up page to easily decide from the start to turn it off if you don't want to use Buzz.
Katsarou says the addition of Buzz tab under "Settings" not only makes it easier to hide Buzz from Gmail or disable it completely, but it gives people another easy way to decide if you want your followers -- the people you follow -- to remain public or private. "Another way to change this is by editing your profile," she adds.
Aside from privacy concerns, a host of posts on the Buzz social network describe requests for upgrade and improvements. Buzz user wish lists include everything from increasing search options to translating foreign languages within the network and rebuzz tools similar to the retweet tool in Twitter.
Google Buzz users have also begun to develop tricks, such as a "@" before the person's name or Gmail address helps to locate all the posts from the person (For instance, @Janek Mann or @Laurie Sullivan). Searching in the "Search Buzz" tool allows people to find user-posted tips on everything from sending direct messages, to saving searches.
Google Buzz Publicly Airs Privacy Confusion
Mixing an email tool with a social network may lead people to confuse the type of conversations that people can read across Google's Buzz social network. Some don't realize that all public posts are open for anyone using Gmail to search, read and join in the conversation.
No need to follow anyone on Google Buzz. Simply open the Buzz tab, type in a few keywords in the search keyword box and hit return on the computer keyboard. The tool returns all public posts across the Gmail network related to the keyword search.
Google does give Buzz users a way to make posts private or public. But some don't realize that making a profile public means any Gmail user can see the post. They can find it by searching on a related keyword in the Buzz search box.
Only posts that Gmail users choose to share publicly are included in Buzz search, according to a Google spokesperson. "Private posts are only shared with the people you choose, and will not appear publicly in search results," she says. "You choose whether to share your posts privately or to the Web at large. You can set your default as private, and you can also choose to make individual posts private or public."
It may come down to confusion on the part of the Buzz user. Privacy policies are confusing. They typically are not well-written for the average person to understand. Jared Kaprove, domestic surveillance council at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says people may become confused about Buzz privacy policies because they typically think of email as a semi-private correspondence between the sender and the recipient. Mixing a social network with the tons of Gmail users might confuse people even more.
"It's a weird mix," Kaprove says. "The issue might be conceptual -- the blurring of the line between your email and public facing Internet use."
Put simply: When people post on Twitter, they know it's a public activity. When people use Gmail, they think it's a private activity. Buzz blurs the line between presumed public and private activities.
For instance, in response to a Buzz post by Chris Myler asking Google Software Engineer DeWitt Clinton whether followers can see all posts, Adewale Oshineye and Larry Anderson respond by writing that people can only see the posts of those they follow, which is untrue.
The Federal Trade Commission regulates unfair and deceptive trade practices, but these guidelines likely won't come into play here because the company would have to represent the feature to consumers as being private, but later reveal it as public.
Maybe so, but the search box changes that behavior because it allows people to search and find posts based on keywords. Similar to google. com, the search engine will likely collect, store and analyze the search queries, and tie them to contextual advertisements in Gmail, as well as to ads that run across the Google Content Network.
Electronic Frontier spokeswoman Rebecca Jeschke calls Google a "honey pot" of information collected from a variety of tools, such as search and Gmail. "They know who you are and what you're searching for," she says. "They only keep the information for a specific length of time, and then make it anonymous, but make no mistake they have it. And because it's a honey pot, people want it, whether law enforcement or marketers."
The search engine inside Gmail is much more powerful than site search in Twitter. Twitter allows people to search and find tweets across the network, but the posts, or tweets, are limited to 140-characters or less and they are not tied to an email service.
There have been a host of privacy issues surrounding Buzz. The EPIC is reviewing what happens when users first activate the account because it makes the follower list public by default, and the list of who they follow is derived from the most common email contact.
No need to follow anyone on Google Buzz. Simply open the Buzz tab, type in a few keywords in the search keyword box and hit return on the computer keyboard. The tool returns all public posts across the Gmail network related to the keyword search.
Google does give Buzz users a way to make posts private or public. But some don't realize that making a profile public means any Gmail user can see the post. They can find it by searching on a related keyword in the Buzz search box.
Only posts that Gmail users choose to share publicly are included in Buzz search, according to a Google spokesperson. "Private posts are only shared with the people you choose, and will not appear publicly in search results," she says. "You choose whether to share your posts privately or to the Web at large. You can set your default as private, and you can also choose to make individual posts private or public."
It may come down to confusion on the part of the Buzz user. Privacy policies are confusing. They typically are not well-written for the average person to understand. Jared Kaprove, domestic surveillance council at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says people may become confused about Buzz privacy policies because they typically think of email as a semi-private correspondence between the sender and the recipient. Mixing a social network with the tons of Gmail users might confuse people even more.
"It's a weird mix," Kaprove says. "The issue might be conceptual -- the blurring of the line between your email and public facing Internet use."
Put simply: When people post on Twitter, they know it's a public activity. When people use Gmail, they think it's a private activity. Buzz blurs the line between presumed public and private activities.
For instance, in response to a Buzz post by Chris Myler asking Google Software Engineer DeWitt Clinton whether followers can see all posts, Adewale Oshineye and Larry Anderson respond by writing that people can only see the posts of those they follow, which is untrue.
The Federal Trade Commission regulates unfair and deceptive trade practices, but these guidelines likely won't come into play here because the company would have to represent the feature to consumers as being private, but later reveal it as public.
Maybe so, but the search box changes that behavior because it allows people to search and find posts based on keywords. Similar to google. com, the search engine will likely collect, store and analyze the search queries, and tie them to contextual advertisements in Gmail, as well as to ads that run across the Google Content Network.
Electronic Frontier spokeswoman Rebecca Jeschke calls Google a "honey pot" of information collected from a variety of tools, such as search and Gmail. "They know who you are and what you're searching for," she says. "They only keep the information for a specific length of time, and then make it anonymous, but make no mistake they have it. And because it's a honey pot, people want it, whether law enforcement or marketers."
The search engine inside Gmail is much more powerful than site search in Twitter. Twitter allows people to search and find tweets across the network, but the posts, or tweets, are limited to 140-characters or less and they are not tied to an email service.
There have been a host of privacy issues surrounding Buzz. The EPIC is reviewing what happens when users first activate the account because it makes the follower list public by default, and the list of who they follow is derived from the most common email contact.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Could Google Buzz Hit Privacy Roadblock On Mobile?
Will the introduction of Buzz bring Google to another privacy roadblock? Some people aren't ready to trust an application that ties Facebook-like sharing features with email, especially when you consider that Google also added a geographic, location-based feature for the mobile phone.
Buzz pulls your profile from the Google.com profile you posted last year when the Mountain View, Calif., company introduced social features in the search engine.
As with most technology, people will need to take time to become familiar with new applications and features, as well as decide if location-based mobile applications just give away too much information on their whereabouts.
Google already has the built-in Gmail user base. Perhaps adoption rates for Buzz will follow.
Maybe it will attract the audience that Twitter has not been able to capture. College-age adults say their friends are on Facebook, not Twitter. They view Twitter as a creepy tool without privacy controls. And although Google has built privacy controls into Buzz, it's not clear yet whether Gmail users won't have the same thoughts toward the location-based services and sharing features built into Buzz. The only difference is, Google may attract the young adults that Twitter has turned off.
Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research, estimates the demographic profile of those who will use Buzz long-term are single male adults ages 16 to 23, which puts the count at between 2 million and 3 million people. "I doubt the average female will use Buzz, because many are more skeptical than men about these types of services," he says.
Google made three separate mobile announcements Tuesday related to Buzz: the ability to use Buzz from Google.com on iPhone or Android devices, shortcut app, and Buzz Layer on Google Maps.
Buzz for mobile allows you to tag your location with each entry. The nearby view shows all the public buzz nearby - even from those you don't follow.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin told people tuning in to a live presentation and Webcast Tuesday that the company is concerned about privacy and security because the mobile service gives people the ability to share geographic coordinates, but individuals must decide for themselves whether to share and post their location. The Google Buzz privacy policy goes into more details.
Forrester Analyst Augie Ray says some folks will likely keep an eye on privacy issues, but consumers, "in great numbers," have not expressed concerns. In fact, consumers are still willing to give up some of their privacy for free tools. Facebook and Google will have to closely monitor privacy to make sure they meet "expectations."
Go back to the Beacon debacle that Facebook faced. Ray says hundreds of millions of users weren't up in arms about it, but rather just a few key people observing Beacon and the legal concerns it raised.
Amielle Lake, chief executive officer at Tagga Media, which helps marketing and advertising agencies take campaigns mobile, doesn't think consumers will have privacy concerns as long as they have an opt-in option to share location-based information.
Buzz mobile features will increase the accuracy of ad targeting on mobile phones. "The more Google expands its platform capabilities to social via Buzz, while placing importance on making their social tools useful and easy for mobile, you can expect more people to use Google's social tools on the go," Lake says. "The more people use the service, the more targeting data will become available, which in turn will flow through to Google's targeting algorithms, creating better targeting opportunities that leverage behavior data and location information across mobile through social media platforms."
My reaction to the Buzz debut: Goggle seems to have thrown out its focus on simplicity. Not that the look of the Buzz tab appears crowded with information, but there are plenty of choices: to link to mobile applications, and tie the service to Picasa, Twitter, Google Reader, YouTube, Google Chat, Blogspot, and Flickr. And, dear Google, since some of the people you set me up to automatically follow are located in non-English-speaking countries, I need a translation tool to understand what they write without taking the text into another platform.
Buzz pulls your profile from the Google.com profile you posted last year when the Mountain View, Calif., company introduced social features in the search engine.
As with most technology, people will need to take time to become familiar with new applications and features, as well as decide if location-based mobile applications just give away too much information on their whereabouts.
Google already has the built-in Gmail user base. Perhaps adoption rates for Buzz will follow.
Maybe it will attract the audience that Twitter has not been able to capture. College-age adults say their friends are on Facebook, not Twitter. They view Twitter as a creepy tool without privacy controls. And although Google has built privacy controls into Buzz, it's not clear yet whether Gmail users won't have the same thoughts toward the location-based services and sharing features built into Buzz. The only difference is, Google may attract the young adults that Twitter has turned off.
Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research, estimates the demographic profile of those who will use Buzz long-term are single male adults ages 16 to 23, which puts the count at between 2 million and 3 million people. "I doubt the average female will use Buzz, because many are more skeptical than men about these types of services," he says.
Google made three separate mobile announcements Tuesday related to Buzz: the ability to use Buzz from Google.com on iPhone or Android devices, shortcut app, and Buzz Layer on Google Maps.
Buzz for mobile allows you to tag your location with each entry. The nearby view shows all the public buzz nearby - even from those you don't follow.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin told people tuning in to a live presentation and Webcast Tuesday that the company is concerned about privacy and security because the mobile service gives people the ability to share geographic coordinates, but individuals must decide for themselves whether to share and post their location. The Google Buzz privacy policy goes into more details.
Forrester Analyst Augie Ray says some folks will likely keep an eye on privacy issues, but consumers, "in great numbers," have not expressed concerns. In fact, consumers are still willing to give up some of their privacy for free tools. Facebook and Google will have to closely monitor privacy to make sure they meet "expectations."
Go back to the Beacon debacle that Facebook faced. Ray says hundreds of millions of users weren't up in arms about it, but rather just a few key people observing Beacon and the legal concerns it raised.
Amielle Lake, chief executive officer at Tagga Media, which helps marketing and advertising agencies take campaigns mobile, doesn't think consumers will have privacy concerns as long as they have an opt-in option to share location-based information.
Buzz mobile features will increase the accuracy of ad targeting on mobile phones. "The more Google expands its platform capabilities to social via Buzz, while placing importance on making their social tools useful and easy for mobile, you can expect more people to use Google's social tools on the go," Lake says. "The more people use the service, the more targeting data will become available, which in turn will flow through to Google's targeting algorithms, creating better targeting opportunities that leverage behavior data and location information across mobile through social media platforms."
My reaction to the Buzz debut: Goggle seems to have thrown out its focus on simplicity. Not that the look of the Buzz tab appears crowded with information, but there are plenty of choices: to link to mobile applications, and tie the service to Picasa, Twitter, Google Reader, YouTube, Google Chat, Blogspot, and Flickr. And, dear Google, since some of the people you set me up to automatically follow are located in non-English-speaking countries, I need a translation tool to understand what they write without taking the text into another platform.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Google rethinks China
It once hoped to change China with its search engine, but Google may wind up effecting more change by closing it down.
They are perhaps the most repeated, misunderstood, and beloved three words to ever be associated with Google: "don't be evil." Those words, highlighted in the company's initial public offering in 2004, underscored how differently Google wants to be thought of compared with the average corporation.
This has always been a company with a moral pulse, one that in its early days attracted a certain sort of idealistic engineer who truly believed the world could be made a better place by a responsible corporation that efficiently spread information and technology around the world.
Yet Google is also one of America's largest and richest public companies, and obsessed with growing even larger. Operating on a global scale can require even the nicest businesses and companies to rub shoulders with governments that don't share the values of Silicon Valley.
The collision of those two forces led Google into what the company founders may eventually come to consider as its worst decision: to self-censor search results in China for almost four years in hopes of improving overall access to information. The company did an about-face Tuesday, declaring that unless the Chinese government allows it to offer an uncensored search engine inside of China, it will shut down its operations in the country.
Google originally justified its decision to censor results in 2006 as a way of helping the Chinese people. Simply offering Google.com from outside of China made the search engine subject to The Great Firewall of China and hurt performance but didn't require Google to police itself. Opening an office inside of China would require it to follow local laws regarding the dissemination of information on the Internet, but Google believed it could improve access to information in China just by being present with a fast and comprehensive search engine.
There was also a financial incentive, of course. China has the most Internet users in the world, with stunning growth over the past decade and much more in store, given that only 25 percent of the country is currently using the Internet.
But Google never seemed to be fully comfortable with its decision. Co-founder Sergey Brin told The Guardian in 2007 that Google's actions resulted in a "net negative," an engineer's way of saying that Google had lost more than it had gained in pursuing business opportunities in China.
Google lost the respect of many U.S. and European citizens, who were amazed at the way the company was able to justify compromising its lofty principles in the name of profit. It lost a little of its idealism in deciding that it had to work with a government that many consider one of the largest offenders of human rights on the planet in order to grow its business. And it lost the battle: Google had just 14.1 percent of the search market in China during November 2009, compared with Baidu's 62.2 percent, according to ComScore.
Saddled with a struggling business and a queasy stomach, Google now hopes to regain the moral high ground. It's extremely unlikely that the Chinese government will permit an uncensored search engine in China, especially after being so publicly implicated as the force behind the attacks on the accounts of Gmail users whose main offense was speaking out against that government (Google refused to point its finger directly at the Chinese government, but security researchers have linked the most recent attacks with previous attacks on U.S. companies believed to come from agents of that government).
Back in November, CNET asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the "don't be evil" credo and how it applied to Google now that the company has grown into such a large business. He said that "don't be evil" allows Google employees to stand up and play The Evil Card without repercussions, forcing a discussion about whether Google is choosing the right course of action during tricky decisions.
Without prompting, Schmidt brought up Google's decision to enter China as an example of how that process works. "Certainly, the China decision, which was very controversial at the time, but I think ultimately, the right one for us, is another example of a tortured internal discussion, which ultimately came to roughly, the right outcome," he said.
The discovery of cyberattacks originating from China against Google seems to have finally tipped that debate for Google. It's now clear that Google believes it erred in making the decision to get in bed with the Chinese government back in 2006, regardless of whether that revelation comes from business reasons or moral reasons.
Google has now put American Internet information companies doing business in China in a very difficult position: stay and appear to their home crowd to be agents of the Chinese government after Google's strong rebuke, or leave and miss out on the land grab that is the Chinese Internet market. And the end result of all this could be that the Chinese government emerges with even stronger control over the Internet if domestic firms with fewer reservations about censorship or surveillance take their place.
Google could have changed the way Internet companies work in China Tuesday. It once hoped for something much more.
They are perhaps the most repeated, misunderstood, and beloved three words to ever be associated with Google: "don't be evil." Those words, highlighted in the company's initial public offering in 2004, underscored how differently Google wants to be thought of compared with the average corporation.
This has always been a company with a moral pulse, one that in its early days attracted a certain sort of idealistic engineer who truly believed the world could be made a better place by a responsible corporation that efficiently spread information and technology around the world.
Yet Google is also one of America's largest and richest public companies, and obsessed with growing even larger. Operating on a global scale can require even the nicest businesses and companies to rub shoulders with governments that don't share the values of Silicon Valley.
The collision of those two forces led Google into what the company founders may eventually come to consider as its worst decision: to self-censor search results in China for almost four years in hopes of improving overall access to information. The company did an about-face Tuesday, declaring that unless the Chinese government allows it to offer an uncensored search engine inside of China, it will shut down its operations in the country.
Google originally justified its decision to censor results in 2006 as a way of helping the Chinese people. Simply offering Google.com from outside of China made the search engine subject to The Great Firewall of China and hurt performance but didn't require Google to police itself. Opening an office inside of China would require it to follow local laws regarding the dissemination of information on the Internet, but Google believed it could improve access to information in China just by being present with a fast and comprehensive search engine.
There was also a financial incentive, of course. China has the most Internet users in the world, with stunning growth over the past decade and much more in store, given that only 25 percent of the country is currently using the Internet.
But Google never seemed to be fully comfortable with its decision. Co-founder Sergey Brin told The Guardian in 2007 that Google's actions resulted in a "net negative," an engineer's way of saying that Google had lost more than it had gained in pursuing business opportunities in China.
Google lost the respect of many U.S. and European citizens, who were amazed at the way the company was able to justify compromising its lofty principles in the name of profit. It lost a little of its idealism in deciding that it had to work with a government that many consider one of the largest offenders of human rights on the planet in order to grow its business. And it lost the battle: Google had just 14.1 percent of the search market in China during November 2009, compared with Baidu's 62.2 percent, according to ComScore.
Saddled with a struggling business and a queasy stomach, Google now hopes to regain the moral high ground. It's extremely unlikely that the Chinese government will permit an uncensored search engine in China, especially after being so publicly implicated as the force behind the attacks on the accounts of Gmail users whose main offense was speaking out against that government (Google refused to point its finger directly at the Chinese government, but security researchers have linked the most recent attacks with previous attacks on U.S. companies believed to come from agents of that government).
And after playing defense throughout 2009 against governments and citizens concerned about its growing power, Google has now created a situation where privacy advocates and human-rights activists are applauding the company for taking a principled stand against the Chinese government.
Back in November, CNET asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the "don't be evil" credo and how it applied to Google now that the company has grown into such a large business. He said that "don't be evil" allows Google employees to stand up and play The Evil Card without repercussions, forcing a discussion about whether Google is choosing the right course of action during tricky decisions.
Without prompting, Schmidt brought up Google's decision to enter China as an example of how that process works. "Certainly, the China decision, which was very controversial at the time, but I think ultimately, the right one for us, is another example of a tortured internal discussion, which ultimately came to roughly, the right outcome," he said.
The discovery of cyberattacks originating from China against Google seems to have finally tipped that debate for Google. It's now clear that Google believes it erred in making the decision to get in bed with the Chinese government back in 2006, regardless of whether that revelation comes from business reasons or moral reasons.
Google has now put American Internet information companies doing business in China in a very difficult position: stay and appear to their home crowd to be agents of the Chinese government after Google's strong rebuke, or leave and miss out on the land grab that is the Chinese Internet market. And the end result of all this could be that the Chinese government emerges with even stronger control over the Internet if domestic firms with fewer reservations about censorship or surveillance take their place.
Google could have changed the way Internet companies work in China Tuesday. It once hoped for something much more.
Adobe Hole May Have Been Used in Google Attack
It's an eventful day. Just as Adobe released an important new version of Acrobat, the company has also revealed that "...a sophisticated, coordinated attack..." was mounted "...against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies..." At the same time, Google has revealed that a coordinated attack was mounted against their systems.
Both companies say that the attacks were unsuccessful. Adobe says that the investigation will take some time and that they will cooperate with the other companies and relevant governments.
Google's revelation of the attacks against them is much more detailed and interesting. The attacks turned out to be a coordinated attack on 20 companies in a variety of industries. But it gets worse: According to Google the primary goal of these attacks was to compromise the GMail accounts of human rights activists.
Enough is enough for Google it seems, and they have resolved not to censor their search results for their servers in China anymore. This may lead to the end of their business in China, but hurray for Google either way, and let's hope that other companies are as bold as they are about this.
Both companies say that the attacks were unsuccessful. Adobe says that the investigation will take some time and that they will cooperate with the other companies and relevant governments.
Google's revelation of the attacks against them is much more detailed and interesting. The attacks turned out to be a coordinated attack on 20 companies in a variety of industries. But it gets worse: According to Google the primary goal of these attacks was to compromise the GMail accounts of human rights activists.
Enough is enough for Google it seems, and they have resolved not to censor their search results for their servers in China anymore. This may lead to the end of their business in China, but hurray for Google either way, and let's hope that other companies are as bold as they are about this.
Google May Totally Withdraw From China
The press is abuzz this morning over the news that Google (GOOG) could pull out of China over a hacking attempt. The Wall Street Journal explains that the large-scale cyber attack “has been under way for weeks.” The paper continues, “Google said it suffered a ‘highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China’ in mid-December, which it said resulted in ‘the theft of intellectual property.’
The company said it found evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists.” The attack may be the last straw for Google in China, since the search engine has begrudgingly put up with Chinese censorship policies for a while. The Times notes, “Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.”
Conan O’Brien has publicly announced that if The Tonight Show gets pushed back until after midnight, he won’t be the host. The New York Times explains, “Less than a week after NBC told him it intended to move his ‘Tonight Show’ to a new time, 12:05 a.m., Mr. O’Brien said he would not agree to what he considered a demotion for the institution of ‘The Tonight Show’—and his own career—by going along with the network’s plan to push him back a half-hour to make room for his most recent predecessor, Jay Leno.”
The Washington Post reports that President Obama will announce “a plan to impose a new fee on the nation's biggest financial firms” tomorrow. The fee, which has been under consideration since the summer, is a means of more quickly recovering federal bailout money. The paper says that, according to officials, “The fee could return as much as $120 billion worth of losses to the U.S. Treasury from the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, which was designed to rescue the firms during the economic crisis.” However, critics have already spoken out against the fee, which they argue could ultimately get passed along to bank customers.
The Post also reports that the FDIC is moving forward with a proposal to punish banks that engage in what it considers perilous pay practices. The paper explains, “The FDIC, which collects fees from all banks to repay depositors in failed banks, is considering a plan to reduce the fees paid by companies that take specified steps such as paying bonuses in the form of stock that cannot be sold immediately. Banks that don't comply would face higher fees, on the theory that bankers paid solely for short-term results will take greater risks, increasing the chances of a bank failure.”
The New York Times reports that in an e-mail sent out to a few Goldman Sachs (GS) clients yesterday, an executive confessed that the firm doesn’t always give its clients complete trading information. The paper says, “In an e-mail message to select clients, Thomas C. Mazarakis, the head of Goldman’s fundamental strategies group, acknowledged that his unit often provided investment ideas that the firm had already traded on. Sometimes Goldman has even taken the opposite approach, betting against particular instruments that the group has recommended.”
GM is betting that truck sales are going to pick up once again. The Wall Street Journal reports that the auto company is planning “a major update of its full-size pickups” that could cost up to $1 billion. The business decision could be considered an affront to the government administration that bailed out GM and has been promoting the national adoption of smaller, less fuel-dependent vehicles. Still, the paper says, “administration officials said Tuesday that any decision by GM to move more heavily into trucks was the company's own business, and that neither the Treasury nor the White House was involved.”
And finally, the New York Times reports that Nintendo (NTDOY) and Netflix (NFLX) are teaming up. The paper says, “Nintendo is bringing Netflix’s online streaming video service to its Wii gaming console, the most popular in the industry, the companies plan to announce Wednesday. The service lets subscribers choose from a catalog of generally older movies and television shows and watch them instantly.”
The company said it found evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists.” The attack may be the last straw for Google in China, since the search engine has begrudgingly put up with Chinese censorship policies for a while. The Times notes, “Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.”
Conan O’Brien has publicly announced that if The Tonight Show gets pushed back until after midnight, he won’t be the host. The New York Times explains, “Less than a week after NBC told him it intended to move his ‘Tonight Show’ to a new time, 12:05 a.m., Mr. O’Brien said he would not agree to what he considered a demotion for the institution of ‘The Tonight Show’—and his own career—by going along with the network’s plan to push him back a half-hour to make room for his most recent predecessor, Jay Leno.”
The Washington Post reports that President Obama will announce “a plan to impose a new fee on the nation's biggest financial firms” tomorrow. The fee, which has been under consideration since the summer, is a means of more quickly recovering federal bailout money. The paper says that, according to officials, “The fee could return as much as $120 billion worth of losses to the U.S. Treasury from the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, which was designed to rescue the firms during the economic crisis.” However, critics have already spoken out against the fee, which they argue could ultimately get passed along to bank customers.
The Post also reports that the FDIC is moving forward with a proposal to punish banks that engage in what it considers perilous pay practices. The paper explains, “The FDIC, which collects fees from all banks to repay depositors in failed banks, is considering a plan to reduce the fees paid by companies that take specified steps such as paying bonuses in the form of stock that cannot be sold immediately. Banks that don't comply would face higher fees, on the theory that bankers paid solely for short-term results will take greater risks, increasing the chances of a bank failure.”
The New York Times reports that in an e-mail sent out to a few Goldman Sachs (GS) clients yesterday, an executive confessed that the firm doesn’t always give its clients complete trading information. The paper says, “In an e-mail message to select clients, Thomas C. Mazarakis, the head of Goldman’s fundamental strategies group, acknowledged that his unit often provided investment ideas that the firm had already traded on. Sometimes Goldman has even taken the opposite approach, betting against particular instruments that the group has recommended.”
GM is betting that truck sales are going to pick up once again. The Wall Street Journal reports that the auto company is planning “a major update of its full-size pickups” that could cost up to $1 billion. The business decision could be considered an affront to the government administration that bailed out GM and has been promoting the national adoption of smaller, less fuel-dependent vehicles. Still, the paper says, “administration officials said Tuesday that any decision by GM to move more heavily into trucks was the company's own business, and that neither the Treasury nor the White House was involved.”
And finally, the New York Times reports that Nintendo (NTDOY) and Netflix (NFLX) are teaming up. The paper says, “Nintendo is bringing Netflix’s online streaming video service to its Wii gaming console, the most popular in the industry, the companies plan to announce Wednesday. The service lets subscribers choose from a catalog of generally older movies and television shows and watch them instantly.”
Friday, December 11, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Google Trademark Policy Worries Holiday Advertisers
By Kevin Newcomb , November 13, 2009
Heading into the holiday shopping season, search marketers are worried that Google's new trademark policy for AdWords will drive up costs for big brands.
"The holiday season will be a real proving ground, to see how quickly Google responds to issues," Jeremy Hull, account leader at Range Online Media, told ClickZ. "Do they have an adequate team in place, with policies and procedures that are scalable for the holidays?"
While the number of infringing ads a brand owner has to deal with will vary, the issue is amplified during the holiday shopping season, Hull said. "The fraudulent advertisers know that the legitimate marketers are swamped with holidays, and use the busy time to push out more trademark-infringing ads," he said.
The impact of other advertisers bidding on a trademark most often comes in the form of increased costs to the trademark owner, who has more competition on his trademarked terms, which drives up bid prices. There's also the issue of missed revenue, where a searcher will buy from another site advertising on a trademarked keyword, and not from the trademark owner's site, Hull said.
In May 2009, Google changed its policy toward trademark usage in AdWords ads. Previously, Google had not allowed advertisers to use trademarks they didn't own, either for targeting or in ad text, and Google was responsible for policing that policy.
Under the new trademark policy, advertisers can use trademarks they don't own under certain circumstances, such as if they are reselling a product or discussing the product on an informational site.
Advertisers that are using trademarked terms includes affiliates of a brand, who may or may not have permission from the trademark owner, and sellers of gray-market and black-market goods, who usually don't have permission.
"Anything you could buy as a knock-off on the streets of New York and rub the logo off with your fingernail...those are the same brands you are seeing victimized by fraudulent behavior online as well," Hull said. "So, major apparel, luxury, jewelry, fragrance, and other well-known and sought after brands are the hardest-hit by trademark infringement."
While gray- and black-market goods are an issue for some categories, the bigger issue for many retailers is inadequate trademark policies built into their own affiliate programs, according to Hull.
The increased competition has caused several Range clients, especially those with luxury retail brands, to see a dramatic decrease in clicks on their ads since the policy change, despite similar impression volume, Hull said.
Others have also seen an increase in cost-per-click (CPC) rates they pay for ads, according to Alison Childers, senior account manager at Range Online Media. On some brand terms, CPC rates have risen by as much as 50 percent, while clickthrough traffic has dropped by 30 percent, she said.
"Those numbers are holding true across all big brand terms," Hull said. "It's a free-for-all on brands."
What Brands Fear
Even when that's not happening, there is potential damage to the brand in the form of mixed messages to consumers, such as an affiliate using a low-cost message to sell a luxury brand, Hull said. Big brand owners go to great lengths to control the messages around their brands and align their efforts, but without trademark protection in AdWords, "they've lost control of the space," he said.
Additionally, the onus is on trademark owners find ads using their trademark without permission, and then bring them to Google's attention via an online form.
"We believe that this approach gives users more choices and access to as much information as is relevant to their search or interest," a Google spokesperson told ClickZ. "Some trademark owners support other advertisers using their trademarked terms in ad text to generate traffic and sales of their products; other trademark owners feel differently."
Google's Policy
Google will investigate allegations of trademark infringement "as a courtesy," when trademark owners file a complaint with them. If Google's investigation finds that an advertiser is using a trademark owner's term in the ad text in a manner which is competitive, critical, or negative, it will disapprove the ad for violation of Google's policies, notify the offending advertiser, and prevent the advertiser from using the trademark in similar ad text in the future. Repeat offenders of this policy are subject to account suspension, according to Google's spokesperson.
It was pragmatic, from a business perspective, for Google to change its policy, according to Patrick Garrett, managing director of Outrider, part of GroupM Search.
"They've handed off all the legwork required to track down violators to the advertisers. They've also opened up new spending opportunities by allowing more people to buy ads on keywords that they couldn't buy on before," Garrett said.
Google basically brought its policy in line with that of other search engines. But, since Google has such tremendous volume compared to other search engines, the changes Google made in May had a big impact on advertisers, Garrett said.
"There's been an onslaught of people playing in the trademark space [since Google changed its policy]. Some are people that have the right to use your trademark, others don't." Garrett said. "We're OK with taking on the burden of monitoring our clients' trademarks, but we'd like more clarity from Google on how they're going to help us combat issues when they come up."
For instance, Garrett would like Google to make it clear what criteria Google uses when deciding whether to take down a single ad or ban an advertiser completely. It's currently too easy for an advertiser to simply create a new ad that still uses the trademark after the first one is banned, he said. Also, he said it's not clear what evidence Google wants from trademark owners to help expedite the process.
Hull agreed that clarity into Google's trademark policy is uncharacteristically lacking. "Everything else with Google is so cut-and-dried; you know the process. This seems so nebulous," he said.
Heading into the holiday shopping season, search marketers are worried that Google's new trademark policy for AdWords will drive up costs for big brands.
"The holiday season will be a real proving ground, to see how quickly Google responds to issues," Jeremy Hull, account leader at Range Online Media, told ClickZ. "Do they have an adequate team in place, with policies and procedures that are scalable for the holidays?"
While the number of infringing ads a brand owner has to deal with will vary, the issue is amplified during the holiday shopping season, Hull said. "The fraudulent advertisers know that the legitimate marketers are swamped with holidays, and use the busy time to push out more trademark-infringing ads," he said.
The impact of other advertisers bidding on a trademark most often comes in the form of increased costs to the trademark owner, who has more competition on his trademarked terms, which drives up bid prices. There's also the issue of missed revenue, where a searcher will buy from another site advertising on a trademarked keyword, and not from the trademark owner's site, Hull said.
In May 2009, Google changed its policy toward trademark usage in AdWords ads. Previously, Google had not allowed advertisers to use trademarks they didn't own, either for targeting or in ad text, and Google was responsible for policing that policy.
Under the new trademark policy, advertisers can use trademarks they don't own under certain circumstances, such as if they are reselling a product or discussing the product on an informational site.
Advertisers that are using trademarked terms includes affiliates of a brand, who may or may not have permission from the trademark owner, and sellers of gray-market and black-market goods, who usually don't have permission.
"Anything you could buy as a knock-off on the streets of New York and rub the logo off with your fingernail...those are the same brands you are seeing victimized by fraudulent behavior online as well," Hull said. "So, major apparel, luxury, jewelry, fragrance, and other well-known and sought after brands are the hardest-hit by trademark infringement."
While gray- and black-market goods are an issue for some categories, the bigger issue for many retailers is inadequate trademark policies built into their own affiliate programs, according to Hull.
The increased competition has caused several Range clients, especially those with luxury retail brands, to see a dramatic decrease in clicks on their ads since the policy change, despite similar impression volume, Hull said.
Others have also seen an increase in cost-per-click (CPC) rates they pay for ads, according to Alison Childers, senior account manager at Range Online Media. On some brand terms, CPC rates have risen by as much as 50 percent, while clickthrough traffic has dropped by 30 percent, she said.
"Those numbers are holding true across all big brand terms," Hull said. "It's a free-for-all on brands."
What Brands Fear
Even when that's not happening, there is potential damage to the brand in the form of mixed messages to consumers, such as an affiliate using a low-cost message to sell a luxury brand, Hull said. Big brand owners go to great lengths to control the messages around their brands and align their efforts, but without trademark protection in AdWords, "they've lost control of the space," he said.
Additionally, the onus is on trademark owners find ads using their trademark without permission, and then bring them to Google's attention via an online form.
"We believe that this approach gives users more choices and access to as much information as is relevant to their search or interest," a Google spokesperson told ClickZ. "Some trademark owners support other advertisers using their trademarked terms in ad text to generate traffic and sales of their products; other trademark owners feel differently."
Google's Policy
Google will investigate allegations of trademark infringement "as a courtesy," when trademark owners file a complaint with them. If Google's investigation finds that an advertiser is using a trademark owner's term in the ad text in a manner which is competitive, critical, or negative, it will disapprove the ad for violation of Google's policies, notify the offending advertiser, and prevent the advertiser from using the trademark in similar ad text in the future. Repeat offenders of this policy are subject to account suspension, according to Google's spokesperson.
It was pragmatic, from a business perspective, for Google to change its policy, according to Patrick Garrett, managing director of Outrider, part of GroupM Search.
"They've handed off all the legwork required to track down violators to the advertisers. They've also opened up new spending opportunities by allowing more people to buy ads on keywords that they couldn't buy on before," Garrett said.
Google basically brought its policy in line with that of other search engines. But, since Google has such tremendous volume compared to other search engines, the changes Google made in May had a big impact on advertisers, Garrett said.
"There's been an onslaught of people playing in the trademark space [since Google changed its policy]. Some are people that have the right to use your trademark, others don't." Garrett said. "We're OK with taking on the burden of monitoring our clients' trademarks, but we'd like more clarity from Google on how they're going to help us combat issues when they come up."
For instance, Garrett would like Google to make it clear what criteria Google uses when deciding whether to take down a single ad or ban an advertiser completely. It's currently too easy for an advertiser to simply create a new ad that still uses the trademark after the first one is banned, he said. Also, he said it's not clear what evidence Google wants from trademark owners to help expedite the process.
Hull agreed that clarity into Google's trademark policy is uncharacteristically lacking. "Everything else with Google is so cut-and-dried; you know the process. This seems so nebulous," he said.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Privacy Advocates Want To Bust Blockbuster Over Beacon
Privacy advocates are asking a federal appellate court to uphold a ruling allowing consumers to sue Blockbuster for participating in Facebook's Beacon program.
In papers filed recently with the 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, the Electronic Privacy Information Center is urging the court to reject Blockbuster's argument that consumers have no right to bring a class-action lawsuit because the company's terms of service require mandatory arbitration.
"To permit companies to substitute unilaterally mandatory arbitration clauses for the express language set out in federal statute will undermine privacy safeguards, contribute to further privacy harms, and frustrate the intent of Congress," the privacy group argues.
The case grows out of Facebook's all-but-defunct Beacon program, which told users about their friends' activity at outside sites including Blockbuster, Zappos and Overstock. The program originally operated by default, spreading news about members' purchases unless they affirmatively opted out. Some users immediately complained that they were blindsided by the platform, which transmitted information that they had intended to keep private. Members also said they didn't see the opt-out boxes -- some of which were served via pop-ups that disappeared after just 20 seconds.
Within weeks of its launch, Facebook revised the program to make it opt-in. Shortly afterwards, the company allowed people to permanently opt out.
In April of 2008, consumers in Texas filed a potential class-action lawsuit against Blockbuster for participating in Beacon. The consumers alleged that the movie rental company had violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 federal law passed after a newspaper obtained video rental records of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. That law provides for damages of $2,500 per violation.
Blockbuster said the dispute did not belong in court because its user contract called for arbitration and banned class-action lawsuits, but U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Lynn in Dallas rejected that argument. She ruled in April that Blockbuster's contract with users was "illusory" because the agreement said that movie rental store could change the terms and conditions at any time.
Blockbuster appealed to the 5th Circuit, which is now considering the case.
John Verdi, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says that a decision in Blockbuster's favor would effectively allow companies to avoid federal privacy law.
"There's a real risk that the court could put consumers in a situation where, as a practical matter, they wouldn't have the rights that Congress intended them to have," he says.
Regardless of the appellate court's decision in this appeal, the consumers' lawsuit against Blockbuster could still be dismissed if a class-action settlement of a separate lawsuit in California against Facebook and its partners goes through.
In the California case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose tentatively approved a deal that calls for Facebook to shutter Beacon permanently and to pay $9.5 million -- approximately two-thirds of which will fund a new privacy foundation. If that settlement is approved in its current form, it would extinguish the Texas litigation against Blockbuster. But the consumers in Texas are likely to object to that settlement, and the ultimate outcome remains uncertain.
In papers filed recently with the 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, the Electronic Privacy Information Center is urging the court to reject Blockbuster's argument that consumers have no right to bring a class-action lawsuit because the company's terms of service require mandatory arbitration.
"To permit companies to substitute unilaterally mandatory arbitration clauses for the express language set out in federal statute will undermine privacy safeguards, contribute to further privacy harms, and frustrate the intent of Congress," the privacy group argues.
The case grows out of Facebook's all-but-defunct Beacon program, which told users about their friends' activity at outside sites including Blockbuster, Zappos and Overstock. The program originally operated by default, spreading news about members' purchases unless they affirmatively opted out. Some users immediately complained that they were blindsided by the platform, which transmitted information that they had intended to keep private. Members also said they didn't see the opt-out boxes -- some of which were served via pop-ups that disappeared after just 20 seconds.
Within weeks of its launch, Facebook revised the program to make it opt-in. Shortly afterwards, the company allowed people to permanently opt out.
In April of 2008, consumers in Texas filed a potential class-action lawsuit against Blockbuster for participating in Beacon. The consumers alleged that the movie rental company had violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 federal law passed after a newspaper obtained video rental records of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. That law provides for damages of $2,500 per violation.
Blockbuster said the dispute did not belong in court because its user contract called for arbitration and banned class-action lawsuits, but U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Lynn in Dallas rejected that argument. She ruled in April that Blockbuster's contract with users was "illusory" because the agreement said that movie rental store could change the terms and conditions at any time.
Blockbuster appealed to the 5th Circuit, which is now considering the case.
John Verdi, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says that a decision in Blockbuster's favor would effectively allow companies to avoid federal privacy law.
"There's a real risk that the court could put consumers in a situation where, as a practical matter, they wouldn't have the rights that Congress intended them to have," he says.
Regardless of the appellate court's decision in this appeal, the consumers' lawsuit against Blockbuster could still be dismissed if a class-action settlement of a separate lawsuit in California against Facebook and its partners goes through.
In the California case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose tentatively approved a deal that calls for Facebook to shutter Beacon permanently and to pay $9.5 million -- approximately two-thirds of which will fund a new privacy foundation. If that settlement is approved in its current form, it would extinguish the Texas litigation against Blockbuster. But the consumers in Texas are likely to object to that settlement, and the ultimate outcome remains uncertain.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Google Reacts to EU Scrutiny, Cuts Data Retention Period
Google announced today it will cut the amount of time it stores users' IP addresses from 18 months to nine, in response to scrutiny from European regulatory bodies.
A statement posted on the company blog today reads, "We're significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users."
The move could also serve to placate privacy advocates concerned with Google's increasing dominance of the advertising market, and in particular its proposed tie-up with Yahoo.
The Article 29 Working Party, an EU regulatory body, has repeatedly expressed concerns about the use of data collected by search engines, and the potential for such data to be used illegally.
In response, Google agreed to limit the amount of time it kept users' search data to 18 months in June 2007.
Speaking with ClickZ news in February, Google's Policy Communications Manager for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Jon Steinback, said that 18 months represented "the right balance between user privacy, and maintaining the security and innovation of [Google's] underlying systems."
Today's blog post says much the same, and argues that a further reduction in the retention period will limit Google's ability to use the data for future innovation. It adds, however, that Google engineers have developed methods for "preserving more of the data's utility" while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner. "[Google is] glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy," the blog post adds.
Under its new policy, the search giant will also make adjustments to its Google Suggest system, which recommends search terms based on what users have already typed into the search engine. Any data collected from these searches will now be erased after 24 hours.
The new data retention policies should be in place by the end of the month.
A statement posted on the company blog today reads, "We're significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users."
The move could also serve to placate privacy advocates concerned with Google's increasing dominance of the advertising market, and in particular its proposed tie-up with Yahoo.
The Article 29 Working Party, an EU regulatory body, has repeatedly expressed concerns about the use of data collected by search engines, and the potential for such data to be used illegally.
In response, Google agreed to limit the amount of time it kept users' search data to 18 months in June 2007.
Speaking with ClickZ news in February, Google's Policy Communications Manager for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Jon Steinback, said that 18 months represented "the right balance between user privacy, and maintaining the security and innovation of [Google's] underlying systems."
Today's blog post says much the same, and argues that a further reduction in the retention period will limit Google's ability to use the data for future innovation. It adds, however, that Google engineers have developed methods for "preserving more of the data's utility" while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner. "[Google is] glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy," the blog post adds.
Under its new policy, the search giant will also make adjustments to its Google Suggest system, which recommends search terms based on what users have already typed into the search engine. Any data collected from these searches will now be erased after 24 hours.
The new data retention policies should be in place by the end of the month.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Cuil Touts User Privacy
A group of Google vets are taking on their former employer with the launch of a new search engine, Cuil.
The engine, unveiled today, boasts it indexes 120 billion pages -- or three times Google's 40 billion. But these raw numbers aren't all that useful when determining whether a search engine can return pages related to users' queries. Index size also isn't an especially reliable metric, because different companies sometimes use different tallying methods.
Regardless, Cuil certainly isn't the first would-be Google rival. The search giant's success has spawned a host of entrants into search, but none have come close to putting a dent in Google's commanding market share.
Cuil also had some crashes this morning, but that's not necessarily a bad sign; sites often need to get some bugs ironed out when they launch.
In some ways, what's most notable about Cuil is that the company is touting itself as privacy-friendly. The home page contains just two links -- "About Cuil" and "Your Privacy." Users who click on the privacy link land on a page that states, "We do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies." Cuil also states it doesn't store logs of users' activity on the site.
If nothing else, Cuil's move shows that privacy considerations are top of mind in Silicon Valley these days. Companies might disagree about the wisdom of storing IP addresses, but there's no real question that query logs can reveal users' identities, as the world learned two years ago AOL released three months' worth of query data for 650,000 anonymized users. One such user, Thelma Arnold, was identified in a matter of days by The New York Times.
Google insists that it needs to store query logs to improve its search results and to guard against click fraud. But the emergence of companies like Cuil calls into question whether Google needs this information as much as it says it does.
The engine, unveiled today, boasts it indexes 120 billion pages -- or three times Google's 40 billion. But these raw numbers aren't all that useful when determining whether a search engine can return pages related to users' queries. Index size also isn't an especially reliable metric, because different companies sometimes use different tallying methods.
Regardless, Cuil certainly isn't the first would-be Google rival. The search giant's success has spawned a host of entrants into search, but none have come close to putting a dent in Google's commanding market share.
Cuil also had some crashes this morning, but that's not necessarily a bad sign; sites often need to get some bugs ironed out when they launch.
In some ways, what's most notable about Cuil is that the company is touting itself as privacy-friendly. The home page contains just two links -- "About Cuil" and "Your Privacy." Users who click on the privacy link land on a page that states, "We do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies." Cuil also states it doesn't store logs of users' activity on the site.
If nothing else, Cuil's move shows that privacy considerations are top of mind in Silicon Valley these days. Companies might disagree about the wisdom of storing IP addresses, but there's no real question that query logs can reveal users' identities, as the world learned two years ago AOL released three months' worth of query data for 650,000 anonymized users. One such user, Thelma Arnold, was identified in a matter of days by The New York Times.
Google insists that it needs to store query logs to improve its search results and to guard against click fraud. But the emergence of companies like Cuil calls into question whether Google needs this information as much as it says it does.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Google Cookies
Google cookies - When you visit Google, they send one or more cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser.
Google then uses cookies to improve the quality of service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends, such as how people search.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
Some Google features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
Google then uses cookies to improve the quality of service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends, such as how people search.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
Some Google features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Google, DoubleClick Cookies Track Web Users' Moves
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― "They identify your machine whenever you go somewhere... it knows that you've been there before," said Daniel Salazar of TechSavies.
He's talking about cookies -- special packets of information the websites you visit send to your computer to identify you and what you've done on that site.
Hundreds and hundreds could be stored on your computer.
Cookies do make your surfing easier, because sites you visit often can recognize you and tailor the site to you.
But cookies also give Google and the advertising company it bought, DoubleClick, information about your web surfing history.
"They may know more about you than some of your best friends," said Ryan Singel, a staff writer for Wired.com, "in that your best friends don't always know where you go on the Internet, your best friends don't know what you type into a search engine where you're talking about health problems... and you want some advice."
Cookies can stay on your computer for years, unless you delete them
He's talking about cookies -- special packets of information the websites you visit send to your computer to identify you and what you've done on that site.
Hundreds and hundreds could be stored on your computer.
Cookies do make your surfing easier, because sites you visit often can recognize you and tailor the site to you.
But cookies also give Google and the advertising company it bought, DoubleClick, information about your web surfing history.
"They may know more about you than some of your best friends," said Ryan Singel, a staff writer for Wired.com, "in that your best friends don't always know where you go on the Internet, your best friends don't know what you type into a search engine where you're talking about health problems... and you want some advice."
Cookies can stay on your computer for years, unless you delete them
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Privacy backers push FTC to end AskEraser service
January 24, 2008 (Computerworld) A group of privacy advocacy organizations has filed a complaint with the U।S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that Ask.com's recently launched AskEraser service does not live up to its promise of deleting users' search histories.
In an 11-page brief filed with the FTC last week (download PDF), the group claimed that the search engine company is indulging in deceptive and unfair trade practices with AskEraser and should be forced to withdraw the service। The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action and the Fairfax County Privacy Council are among those that filed the complaint.
Officials from IAC Search & Media's Ask.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the compliant. Ask।com's AskEraser service was unveiled on Dec. 11 and described at the time as a way for users to ask that their search activity data not to be retained on the company's servers.
Ask।com claimed that AskEraser, when enabled by the user, would completely delete search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers -- including IP addresses, user IDs, session IDs and the text of queries made. The feature is available to users of the company's U.S. and U.K. search engines and is designed to give users more control over search data, the company said. In most cases, the deletion would take place within a few hours of the time a search is completed.
The reality, however, is quite different, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based EPIC. He pointed to three problems. "When it was announced, there as a lot of hoopla over it," Rotenberg said. "So we decided to take a closer look and were kind of surprised. Some of the things that AskEraser does we don't think are very privacy-friendly."
The first issue is that users who want to enable the service must accept and install an AskEraser opt-out cookie on their system। That approach is both counterintuitive and misleading, Rotenberg said. Users who are concerned about privacy typically tend to delete cookies. For such users, the privacy settings on Ask.com are meaningless because each time the cookie is deleted, the settings are lost -- and Ask.com will no longer honor the user's privacy choice. Similarly, Ask.com offered no explanation for its policy of allowing the opt-out cookies to expire after two years.
Another troubling fact is that Ask।com's AskEraser service can be turned off without notice to the user, Rotenberg said। According to Ask.com's policies on its Web site, the company can disable the AskEraser service at any time -- to comply with a court order, for instance. In such cases, the company will retain search data, even if the AskEraser service appears enabled to the user, Rotenberg said. Without user notice, such a practice would be tantamount to spying on a user's search activity.
Another issue identified by the privacy advocacy groups has since been addressed by Ask।com, Rotenberg said। That had to do with Ask.com's previous practice of putting a date and time-stamp on the opt-out cookies when a user enabled the service. The information stored in the opt-out cookie's content field had the effect of turning the cookie into a unique identifier, Rotenberg said.
Since the issue was first raised by the privacy groups, Ask.com has stopped using time-stamps on its opt-out cookies, he said, arguing that that alone would appear to be a tacit admission from the company that the previous approach was problematic. Ask.com's relationships with various third-party advertisers and with Google Inc. also limit the efficacy of the privacy protections ostensibly offered via AskEraser, Rotenberg said. Though Ask.com itself has said it will not store any search data, there are no such restrictions on third parties tracking and storing the search histories of those who use Ask.com. Under a five-year agreement with Google signed last November, user search information from Ask.com is passed on to Google, raising serious privacy questions, Rotenberg said.
In an 11-page brief filed with the FTC last week (download PDF), the group claimed that the search engine company is indulging in deceptive and unfair trade practices with AskEraser and should be forced to withdraw the service। The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action and the Fairfax County Privacy Council are among those that filed the complaint.
Officials from IAC Search & Media's Ask.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the compliant. Ask।com's AskEraser service was unveiled on Dec. 11 and described at the time as a way for users to ask that their search activity data not to be retained on the company's servers.
Ask।com claimed that AskEraser, when enabled by the user, would completely delete search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers -- including IP addresses, user IDs, session IDs and the text of queries made. The feature is available to users of the company's U.S. and U.K. search engines and is designed to give users more control over search data, the company said. In most cases, the deletion would take place within a few hours of the time a search is completed.
The reality, however, is quite different, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based EPIC. He pointed to three problems. "When it was announced, there as a lot of hoopla over it," Rotenberg said. "So we decided to take a closer look and were kind of surprised. Some of the things that AskEraser does we don't think are very privacy-friendly."
The first issue is that users who want to enable the service must accept and install an AskEraser opt-out cookie on their system। That approach is both counterintuitive and misleading, Rotenberg said. Users who are concerned about privacy typically tend to delete cookies. For such users, the privacy settings on Ask.com are meaningless because each time the cookie is deleted, the settings are lost -- and Ask.com will no longer honor the user's privacy choice. Similarly, Ask.com offered no explanation for its policy of allowing the opt-out cookies to expire after two years.
Another troubling fact is that Ask।com's AskEraser service can be turned off without notice to the user, Rotenberg said। According to Ask.com's policies on its Web site, the company can disable the AskEraser service at any time -- to comply with a court order, for instance. In such cases, the company will retain search data, even if the AskEraser service appears enabled to the user, Rotenberg said. Without user notice, such a practice would be tantamount to spying on a user's search activity.
Another issue identified by the privacy advocacy groups has since been addressed by Ask।com, Rotenberg said। That had to do with Ask.com's previous practice of putting a date and time-stamp on the opt-out cookies when a user enabled the service. The information stored in the opt-out cookie's content field had the effect of turning the cookie into a unique identifier, Rotenberg said.
Since the issue was first raised by the privacy groups, Ask.com has stopped using time-stamps on its opt-out cookies, he said, arguing that that alone would appear to be a tacit admission from the company that the previous approach was problematic. Ask.com's relationships with various third-party advertisers and with Google Inc. also limit the efficacy of the privacy protections ostensibly offered via AskEraser, Rotenberg said. Though Ask.com itself has said it will not store any search data, there are no such restrictions on third parties tracking and storing the search histories of those who use Ask.com. Under a five-year agreement with Google signed last November, user search information from Ask.com is passed on to Google, raising serious privacy questions, Rotenberg said.
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