GoogleClick: One, Privacy Advocates: Nil
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Those who fear Google's growing private data collection bristle as FTC OKs merger.
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Today's announcement from Facebook is the reason why Google announced OpenSocial last week. They must have gotten a leak from one of the companies that stood with Facebook, so they knew what was coming. They weren't scared of Facebook's technology, because they didn't respond with technology. They were scared because Facebook has a better advertising story than Google does. They are getting ready to offer some very premium web real estate that (pay attention now) Google can't compete with. And advertising is Google's bread and butter, advertising is to Google as operating systems are to Microsoft. They can't let somebody appear to be better than they are in advertising. Yet that's what Facebook is, better than Google in advertising. Here's what Facebook can do.  Let's say I bought a Wii and I like it. They can tell all my friends "Dave bought a Wii and he likes it." That's a lot more likely to result in a sale  than an intrusive ad like this one, that was displayed next to an email I sent to some friends about their New Networked Living Room. Google thinks I might want to buy Moroccan Lamps, or something called a Unique Shabby Chic (huh?) or Crate & Barrell bedroom furniture. Of course I tune that shit out, I don't even see it. It has zero impact.   Anyway, I was talking with Doc Searls a few minutes ago and he mentioned OpenSocial and I told him it was just a lot of noise meant to distract people from what Facebook was doing in advertising. He hadn't heard anything about it even though he was at a tech conference in Denver today and yesterday. I said there you go, Google's strategy worked. But to no effect, longterm, because Facebook has the momentum and Google, try as hard as they want to stop it, will not be able to, any more than Alta Vista or Infoseek were able to stop Google once they figured out that their lunch was eaten. Google will be around for a long time, I'm not saying they will go away, but Facebook will be around too. And Google will have a hard time catching up to them.  Long-term, however they both have problems because advertising is on its way to being obsolete. Facebook is just another step along the path. Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information. And that's good!  8/3/06: "Information is welcome, advertising is offensive."
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Google shortens cookie expiration to two years, but regular users won't see privacy benefits.
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European group asks for an investigation into how Google's DoubleClick acquisition could affect privacy rights.
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Google is working to fix a bug in the Google Toolbar that could allow criminals to steal data or install malicious software on a system, a security researcher warned Tuesday.The flaw lies in the mechanism Google Toolbar uses to add new buttons on the browser. Because the toolbar does not perform adequate checks when new buttons are being installed, a hacker could make his button appear as though it was being downloaded from a legitimate site when in fact it came from somewhere else. By spoofing the origin of the toolbar button, an attacker could download malicious files or launch a phishing attack against the victim, wrote security researcher Aviv Raff in a blog post on the issue.Raff has posted proof of concept code, showing how such an attack would work with the Internet Explorer browser. A Google spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday that the company is working to fix the problem.The attack requires many steps. First, the victim would have to be tricked into clicking on a Web link that would then pop up a window asking the user if he wants to install a custom button on his toolbar. Because of the flaw, this alert could look like it was downloading the button from a legitimate site, such as Google.com, even if it were not. Once the button was installed on the toolbar, the victim would then have to click on it and, finally, agree to download and run an executable file for the malicious software to be installed.Because the user would have to go through so many steps in order to fall victim to the attack, the bug isn&#39;t a critical one, said Marc Maiffret, an independent security researcher. &quot;While it is interesting, it&#39;s probably a low threat compared to other flaws out there,&quot; he said.Still, it was sloppy work on Google&#39;s part to miss such a simple attack, he said. &quot;They should definitely assess how it slipped through the cracks,&quot; he said.This is not the first obvious Google flaw that Raff has found. Last month, he showed how a simple Web programming error on the Google.com Web site could allow attackers to launch what&#39;s known as a cross-site scripting attack.Because Google&#39;s programmers didn&#39;t properly check the HTML generated by the Google search engine, Raff was able to create a specially crafted Google link that, when clicked by the victim, would trick the browser into running unauthorized scripting code. This type of link could be used to steal the victim&#39;s Google account or conduct phishing attacks, Raff saidThis error was fixed by Google just hours after Raff notified the company of the problem, but a demo of the flaw being exploited can be seen online.
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Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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InfoWorld - Google Inc. will make the data it stores about end users anonymous in its server logs after 18 months, part of an effort to deflate concerns about privacy raised last month by a European Union working group.
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Google's calls for a global privacy standard are not enough to allay concerns about its purchase of DoubleClick.
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(InfoWorld) - When it comes to protecting the privacy of its users, Google ranks worse than any other Internet company, according to an interim report by Privacy International. The international watchdog group also accused Google of engaging in a smear campaign in response to its findings and demanded an apology. Privacy International's findings, based on six months of research, placed Google at the bottom of 23 Internet companies examined by the group. Google was the only company to earn the bottom ranking for "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy." Other companies, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, rated slightly better that Google. Microsoft was given a rating of four out of six for "serious lapses in privacy practices." Yahoo was given a ranking of five of six, one better than Google, for "substantial and comprehensive privacy threats." "We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research, we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations," Privacy International said. In particular, the group cited the large amount of data that Google collects about its users and lack of privacy controls. "Google's increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook," Privacy International said. "Neither of these elements has been demonstrated." Privacy International plans to issue a final report in September. Google executives were not immediately available to comment on the report's findings. But an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Privacy International Director Simon Davies accused the company of engaging in a smear campaign in response to the group's findings. "Two European journalists have independently told us that Google representatives have contacted them with the claim that 'Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft.' I presume this was motivated because Microsoft scored an overall better result than Google in the rankings," Davies wrote. Google allegedly claimed a conflict of interest exist because one of 70 people on Privacy International's board of advisors is a current Microsoft employee. Davies rejected the charge and listed five critical actions the group has taken against Microsoft, including support for the European Commission's investigation into Microsoft. "Can I be so bold as to suggest that your company's actions stem from sour grapes that you achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants?" Davies wrote, demanding an apology from Schmidt. This isn't the first time that Privacy International has raised privacy concerns about Google. In 2004, the group filed a privacy complaint over Google's Gmail service with regulators in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Australia, and Canada, as well as with the European Commission. To date, Google has rejected concerns over the information it gathers and stores about users. Speaking recently in South Korea, Schmidt dismissed privacy concerns over the data collected by the company, saying users worried about privacy can always choose not to use the company's services. He also said Google deletes information about users after a certain period of time but did not say how long that period is. Privacy concerns about Google have also been raised overÂ the company's acquisition of DoubleClick, sparking anÂ investigation by the U.S. Fair Trade Commission (FTC). That investigation is ongoing. While Google has taken flack from critics for its privacy policies, the company has acted to protect users in at least one case: In January 2006, Google was the only company to resist a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena for a random sampling of 1 million Web addresses that users searched for. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo did not fight the DOJ's request, which did not seek information that would have identified the users who made the search requests contained in the sample. Ultimately, Google shared a smaller amount of data with the DOJ.
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It can be difficult to determine who owns pictures on the web. Why not create an attribute for the image tag that clarifies the confusion? In Monkey Bites.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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Silence over Inquisition 21 Google has delisted www.inquisition21.com, the website campaigning against many of the Operation Ore child pornography convictions. The last time the search giant's crawlers checked the site out was on 10 September.â¦
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Google's privacy and content policies for Google Applications give Google full rights to use your content however the company wants.  Are you nervous?
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Rumors have been flying on various weblogs all week, but today it's official: Google, along with Yahoo and MSN, is going to start supporting the attribute rel="nofollow" on links in an attempt to fight spam.    Except it won't work.
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Opinion: Privacy hysterics bring old whine in new bottles to the Internet party. The desktop search beta from this Web search leader doesn&#39;t do anything you can&#39;t do already.
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On PHPGeek.com, there's a new post talking about the use of the AuthComponent for CakePHP for access control in your application. It's not a tutorial, but it does follow how the developer came upon the component and why they're using it.   Nearly everything that is built needs at least some level of authentication and authorization before users can be let loose to use it. Unfortunately, not only is there a lot of confusion out there on how to use it, but lots of poorly done, reinvented wheels out there because of it.   He points out the solution he came across via another article from the "Another Cake Baker" blog (lemoncake) show how to use the component for ACL in CakePHP 1.2.
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A new free Web browser, slated for official release on Thursday, is designed to protect users' privacy by not retaining details of the Web sites they've searched.