June 5th, 2007

Ask.com wages Google search war, NOT AdWords battle

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 1:39 am

Categories: AdWords, Google, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Google Inc., Advertisement, Ask.com, Google AdWords, Google Search, Salary, Donna Bogatin

Ask.com goes 3D in a big effort to one-up Google’s recently debuted Universal Search.

Why then, does it not solely go the Ask.com ad sales route as well, instead of continuing to rely on arch rival Google for its revenues?

Just weeks ago, in Ask vs. Google: Can $100 million buy IAC search happiness?, I reiterated: I have been asking if Ask will finally bite the who needs Google bullet and NOT renew the Google sponsored advertising links deal this year?

IAC Ask.com corporate parent CEO Barry Diller has promised to act within the coming months. Will he do the right IAC thing?

Jim Lanzone, Ask.com CEO says it is time to move beyond (Google’s) “ten blue links.” Isn’t it time as well then to move beyond Google’s “Sponsored Links”?

SEE Google showdown: Can Barry Diller win IAC search advertising war?

Ask.com now on its touted “truly new way to search”:

Today, our search experience is taking a consequential leap forward in making all that information accessible in a coherent way, with the launch of Ask3D, a completely re-engineered version of Ask.com. No, you don’t need red and blue glasses to see it. 3D stands for the three dimensions of searching - query expression, investigating results, and digging deeply into content. You used to have to visit three different pages or websites to see and search through each dimension. With Ask3D, you can now get everything you need on one page…in many cases above the fold.

This isn’t just about getting more information; it’s also about getting the right information. Accordingly, Ask3D literally morphs with each query you enter. No two searches are the same, so why should all search pages have the same stuff in the same order? We customize each page for each different query, based on relevance, but also based on what previous searchers on Ask found valuable for that query (or one like it).

Some people who see Ask3D may initially be taken aback. It looks different than other search engines (which look curiously like they did a decade ago). Some might say there’s too much going on. We feared the same thing. That’s why we tested Ask3D for nearly 6 months with 5% of our 25-30 million monthly users. Simply put, these people came away happier with their experience than “regular” Ask.com users - they had lower abandonment rates, higher pick rates, and higher frequency of use.

There are also fewer ads on Ask.com than any other major search engine.

Fewer ads perhaps, but STILL Google derived ads!

Ask.com will NEVER beat Google at the search game, unless it has the guts to wage war against Google on the entire search front, the (winning?) search and search advertising battlefield.

SEE: Google bets billions to lock-in search dominance
Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe! 

June 3rd, 2007

Google bets billions to lock-in search dominance

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:47 am

Categories: AdWords, Content, Copyright, Google, Microsoft, Search, Search Advertising, Wall Street, Yahoo

Tags: Google Inc., Google Search, Donna Bogatin

If Google is to continue to be not only the darling of the search world, but the toast of Wall Street as well, it must withstand not only Yahoo and Microsoft head-on competitive search and search advertising initiatives, but up-start Google wannabes, to boot, claiming they are the next big thing in search.

Google, of course, is on the case, big time.

The Googleplex is spending billions not only investing in engineering R & D to “optimize” its SERP ranking algorithims, but, perhaps more importantly, to build-out its “massively scalable infrastructure” around the search world.

In the first quarter of 2007 alone, Google spent $597 million in Capital Expenditures, the majority related to IT infrastructure invesments, including data centers, servers and networking equipment. In 2006, Google invested $1.9 billion in CapEx.

Saul Hansell, the New York Times today touts he was “allowed” inside access to the Google search engineering team who “explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works.”

Perhaps the Hansell assertion is correct that Google never before “explained” to the “news media” about how Google search “works,” but that does not mean that the Google “secret” search sauce, as presented by Hansell, has not already been understood, presented and analyzed by some in the media, without need of “special” access to a sanitized Googleplex meet and greet. 

While interesting, Hansell’s article serves to confirm Google search operations modus operandi, rather than uncover any spanking new Google search ground.

SEM Beware: Google deals blow to search engine marketing I underscored upon the announcement of Google’s much ballyhooed Universal Search last month. I wrote:

In one fell Universal Search swoop, Google has wreaked havoc not only on searchers and Websites, but on the entire multi billion dollar search marketing industry.

Think the almighty Google PageRank was an impossible organic nut to crack? Even fearsome Matt Cutts won’t be able to finessse his way through the Sisyphean search engine marketing challenge that will be the “new and improved” Google.com.

The Hansell “conversation” with top Google engineer Amit Singhal, at “the top of a bright chartreuse stair case in Building 43″ of the Googleplex, supports my contention.

Google, and Hansell, seek to present an image of Google perpetually “tweaking” its “ranking algorithm” to optimize in a “frantic quest for perfect links”:

The search quality team makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the vast nest of mathematical formulas that power the search engine.

Not only does Google continuously change the manner in which it determines SERP ranking, Google may weigh “more than 200 types of information” in determining Google search rankings.

I characterize such an ever moving Google search organic ranking target as Sisyphean, Hansell dubs the Google organic search maze a “magical, mathematical brew.”

Undoubtedly NOT so magical, though, for those SEMs seeking to know what is actually brewing at the Googleplex, in in order to optimize client Web properties for ranking within the golden top SERP threesome.

After all, as Hansell dutifully spins, “what Google does is akin to ‘rocket science.’” How can a mere search marketer compete wth a Googley rocket scientist!

Search markters will not be the only ones frustrated by Google’s big Universal Search changes, though. In making Google SERP results even less of a known quantity, Google runs a big risk of alienating its core search audience.

In Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe! I make a case for why Google’s new Universal Search SERPs will meet the fate of the now infamous Coca-Cola threatening New Coke fiasco.

Just as Coca-Cola used millions of dollars worth of market research to justify turning its back on the 100 year old strong secret Coca Cola formula for success and ended up back peddling and drowning in New Coke tears, the new Google.com will regret it ever fiddled with the successful, but unadorned and unimaginative, Google.com.

Hansell also makes a big search deal out of 1) Google’s copying and caching of “the entire Internet”  in its “huge, customized data centers” and 2) The Google search results “freshness quandry.”

Neither Google issue is a new one.

I have written extensively about Google’s server farm build out, SEE: Google plots server farm land grab in Europe.

Google Web page caching? It has been subject to “fair-use” lawsuits. SEE: Will Google pay for content?

Google SERP (un)timeliness? Upon Universal Search, I wrote: Google Search: Big, bad multi-billion dollar sandbox on just that notion, and how it serves Google AdWords purposes quite well:

If Google was indeed a public service, its sandbox could theoretically be disallowed due to age discrimination!

I have oft underscored that Google’s exclusionary “sandbox” results in automatic “banning” of perhaps the most relevant Web pages for a given search query, based simply on Googler-derived arbitrary notions of “aging.”

Will Google really change its aging tune, though? As it stands now, the Google sandbox assures all the more need for a new Website to buy AdWords, if it wants any Google love!

It is not news that Google SAYS it will be more open to Website “youngsters.” SEE: Google’s Matt Cutts SERP quality scoring patent? What it means.

Time will undoubtedly NOT tell, given the more Google “tweaks,” the less anyone knows what is really going on in the Google search world.

One thing will always be a given, though: Can’t “get in” Google? No problem. Google AdWords will be happy to take your Website, if you bid high enough, that is. 

ALSO: Google Universal Search $25,000 query in Jeopardy
Google gets defensive, all over the world
Google defends $165 million ‘few strings attached’ tax breaks

June 2nd, 2007

Welcome to Google: The friendly monopolist

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:23 pm

Categories: DoubleClick, Google, Microsoft, Privacy, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Google love is tough to shake. What about Google monopoly power though?

Following the Google Feedburner deal, “My soul, and ten other things that Google owns,” Adam Ostrow notes.

YES, but it isn’t Feedburner that tilted the scale. Upon the first rumors of Google-DoubleClick, I headlined “Google (to be) a Monopoly.” When the deal was officially announced, I updated my story to headline: “Google: $3.1 billion cash for Web monopoly!”

I reported the Feedburner acquisition yesterday: Google gets Feedburner and in the Web’s private business.

It actually has been a Googley given for some time that Google is determined to CONTROL (NOT ORGANIZE) ALL the world’s information, and profit from all the world’s advertising.

So what? Would sum up the world’s reaction.

I opined earlier this week (before Google Gears):  Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft, underscoring that Google has learned a thing or two from Microsoft, NOT in a good way.

I wrote:

Microsoft’s “Evil Empire” financial success was derived from cunning ecosystem manipulation and brutal industry intimidation aimed solely at creating and extending Microsoft monopoly pricing power.

What really sealed Microsoft’s monopoly fate, however, was a no holds barred, take no prisoners modus operandi. Thanks to Bill Gates’ dogged persistence and shrewd maneuvering, Microsoft achieved the industry domination he sought, no matter who or what tried to cross Microsoft en route to unrivaled economic power and world glory.

Today’s technology power house, ”Do No Evil” Google, is no different, in desire or effect. In fact, Google power is even more insidious, because Google has the “consumer” on it side.

Just one day after I pitted Google’s intentions against those of Microsoft, Google announced Google Gears: The world then immediately came tumbling down, overwhelmingly against Microsoft and near unamimously cheering for Google.

I (no surprise to readers of this Digital Markets Blog) had a different take on things.

SEE: Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

What gives now, post Feedburner?

Ostrow starts out appropriately noting “are there any parts of our online lives that don’t reside somewhere within the Googleplex?” So what though, it seems from the Mashable post.

Ostrow goes on to point out a few Google services he uses, and that’s that. Ostrow provides neither Google outrage, nor Googley cheer; In fact, he doesn’t offer any conclusion or summation whatsoever.

What are we to conclude then? Google owns our souls, and that is a good thing?

Seemingly. The first commenter to the post, Kevin Keating, cheeringly affirms:

Sounds good to me! I also tell Google where I want to go on the internet, and let them remember where I’ve been so I don’t have to. And I’m more than okay will ALL of this because what’s private to me is and will always be private. And that, my friend, is the secret love I harbor for…

Oh, I totally almost gave it away.

WELCOME, MY FRIENDS, TO THE GOOGLE WORLD, WHERE THE “FRIENDLY” MONOPOLIST RULES (in a not so friendly fashion).

SEE: Google security alert: Universal Search scarier than Google Maps

May 30th, 2007

MySpace wins Photobucket, Over Google?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:00 am

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications, Search, Social Networking, Social Web, User-Generated Content, Video, Wall Street, Web 2.0, Yahoo, YouTube

Tags: Google Inc., Web, YouTube Inc., Video, Photo-sharing, MySpace, Donna Bogatin

UPDATE: May 30: “MySpace wants photobucket? Where is Google!”, I asked earlier this month (see story below).

Alas, News Corp. is the lucky buyer after all, at an undisclosed price.

“The acquisition is a perfect strategic fit for us that reinforces FIM’s leadership in user-generated content,” said Peter Levinsohn, President of Fox Interactive Media.

MAY 8, 2007: News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media (FIM) nears deal to buy Photobucket, is the latest M & A industry chatter/rumor.

Photobucket allows its users to store photos and videos and then easily drop them into their pages on prominent sites like Facebook, eBay and particularly MySpace, a FIM property.

The deal is not yet complete, but the parties have ironed out major issues and are focusing on finer points, according to this (unidentified) person, who said the price could be as high as $300 million.

Photobucket has become the largest and fastest-growing photo-sharing service on the Web. Unlike rival photo sites such as Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly and Yahoo’s Flickr, Photobucket positioned itself as a tool for people using sites like MySpace, rather than a place to get prints made or to interact with other photographers. A year ago, it said it had 14 million members. Photobucket now cites 41 million users. 

The site is free for basic use, but charges $25 a year for a premium subscription that includes extra storage space and the ability to store videos more than five minutes long. It also displays advertisements to users when they manage their accounts.

What’s the Photobucket-MySpace deal story? Michael Arrington declares “Photobucket was a steal v. Google/YouTube.”

The real story though is that there is NO Photobucket-Google deal!

WHY NOT? After all the (rumored) $250 million cash and $50 million earn out provision for the “ largest and fastest-growing photo-sharing service on the Web” is but pocket change for the $3.1 billion all cash DoubleClick acquirer and $1.65 billion all stock YouTube acquirer. 

Heck, Google could readily sweeten the deal, and what a deal it could be! Photobucket photo-sharing “Queen” to complement YouTube video-sharing “King!” 

Here are some reasons why: 

1) Google wanted YouTube because it was deemed the largest and fastest growing video sharing service on the Web; Photobucket matches profile in images category.

2) Google is keen on driving Video Search, plus Image Search, touting “the most comprehensive image search on the Web.” 

3) Google is deemed to have bought YouTube in part to prevent News Corp. from “owning” both the social networking and video sharing markets; What about a defensive anti-FIM purchase of Photobucket in the photo sharing market?

4) Shouldn’t all video sharers be photos sharers and vice-versa?

5) YouTube is a free service; Photobucket has a premium paying service. Google wants to diversify into fee for services models, why not have two media sharing brands with different models addressing diverse consumer needs? Plus, Photobucket is not advertising averse.

6) MySpacers like YouTube, and Photobucket.

7) Archrival Yahoo owns Photobucket rival Flickr.

Google-YouTube because “Who needs Google Video?”; Google-Photobucket because “Who needs Google Picasa (Web Albums)?”

Eric Schmidt, are you listening?

ALSO: MySpace to 175 million friends: It’s OUR Space, not yours!
 Why is Google afraid to buy Clear Channel?
Google YouTube: Viral video success formula?

May 29th, 2007

Google: $3.1 billion DoubleClick date with the FTC?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:55 am

Categories: Advertising, DoubleClick, Google, Google Software Applications, Internet Data, Privacy, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Merger, Data, DoubleClick Inc., FTC, Donna Bogatin

May 29, 2007:  In “NY to Google: Stop Trapping Consumer Data, or No DoubleClick Merger” (story below) I report and analyze the concerted effort underway by New York’s Governor Spitzer administration to require Google to come clean on how it “tracks the habits of millions of Internet users. ”

In a letter to the FTC, the New York State Consumer Protection Board asked the FTC to halt the Google DoubleClick merger pending satisfactory consumer privacy protections and safeguards on the part of Google.

The FTC has now opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into the $3.1 billion Google DoubleClick deal, according to “sources” cited by the New York Times. 

MAY 10, 2007: Has Google CEO Eric Schmidt finally met his match in New York state Governor Eliot Spitzer?

Schmidt feigns scant concern over Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit claiming “massive copyright fringement” following the Google $1.65 billion stock buyout of YouTube. Will the chief Googler also “dismiss” the efforts of Spitzer’s administration to call for a “halt” to Google’s planned $3.1 billion cash buyout of DoubleClick?

If so, it would be foolhardy.

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the New York State Consumer Protection Board (CPB) is asking the FTC to halt the merger until questions are answered about how Google tracks the habits of millions of Internet users. The CPB also wants to know what will happen once the merger allows Google to collect even more information.

People may not realize it, but Google already collects and retains an enormous amount of personal data about the specific websites and advertisements that are visited by millions of people, said Mindy Bockstein Chairperson and Executive Director of the CPB.

The CPB is urging the FTC to require Google to make full and public disclosure of its current data collection practices and contemplated data collection practices post-merger and establish a publicly disclosed, clear and conspicuous data collection policy, including:

• a plan to protect Google’s database from cyberthieves;
• consumer access to the personally-identifiable information in Google’s database and the ability to delete or edit inaccurate information;
• an opt-out mechanism that would allow an Internet user to prevent Google from tracking and storing information about the websites visited by an individual computer user; and,
• remedies in the event of a data breach or failure to comply with a consumer’s opt-out request.

In her letter to the FTC, Chairperson Bockstein wrote:

Your intervention is necessary to ensure that safeguards are in place to protect personal data and avoid the chilling effect that unrestrained data collection could have on the Internet. This would likely occur if consumers become mistrustful of using the Internet for fear of identity theft, the dissemination of incorrect information, and embarrassment, for example.

The CPN has also issued a consumer alert, urging New Yorkers to “take action to protect your privacy”:

Goggle, Inc. plans to buy DoubleClick Inc. This merger presents significant privacy implications. The combination of DoubleClick’s Internet surfing history generated through consumers’ pattern of clicking on specific advertisements, coupled with Google’s database of consumers’ past Internet searches, will result in the creation of “super-profiles,” which will make up the world’s single largest electronic repository of personally and non-personally identifiable information. Without appropriate safeguards, this database could, for example, be made available without consumers’ knowledge or consent to secondary users, including vendors of personal data, as well as made public as evidence in litigation or through data breaches.

New York is asking consumers to write to the Federal Trade Commission to:

Voice concern regarding the privacy implications of the DoubleClick and Google merger (and) to require Google to protecty the security and integrity of our private data, including by allowing consumers the ability to access, edit and delete personal information contained withinthe database, and to opt-out from being listed in the database.

As I have oft said, despite CEO Schmidt’s public exhortations, Google does indeed “trap” user data.

Google’s Privacy Policy pages reinforce that while Google may tout data “portability,” the Google user data Cloud remains, for all practical purposes, impenetrable for users. Google may allow users to manipulate their data offline, but it does not put forth any absolute guarantee that users are able to modify, correct and/or permanently delete their data from the Google systems.

WILL THE SPITZER ADMINISTRATION SUCCEED IN REQUIRING MEANINGFUL GOOGLE PRIVACY REFORM?

ALSO: Google zeal breeds more identity theft risks
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it? and
Google vs. Google on privacy, or not and
Google plots server farm land grab in Europe and
Google, YouTube double down on user tracking: DoubleClick next up and
Google to tag users across Web: Privacy Boomerang? and
Google scary now? Personal Health Records, sponsored by Google, next and
Google Analytics: Should Google be minding YOUR Web business?

May 25th, 2007

Google plays mind games with personal search

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 9:02 pm

Categories: Google, Privacy, Search

Tags: Game, Google Inc., Donna Bogatin

What is the Google solution for dealing with the “Big Brother” scare unwittingly unleashed by its CEO in public comments last week?

Unleash its “Global Privacy Counsel” for a double dose of Google privacy speak: “Putting Users in Charge.”

As is the typical Google case, the Google led privacy “conversation” is NOT the one that ought to concern Google users the most.

Google puts users in charge? THAT Google line trumps the Google pitch that users WANT Google ads.

In How Google will get inside YOUR head I analyze Eric Schmidt’s “vision” for iGoogle personalization that I heard him present at last week’s Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.

Schmidt, of course, diligently disclaimed iGoogle by saying users must ask for it. I warn, nevertheless, about how Google tracks users that do not opt in to iGoogle, which represents the overwhelming majority of Google searchers.

Are NON iGoogle users safe from Google’s prying eyes? Of course NOT. Google is proud that it knows at all times how ALL Google searchers are “voting with their clicks.”

BUT, should every single action of unsuspecting Google users really be feeding the Google data mining machine? NO!

The New York State Consumer Protection Board concurrs and has asked the Federal Trade Commission to:

“Require Google to protecty the security and integrity of our private data, including by allowing consumers the ability to access, edit and delete personal information contained withinthe database, and to opt-out from being listed in the database.”

SEE: “NY to Google: Stop trapping consumer data, or no DoubleClick merger”

Google is mum on that front though.

Google says users can “control the level of personalization.” Maybe iGooglers that want to can, but the typical Google searcher is being tracked without warning and has no opportunity to decline such Google spying.

Eric Schmidt’s colorful public commentary always makes for entertaining blogosphere fodder, as was the case with his fancifull “Big Brother” reverries in England.

SEE: “Why Google CEO is ‘harmless’”

At this Digital Markets Blog, I continually report on, dissect and analyze the substance of the Google world, which is now THE world: What Google really does and how Google actually operates.

MORE: Google declares war on $2 trillion health care industry
Google sweet talks its way to political power
Beware: Google is NOT your privacy friend
Google zeal breeds more identity theft risks
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?

May 25th, 2007

Beware: Google is NOT your privacy friend

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 8:40 am

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications, Legal, Metrics, Privacy, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Data, Donna Bogatin

UPDATE: Google users ought not be breathing any sigh of privacy relief, at any time, I warned just two weeks ago (see story below).

European regulators concurr: Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, may be violating the European Union’s privacy laws by storing information on customer queries for as long as two years, advisers to EU regulators told the company, according to Bloomberg News reports.

GOOGLE PRIVACY JUNGLE: WHERE IS YOUR DATA? DON’T ASK GOOGLE!

May 12, 2007: “Google CEO wants your personal information” I underscored in reporting Google’s announced claim of “taking steps to further improve our privacy practices” two months ago.

The touted Google privacy “step” at the time was that user search data will be “much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users (after 18-24 months).”

I asked though, “Will Google searchers be breathing collective sighs of privacy relief three years out?” Not exactly, according to Google itself:

Do these changes guarantee anonymization? It is difficult to guarantee complete anonymization.

In fact, Google users ought not be breathing any sigh of privacy relief, at any time.

Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel, in March:

When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful. Today we’re pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we’re legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google’s services and protect them from security and other abuses)—but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months.

Fleischer is now following-up with an “explanation” to his March announcement: “Why  does Google remember information about searches?”

Why indeed! Google offers three reasons:

1) Improve our services

2) Maintain security and prevent fraud and abuse

3) Comply with legal obligations to retain data

While Google Speak is seductive, it is not meaningful. Here’s why:

Improve Our Services

Every action of every individual taken through any and all Google services, public or private, is tracked, logged, analyzed and archived for seeming perpetuity, for the benefit of Google’s corporate operations and on Google’s servers throughout the world.

Google wraps its user tracking in Googley “quality improvement” rhetoric.

Really? Google targets every single person and every single organization in the world as a Google user and/or customer. Is it really necessary for a company whose name and business is driven by mathematical formulas and algorithms to accumulate Internet activity data for every man, woman and child in the guise of “search quality” and product development?

Why must Google “spy” on all the world’s mouse clicks?

After all, The Pew Internet & American Life Project relies on a few thousand telephone interviews to make definitive pronouncements of the entire U.S. adult population’s online behavior!

Maintain Security and Prevent Fraud Abuse

Does Google have a slam dunk on this one? NO. Google does not rely on a click by click analysis to “maintain security and prevent fraud abuse” in the click fraud detection arena.

Google told me it relies on two principal automated methods of analysis to uncover prohibited click activity:

1) Pattern Recognition Analysis of click sequence for signs of a malicious pattern to drive up an advertiser’s clicks and or a publisher’s earnings.

2) Statistical Anomaly Analysis to detect abnormal network behavior based on historical metrics.

Google can utilize automated flagging methods as well then to “maintain security and prevent fraud abuse” without subjecting every single piece of user data to analysis and retention. 

Comply with Legal Obligations to Retain Data

Perhaps, but Google does not need to go “above and beyond the call of duty”!

Google believes it may have an ace in the (privacy) hole:

It’s also worth reiterating that we do not ask our users for their names, address, or phone numbers to use most of our services.

What is THAT Google stance really worth though?

In its “Complaint and Request for Injunction, Request for Investigation and Other Relief” before the Federal Trade Commission, in the matter of Google, Inc. and DoubleClick, Inc., the Electronic Privacy Information Center last month wrote:

1) Courts have recognized a privacy interest in the collection of information that concerns Internet use even where the information may not be personally indentifiable.

2) Privacy laws routinely require that information about consumers be deleted once it is no longer needed.

3) The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data recognize that “the right of individuals to access and challenge personal data is generally regarded as perhaps the most important privacy protection safeguard.”

I have oft pointed out that Google does not offer any absolute guarantee of users’ rights to “access and challenge” personal data. Therefore, Google does not provide the “most important privacy protection safeguard.”

New York State is also calling Google to task for holding consumer data hostage as I report and analyze in: NY to Google: Stop trapping consumer data, or no DoubleClick merger

Fleischer, however, says NOT to ask “Where is my data,” as I present and analyze in Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?

In the Google era, all the world needs to know is that the Google cloud is the only place to be, the world’s safe haven, Fleischer asserts:

Now, if you want to know how your data is being protected, the important question is not “where is my data?”, but rather “who holds my data?”

Perhaps, but users’ data ought only be “held” upon users’ consent and subject to users’ meaningful access to and control of the data, even if Google is the one doing the “holding.”

ALSO: Google zeal breeds more identity theft risks and
Google plots server farm land grab in Europe and
Google Analytics: Should Google be minding YOUR Web business?

May 24th, 2007

Why Google CEO is 'harmless'

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:29 am

Categories: AdWords, Advertising, Google, Radio, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Donna Bogatin

While the world expresses “shock and awe” over Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s ”Big Brother” reveries uttered across the pond in Europe last weekend, courtesy of “dead media” Financial Times, I actually heard the Schmidt ”personalization” routine live and in person in New York City last Friday, at the Personal Democracy Forum.

Over the past week, I have reported and analyzed both the Google CEO’s keynote and Google’s paid sponsorship mission at the Forum, at length:

Google CEO Schmidt on ‘Personal Democracy’: Up For Sale
Google sweet talks its way to political power
Google CEO on Education: Google Search is key
Google: John McCain’s secret campaign weapon 

AND in How Google will get inside YOUR head I quote Schmidt at the Forum, on iGoogle:

With the personal version of Google, iGoogle, the computer will get to know you so well, it will say good morning, you are late this morning, but you are always late; It will almost understand how you think and mimic behavior.

Not only does Google aim to “understand” and “mimic” everyone, it wants to be everyone’s “friend.” SEE: Google gets VERY personal: Can we be friends?

BUT, should we really fear the Google CEO’s personalization projections, or is Schmidt simply flexing a very creative imagination?

Are Schmidt’s dreams of personalization fantasies, or realizable realities?

Friday, Schmidt echoed a similar personalized for Eric ”wish” he “shared” almost one year ago, in NYC as well, as I reported at the time in ”Google targets GPS-based in-car personalized advertising“:

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, believes that when he is listening to the radio in his car, radio ads should personally address him about his needs. For example, while driving past a clothing store, a radio ad should remind Eric that he needs a pair of pants and instruct him to turn left at the upcoming clothing store.

Schmidt shared his vision for GPS location-based delivery of highly targeted and personalized advertising via in-car radios at a luncheon with a group of publishing executives in New York City yesterday.

While Schmidt predicted a realization of his vision within the next one to two years, he did not share his vision for how the Google owned dMarc Broadcasting, a “digital solutions provider for the radio broadcast industry,” would enable such digital ad delivery via car radios. Google acquired dMarc in January to bring “radio advertising to Google AdWords advertisers.”

Well, the year has come and gone. What is the status of the Google CEO’s “wish” for made for Eric radio ads?

Personalized radio ads by Google?

Google has not even mastered old school pay for placement radio advertising, as I have been reporting and analyzing extensively over the past week, as well.

SEE: Google radio ads hit snag and Google Radio Ads: NO match for AdWords

May 24th, 2007

Google declares war on $2 trillion health care industry

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:22 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Government, Privacy, Search

Tags: Google Inc., Health Care, Donna Bogatin

The Google health care die has been cast, it is a $2 trillion declaration of medical intent.

Adam Bosworth, Google Vice preisdent Engineering,  is no longer content with “touch-feely” consumer reach-out campaigns to “learn” what the “health care consumer” wants, he is now doing what Google does best: Telling the world how it will be.

It WILL be Google’s “vision for the future of health care.”

Those on the winning medical team will go the Googley way, or it’s the Google medical information highway.

Google scary now? Personal Health Records, sponsored by Google, next I warned one month ago. That day is nearing.

In Google’s medical push I present Bosworth’s health care (pay for the right to perform) IT road show underway over the past six months. Bosworth’s most recent stop was the American Medical Association of Informatics, and it was a big one, a $2 trillion one.

YES, in order to organize, ie. controll, all the world’s information, Google needs to remake the health care system in a Googley image.

The Google medical call, for “the next decade”:

Discovery - Consumers should be able to discover the most relevant health information possible

Action - Consumers should have direct access to personalized services to help them get the best and most convenient possible health support

Community - Consumers should be able to learn from and educate those in similar health circumstances and from their health practitioners

As is the Google fashion, the $150 billion corporation’s massive takeover designs on the largest sector of the U.S. economy encompassing the most personally sensitive issues of relevance to individuals, Google is packaging and pushing its $2 trillion medical war as a principled fight, one that Google is taking upon its benevolent shoulders to wage on behalf of the world’s consumers.

The Bosworth call to consumer arms (Les Misearables score optional):

Putting Health Into the Patient’s Hands
The vision for the future of health care starts with the premise that consumers should own their own total personal health and wellness data (PHW) and that only consumers, not insurers, not government, not employers, and not even doctors, but only consumers, should have complete control over how it is used.

Consumers rule in the Googley world of health care? Who needs medical professionsls?

The Bosworth spiel is incredible not only in its condescending dismissiveness of credentialed health care specialists, but for the incredulous Google pitch that a Google branded health care system WILL put consumers in charge.

“Only consumers should have complete control” over how their medical information is used? If Google REALLY believes that, why does it also claim that Google’s worldwide server farms are the place for consumer health care safekeeping!

After all, once in the Google cloud, always in the Google cloud, under Google’s intractable and unilateral control.

SEE: Google privacy jungle: Where is YOUR data? Don’t ask! and Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?

Bosworth assets: “We believe consumers should have the right to all data that is about their personal health and wellness in electronic form.”

Of course Google touts consumers should have the “right” to hand over all their private, personal, confidential medical data to Google for massive digitization and archiving for perpetuitiy within the confines of Google, Inc.

Worried about Google the world’s librarian? How about Google the world’s doctor!

MORE: Google battles Microsoft for medical domination and
Google wants $4 billion drug ad market in 23andMe

ALSO: Google sweet talks its way to political power  

May 23rd, 2007

Google cracks advertising code, big time

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 3:28 pm

Categories: AdSense, AdWords, Advertising, Google, Google Ads, Search, Search Advertising, Video, YouTube

Tags: Google Inc., Advertisement, Donna Bogatin

Remember life before Google? When GOOD ads meant NO ads?

The world was not as rich in those days, as the Google team does not cease to remind us.

What have Brin, Page and Schmidt bestowed upon the world to make it a better place?

FIRST: Google AdWords, “Relevant advertising can be as useful as search results or other forms of content.”

NEXT: Google AdSense, “Advertising can enhance the experience for visitors to a publisher’s website.”

THEN: Google YouTube Videos: “Video Ads must be thought of as content, clever advertisers give YouTubers commercials for content.”

NOW: Google AdSense for Video: ”Users  want ads to enhance their video watching experience, in-stream ads in video will add value to publishers’ video content and help to deepen engagement with users watching the videos.”

Why is the Google founding team so keen on spreading the advertising by Google gospel? Because it is a new found religion for them!

YES, as I underscored last week upon the announcement of Google Universal Search, Brin and Page are Google Inc. converts to advertising worship.

SEE: Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe!:

It could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.

What a difference a decade and billions of dollars worth of GOOG makes?

“Innocent” academics no more, Google is purely in the commerical realm and founders Brin and Page NOW argue from the consumer point of view that the more search ads the better for consumers to find what they want.

One BIG Google caveat, of course, consumers ONLY want Googley ads!

ALSO: How Microsoft beats Google in ad agency battle