28 February 2003
PC Mag questions "Is Google Invading Your Privacy?" with regard to the data Google collects via its Google Toolbar (optional download).
"Should you be worried about information Google is collecting? Chris Hoofnagle is. 'I thought [the Google Toolbar] was something that let you use the Web more easily, not something that let the company track you,' he says. 'I'm rather astounded.'"
27 February 2003
Google AdWords starting to appear on Blogger sites. WebmasterWorld again scoops the news and discusses potential pros and cons, including the concern of lack of relevancy.
25 February 2003
Overture to buy FAST! This comes after the recent announcement of its planned purchase of AltaVista.
Dale Goetsch provides a nice article on how to optimize a frames site for the search engines. Typically, I'd recommend either a re-design or the inclusion of a sitemap (that the search engines can spider). Goetsch, however, provides a solution that works with existing frames sites- using the <noframes> tag and javascript to make the site search-engine-friendly.
Spam via viral marketing: how innocent Yahoo email accounts can be shut down. Marq articulates precisely why the technique of stealing email addresses and using them to send fake endorsements is both unethical and harmful. SearchEthos hopes Yahoo reinstates his account- and takes the appropriate (and simple) measures to both examine the header information (for suspected spam email) and prevent this from happening again. The greater responsibility, however, lies with those companies that use this technique. Let's hope Debra Bowen's Anti-Spam Bill becomes law- and that more states and countries follow.
18 February 2003
SearchDay has a good summary of Google's acquisition of Blogger.
CNN covers how one village in Laos is getting connected to the Internet without phone lines (powered in part by human bikers over a WiFi network)!
13 February 2003
A disturbing news article from CNN which has the U.S. government publicly warning against "patriot hackers". It's truly a different world we live in. "... The warning comes less than a week after administration officials confirmed that President Bush had signed a secret order allowing the government to develop guidelines under which the United States could launch cyber attacks against foreign computer systems. The United States has never conducted a large-scale cyber attack, but officials said last month that the administration's unfolding cyber strategy will specify that the Defense Department can wage cyber warfare if the nation is attacked.
12 February 2003
New York Times article on aggressive bidding (for paid listings) by online merchants (many of them gray-market sellers) and the impact on consumers: "The absolute worst-case scenario is that someone hits the search engine and doesn't realize one of these sites isn't an upstanding merchant... On the search engines, consumers can't tell these links apart."
Pandia covers Overture's doubling of the minimum bid. Also, SEO veteran Robin Nobles covers paid inclusions in a nutshell.
11 February 2003
Infospace's partnership with ABCNews means that meta-search engine WebCrawler is now powering search for ABCNews.com; their standard disclaimer about results states they are a mix of commercial and non-commercial results. However, the results are blended so well that despite the fact that the source of the listing is provided (e.g. Google, Overture, etc.), most of the general public would not be aware that for example, the Overture results are paid listings. One more interesting note? Using the Search feature on ABCNews.com currently offers the source for each result which is not something found when conducting the default search on WebCrawler itself. You can view results organized by source if you select the Advanced Search feature.
Michael Malone has written an essay for RedHerring that encourages us to forget Moore's Law. In case you've already forgotten, Moore's Law states that the "amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented". While not many question this truth for high-tech, Malone perceives its implications are disastrous for real-world business models. So who's breaking away from the concept of leadership by maximum chip power (and its accompanying high price)? Well, for a start, Google. "What we're looking for is maximum functionality and that's a whole different thing." (Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google)
The New York Times (free membership but requires log-in) discusses an email spam parody that solicits money and appears to be sent by George W. Bush: "[Professor Grossman, creator of the spoof] was prompted to write his parody after Mr. Bush's efforts to raise economic and political support for a war on Iraq began to remind him of the messages from Nigerian spammers. 'They're all from the son or daughter of a former ruler,' he said. 'A lot of them talk about oil money. And they need huge sums of cash very quickly. I thought, Why does this sound so familiar?'" You can also read a copy of the Grossman parody (it's truly funny).
7 February 2003
MotherJones has a fascinating interview with John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) which promotes the preservation of constitutional rights (e.g. free speech). Acknowledging membership in the counterculture, Barlow says (among other things), "This [the Bush Administration] is an administration that has recently reserved to itself the right to kill American citizens anywhere on the planet for the mere suspicion of membership in Al Qaeda. That's really quite and awe-inspiring breakthrough. And the astonishing thing is that the American people are nodding along in their stupor and saying 'Yeah, well, whatever it takes to stop terrorism.' I'm so disappointed in my countrymen." He covers a variety of topics including the data-mining efforts by the government (in their attempts to crack down on terrorism), privacy, antiwar resistance, and piracy.
Interestingly, Barlow is asked "Does Google have too much power?" His response is framed in terms of use and is rather ironic (unintentionally) given his stand on government infringement on privacy. To see what we mean, check out Neil Swidey's piece for the Boston Globe connecting our use of Google with "A Nation of Voyeurs". The final paragraphs point out that when it comes to personal information, "... today's digital power brokers... were smart enough to begin years ago the process of making their personal information invisible online". Of course, for the rest of us, our personal lives may be more on display than we would have thought (or liked).
Danny Sullivan hopes to end the debate over cloaking and looks in particular at XML feeds and more importantly, at whether paid content (on the search engines) falls under more liberal standards.
3 February 2003
Remembering the crew of Columbia- "Like other fiery images, this one keeps replaying in the dark long after you turn it off, and while it felt like an attack on the calm of this watchful winter, in this case there was no apparent evil, no enemy other than the limits of man and machines and the tension between the goals we set and the risks we take."
1 February 2003
The whole cloaking discussion (below) makes SearchEthos wistful for a search tool that is more context-sensitive and less limited (than current search engines) in terms of the data it can take in and how it processes or correlates that data with other data. Like magic, it appears that Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, is working on the mechanics that would enable such a solution via his Semantic Web. The major negative is that it would require adherence to a common web vocabulary to code and tag data appropriately.
Separate and newsworthy: Steve Outing considers one impact of paid news content - it becomes "invisible" (to the search engines) - in his well-written "Paid Content Trend Is Dangerous- But Not for the Reason You Think".
And to all those of you who celebrate it at this time, Happy New Year! (Year of the Goat / Ram)
SearchEthos wishes you good health, happiness, and prosperity. Especially to those hotspots where the need for health and prosperity are greater- and for whom the debates going on here are fundamentally meaningless.
Your comments are invited: comments@searchethos.com