Everyone knows what you mean when you say "Go Google that," because Google is known for its search engineyness, among other non-tangible Internet tools. But now the mega huge company is making a move to the physical realm with a rumored home entertainment device. More »
Once upon a time, a lot of people viewed Microsoft as the epitome of corporate omnipresence, as many of us wrote our 11-part fantasy series in Word, checked our Hotmail accounts while surfing the web on Internet Explorer, probably on a computer running Windows. But now we have Google Docs, Gmail, and Chrome, and Microsoft is taking out full-page ads warning consumers of how this other company is the one to be reviled. More »
Aww, snap! Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill doesn't care that her speech opening a forum on Data Privacy Day was being streamed on Facebook and likely Googled by many — she still put the verbal smackdown on those two companies for their problems protecting user privacy. More »
Feeling like you don't so much want Google to be able to use your information across products, as they announced yesterday with their new terms of service? For those who have just had enough and want to quit, there are a few steps you'll need to take to cancel your Google account once and for all. More »
Google wants to change things up a bit and grant itself the right to combine your personal information across its products. So how is it planning on doing that? By simply rewriting its privacy policy to let you know about it first, which they figure you'll agree to if you want to keep using Google stuff. More »
As the Stop Internet Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act have inched their way into the headlines, a number of people — even some who make their living on this here Internet — have shrugged and said things like, "I don't download any pirated movies, so why should this bother me?" So we spoke to Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer at Google, who gave his feelings on why we should all be concerned. More »
As you probably already know, a number of websites have gone silent today in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act currently being considered by Congress and the Senate's similarly controversial Protect IP Act. And while Google, which has previously voiced its opposition to both pieces of legislation, didn't shut down for the day, it is making its feelings known to the public. More »
If you're not a fan of Google's new personal search results and would rather return to the old Googling you're used to, you can do so with a few simple steps. More »
When you're trudging up a mountain with not even a glimpse of the summit, and all you know is that you're really, really far behind the guy in the lead, it might be nice to know that hey, at least you're in second. Bing can claim that status now in the search engine world, as it has surpassed Yahoo to sit a distant second to Google. More »
Google wants to connect you to your online social world — well, at least it wants to connect you to the social products it pushes, Picasa Web and Google+. Their new joint venture between the Google search engine and those two social media sites will start rolling out tonight. More »
Google is slapping itself on its own metaphorical wrist after a bit of controversy over sponsored Chrome ads on various blogs boosted the site's Google PageRank. The company announced they'll lower the offending page's rank for two months at the least. More »
Remember that guy who started the first successful social network, only to see it fall by the wayside, weighed down by flashing gifs and pornbots? MySpace founder Tom Anderson is back in the news, doling out advice to Google+ on how not to become a cesspool like his site did. More »
There are so many patent battles going on around the globe between Apple and various smartphone companies, it can be hard to keep track of all the suits and countersuits. In one small but important battle decided recently, Apple has come out on top of HTC, in a ruling that could also affect the way Google's Android operating system works. More »
Do reports of malware on your Android phone have you in a cold sweat? Are dreams of scary phone viruses dancing in your head? Microsoft is taking advantage of those fears and using recent bumps in the road for Android to offer free Windows phones to five Android users with the worst malware horror stories. More »
If you use the "Call Phone" function in Gmail's Chat menu to chat with your phone pals in the U.S. or Canada — or if you're looking for a free way of doing so — Google has announced it will continue to offer this service for free through the upcoming calendar year. More »
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus may run on Google's Android OS, but that doesn't mean Verizon Wireless is going to allow the device to run Google's pay-by-phone app Google Wallet. More »
Watch out, Amazon, there's a new kid on the retail block and it comes with a familiar name tied to it: Google is said to be discussing a new service with various retailers that would offer web shoppers super speedy delivery. More »
Getting lost inside the sprawling wonderland that is any IKEA is likely a shared experience, and one that may happen less for Android smartphone users. Google Maps 6.0 rolled out some changes on Tuesday, including indoor mapping of certain retail locations and airports. More »
Internet common sense tells you to look for an "https" prefix on site URLs before offering up private information such as credit card numbers. Thanks to efforts from Google, sites with that security designation should be even more secure. More »
Those who harbor secret online identities may not be as anonymous as they think. Determined snoopers can potentially uncover bloggers with a little legwork and the use of Google Analytics. More »
Visa will roll out its V.me online payment service early next year. The company, which announced plans for the service in March, has also launched a developer program to help merchants incorporate its payment systems into their web sites and other products. More »
Apple may be the media darling that grabs most of the headlines, but the sprawling monolith that is Android is the phone of the 99 percent. Or at least the 52.5 percent. Android devices garnered the majority of global market share in the third quarter, while the iOS market slipped from 16.6 to 15 percent in that span. Quickly-fading Symbian — the operating system for Nokia phones — plunged to 17 percent from 36.3 percent last year. More »
In what appears to be a not-so-subtle nudge to get BlackBerry owners who use Gmail to switch to Android phones, Google announced it's going to yank the BlackBerry Gmail app away Nov. 22. Those who already own the app can continue using it, but new BlackBerry owners won't be able to download it after that date. More »
Google Buzz, which always had trouble generating much positive buzz during its short lifespan, is going the way of Donovan McNabb's football career. Google casually announced that it's putting the little-used social networking add-on out of its misery. More »
Good news for Amazon's Kindle Fire is that it could be poised to be a serious competitor to the iPad. Bad news for Google and its Android operating system, which the Fire runs on, is that if it does rival the iPad, Google probably won't see much benefit. More »
Visions of one day strolling the Google breakroom dance inside the brains of business students. A worldwide survey found that Google topped the list of most attractive workplaces, leading an uptick of tech companies, including Apple, that are edging out traditional businesses. More »
In what has the appearance of a high-stakes, corporate sumo wrestling match, the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly investigating a hefty ad rate increase with which Google stung Microsoft. The investigation is said to be part of the FTC's antitrust probe of Google that's been going on for months. More »
Google's vision of having cell phone customers buy stuff with their smartphones at cash registers is becoming reality. The Google Wallet app, which allows compatible devices to use their virtual credit cards to make purchases, has gone live. Visa and MasterCard are currently on board, and Google says future updates will include American Express and Discover. More »
You no longer need to go to Google to search for a site that will let you search for flights. Instead, the internet titan provides a way to search — and book — flights without ever leaving Google. More »
In an "effort to bolster" its "local reviews and ratings," Google announced today that it has purchased Zagat, the company known for its quotation-heavy restaurant, movie, shopping and other review guides. More »
If you use Google Desktop or Gadgets in your daily workflow, it's time to start looking around for some replacements. Desktop, which has allowed users to search for files on their computers since 2004, will no longer be downloadable Sept. 14. Google will also stop supporting the app via downloadable updates that fix glitches. More »
Although the days in which it was socially acceptable to SuperPoke someone via a social network have long since passed, Google is reportedly doing its part to make sure no one is ever again subjected to the annoyance. The company, which purchased SuperPoke developer Slide last year, is shutting down its social apps. More »
Last week Standard & Poor's took Google down a peg after it announced a $12.5 billion acquisition with Motorola Mobility by downgrading Google's stock from "buy" to "sell" and lowering its target price from $700 to $500. When Google's price dipped below that Target, S&P reversed course. More »
The U.S. government isn't alone in the Standard & Poor's downgrade doghouse. Google, which is in the process of buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, took a sharp knock from Standard & Poor's equity researchers, who moved Google's stock from a "buy" to a "sell," lowering its target price to $500 from $700. More »
Software giant Google announced this morning its intention to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings, the smartphone and tablet arm of Motorola, for $12.5 billion, or $40 per share—a 63-percent premium over Friday's closing price for Motorola stock. More »
Perhaps realizing it was a bit overzealous in enforcing its mandate that Google+ users affix their real names to accounts, the social network altered its policy of account suspension for violators. Instead of giving suspected fake-name users an immediate heave-ho, Google+ will now give them four days to comply with the policy. More »
One of the most irritating aspects of social networking is the tendency of FarmVille-style game aficionados to inundate their friends with meaningless clutter in the form of game progress updates. Google+ is set to start integrating the addictive cash cows into its own service, but is showing mercy on its users by sticking them under a "games" tab. To be fair, Facebook's "hide" function also allows you to block game news from your feed. More »
A week after her story went up in the Star Ledger, a woman is happy to report that Google Maps is no longer telling people that her driveway is the entrance to the state park. That's good, but now there's a new story of people missing weddings and funerals because Google Maps shows a church as being clear on the other side of town from where it really is. More »
Sophie makes a lot of phone calls to France, so she does the responsible, frugal thing. She uses the Google Voice app on her smartphone to make those calls over the Internets instead of using the T-Mobile network. Except somehow, the Google Voice app failed, and the phone itself placed those calls while making it sound like they went through the Voice app. "Complain to Google about it and give us $700," says T-Mobile. "If the call doesn't show up in your Voice history, it went through the cell network," says Google. More »
Borders shutting down means 11,000 nice bookworms are out of a job. That's a pretty sad thought so a couple of friends started musing together on Google+ about how someone should help these folks out. So they started a new blog, "Help Ex-Borders Employees" where people can post job listings for these newly unemployed. More »
Thanks to a beefed-up Android Market, Android smartphones and tablets are now more versatile, allowing for direct ebook purchasing and video rentals. You could do similar things before on Android phones — such as buy ebooks through the mobile Kindle app and stream Netflix — but now Google is attempting to cut out the middle man. More »
Last week, Google users look on in horror as we shared the story of Dylan, a man who was a huge fan of Google's Web services until he was suddenly locked out of his account with no warning or explanation. His Twitter campaign had the intended effect, getting the attention of a senior VP at Google who fast-tracked an appeal and got Dylan an explanation and his account access back. So what really happened? More »
It was inevitable. With the creation of Google+, a new social network already boasting over 20 million users, the scammers were sure to follow. Here's a note a probable fraudster sent to reader Geoff through his Google+ profile, informing him that someone died in Africa and he needs to be contacted about a "business transaction" of "magnitude." More »
Google has removed outside customer reviews from Google Places, its service that offers details and recommendations on local businesses, and has replaced them with an option for users to add their own reviews. More »
Google+ is reportedly becoming more like Google Minus after an account deleting binge. Administrators are apparently removing accounts that violate the social network's community standards policy requiring users to use real names. More »
If there were ever two unstoppable money-making forces, it would be Google and the Harry Potter franchise. So it makes perfect sense that those two market dominators would team up for Google's eBooks. More »
Something happened to Dylan's Google account, and it's been disabled. He doesn't know what happened to the account, and no one at Google with the power to help him is interested in acknowledging the problem or letting him back in to the cloud-based services where all of his correspondence and much of the digital trail from the last few years of his life is stored. Google doesn't own Twitter, though (yet), and he has taken to Twitter to try to draw attention to his problem and urge anyone who will listen not to trust Google with their digital lives. More »
Free apps sometimes come at a hidden cost, because malicious software can come in seemingly harmless forms, exposing personal data and sending spammy text messages from users' accounts. An anti-malware service provider studied 10,000 Android apps found that 800 of the programs were spreading personal data around, and 11 were spamming phony text messages. More »
Google has started putting a yellow box with a warning at the top of search results pages for users who may have been infected with a certain kind of malware. More »
For more than 23 years, Laurie has lived in a New Jersey home bordering a state park. And for two decades, her driveway went unmolested by folks looking for the park entrance. But now she's got six signs up in her drive to tell people that her land is not for their recreational use, all because of a goof on Google Maps. More »
If you're betting Google's would-be Facebook killer, Google+, will end up MySpace-ing Facebook, you may as well go all-in and transfer all your photos over to the new site, which is currently in an invitation-based testing phase. More »
After reportedly receiving a mash note from Yahoo, Hulu has decided it's time to see if it can do better with hunkier suitors. And according to the L.A. Times, it looks like the streaming video site might have found a prospective beau in Google. More »
Google is testing a social networking site of its own, dubbed Google+. A company executive said the site is out to "fix" the rigidity of online social interactions and says the service will place a heavy focus on protecting the privacy of its users. How exactly it intends to accomplish such feats remains to be seen. More »
Texting? That is just so 2010. The cool thing these days is instant message texting with applications like BlackBerry Messenger, or Apple's upcoming iMessage, which use the Internet to send texts instead of service carriers. More »
In its ongoing effort to maintain prominence in the search engine wars, Google added a handy feature that lets you search the names of two cities, along with "flights from" and "to" in order to get a quick glance of the selection of regular flights that connect them. More »
A number of hot-selling paid apps that let gamers play modified versions of old-school video games were yanked from the Android Marketplace. The vanished apps, which were presumably pulled due to intellectual property violations, allowed gamers to turn their phones into sketchy conduits to relive the magic of the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and other ancient consoles. More »
Google becomes the latest company to try to turn your cell phone into a digital wallet, with today's announcement of cleverly named Google Wallet. The app is designed to turn any Android-powered phone with compatible data capabilities into a substitute for your credit cards. Right now, that's limited to just one phone, Google's own Nexus S 4G. More »
Three of the nation's biggest banks have teamed up to offer a new payment service that lets you transfer money from your bank account using only a cell phone number or email address. It's called clearXchange and it's being offered to Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo customers. An inkling of how it will work is revealed on the initiative's placeholder web page. More »
We can just hear it now: "Your tablet is so stupid, it thought a quarterback was a refund!" Hewlett-Packard hasn't released their TouchPad tablet computer yet, but already they're smack-talking iPad and Android devices and claiming it'll be the best one ever in the whole entire world. So there! More »
Researchers in Germany recently discovered a small problem with Google's Android smartphone operating system, one that affects around 97% of Android users and could make their personal info available to evil bastards. More »
News broke earlier this week that Google had set aside $500,000 to settle a mysterious Department of Justice investigation of "advertising by certain advertisers," and now a report indicates the badvertisers were "rogue online pharmaceuticals." More »
Earlier this week it was revealed that a top PR firm was, on behalf on an unnamed client, testing the waters of the blogosphere, trying to find writers to post anti-Google items with promises of getting that content linked on bigger sites. Now a new report on The Daily Beast confirms that the folks at Facebook were the ones behind the attempted smear campaign. More »
Preparing to settle a Department of Justice investigation of "use of Google advertising by certain advertisers," Google has set aside $500 million to make the investigation go away. More »
After the commercial success of its Android smartphone operating system and the growing number of people using its Chrome web browser, Google has announced that it has made a deal with Samsung and Acer to release a slate of PCs running the Chrome operating system. More »
Those with Android tablets and smartphones can now look forward to renting movies, thanks to new functionality available on the Android Market that ties into Google-owned YouTube's expanded rental service. More »
When Amazon launched its online music service, Cloud Player, some wondered, "What about Google or Apple?" Now, at least one of them seems ready to with an answer. More »
If you're considering porting your mobile phone number to Google Voice instead of to a new carrier, consider this: free or inexpensive phone services have a hidden expense: customer service. When Peter's number port didn't work, Google's customer support structure left him with no real-time support options and no way to get the attention of anyone who could actually help him. More »
Could it be that tech heavyweights including Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Adobe, Pixar and Lucasfilm were entangled in a nefarious plot to keep employee wages down and profits up? That's the allegation brought forth by a lawsuit filed in a California Superior Court, alleging antitrust violations among the companies, as well as "no solicitation" agreements that kept companies from poaching employees. More »
Filing a lawsuit seeking class action status, two Android phone owners are suing Google over concerns that the company is tracking users' moves with the phones. More »
A small Texas computer company won a $5 million district court judgment against Google, which a jury found in violation of a Linux-related patent due to proprietary code for storing and retrieving information that was found in Google software. More »
Microsoft's Bing continues to carve out a spot for itself in the search engine market, but it can't seem to make up much ground against Google, which matched its gains from February to March, according to one report. More »
Google-owned YouTube is getting quite ambitious, not only aiming at more live sports broadcasts, but focusing on creating its own entertainment programming and shifting to a TV-like channel format to compete with cable and satellite companies. More »
The FTC announced today that Google has settled with the commission over the "Buzz" privacy debacle — agreeing to 20 years of privacy audits. The commission said in a statement that this is the first time an FTC settlement order has required a company to implement a comprehensive program to protect the privacy of consumers' information. More »
Remember Google Buzz, the search engine giant's attempt at trying to become all Facebook-like? It didn't exactly do much to make Mark Zuckerberg sweat and eventually ended up as the subject of an FTC investigation over privacy issues. But that isn't stopping Big G from trying to create a more social aspect of its search results. This week, the company announced its new "+1 Button," which is pretty much the same as Facebook's Like button, except not on Facebook and not at all private. More »
It might be shocking to you to find out that some companies have lied about their own creation, but hey, who doesn't like a good story? From eBay to YouTube, tall tales have been spun to consumers for various reasons. Let's take a walk down liars' memory lane, shall we? More »
This show really puts our mall cellphone carts to shame. Instead of a bored guy with a pencil goatee sitting on a stool, they have a full-on breakdancing show. This one features a life-sized inflatable Android just going absolutely ape-nuts on the dancefloor at the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc cellphone stand near 101 Tower in Taiwan. As commenter Oranges w/ Cheese puts it, "Those inflatable suits are so weird because the movements are so sudden and odd. " I don't know how many cellphones it sells, but the branding effort endears the plucky green guy to your heart. He just tries so hard! And that positive association can pay dividends in brand goodwill down the line, just like his masters planned. Muaha - break it down! More »
A district court judge told Google its $125 million settlement with authors and publishers is invalid because it's too favorable to the company. The ruling stalls Google's plans to complete a massive digital library and bookstore. More »
Using the "Block Caller" function in Google Voice is a far easier way to beat fraudulent callers than the one we described 2 weeks ago, says reader John. More »
After identifying several malicious apps on the Android Market that exploited security on the operating system, Google not only remotely deleted the apps but installed software that undid the damage to affected devices. More »
Gmail users can usually take comfort in knowing important documents they send to others are safe and accessible in their mail archives, but as many as 150,000 Gmail users lost all their stuff because their accounts got unwanted fresh starts Sunday morning. More »
If it's 4 a.m., you've been out all night and are in need of a burrito, Google is thinking of you. The search dynamo has added some heft to its smartphone search functionality, letting you sort businesses by whether they're currently open, as well as distance distance and user rating levels. More »
The search engine police at Google have penalized Overstock.com after finding that the online retailer was artificially boosting its prominence on search results by effectively paying for links on .edu sites. More »
Google's forum-based method of providing tech support works for many of the company's consumer products, but didn't work so well during the company's failed experiment with the mobile handset business. Customers' e-mail and Google Voice accounts are now often central to their lives, and Mark has learned that some problems simply don't lend themselves to self-service tech support. More »
Don't feel like feeding into the machine of content farms, which mine your searches in order to create stories that fit the terms you just plugged in to find something? Google Chrome has introduced a new extension called Personal Blocklist so you can hide what you're looking for. More »
It was recently reported that Google is in the market to buy Twitter and that the price tag floating around for the company was somewhere in the $8-10 billion range. But today, Twitter's CEO denied those reports — sort of. More »
It's a constant battle for retailers to draw attention to themselves online, and JCPenney has been winning the fight due to some blatant search engine manipulation. More »
Feeling a bit insecure, Google set up a moat, an attack dog and alarm system for Gmail. Well, sorta. It added an optional (for now) two-step verification process to sign in, decreasing the likelihood that a hacker will be able to take your account out on a joyride. More »
A lot of people expressed surprise at the $315 million purchase of Huffington Post by AOL. But that's nothing compared to the figures Facebook and Google are reportedly considering ponying up to acquire Twitter. More »
Brandon has been waiting since Jan 20 for Google Voice to port his cellphone number. First he tried to port on Jan 20, then it said there was an error, so he tried again on Jan 30. He paid the $20 fee both times. The whole process is supposed to take 24 hours. He's tried posting in their "Help Center," as their welcome email suggests, but no luck. Just limbo. Hm. Maybe Google should stay out of businesses that require customer service. Have you tried getting in touch with your ex-wireless provider's porting department and asking what the status is? UPDATE: Brandon reports his port over from AT&T has now gone through. Huzzah!
First Sony went after alleged PS3 hackers who broke down the console's firmware, opening it up to gamers to run pirated, copied and unlicensed games. Now it wants information on those who posted details of the hack online, even though they had no hand in its creation. More »
Google has jumped into the shopping app fray with "Google Shopper," which stands out from the crowd by being able to id products by their cover art. The feature works on book, CD, DVD, and video game covers. You can also search by voice, along with the usual barcode scanning, local pricematching and the ability to save items. If you're a RedLaser fan, this could be a serious contender to replace it on your home screen. The app is free and available on both Android and iOS. More »
Ruh roh! Seems the Verizon iPhone is very popular, which is good news for Verizon but not so good for Android and BlackBerry. A new survey says many users of the Google and Research in Motion Smartphones would likely switch to Verizon's new offering. More »
Suspecting rival Bing piggybacks off its results, Google ran a sting operation to catch Bing in the act. Google says it's proven that Bing copies results from users' searches and uses the info to bolster its own output. More »
Google and Mozilla have posted that they're adding new features to their browsers that will let users opt out of being tracked by third-party advertisers. The move comes a few weeks after the FTC issued a report recommending browser software developers to implement such a mechanism. More »
As the time-honored adage goes, if at first you don't succeed at buying a company in a multi-billion dollar deal, try to out perform it with a competing service of your own. Such is the tack Google is apparently taking against Groupon. More »
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is handing the company's reins over to co-founder Larry Page in April, and to commemorate the event, The Wall Street Journal has compiled a greatest hits collection of Schmidt quotes. No, he didn't say "don't be evil." He did, however, say that the Google has a policy to "get right up to the creepy line but not cross it." More »
Neglecting the standard mysterious departure-accompanying explanation "I'd like to spend more time with my family," Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced he's stepping aside to make way for Google co-founder Larry Page, who will take over April 4. More »
Four months ago, Steve bought one of the very last Nexus Ones. Remember? The Google-designed phone that was supposed to change the entire mobile phone industry and instead just showed the world that Google didn't know how to sell tangible objects? Its successor, the Nexus S, has arrived, but it seems that late Nexus One adopters like Steve can only exchange their defective devices for another refurbished Nexus One. This would be acceptable if HTC hadn't sent Steve three defective phones in the course of a month. More »
The most revolutionary feature on Google's new laptop might not be the Chrome OS, free broadband or cloud-based computing, but their decision to leave off the Caps Lock key entirely. How else will everyone on the internet know that I am screaming? More »
Pushing the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" mentality to the extreme, an online retailer allegedly stalked and threatened customers in order to boost his search engine visibility. The seller reportedly went to such extremes that federal authorities stepped in and arrested him on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, making interstate threats and cyberstalking. More »
Google says it has updated its algorithm so that making your customers hate you so they complain about you on other sites and boost your SEO no longer works. The move to soak up the "black Google juice" comes after a big NYT profile/investigation of the owner of an online store that was stoking customers to hate him because the inbound links from their complaints on other sites boosted his rankings in Google Search Results. More »
Back in May, it was being reported that Google was planning on having its new E-book store up and running by the end of summer. Obviously that didn't happen. Now the Wall Street Journal says Google Editions is likely to be a reality by year's end. More »
While Ian was visiting Hawaii, he wanted to check out a restaurant a friend had told him about. He looked the place up on Google Maps and was dismayed to find it had closed. When he actually got there, he found the joint was very much open, and talked to employees who alleged Google affixed it with the false label as a way to blacklist the restaurant for refusing to advertise. More »
Bermuda is not only a land of beautiful beaches — as well as a cornerstone of a famed mysterious triangle known for making things disappear — it's where Google goes to protect billions in profits from the sticky fingers of Uncle Sam. More »
As Google TV readies to launch in the coming weeks, the company has finally announced its initial slate of programming partners — and it's not exactly thrilling reading. More »
For a Google engineer who was fired in July, it apparently wasn't enough just to Google people in order to stalk them. Instead, he allegedly abused his access and violated the company's privacy policies to snoop on users. More »
Had fate twisted differently, you might have bought domain names from BigDaddy.com, searched for stuff online via BackRub or never heard of Yahoo because its original name, Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web was so wordy it might have killed the company. More »
If there's a special someone who makes your stomach churn when you see a new email from him pop up in your inbox, you're probably looking for a way to stop him from harassing you. More »
Hey, remember when Google signed everyone up for Buzz without asking and revealed their private contact lists? The company has now settled a class action lawsuit brought by seven Gmail users. The BBC says that 30% will go to the legal team, while each of those seven users will get $2,500. The rest will not be turned into Google stickers or free AdSense ads for you, but instead will be "shared among organisations that promote online privacy." More »
The group Consumer Watchdog is pushing hard for Congress to establish a "do not track" list for online consumers, which I'm all for. I'm not sure whether releasing a ridiculously unpleasant cartoon in Times Square is the right strategy, though—especially when you use the very service you're warning people about. More »
Quantcast reports that while iPhones still own the mobile web market, Android devices are quickly making up ground. A year ago the iPhone's iOS platform owned nearly 70 percent of the market while Android hovered below 10 percent. Last month iOS slumped to 56 percent while Android clawed its way up to 25 percent. More »
Although Zagat says Wendy's makes the third-best burger of American fast food chains, this Google review may convince you that the House That Dave Built belongs at the top of the heap. Runt of the Web claims to have found this somewhere on Google but its source link comes up empty. More »
New technology often has unintended consequences. In the case of Google Earth, a popular program that combines various satellite and aerial images to create a navigable 3D globe, it's being used by one town to catch unpermitted pool owners. More »
Apple has added the Droid X to its list of phones that it claims also has the "death grip" antenna issue. Apple's website depicts a hand holding the phone in a fairly normal one-handed grip, with the signal bars depleted. Below the image, Apple says: " In weak signal areas, this grip may negatively affect signal strength." PCMag, however, takes issue with Apple's methodology... More »
Over at the How-To Geek they've figured out how to get the Android OS to run on a Windows Mobile phone, and now they are sharing the information with one and all. More »
Keith bought a Nexus One phone, which broke within four months. He submitted a repair order to HTC, which said it would put him on an express track and take care of him within 5 business days. He said goodbye to his phone June 23, and the only "express"-ion he's got is his bitterness. More »
Reader Yankees368 was dining at Breeze NY when a Google employee tromped in and started taking pictures of the restaurant's interior, including the food he was about to eat, for the Google Store View project. More »
Sorry Viacom! A judge has handed YouTube a victory in the $1 billion copyright lawsuit that the entertainment company brought against Google/YouTube. Viacom's position was that YouTube had the responsibility to immediately remove all copyrighted materials. YouTube said it only had to comply with takedown requests. More »
Gosh, it's been almost 3 years since Google bought GrandCentral and transformed it into Google Voice, a service that lets you set up a phone number that can ring multiple phones. It's been invite-only ever since, but today Google opened up registration to public. (U.S. only, sorry.) More »
Not content with being in the search engine, browser, advertising and operating systems business, it looks like the bean bag-loving people at Google have their hungry eyes set on the music industry. A new report claims the internet giant plans to launch its own music download service in the coming months. More »
If you go to Google.com now, instead of the stark white page you'll have a colorful, full-screen photo as the background. While some see this as a welcome change of pace and many others just don't care, there are a number of very vocal writers up in arms about the change. More »
BP isn't too fond of people using search engines to check up on its Gulf of Mexico misadventures. The company has bought up some Google and Yahoo phrases in order to scuttle efforts to find news reports using such words. More »
Lee never received a check from a Google AdSense account, then tried for weeks to track it down. Finally, Google offered scans of the check, and it turned out someone else with the same name had gotten the check by mistake and cashed it through a local bank, which couldn't determine whether or not the check was a fake and decided to "try depositing it and see what happens." More »
A woman from L.A. has filed a lawsuit against Internet leviathan Google, claiming that the walking directions she was given by its Google Maps site led her to walk down a Utah highway, where she was hit by a car. More »
That Pac-Man minigame Google stuck on its homepage Friday chomped up desk jockeys' worktime, sucking up 5 million hours into impromptu power pellet crunching and ghost chasing, according to data from software company Rescue Time. More »
Imitating Apple's concept of selling apps for devices through a unified storefront, Engadget reports Google announced it's going to launch a Chrome web store that will offer a lot of stuff you can find on the App Store, including games such as Plants vs. Zombies. Engadget raves about a Sports Illustrated app: More »
Poor Google, it hasn't been a very good week for you, has it? First we talked about how you accidentally tapped into WiFi info with your Street View cars, and now you've been forced to close your online Nexus One phone store after only four months. Does somebody need a hug? More »
Woopsies! Looks like Google’s super neat Street View cars have been going about collecting the wrong kind of information - namely, data about what Web sites people were using via open wireless Internet networks, CNN reports, More »
Google just loves being helpful - and being the go-to source for anything and everything you could ever wish or desire. Which is why it’s not surprising that new reports are saying Google is extending its long arm into the online travel business, and could be in talks to acquire fare-shopping developers ITA Software. More »
Because there apparently aren't enough gunslingers at the e-book OK Corral, Google announced today that they plan on joining the battle royale when they open their online e-book store sometime this summer. More »
Last month, Apple CEO Steve Jobs cited the availability of porn apps as a major advantage offered by Google's Android platform (well, he didn't really, but some may have seen it that way). Now, the Parents Television Council, which earlier pushed to make Apple's App Store more family-friendly, has decided to follow up on Steve's endorsement, and is looking at what it sees as a lack of effective parental controls on Android phones. More »
While there are the Comcasts and the Cash4Golds out there, it's heartening to know that there are actually companies deemed to be "good" to work for. Exciting! Thanks for putting together a list of 23 of those magical companies, Fortune! More »
In case there was any doubt, Google is getting ready to just straight up dominate the world: The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is going to unveil Android-based TV software in May at the kind of event where life-changing announcements are made, the Google I/O conference. More »
For five years, the people at BrandZ (you know they're in branding because of the "Z") have been evaluating customer opinion and awareness of various global brands, and then putting a dollar value on that evaluation for their annual Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report. Here are the top 10 brands on the BrandZ list. More »
If you've been waiting for the Nexus One to hit Verizon, you can stop waiting. The HTC Droid will take the place of the Nexus One on the Verizon network, Google announced via a blog post Monday. It's supposed to support better multi-touch sensors, so, win? Perhaps given the customerserviceissues that arose after the initial Nexus One launch - they didn't even offer any phone support at first - Google decided it would be better to get out of the retail business. [Google via PhoneScoop]
There have been a lot of boneheaded business decisions over the years, but the folks over at MSN seem to think they've distilled it down to an elite 8 of nearsighted, addle-brained, wrong-minded missteps. See if you agree. More »
This guy has hacked his iPhone so it runs Android. In fact, he can choose to run either the iPhone OS or Android. It only works on the original 2G iPhone and it's a little buggy, and not recommended that casual users try it, but the future could hold implementations on the 3G and 3Gs. Apple's secret garden just got further pried open. More »
Maybe they are sentient after all, just like the commercials suggest, and they've decided it's time for you to move on. A slew of Droid owners are reporting that their cellphones will sometimes randomly delete all of their text messages. That's every picture of your baby your wife sent you, every hilarious exchange between you and your best friend, and every must-have address you've got stored as a text message. More »
The consumer group Consumer Watchdog is planning to ask the Justice Department to "launch an antitrust action against the search giant and seek remedies including a possible break up," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The group will host a press conference in Washington, D.C. tomorrow where it will argue that there's enough evidence to warrant antitrust action from the feds. More »
Remember that Tweet you wrote about Tiger Woods that seemed hilarious at the time? Or that night you shared your thoughts on your cousin Bob's lack of personal hygiene? Good news — all of the world's most trivial 140-character-or-less Tweets will soon be housed forever in the Library of Congress. More »
Google Labs recently unveiled its latest toy, the Public Data Explorer. The tool adds visualization features to Google's public data search engine, letting you make charts and graphs like this one, which overlays unemployment stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on a U.S. map. Colorful and cheery, right? All those lovely pale green circles (10% umemployment), flashes of orange (13%) and the occasional outburst of red (15%). Who knew that modeling depressing data could be so much fun! More »
The IT Chronicle reports that Google-owned YouTube is shutting down tools that help users download and save its videos to their computers, starting with a popular TechCrunch program. More »
A convicted bank robber had been hoping to get out of jail because the judge in his parole revocation hearing admitted to doing a Google search on a piece of evidence. Unfortunately for him — and fortunately for just about everyone else — an appeals court disagreed. More »
It's a showdown of new media and sorta-old media as YouTube defends itself against Viacom in the TV leviathan's billion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuit against the site that showed the world that cats can indeed play the piano. More »
It's official — playing Farmville and tagging friends in photos (and consequently untagging embarrassing photos of yourself from your friends' photos) has become more popular than actually trying to find things on the internet, as a new report shows Facebook edged out Google as the most-visited site on the internet last week. More »
In a remarkably crass act of prostitution, Topeka has up and changed its name to Google for the month, ABS-CBN News reports. The name change is a way for the mayor to thank Google for using Topeka as a test ground for a high-speed internet network. More »
Aten Design Group of Denver hosted a funeral for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 last week, after Google Docs and Google Sites stopped supporting the browser. YouTube will drop IE 6 — released in 2001 — Saturday. CNN reports the story of IE 6's sendoff: More »
Google's head of European online sales, John Herlihy, recently prognosticated that in three years, "desktops will be irrelevant," and everyone will work on mobile devices and store their data in the Internet "cloud." That would be good news for Google, but what about you? Would privacy concerns, limitations of mobile widgets and web apps or other issues keep you tethered to your desktop, or are you ready to launch yourself into the clouds? Tell us in our poll, inside. More »
We had a feeling it would come to this. Lawyers in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have filed a class action lawsuit against Google for, among other allegations, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with its recently launched Google Buzz social networking tool. More »
It's a new day, so there must be a new revelation about another way in which Google Buzz is an affront to the concept of personal privacy, right? But the latest complaint about the Internet giant's unasked-for answer to Facebook and Twitter goes far beyond making your private contacts public or adding potential personal safety risks to your "followers" list. It looks like the phishers and botnet scammers have already begun taking advantage of the new feature. More »
Google Buzz's amazing integration of Twitter-like functionality and automatically following everyone you know isn't just an annoying and potentially embarrassing feature. For some users, it's a security hazard. More »
While Google was busy plotting the beginnings of SkyNet on one front, they simultaneously launched their full-frontal attack on Facebook with the debut of Google Buzz, their new social networking tool that puts status updates right on your Gmail page. And, just like Facebook, Google Buzz managed to completely overstep the bounds of personal privacy. More »
In a move that surely has some folks at Verizon looking for a change of pants, Google announced today that it is planning to build and test a ultra-high-speed broadband network that would deliver data at 1 Gb per second, up to 100x that of current Internet connections. Oh, and they want to offer it on the cheap. More »
Hey look, Google has finally decided to take selling smartphones seriously! After initially trying to treat Nexus One owners like Gmail users who'd locked themselves out of their accounts, the company finally admitted it might be good to have actual people on hand for troubleshooting. If you've got a Nexus One problem that T-Mobile can't solve, call 888-486-3987 (888-48NEXUS). The line is open from 7am-10pm ET. More »
Yesterday's Google super bowl ad was a cute story about a guy falling in love with a French lady told through his searches. The trouble is, they showed the autocomplete prompts and, as anyone who has ever used Google knows, the autocomplete suggestions can be, uh, kinda weird. So, of course, some the search suggestions have been edited out. Like one about making friends with black people. More »
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google has plans to make Gmail "more social," according to an anonymous source. The idea is to make it easier to post links and share status updates. Meanwhile, Facebook is apparently planning a "Gmail killer." More »
A store in New York City called Oh Nuts, which apparently sells nuts and nut-based goods, told the blog Search Engine Land that someone from Google showed up and took a series of photos of the interior as part of an upcoming "Google Store Views" service. Google has officially said no comment, so I guess now it's a waiting game to see if this shows up as an offshoot of Google's street view offering, or if Oh Nuts reports in the next few days that they've had their entire inventory stolen by nut fiends who knew the layout suspiciously well. More »
The launch and early customer support of the Google's Nexus One phone, manufactured by HTC, has been a bit problematic. But let's try some optimism! Maybe now that the early hype has died down and HTC has had some time to get used to the situation, warranty replacements will take place in a timely fashion! Or...well, as reader Michael writes, evidently not. Update: Thanks to this post, Michael's new phone is on its way.More »
Motorola told its investors today that it's working on building an Android phone for Google to sell directly to consumers alongside the HTC-built Nexus One. There are no other details yet, other than that it should be released in 2010, according to Motorola's co-CEO Sanjay Jha. More »
Apple made it clear last year that Google Voice is not welcome on the App Store or your iPhone. "Fine," said Google. "We'll go through the browser!" Today the search engine revealed a new mobile web interface that uses some fancy HTML5 magic to provide voicemail, calling, and text message functionality. If you don't already know, you can turn any page in Mobile Safari into an App icon on your home screen (click the "+" icon in Safari), meaning now you can have a legitimate Google Voice "app." Below is a video tour. Update: There's a down side to this: Cy writes in to let us know that this fancy new version actually breaks functionality for iPod Touch owners—the old web-based version let Touch owners make calls, but this one doesn't. More »
Early adopters of Google's Nexus One phone can't catch a break. First, some overpaid. Then customers reported iffy 3G. And at least one had problems getting a dead phone replaced. It's enough to make you scream obscenities at your phone. Don't bother. Google has included an odd feature as part of the phone's voice-to-text function: When it transcribes speech, it automatically censors any curse words you utter. F*&k! More »
The Google/HTC Nexus One has been out for two weeks now, but the poor customer service vortex has sucked in many Consumerist readers, devouring their access to a functional phone, as well as their 14-day grace periods for returns. More »
If you need an affordable way to reach someone in Haiti for the next two weeks, use Google Voice. The company is making all calls to Haiti temporarily free:
To help those families, we're offering free calling to Haiti through Google Voice for the next two weeks. To place a call using Google Voice, use the Click2Call button on the website, the Google Voice mobile app, or dial your own Google Voice number and press 2 to place an outbound call.
Prashant loves Google's software products and open policies, and decided to purchase a Nexus One on the very first day they hit the market. He writes that the phone he purchased was dead, and handset manufacturer HTC keeps making promises to send a handset that they never actually send. More »
So if your Nexus One isn't working... Who do you call? We think the answer is Ghostbusters, because it's sure as hell not Google — and according to InformationWeek, it is also not T-Mobile or HTC. More »
Apparently quite a few Nexus One users are having a hard time getting their new phones to connect to T-Mo's 3G network. Instead, according to InformationWeek, they are getting bounced down to the slower EDGE network. More »
Phillip K. Dick wrote a book called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," which is too long to put in the title of this post, but was adapted into the film Blade Runner (which is awesome.) In this book, the android model in question is called the "Nexus-6." Google's phone, which runs an operating system called "Android" is called the "Nexus One." This has pissed off Phillip K. Dick's daughter. More »
Google has just rolled out is "iPhone Killer," the Nexus One, and while the tech world may be gushing over the phone's sleek figure, 5 megapixel camera and fast processor, we only care about one thing: can it play Doom? No, wait, strike that. The real question is: What does this do that last week's hot Google phone — you remember, that Droid thing — couldn't do? And why the heck should I buy a phone from a search engine company? More »
Dexter, pictured, had better get his credit card ready, because if Google-owned YouTube enacts its diabolical master plan, he'll have to start paying monthly to get his entertainment fix. The Business Insider reports YouTube is formulating a pricing strategy to comfort greed-mongering studios: More »
—>The new music search capabilities that Google introduced today will make it easier to quickly find a song you can't remember the name of, or sample some tracks from an artist you're interested in. But it's not so much a new service as a more efficient combination of a bunch of services already scattered around the web. More »
—>You've probably seen Google Finance, where each company has its own page made up of content scraped from all over the web. Google is about to launch a similar service for musicians, says the Hollywood Reporter: "The music pages will package images of musicians and bands, album artwork, links to news, lyrics and song previews, along with a way to buy songs." More »
—>While it's our job to name the Worst Company In America, BusinessWeek has decided to identify the world's best businesses, tapping management consultant firm A.T. Kearney to rank the world's best companies. More »
—>On Friday, AT&T filed a letter with the FCC accusing Google Voice of violating network neutrality principles. Google Voice doesn't work with certain numbers that AT&T, as an old-fashioned landline and mobile provider, does. More »
—>If you're like the average Google user, you've now got a lot of personal data—emails, addresses, calendars, documents, photos and videos, maybe even health records—in their system. This is fine with them, because the Google Hive Mind needs all of this data to eventually become self aware and enslave us. However, if you ever want to get that information out of Google, the company has created something they call the Data Liberation Front to make it easier for you. More »
—>Google selected me to be one of their "Power Readers," which means you can easily subscribe to an RSS feed with some of the blogs I recommend reading. I encourage checking out The Red Tape Chronicles, Bankrate, Credit Slips, Elliot.org, and Frugal for Life, as well as the other blogs recommended by my fellow "Power Readers." Yes, we all got issued special laser rings. More »
—>Traffic reports are swell and all, but they don't really help you when you've got no choice but to take the highway or risk the unknown — traffic on the regular roads. Google is trying to change that by offering "arterial" traffic data. More »
—>Apple may not feel like you're ready to take advantage of Google Voice, but luckily Jobs and his legion can't lock you out of every potential way to access the service. (Yet.) Here are three paths to GV you can use today, no permission needed from the Applelord. More »
—>There's been a lot of talk online the past week about extending the principal of network neutrality to wireless networks, which may be partly why the FCC has asked Apple, Google, and AT&T to answer some questions about the rejected Google Voice iPhone app. Todd Barr at Bandwidth.com thinks that the reason may actually have to do with the concept of number portability. More »
Apparently, if you put in a "tragedy" word for every 167 words in your email message, Gmail's servers won't display ads out of some robotic simulacrum of empathy. You'll also freak out or depress your friends, but hey, no ads! [BoingBoing] (Photo: solidariat) More »
—>Apple (and AT&T) may have finally pushed too far with this week's rejection of the Google Voice App from the iPhone App Store, for no reason other than it "duplicated functionality" already offered—for a price—by AT&T. According to mocoNews, the FCC has asked Apple and AT&T to provide answers about how apps are approved, why they're denied, and particularly how much say AT&T has over things iPhone-related. More »
—>Engine Industries used Google Trends to map the frequency of search terms like "used car," "new car," and "buy car" through Google. They found that "people search car-related keyterms most in the summer and least in the winter, with a small spike right before Christmas." More »
—>In a schoolyard bully battle royale, Microsoft and Yahoo are joining forces to target Google, with the aim of relieving the company of its search engine dominance. More »
—>Bing vs. Google offers a side-by-side comparison that lets users see for themselves which search engine works better. We tried some searches, and our findings are inside. More »
—>Amidst the chatter about the iPhone 3G S and iPhone cultists' users' hate/hate relationship with AT&T, here's another bit of bad news for AT&T subscribers: reader Mark e-mailed to let us know that the cost of directory assistance calls will go up to $1.99 on July 1. Fortunately, when you need 411 service, you don't have to pay for it. More »
—>ReadWriteWeb has a scary article about the city of Bozeman, Montana. It doesn't sound like a scary place, but if you want to say, work for the City, you'll need to give them all your social networking usernames and passwords.More »
—>If Microsoft has its way bending your brain with a megabucks ad budget for its forthcoming Bing search engine, someday you'll replace the verb "googled" with "binged." Which could give new meaning to the phrase "binged and purged," but whatever. More »
If you own a G1 phone from T-Mobile, Google has added a special barcode scanning feature to its Product Search page just for you. Yeah, you've already got other barcode scanning apps, but this one integrates with Google's search functionality so you can scan and see product search results in Google immediately. [Phandroid] More »
—>Last week, Google introduced its new "interest based" ads, which is based on tracking your browsing activity and targeting ads based on that behavior. Fortunately, there are several ways to opt out. More »
AOL Has A New CEO AOL has named Google Senior Vice President Tim Armstrong as its next chairman and chief executive officer. Current Chairman and CEO Randy Falco and Chief Operating Officer and President Ron Grant "plan to leave the company after a transition period," Time Warner said in a statement. [UPI]More »
—>PC Mag has assembled a list of instructions on how to wipe your account from a long list of websites, including Classmates.com (you'll have to call), Windows Live ID (it's complicated), and Friendster (ha ha ha). In many cases, canceling is as straightforward as clicking a link and authorizing the cancellation, but it's nice to see all the phone numbers and tips collected in one spot. More »
—>Google has assembled a suite of free tools (developed by researchers, not by Google itself) that let you measure things like BitTorrent throttling, upload/download speeds, and last mile snafus. In exchange for "free," the test data is being made public to enable further study of broadband connections. You might want to bookmark the site for future reference when you're trying to figure out what's going on with your ISP. More »
—>Either Google has a bug or the entire internet is infected because no matter what you search for in Google right now it shows up with the warning, "This site may harm your computer." Judging by the submissions to Digg, this probably started showing up around 9:46 eastern this morning. Nobody knows what's going on yet, just that it's very odd. UPDATE: And of 10:17 eastern, everything seems back to normal. You may recommence your early morning vanity searching. UPDATE: Human error. Someone typed in "/" by mistake. More info at StopBadware.com. More »
—>Once you get one piece of executive or escalated contact info, you can Google it to uncover more pieces of info. The phone numbers and/or email addresses you've got have a good chance of showing up in other people's blogs and message board posts complaining about the same company. For example, More »
—>If America's Google searches for the 25th are any indicator, you all enjoyed tasty meals at IHOP, went for a Christmas Day shopping spree at Walmart, and gave up on Rock Band and Guitar Hero and searched for cheat codes. Tell us what you got, and what you gave, in the comments. More »
—>Losing access to your GMail account is tantamount to banishment from the internet, but Google's non-existent customer support makes it nearly impossible for rightful owners to regain control of their accounts. The New York Times asked Google why they couldn't afford to offer phone-based customer support, a simple question Google needed three people to answer. More »
—>Here's what really happened with United Airlines' stock losing 99% of its value on that bankruptcy story from 2002 that people though was new. This is what happens when you let the robots do your thinking for you... More »
Google has announced that they're shortening the duration that they keep personal data on users from 18 months to 9 months. Yay! "It's no big deal—we've already got more personal info on you than we know how to monetize," said a Google official in a totally fabricated (yet plausible) statement. [Reuters] More »
Gmail recently rolled out a change to its settings, where now you can permanently turn on SSL encryption. Do it now—your personal data will thank you for it. Besides, it's going to get a lot easier to hack Gmail sessions very soon, because some guy is planning on releasing a hacking tool to the public in order to force Google to implement better security. [monkey_bites] More »
—>Wired's Threat Level blog says that the judge in the Viacom/Google lawsuit has made a ruling forcing Google to turn over "every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses," to Viacom. More »
Google now helps catch criminals. The FBI identified a Citibank PIN thief by cross-referencing security camera footage with an ICQ handle and personal photos on ham radio enthusiasts sites. [Information Week] More »
—>The results of the Harris Interactive survey that tracks the reputations of the 60 most visible companies in America has been released and here they are: Google is tops and Halliburton is not. Not shocking, but there are some interesting findings. Honda is the only car company to make the top 10, and Comcast, Sprint and Northwest Airlines are the least well-regarded in their respective industries. More »
—>The Research Institute has compiled a list of the most reputable companies in the U.S., "calculated by averaging perceptions of trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling obtained from a representative sample of 100 local respondents who were familiar with the company." (Then they do some statistical stuff to it.) Coming in at #1 is Google, which we think is remarkable considering how much data the company has managed to collect over the past several years, and continues to collect with new record-keeping initiatives like Google Health. More »
—>With all the talk about trains in recent days, reader Zach decided to do some quick Googling to check out some train ticket prices. He typed in "cheap train tickets" and what do you know? Oh, hello Delta! We didn't know you were in the train business now. Let's click on your link on the small hope that maybe there's a train ticket discount or some sort of...nope, same old Delta. Zach's letter, inside... More »
—>Google's telephone service GrandCentral has been down all morning. The service's first general outage affects all customers; any calls to GrandCentral numbers are immediately disconnected. More »
The couple, Aaron and Catherine Boring, have succeeded in getting the photos yanked from the site, but the industrious minds over at the Smoking Gun found another even more intrusive set of photos taken by the search giant. More »
—>One of the stumbling blocks when launching an EECB is figuring out the company email address format. There is actually a very easy way to do this. Just use wildcards in Google. What are those? We'll tell ya, inside... More »
—>Analysts are saying that Google is probably out of the running for the "C Block" of wireless spectrum that it had been bidding on. More »
Yahoo is re-opening talks with Google about a possible business alliance in an effort to rebuff Microsoft's takeover proposal, which Yahoo says undervalues the company at $31 a share. More »
—>The New York Times is reporting that the auction for the C-block of wireless spectrum (Read: the Google part) has may have been won by someone... but we don't know who. Oh, the suspense! More »
Bidding for the national franchise in the C block started at $1.037 billion in the morning and was raised to $1.245 billion in the afternoon. The reserve price for the national C block is $4.6 billion. (Google has said it will bid at least $4.6 billion for this block, but there is no requirement that it place a bid in that amount at first.) More »
—> Laura used Picasa to share photographs of her mastectomy with members of her support group, as well as family and friends. Now they're gone, deleted without warning because some anonymous jackass flagged them as inappropriate. [Update: Pics are back up! Google apologized and reinstated the entire album, along with comments.] The first problem with this is that it's hard to figure out which category of "inappropriate" surgical pictures fall under: obscenity, pornography, promotions of hate, incitement of violence, spam, malicious code, or viruses? More »
—>The Blogger free blogging system is owned by Google and they usually like their customers to talk to robots, but if you have an extreme issue, like all of a sudden your blogs were deleted (this has happened to at least a couple Consumerist readers), here are some executive honchos you can talk to get you fixed up: More »
—>The other day we woke up to find that a story we'd accidentally "shared" on Google Reader was now being automatically broadcast to a wide swath of strangers who were listed in our Gmail contacts and had been "auto- added" to Google Talk . It was startling, but no big deal because we didn't use the "share" feature on Google Reader and therefore had only to delete the single "United Airlines does something boring that no one actually cares about" AP story that we'd accidentally clicked sometime last year. More »
The companies were accused of receiving money from online gambling businesses to advertise illegal betting from 1997 through 2007. More »
The official list of bidders for the 700 mhz spectrum is out. Google Airwaves, LLC joins Verizon, Cox and AT&T in the ultimate spectrum battle. Get your popcorn ready. [Ars Technica] More »
FTC head said she won't recuse herself from the review of Google's acquisition of the DoubleClick online advertising firm, despite petitions by some consumer groups alleging conflict of interest. [AP] More »
—>Seth Godin thinks that for all the talk about privacy, what people really object to is being "surprised."
If your credit card company called you up and said, "we've been looking over your records and we see that you've been having an extramarital affair. We'd like to offer you a free coupon for VD testing..." you'd freak out, and for good reason. More »
—>Brad Taylor, Google's chief spam "watchdog," suspects that spammers may actually be giving up as filters becomes more sophisticated and fewer of their messages get through.
Google won't disclose numbers, but the company says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that's transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year. That could indicate that some spammers have gotten discouraged and have stopped trying to get through Google's spam filters.
Other experts disagree, claiming that spam is on the rise. More »
Considering Google's penchant for automated emails and redirects to Help files when things go wrong, what would you do if someone hacked your Gmail account and had access to all your emails, Google documents, etc etc? [Google Blogoscoped] More »
Meanwhile, back at its headquarters, Google is already operating an advanced high-speed wireless network under a test license from the FCC, according to people familiar with the matter. The company has erected transmission towers on its campus for the network. Prototype mobile handsets powered by the Android software are currently running on it. More »
—> Google's not answering any questions, and Verizon is being all coy about it, but anonymous sources have told the press that the two companies are in talks right now over installing Google apps on Verizon phones—an interesting idea, though not quite as dramatic as installing the full-fledged phone operating system that Google has supposedly been working on for a while now. The big questions (for consumers) are: will Google apps help subsidize the cost of phones or plans, or will Verizon just invent new inefficiencies to justify swallowing any new revenue? And will Google applications mean ads before making calls or sending an email? Also, Google already has some great (and totally free) applications out there for mobile devices—so what could they be offering through Verizon that's so special? More »
Google's motion to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by American Airlines has been rejected. American Airlines claims competitor's advertising is being "triggered" by their trademarked search terms, such as "AAdvantage." [ComputerWorld] More »
Microsoft has said it will not participate in the upcoming wireless spectrum auction, because it wouldn't help their business model, which is to create and sell software to handset makers. [Reuters] More »
Verizon Wireless abandoned its legal challenge Tuesday of the Federal Communications Commission's rules for its upcoming auction of radio spectrum, removing a potential obstacle to the much-anticipated sale. More »
—> Microsoft beat them to the punch, but Google has announced that they, too, are planning to roll out a service that lets consumers store their medical records online and transfer them between health care providers as needed. Marissa Mayer at Google said the idea was spawned after reports of lost or damaged records in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: "It doesn't make sense to generate this volume of information on paper. It should be something that is digital. People should have control over their own records." Mayer says they hope to include things like x-rays, and that it "will take a lot of breakthroughs in digitization." More »
FCC has rejected Verizon's requested changes of the new open-platform wireless auction, set for January 2008. Google has pledged to buy some of the available wireless bandwidth in order to launch an open-source Google phone to compete with the carriers. [Reuters] More »
—>According to Google, Verizon is the coolest cellphone company. When you query "____ is cool," filling in the name of different providers, Verizon is tits. Here's how many results were returned for each company: More »
"The online advertising business is complex, but my message to you today is simple: Online advertising benefits consumers, promotes free speech, and helps small businesses succeed. Google's acquisition of DoubleClick will help advance these goals while protecting consumer privacy and enabling greater innovation, competition, and growth." More »
—>The Senate Commerce Committee is poised to extend the internet tax moratorium by the end of next week. The moratorium prevents states and localities from taxing internet access, but will expire on November 1 unless Congress acts. There are two competing proposals that pit state legislatures and the National Governors Association against Google and Verizon. More »
Starting today, presentations — whether imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor — are listed alongside documents and spreadsheets in the Google Docs document list. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time. When it's time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they're watching.
Now you can bore your coworkers to death for free! More »
—>When Google lobbied successfully for the inclusion of an "open network" requirement in the upcoming wireless spectrum auction, it was seen as a coup for consumers. The open network clause would mean that consumers would be able to take their handsets and devices to the network of their choosing. More »
Now Google believes it finally has found the formula to cash in on YouTube's potential as a magnet for online video advertising and keep its audience loyal at the same time. More »
—>Google has admitted to making a mistake with its poorly conceived (and received) plan to offer Google check out credits to customers who had purchased videos on its recently discontinued video download service. More »
—>American Airlines has sued Google over search terms that include words that American Airlines has trademarked. For example, if you search Google for "Aadvantage," American Airline's frequent flier program, Google will display a link to the program, but also show ads from competitors. More »
—>GrandCentral is informing select customers that their phone number will change on August 25. The feature-rich service recently acquired by Google bills itself as "one number for life," which is then linked to your existing phone numbers - unless you are one of the unlucky few who: "have been assigned numbers that are not performing to our quality standards and are being replaced with higher quality services." GrandCentral's full email, inside. More »
—> As of next Wednesday, you will no longer be able to view any videos you rented or purchased from Google Video. We'll assume this only directly affects, like, the six of you out there who tried out their service, but it's still a striking example of how badly consumers are treated when they "buy" DRM-shackled media online. According to boingboing.net, Google's giving their abandoned customers credits that they have to spend (within 60 days) via Google Checkout. More »
—>The CCIA, an industry trade group representing the interests of the likes of Google and Microsoft, asked us to let you know they've started an online petition at DefendFairUse.org. More »
—>Google, Microsoft, and others speaking through the Computer and Communications Industry Association or CCIA, have announced their intention to file a complaint with the FCC accusing copyright holders such as Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the MPAA and the RIAA of "overstating" their rights in various consumer warnings. More »
—>You win some, you lose some. Google's bid to created an open wireless network was only partially sucessful today as the FCC rejected some of the search giant's conditions, but adopted others. More »
—>Google has announced that it will invest 4.6 billion dollars to acquire radio frequencies being abandoned by television broadcasts as they turn digital. The frequencies could be used to provide wireless phone and data services. More »
After considering the Working Party's concerns, we are announcing a new policy: to anonymize our search server logs after 18 months, rather than the previously-established period of 18 to 24 months. We believe that we can still address our legitimate interests in security, innovation and anti-fraud efforts with this shorter period. However, we must point out that future data retention laws may obligate us to raise the retention period to 24 months. We also firmly reject any suggestions that we could meet our legitimate interests in security, innovation and anti-fraud efforts with any retention period shorter than 18 months.
Google is currently deep in a fight with Privacy International, a watchdog group that picked Google as leading 'the race to the bottom' of privacy standards. More »
—>Freakonomics has an interview with Stephen Chau, the product manager for Google Maps, about Google's new feature "Streets View" and the resulting concerns consumers have had about their privacy after several people were caught on Google's cameras sunbathing, leaving strip clubs, or um...whatever.
3. Did you address specific privacy concerns from the outset? More »
—>If you don't want Google's information tentacles posting your phone number and address on the internet, you may want to remove it from their directory. More »
—>Blueprint for Financial Prosperity is doing a neat thing where he looks at his site stats to see what Roth IRA questions people are typing into Google that direct them to his blog, and then he answers them in a post. More »
—>Ask The Advisor has 13 tips to maximize your experience with Google Finance, a free online stock and company information tool. Number 11 tells you how to get multiple quotes at the same time: More »
—>Google Voice Local Search has emerged from the Google Labs to provide free directory assistance. A call to 1-800-GOOG-411 connects you to a pleasant automated operator who asks for your city and state. From there, you can narrow your search by business or category. When Google finds your business, it offers to either connect you for free, or text the details to your phone. The service does not currently support ads. More »
—>UPDATE: Gmail says they accidentally disabled a huge swatch of user accounts in an attempt to fight a large spammer network, and is actively reinstating these accounts. More »
Google, either encouraging physical fitness or zero population growth, offers the above helpful suggestion when mapping the route from Chicago to London.
Click here for the full directions and map of the route.—MEGHANN MARCO More »
Google is changing their privacy policy. From the Google Blog: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. More »
—>Holy crap, this is awesome. Oh wait, we don't use our car anymore because we moved to Brooklyn. For the rest of you: Holy crap! This is awesome: Google Maps has real time traffic! Now the endless line of cars shining brightly to the horizon can be expressed in pretty, yet oddly depressing, colors via Google Maps. Bliss. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
Digital Music said on Monday the deal also includes an agreement to allow certain music, for which it controls the rights, to be used in users' videos uploaded to YouTube. More »
Perhaps you've noticed that Google has been quietly associating your account with your search history. Perhaps this pisses you off. Well, Ex-Googler Nelson Minar has some tips for deleting and turning off the search history feature, should that appeal to you. More »
According to their own web search, Picasa is not the best service for photo sharing. What do you think? After being so loved for so long, has Google finally managed to mess up with "tips"? Does it bother you that they're shilling their crap? Or is this ok? —MEGHANN MARCO More »
"Two Australian doctors have found that entering the symptoms of a tricky case into the internet search engine often results in accurately diagnosing the illness. More »
CRMLowdown sifted through countless customer service surveys, studies, and real-life experiences to come up with a pretty damn impressive list of the best/worst companies for customer service. More »
—>If you've been fretting over your favorite newspaper's inevitible demise (thanks, Internet!)... never fear! Google is set to begin offering print ads in 50 newspapers as a test to see how far it can extend itself into offline media. More »
—>Philly's BYOB Google Mashup shows what restaurants you can brown bag it in the city of brotherly love. They even show the nearest liquor store! More »
—>For secret reasons, we're coming up with a list of Consumerist preferred service providers. These are companies that provide a better or cheaper or simply less lame alternative to the "name brands." More »
—>Before the Washington Post made Jim Thresher take down the pictures from pro-walmart blog, Walmarting Across America, BusinessWeek noticed the effort and cried foul. But how did Jim and his girlfriend Laura St. Claire get roped into the affair? More »
—>Brown-bagging it is a time-honored money-saving tradition for alcoholic nonconformists. Dr. Vino's new Google Map mashup shows what Chicago-area restaurants let you be a BYOB cheapskate. More »
—>Reader JP, sends us this little tidbit about accessing online information after someone has passed away. From CNET: As more and more people move their lives, address books, calendars, financial information, online, they are taking a risk that some information formerly filed away in folders and desks might never be recovered. That is, unless they share their passwords, which poses security threats. More »
—>Every day, I wake up to bluebirds twittering outside my window, throw up the curtains to wash my face in buttery sunshine and sing a little song to myself, confident that this will be the last day that I can enjoy another one of life's little rights to privacy. More »
—>Trends is perhaps one of the more hypnotically useless applications to come out of the Google hive mind lately. For example, Google Trends confirmed what Ben and I already knew: we need to infuse this site with a lot more porn, if we're going to get more visitors from cities like Elmhurst, Illinois. Specifically anal porn, because not only is Elmhurst the most smut minded of all American cities according to Google Trends, but they are also the city most interested in sodomy. More »
Using the fancy new Google Trends web app launched today, we were able to rank which US cities are searching for Wal-mart, iPods, Amazon and Sex the most, as well as compare results by city. More »
—>Don't you hate it when you try to go to BestBuy.com and accidentally replace the first vowel with a w? Or put a hyphen between best and buy? And you end up at one of those squatter advertisement sites, designed specifically to garner profits from the typos or ignorance of others? More »
—>We love this quote from AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre, referring to Google, eBay and Amazon.com: "Why should they be able to use my pipes for free?" Pointing out that people are actually paying for the bandwidth going through his pipes hasn't swayed good old Ed. If the man ran FedEx, both the sender and receiver would pay for a package. More »
"I read with amusement your recent piece on the rapid resolution of the google blog deletion, since of course blogger kills blogs every day (just browse the blogger support google group for head counts). One of the kill tactics that is especially swell is their spambot. Now I have no sympathy for true splogs and I appreciate that they're trying to combat this. But as our small public library just found out, spam isn't all they're killing."
—>Seen via Boing Boing, seen via Battelle, this list of the top Google AdWords. We're not ashamed to admit that we're amazed at the strong showing of mesothelioma on the list... hell, we had to look it up. Who knew absestos huffers were such a lucrative clientele? The rest of the list, of course, is an interesting vivisection of the American psyche: debt and lawsuits are the biggest businesses. More »
Hot on the heels of reader Charles Flint's nightmare with Google's Adwords program comes the announcement that Google will be paying out 90 million in refunds to advertisers who paid Google money for cases of click fraud. More »
Yikes. Reader Charlie Flint just wrote in with this horror story. The short: Google bills him $3,000 dollars for an Adwords account that he doesn't actually have. To our untrained eye, this sounds very much like someone has gotten his bank details somehow and is using Google Adwords to funnel money out of his account, but we're no experts. Can anyone with similar or not-so-similar experience tell Charlie what the hell is going on and what he can do about it? More »
One of our favorite blogs, Stay Free Daily, posted this side-by-side screen capture of the image search result for "Tiananmen Square". The left side is from Google.fr. The right side is from Google.cn. More »
—>Apparently, we weren't the only ones upset by what Consumerist commenter Hawkins described as Google's "capitulation to the commie bastards"... although he followed it up with: "But I submit that a constant reminder, every time you search, that you're being dicked again by your government is better than nothing." Which are the exact words that Google themselves should have used at the press conference. You might want to submit your C.V. to Google P.R., Hawkins. More »
Google, famous for its "Don't Be Evil" philosophy, is seeking to soften potential criticism by promising to inform Chinese users when search results are censored, something other China-based search services do not do. The decision to exclude results on sensitive topics such as democratic reform, Taiwanese independence or the banned Falun Gong movement has clearly been particularly difficult for a company dedicated to making information "universally accessible". More »
—>Remember back before everyone had blogs and everyone had portal or news sites? Back then, even those with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome could use their tiny misshapen hands and three stumpy fingers to Control+V their way to Dot Com millions. Somewhere in the bowels of the Internet, a single person wrote content, and everyone else got rich cut and pasting him, largely through the hysterically over credulous advertising endorsement of companies no longer with us. Man, those were the days. More »
With all the talk about trains in recent days, reader Zach decided to do some quick Googling to check out some train ticket prices. He typed in "cheap train tickets" and what do you know? Oh, hello Delta! We didn't know you were in the train business now. Let's click on your link on the small hope that maybe there's a train ticket discount or some sort of...nope, same old Delta. Zach's letter, inside... More »
