Alert Blog Reviews

It looks like Deutschland has a bee in its bonnet about Google. Apparently it is using the dreaded M word “monopol” which, according to Google’s own translation tool is the German form of the English word monopoly. The Germans are concerned that Google is looking like Microsoft and they are not happy. Somebody needs to get in their Mercedes and take a ride on the Autobahn to cool off, maybe? We learned of the Reuters report from Search Engine Land . Apparently the German justice minister is upset that Google isn’t transparent enough. I thought monopolies are about cornering markets and not transparency but maybe I am missing something in the translation. Here’s her thoughts from Reuters In an interview with weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she was concerned the firm was accruing too much power and information about citizens via programmes like Google Earth and Google Books. “All in all, what’s taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly, similar to Microsoft,” the minister said. “My initial response is not to ban something or stop something. But I do want to create more transparency and ensure that users know what is going on with their data,” she added. “I think the companies have an obligation here, and a lot of things ought to be improved. If that doesn’t happen soon we may have to take action as legislators.” Once again I have to ask the question does Google actually monopolize anything? According to Dictionary.com monopoly is: a board game in which a player attempts to gain a monopoly of real estate by advancing around the board and purchasing property, acquiring capital by collecting rent from other players whose pieces land on that property. Oooops. Wrong one. Here’s the one that works for our purposes here: 1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. 2. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller. I think this is where people are getting confused. Microsoft and the desktop smelled of monopoly because no one else could play. Google, on the other hand, is not the only player in nearly everything it has its tentacles in. It just does things bigger and, most times, better than the rest. That’s called cleaning the competition’s clock, not a monopoly. I am sure there will be plenty of arguments that Google is a monopoly and I welcome all of them here. Just be sure that when you are using Google and monopoly in the same sentence you are not just complaining that Google does more things and they do them better. They have to prevent competition from taking place to be a real monopoly and I don’t see that like others might. Did you hear Google cry that Lycos, AltaVista and Yahoo were “monopolies” when it was in its infancy and seen as the new kid on the block with the goofy name? Nope. They went out and did things the old fashioned way: they innovated and gave the public what they wanted and in the process laid waste to things that didn’t work as well as they did. If that’s a monopoly then I’m all for it.

Read more:
Germany Cries Monopoly and Doesn’t Even Collect $200

At one point in time US President John F. Kennedy triumphantly declared “Ich bin ein Berliner!” in a speech to the German people. Now the debate rages on as to whether the president proclaimed he was a Berlin citizen or a donut but that’s for another blog. Today though we learn from TechCrunch Europe that Eric Schmidt from Google may need to head to Deutschland to proclaim that he is one of the good guys as there are calls to ban Google Analytics from sites with a .de extension. Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant’s free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts and search behavior of their visitors (and much more). According to an article in today’s Zeit Online (poor Google translation here), multiple federal and state government officials charged with guarding over national data protection are convinced that Google Analytics is against the law in Germany and are mulling imposing fines on companies who use the service to gather detailed stats based on their website visitors’ usage patterns without the explicit consent of those visitors. What is probably just as interesting in this quote is the swipe taken at Google’s translation service . I woudn’t know a good German translation if it came up and smacked me in the head (apologies to Herr Manger who was my German teacher for two years in HS. Nothing stuck other than “Ich habe keine idee” which I think means “I have no idea” – NOTE- This was confirmed by Google Translate ) So apparently this isn’t the first time that the German government has voiced these concerns with most of their worry pointed at healthcare data and other sensitive areas. Interestingly enough some of larger media organizations use Google Analytics so this should be fun to watch if it actually turns into anything. So what’s at risk for those using Google Analytics One German lawyer that gets cited in the article says the penalties could amount up to €50,000 (about $75,000) per website that uses Google Analytics to keep track of its visitors’ usage patterns. Google’s take. Well, they disagree of course. What else would you expect? Google Germany’s Per Meyerdierks, however, says the company is well within its rights to process user data in the United States because it respects the Safe Harbour treaty between the EU and the USA. He argues that an opt-out would be entirely unnecessary, and that users always have the option to refuse cookies anyway. Now my question to the German government is the following. If you are uncomfortable with Google having this kind of data for many companies what about the individual companies that are collecting the same data using something else and not nearly as secure as Google is?

See the original post:
Ich bin ein Googler!

Facebook is updating its Privacy Policy. They did it the Facebook way, which is great PR. The company looks like it is taking care of business because it can say things like on their blog like On Nov. 5, we wrapped up a week-long notice and comment period for a proposed revision to our privacy policy. This was a continuation of our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. The goals of the revised policy were to make it more accessible and easier to understand. Excellent buzzwords in there like open and transparent. In reality maybe they are trying to do that but how hard are they trying and in the end, does it even matter? I ask this because although I use Facebook a fair amount (I check it every day but don’t get involved everyday) and I honestly was unaware that a review and comment period was even happening. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention (not the first time) but apparently I am not alone among the 300 million Facebook users. Facebook’s blog continues We’ve spent the last week reviewing each and every one of your comments. While a lot of people participated, the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this — and the fact that many of the comments were positive — we’ve decided to adopt the revised policy. We’ll be posting it in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish soon. You remember the 7,000 Rule from earlier this year? Based on how Facebook defines ‘a lot of participation’ probably not. Go to the post announcing the review period and you will see about 1500 people ‘liked’ this which is not a comment and there were just 450 plus comments. Add in the approximately 1,400 comments on the various language announcements on the Site Governance Page and you get about 2,000 comments in total. Regardless of how Facebook positions it that is not ‘a lot of participation’. There are over 477,000 fans on the Governance Page alone and these are the people that supposedly even give a rip (I did join today, btw). So what’s it all mean? It means that we are users and not participants in this community. People who read this blog are potential social media influencers and should probably get involved in shaping how this thing works. At least that seems to make sense. Until we vote though, there is little we can do or say because the 7,000 Rule is some great CYA for Facebook. So my question is do you even care what Facebook does with its policies? Also, if you feel wronged in the future by a policy and you haven’t done anything in the past to help shape it should anyone listen to any whining or complaining? Do you even have the right to complain? Just some food for thought. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

See the original post here:
Facebook and the 7,000

You know that $3.40 you make in Google AdSense each month? Well, Google is about to make it a lot easier to see just how badly your blog sucks at using AdSense. A new AdSense interface design will start rolling to users over the coming weeks: For those of you making more than enough AdSense revenue to buy a Big Mac, you’ll enjoy these enhanced features: Detailed metrics including the amount you’ve earned from various ad, targeting and bid types More options to manage the ads that appear on your site Simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously More help options, tips, and alerts Google will start rolling out the beta in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese today. Don’t go stampeding to your AdSense account, looking for the update. Google will email you, if you’re one of the lucky ones chosen for the beta. Aside: I wonder if this new interface is designed to prevent the mass migration away from AdSense by bloggers?

See more here:
New Google AdSense Interface Will Tell You Precisely How Much You Suck