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Google has long complied with the government-mandated censorship required to operate in China, despite criticism from human rights and freedom of speech advocates. However, Google may be changing their tune, based on a blog post yesterday. Google’s new approach to China is far more open—and at least partially because a Chinese cyber attack compromised some intellectual property of the search giant. Naturally, Google is frequently the subject of cyber attacks, but this incident became more than just a security concern for Google. In addition to discovering dozens of other victims, Google has also determined the object of the breach—the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google’s investigation has shown, so far, that the attackers did not compromise the accounts, though they might have been able to access basic information (creation date, subject lines) on two of them. They also found that other third parties (likely phishers and malware on users’ computers) had accessed other activists’ accounts. But Google’s doing more than advising users to scan their computers and beefing up https access to Gmail (emphasis added): These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn , and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. Hm . . . I almost wonder if what they found in those activists’ accounts was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Google says that since their first foray into the country four years ago, they’ve believed that making some information available was a worthy objective—but, as they say above, they now believe that they must push for a more open Internet in China. What do you think? Will Google get to stay in China, or is this the end of Google.cn? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Google Bucking Chinese Censorship After Cyber Attack

Google has again shaken the Internet tree in a way that will raise more than a few eyebrows. In a nutshell, Google is reassessing its working relationship with the world’s largest potential market, China, as a result of recent security breaches. How this plays out over time could have significant impact on how China and the world get along economically. Google’s official blog gives an overview in the first paragraph of the post that is both informative and scary. Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different. How it was different is that the targets of much of security breach were Chinese activists (read: people who prefer freedom over censorship) who had Gmail accounts. A quick summary of the main points of this new approach to China from Google is summed up like this. It wasn’t just Google who was targeted and hit. There were 20 other US companies and they are apparently in the process of sorting this out themselves. Google states: “We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves. “ There was routine third party access of Gmail accounts of human rights activists related to China who are based in China, US and Europe. This access is likely due to malware and phishing scams. Google then recommends for folks to be up to date on their security for their computers and is careful to “play nice” with China by saying In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today. They also point out that when they entered the Chinese market in 2006 they were doing it with a watchful eye. So what’s the result of this? These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised. So Google makes a stand that says they are not going to censor their results and if there is no way to reconcile then they may need to move on. While the Chinese people are clearly in favor of Baidu as their engine of choice , if Google were to say that they will not do business in China what kind of pressure does that place on other companies to possibly isolate the biggest and fastest developing market in the world? This could get interesting.

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Google and China: Maybe They Can’t Get Along

Two weeks ago, it looked like Google might have been . . . well, fibbing. Back in June, the search engine announced that they would no longer redistribute “link juice” around nofollowed links , effectively deprecating the practice of PageRank sculpting. But late last month, it looked like the technique was still effective when SEOmoz published some research to that effect. Not so much, it turns out. Today, Mozzer Danny Dover revisits the tests he used in the original post and shows that the results were, in fact, inconclusive . The short reason is that the test didn’t include enough data to be statistically significant. He’d have to repeat the test with 168 domains (instead of the 20 he used) to assure that the results were meaningful and not merely a fluke. Apparently, there’s been some backlash against Danny and SEOmoz for their innaccurate information. Danny didn’t realize his error until Darren Slatten corrected him in the comments two days after the post had gone live. Naturally, it was too late to unring the bell—and a number of people were very upset that SEOmoz would post something misleading or outright wrong. In his correction post, Danny points out that this is just another example of the power of the Internet. I think it’s good that Danny did more than just update the old post, also publishing a new post to correct the misinformation (and apologize). Two weeks after the correction is fairly quick to reanalyze the data, though it’s possible he could have acted even faster. This is also a microstudy on reputation management and transparency, something we’re a little passionate about around here. As a reminder, back in August, Matt Cutts told SEOmoz that it’d be okay to keep nofollow links in place, though when building new sites or redesignin old ones, PageRank sculpting shouldn’t be a consideration. What do you think? Did everyone handle this situation well?

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Google Didn’t Lie After All

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.

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Germany Cries Monopoly and Doesn’t Even Collect $200

And I don’t mean job security for Carol Bartz. Yahoo’s BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is a popular, free way for developers to access the Yahoo index and to implement Yahoo search for your site. With the pending Microsoft-Yahoo deal outsourcing the search business, there has been some concern over whether BOSS will be discontinued. Never fear, says Yahoo—BOSS is sticking around. Like the main search results, the BOSS results are slated to use Bing’s index as well. But the bad news is that BOSS may not continue to be a free offering. Ashim Chimbra addressed developers’ concerns in the Yahoo Tech Group and alluded to possible pay structures in the future (emphasis added): Under this agreement, Yahoo! is permitted to continue offering the BOSS web service, with search results that would integrate Yahoo! services and content with algorithmic results provided by Microsoft. As always, our intention is to provide a BOSS offering as long as it makes business and economic sense to do so. We are still examining what the BOSS offering will consist of, with some services powered by Microsoft, unique content that Yahoo! currently provides, and the potential for additional Yahoo! content in the future. Prior to the announcement of the Yahoo!-Microsoft search agreement, we’d already shared our intention to explore a fee-based structure for BOSS. We continue to explore an appropriate fee structure or other revenue model as we work through the future of BOSS. As you know, we must receive regulatory clearance before actual implementation of the search deal with Microsoft can occur. Only then can we finalize the future shape of BOSS. Of course, we will provide additional clarity and certainty when we can. So clearly, they’re keeping their options open for pricing. What do you think? Will they be able to keep it free, or is the deal with Microsoft underlying evidence of the need for revenue? via

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Yahoo to Keep BOSS under Microsoft

If you are easily the number 3 horse in a three horse race does it do you any good to start saying negative things about how you race? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably better for you to act a little more confident, train a little harder and do something that will move you out of the basement. This horse I am referring to is Microsoft’s Bing. One of the ways that they have decided to move up in the race is to ingest the number 2 horse (Yahoo), which is a decent play but the final product is still very far off. In the meantime it’s best not be saying the following in a Bing forums thread as reported by Search Engine Roundtable , especially if you are Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, Brett Yount It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow. Ok, maybe it is well known to the industry insider but the rest of the world may not have that level of understanding. When you say something like that though now they can and not much good can come from that kind of ‘exposure’. Bing has had a pretty quiet start to the new year thus far. With all of the talk of mobile devices and mobile ad platforms and things of the future maybe that warrants Bing being left out of the conversation? Whatever the reason, maybe the better way to make the news is to be reporting on upgrades and improvements like the number one horse has been doing for the past three plus months. Ooops, I forgot. Steve Ballmer was busy promoting Bing at CES this week with inspiring words of innovation like these which I found in Forbes “More than ever we are delivering the experiences that people want, where they want them, wherever they are,” Ballmer said in his second-ever keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday night. “And of course we Bing we Bing we Bing we Bing Bing Bing all the time, at least in my world.” I don’t know about you but this kind of ‘activity’ isn’t exactly inspiring me to confidence that Bing may never be more than a distant second with its Bingahoo offering to Google for a very long time. Your thoughts?

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Bing Needs to Say Something Different

How many times have you heard it said in business (or anywhere for that matter) that how you respond to a problem is more important than the problem itself? It’s said over and over again because it’s simply good advice. Well, Google had a chance to practice that principle last night when it began sending out e-mails to those with listings in the Local Business Center. Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz reports of the issues that occurred . Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google LBC analytics dashboard. But instead of these emails going to their actual business owners, they went to the wrong business owners. Schwartz received information for a business that was 1,500 mile from his location and he was not the only one having the experience. To Google’s credit they recognized the error and set things straight as quickly as one might expect. The following was sent to Barry so he could help the rest of us get some clarity on the issue. Of course, it doesn’t hurt your ability to get these kinds of responses when you are the News Editor of Search Engine Land. In other words, not everyone received the following explanation right away. As you’re aware, we send a monthly newsletter to our Local Business Center users, featuring product news and a glimpse at the Dashboard statistics which show the traffic Google properties drive to their listing. Shortly after sending the newsletter to a small portion of our users last night, we discovered that some emails included incorrect business listing information. We promptly stopped sending any further emails and investigated the cause, which we found to be a human error while pulling together the newsletter content. We’d like to sincerely apologize to all the business owners impacted and assure all our users that we’re working hard to ensure that nothing similar will happen again. Oh no! It appears that there may be a Googler who is, gulp, human and made a mistake. Of course it would never be one of the thousands of faithful servers around the world, it had to be one of those pesky human thingys. All kidding aside, as Schwartz points out, the data is pretty innocuous. It could even be looked at as a sideways form of advertising to a very small market because now people know about a business somewhere else that they never heard of before. Google later sent an automated reply to all those impacted by this glitch and it appears that all is well in the world again. While I would rather not have something like this happen I have to give Google credit for calling themselves on the error and working to make it right. Hopefully, any of the business owners who got the wrong data would treat one of their mistakes with the same approach. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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For Google Maps It’s Not the Problem but How You Handle It