Google’s unhealthy cookie habit
Google got its hand caught in the cookie jar last week — and this time it really does have some explaining to do.
The search giant, which derives some 97 percent of its revenues from advertising, thought it would be all right to circumvent some protections incorporated into Apple’s Safari browser so that it could better target its ads. By intentionally bypassing the default privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser — and, as Microsoft has now asserted, Internet Explorer — Google has decided for all of us that our Web activity will be more closely tracked. They opted us in, without asking. And without a way for us to opt out. (We didn’t even know about it until the Wall Street Journal blew the lid off this last Thursday.)
On the merits, this is a pretty big deal. A class action has already been filed, and an FTC probe is almost certain. That the no-tracking settings were circumvented (and secretly) makes it easier to infer that even Google worried it might be touching a third rail. It says it wasn’t, that its intent was only to discern whether Google users were logged into Google services and that the enabling of advertising cookies was inadvertent.
But the atmospherics are horrible:
- Google is the company whose unofficial motto is “Don’t be Evil.”
- Google and Apple already have a pretty tortured relationship. Secretly deploying an exploit for an Apple product isn’t exactly a good-faith gesture.
- Google only a month ago got some props for putting the best face possible on a big change in its privacy rules under which it now aggregates information gathered about you from one Google service with that collected from all the others you might use.
That last point in particular frames the bigger problem: We, the general Internet-using public, have an innately uneasy relationship with the “free” services we use. We vaguely understand that we are being spied upon — how else could Amazon and Netflix make such darn good suggestions? — and more or less see it as a reasonable trade-off. Then we try not to think about all the consequences of this new world order.
Tech wrap: RIM’s PlayBook for fighting Apple, Google
Research in Motion is a front runner in the race to convert billions of feature phone users into data-wielding smartphone customers but is seen possessing only a small window of opportunity to reinvigorate itself and match the momentum of rival mobile monarchs Apple and Google in a life-or-death battle for relevance, writes Alastair Sharp.
Prices for key technology components such as computer memory and LCD panels rose, as damage at Japanese plants and infrastructure caused by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami threatened to disrupt the global manufacturing chain longer than expected.
Microsoft introduced its newest browser, Internet Explorer 9, including a do-not-track tool that helps you keep your online habits from being monitored, and is worth checking out, writes Business Insider’s Matt Rosoff.
Now that you’ve had a few days with your iPad 2, what’s your opinion of it? The NextWeb’s Boris wanted to put together a list of 10 gripes about Apple’s new tablet, but could only come up with 6. Among them: The Smart Cover makes him feel dumb when he fumbles to re-attach it, the aluminum backing scratched too easily and the button ergonomics are poor.
What apps really show off what the iPad 2 can do? GigaOM’s Darrell Etherington picked a few, including iMovie, video game Infinity Blade, and mapping software Google Earth.
Apple said it will delay the launch of the iPad 2 tablet computer in Japan, in the wake of last week’s earthquake and tsunami. It was slated to go on sale March 25. In the U.S., iPad 2 shortages have lead to 4-5 week order delays online, writes VentureBeats Devindra Hardawar.
For Google, less is more versus Microsoft
– Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own – By Eric Auchard
LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) – Google has entered the very lair of Microsoft by launching its own computer operating software.
And its strategy cleverly goes with the grain of the changes that the web is making to the way consumers use software. Time for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to worry.
The web search and advertising leader is not offering a copycat product to Microsoft’s desktop workhorse. Indeed it is upending the notion of what an operating system is. Microsoft’s vision is of a self-contained system that manages every action that your computer undertakes. Google takes a minimalist view. It argues that operating software only needs to do what can’t be done externally on the web.
By stripping the components to a minimum, Google has designed the system to be fast. It is promising that users will be able to fire up their computers and get on the web in a few seconds.
Google’s products run on a variant of Linux operating software. The guts of Linux provide many of the classic functions of a hardware operating system, leaving Google free to focus on new features.
Google argues that web software such as Chrome, Firefox, Apple Inc’s Safari and Opera’s eponymously named browser, can carry out many of the functions of operating software. Meanwhile active computer users spend more and more of their time using programs that either run or rely on the Web. That means they spend less and less time using programs that reside locally on the user’s own machine — the way that applications that depend on Microsoft Windows typically do.
Hmmm… Interesting indeed. There is no doubt that much more software is being developed as web based systems and there is a huge opportunity for IT suppliers to create and sell software using a Software as a Service (SSaS). I have my doubts though that everything is going to go this way though. There are huge security issues that need to be overcome and some software is simply just not suitable for delivery over the web using current technologies and that is not going to change any time soon. Security is a tough one and i’m not sure how some of the security requirements of some companies can be solved in a cloud based environment and possibly they cannot be overcome but this doesn’t stop these companies hosting there own web based applications. In terms of functionality. Ajax based applications can still be pretty flakey and making them more reliable and robust is very costly. Flax / Flex / Silverlight offer some interesting opportunities for increasing the functionality of the web but I don’t think these technologies have really arrived yet but I think this is the area that may help make Google’s dream come true and I am a little shocked they haven’t got an entry in this area of the market.
Google makes a TV ad
Google built its business on the advertising shift from traditional media, like TV and newspapers, to the Internet.
But as Google strives to jump-start its fledgling Chrome Web browser, the company apparently still sees value in good old-fashioned mediums like broadcast television.
Google said it would begin advertising Chrome on various TV networks beginning this weekend.
The TV spot will raise awareness of its browser, Google explained in a posting on its blog on Friday, “and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns.”
The Chrome browser, which Google released last year, is a distant No.4 among Web browsers with a scant 1.4 percent market share in April, according to Net Applications. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer rules the roost with a 66.1 percent share, followed by the Firefox browser and Apple’s Safari browser, respectively.
The Chrome TV ad, which Google said was made by a team of its employees in Japan, is a whimsical stop-motion-like animation in which the Chrome logo bounces around a box of woodblocks.
The 30-second ad, which has music but no spoken words, finishes with the simple message “Install Google Chrome.”
I didn’t get it. Stick to an ad on http://www.google.com. That I got and installed it.
@ tangogo68 Actually, the TV analogy doesn’t really work well — even if you are a Nielsen family. It’s one thing to be part of an audience, especially when the audience is a extrapolation of a small subset of homes which are self-reporting. It’s another to have your every move monitored and logged. Google and Facebook (et al) don’t just need members — ie, an audience. They need that audience to share, not just show up. To me, that is a huge difference and a business model unique to these times.