SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – If you’re amazed — and maybe even a little alarmed — about how much Google seems to know about you, brace yourself. Beginning Thursday, Google will operate under a streamlined privacy policy that enables the Internet’s most powerful company to dig even deeper into the lives of its more than 1 billion users.

Google says the changes will make it easier for consumers to understand how it collects personal information, and allow the company to create more helpful and compelling services. Critics, including most of the country’s state attorneys general and a top regulator in Europe, argue that Google is trampling on people’s privacy rights in its relentless drive to sell more ads.

Here’s a look at some of the key issues to consider as Google tries to learn about you.

Q: How will Google’s privacy changes affect users?

A: Google Inc. is combining more than 60 different privacy policies so it will be able to throw all the data it gathers about each of its logged-in users into personal dossiers. The information Google learns about you while you enter requests into its search engine can be culled to suggest videos to watch when you visit the company’s YouTube site.

Users who write a memo on Google’s online word processing program, Docs, might be alerted to the misspelling of the name of a friend or co-worker a user has communicated with on Google’s Gmail. The new policy pools information from all Google-operated services, empowering the company to connect the dots from one service to the next.

Q: Why is Google making these changes?

A: The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., says it is striving for a “beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google.” What Google hasn’t spent much time talking about is how being able to draw more revealing profiles about its users will help sell advertising — the main source of its $38 billion in annual revenue.

One reason Google has become such a big advertising network: Its search engine analyzes requests to figure out which people are more likely to be interested in marketing pitches about specific products and services. Targeting the ads to the right audience is crucial because in many cases, Google only gets paid when someone clicks on an ad link. And, of course, advertisers tend to spend more money if Google is bringing them more customers.

Q: Is there a way to prevent Google from combining the personal data it collects from all its services?

A: No, not if you’re a registered user of Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube, or other Google products. But you can minimize the data Google gathers. For starters, make sure you aren’t logged into one of Google’s services when you’re using Google’s search engine, watching a YouTube video or perusing pictures on Picasa. You can get a broad overview of what Google knows about you at http://www.google.com/dashboard , where a Google account login is required. Google also offers the option to delete users’ history of search activity.

It’s important to keep in mind that Google can still track you even when you’re not logged in to one of its services. But the information isn’t quite as revealing because Google doesn’t track you by name, only through a numeric Internet address attached to your computer or an alphanumeric string attached to your Web browser.

Q: Are all Google services covered by the privacy policy?

A: No, a few products, such as Google’s Chrome Web browser and mobile payment processor Wallet, will still be governed by separate privacy policies.

Q: Is Google’s new privacy policy legal?

A: The company has no doubt about it. That’s why it’s repeatedly rebuffed pleas to delay the changes since announcing the planned revisions five weeks ago. But privacy activists and even some legal authorities have several concerns.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group, sued the FTC in a federal court in an effort to force the FTC to exercise its powers and block Google’s privacy changes. A federal judge ruled the courts didn’t have the authority to tell the FTC how to regulate Google. The FTC says it is always looking for evidence that one of its consent orders has been violated.

Earlier this week, the French regulatory agency CNIL warned Google CEO Larry Page that the new policy appears to violate the European Union’s strict data-protection rules. Last week, 36 attorneys general in the U.S. and its territories derided the new policy as an “invasion of privacy” in a letter to Page.

One of the major gripes is that registered Google users aren’t being given an option to consent to, or reject, the changes, given that they developed their dependence on the services under different rules. In particular, people who bought smartphones running on Google’s Android software, and signed two-year contracts to use the devices, may have a tough time avoiding the new privacy policy. They could switch to non-Google services, but those typically don’t work as well on Android software. Or they could buy a different smartphone and pay an early-termination penalty.

Q: What regulatory power do government agencies have to change or amend the privacy changes?

A: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission gained greater oversight over Google’s handling of personal information as part of a settlement reached last year. Google submitted to the agreement after exposing its users email contacts when it launched a now-defunct social networking service called Buzz in 2010. The consent order requires Google’s handling of personal information to be audited every other year and forbids misleading or deceptive privacy changes.

Google met with the FTC before announcing the privacy changes. Neither the company nor the FTC has disclosed whether Google satisfied regulators that the revisions comply with the consent order.

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The Huffington Post
Joanna Zelman
02/ 8/11 05:51 PM

The Yellow Pages phone book. It’s been used as packaging material, a dangerous booster seat, fire kindling, and perhaps a box for illicit items if holed-out. But in an increasingly digital age, just how often is the phone book actually used to make phone calls? San Francisco believes it’s not often enough to warrant general distribution.

According to GreenBiz.com, San Francisco has proposed a law banning the distribution of unsolicited phone books. If the law goes into effect, phone companies and Yellow Pages publishers will be prohibited from leaving phone books on doorsteps and lobbies without advanced permission — fines could be up to $500 per violation.

The companies could still contact consumers to ask if they want a delivery, and the books would still be available for pick-up at distribution centers. But the new rules could cut down on a huge amount of waste generated per year.

According to the Sierra Club, AT&T distributes nearly 1 million phone books per year to San Francisco alone — that’s over 5 million pounds of paper for that one area of California.

Statistics suggest that approximately 70% of U.S. adults rarely or never use the phone book. Even the National Yellow Pages Association and the Association of Directory Publishers has recognized this statistic, and recently launched YellowPagesOptOut, a website where customers can easily cancel their home delivery service.

But a simple opt-out website is much different from a ban on mass distribution, and not everyone is happy with San Francisco’s new proposal. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, Amy Healy, a top representative of the Yellow Pages Association claims that the law “would be an infringement of our constitutional rights – the right to distribute speech.” Healy also argues that the law targets just one industry, without addressing other forms of solicitation. She also states that the Yellow Pages book is far from obsolete, citing the industry statistic of 12 billion lookups per year.

But with an estimated $54 million spent per year by local governments to dispose of unwanted phone books, something has to change. If banning unsolicited materials does indeed infringe upon the Yellow Page’s “right to distribute speech,” could taxpayers argue that by receiving and having to dispose of these unsolicited materials, their rights are then infringed upon? As San Francisco Board of Supervisors president David Chiu proclaims, “If we’re serious about the environment, it’s time we recognize that phone books are a 20th century tool that doesn’t meet the business or environmental needs of the 21st century.”

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By Jolie O’Dell, Mashable
September 30, 2010 10:06 a.m. EDT | Filed under: Web

Since the button launched, many publishers are reporting large increases in traffic specifically due to this kind of social plugin.

Facebook like button is now present on roughly 2 million sites around the web
User who “likes” your content has more than double the friends than a typical user
Button bringing Facebook closer to competing with Twitter in the area of referral traffic

(Mashable) — The new-this-year-yet-somehow-already-ubiquitous Facebook Like button has been around just long enough to generate some interesting numbers relating to Facebook users and web traffic.

The button, which launched in April at f8, Facebook’s developer conference, is now present on roughly 2 million sites around the web, from sports sites to news organizations and many other kinds of publishers.

A media analytics lead on Facebook’s Developer Network Insights team crunched some numbers and found that Facebook Likes not only generate interesting data about the “likers” (a.k.a. Facebook users who are also active on your website) themselves; this data also speaks volumes about clickthrough rates, time on-site and other engagement metrics.

Read entire story at http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/30/like.button.web.traffic.mashable/index.html?hpt=C2

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Posted by Kim Peterson on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 3:47 PM

The battle between Google (GOOG) and Skype just ratcheted up a notch with Facebook’s entry into the fray.

Recall that Google recently launched voice calling from Gmail, allowing (through the end of the year, at least) people to make free calls from their Gmail page. I’ve been using that feature daily to make free long-distance calls from my computer.

Some thought the new service was the death knell for online calling service Skype. But Skype showed Wednesday that it’s very much in the game with an alliance with Facebook (also known as Google enemy No. 1).

The Wall Street Journal has news of a nascent partnership that will allow people to access Skype through their Facebook Connect accounts. If the plan goes through as reported, users will eventually be able to call and video chat with friends on the Facebook page, using Skype.

The new Facebook abilities are expected to be included in Skype’s newest version, due out in the next few weeks, the Journal reported. Post continues after video:

“The partnership will more tightly link Skype’s 560 million registered users — 124 million of whom use it at least once a month — with Facebook’s 500 million members,” writes Scott Morrison.

The move shows that Facebook wants to be exactly where Google is in the future, particularly as Google starts expanding to become more of a social media and communications hub. And the news is good for Skype as well, which is looking for a $100 million IPO at some point.

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WordCamp Boulder 2010 was my first WordCamp event. As a web designer, SEO, and online strategy consultant, I found the sessions and opportunity to meet others in the industry to share ideas and information very useful. Even though you know much of the material already because you’re in the biz, there are always things you pick up at events like these, and they provide the opportunity to learn something completely new.

WordCamp Boulder @ Boulder Theater

Attended the “Creating a Blog Community”, “Blogging for your Business”, “BuddyPress 101″, and “What’s Next for WordPress”. Of course the Social Hour was fun. Look forward to seeing the videos on WordPress.tv so I can tune into the sessions I couldn’t attend such as “WordPress Development” and the “Design Panel”.

The most important thing I learned was in “What’s Next for WordPress” session by Jane Wells of WordPress and Automatic – that was to make sure you use a capital “P” in WordPress!

Maybe I’ll head out to WordCamp New Zealand August 7-8.

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http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1619799&_blg=1,1620847

More people in the United States are falling victim to identity fraud.

A study by Javelin Strategy & Research showed that the number of victims jumped by 12% to 11.1 million adults in 2009, the biggest increase since the survey began in 2003.

“Identity fraud continues on the upswing and we believe it will continue to rise if consumers fail to take proactive steps to prevent fraudsters from taking advantage of their offline and online transactions and their increasingly exposed personal information on social networks,” said Michael Stanfield, CEO of Intersections (INTX), one of the survey’s sponsors.

“The findings of this Javelin report reinforce what we’ve been telling consumers for more than a decade — be vigilant with whom you are sharing your personal information and where you are sharing it. Protect your computer and only transact on confirmed legitimate websites,” Stanfield said in a press release.

The study said that total overall fraud rose by 12.5% to $54 billion.

Payment-card-related fraud is the most common type of crime, according to the study, with someone opening up a new account in the victim’s name. The perpetrator is often someone the victim knows, such as a family member or presumed friend, according to Javelin founder James Van Dyke.

The number of new credit card accounts opened fraudulently rose 39% in 2009, with new online accounts more than doubling, and the number of new e-mail payment accounts rising 12%.

Fraud on existing accounts rose 12%, with the vast majority occurring with credit cards.

The study also found that 29% of identity-fraud victims said that mobile phone accounts were fraudulently opened in their names.

One good thing in the report: less time to resolve identity crime. It takes 21 hours on average, down from 30 hours reported the year before.

The mobile ad space continued to heat up last week with Amobee’s acquisition of RingRing Media, a 2-year-old London-based startup, for an undisclosed sum. The move surely isn’t anywhere near the magnitude of Google’s $750 million AdMob buy or even Apple’s $275 million pick-up of Quattro Wireless, but it’s the kind of smaller-scale deal we’re likely to see many more of this year as the segment consolidates.

Mobile ad startups are hot commodities once again thanks largely to in-app marketing, which has given the segment a much-needed lift over the last year. Established Internet companies and software development companies alike are scrambling to gain a foothold in the space, much like in 2007, which saw a flurry of activity including AOL’s acquisition of Third Screen Media, Yahoo’s pick-up of Actionality, the Microsoft ScreenTonic buy and Nokia’s tie-up with Enpocket. While 2010 may not see as many blockbuster deals, the number of tie-ups could end up surpassing that of three years ago, Rich Wong of Accel Partners told me last week:

Brand managers now are spending in this medium. It’s real, and it’s genuine. I do think it’s going to be hard to have a quarterly earnings call as a major Internet company and not have an answer to the question, ‘What’s your mobile strategy?’

The landscape is far different now than it was just three years ago, though, when a handful of startups were quick to emerge in the nascent space. Recent figures from IDC indicate that Millennial Media is clearly the largest startup left on the field (see chart); the mobile search firm JumpTap is the second-largest potential acquisition despite a mere 4 percent market share. Yahoo and Microsoft claim a combined market share of only 19 percent — which may prompt the high-profile players to make an acquisition or two this year in order to build their mobile businesses.

The field also teems with smaller player that specialize in targeted areas such as search or that serve specific geographic regions. And recent growth in the space has given rise to a host of startups that play supporting roles by providing analytics and other tools. Flurry, which pocketed $7 million on the heels of its recent tie-up with Pinch Media, may be especially attractive to ad companies that don’t have their own mobile analytics operations.

So while we may see one or two more big-budget acquisitions in mobile advertising this year, most of the M&A activity will center on smaller startups. Entrenched firms with deep pockets will look to fill out the holes in their mobile ad businesses, and independent players will forge alliances to better compete with their larger counterparts. Those deals won’t make headlines, but they will reconfigure the landscape of mobile advertising in 2010.

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When will YouTube be profitable? “In the not-too-distant future,” said Google CFO Patrick Pichette on today’s quarterly earnings call, same as he said last quarter. He did offer a “sound bite” to appease investors and industry watchers: “We’re monetizing more than a billion video views every week on YouTube.” That’s out of “well over” a billion views that YouTube recently said it gets every day. So, let’s put on our fuzzy and unauthorized math thinking cap: There are seven days in a week. YouTube is monetizing in the neighborhood of 14 percent of its total views.

Google’s Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development, noted campaigns on YouTube’s home page have been undertaken with 90 percent of the top 50 advertisers. He said 90 percent of YouTube’s home-page inventory was sold out in the third quarter. Further, YouTube is beginning to release pre-roll inventory to advertisers — not the most-liked format for watchers or many in the industry, but a good way to make money. And the site is getting more premium content; it tied up a deal with Channel 4 this morning and straightened out its relationships with the music labels in recent weeks.

Google has come a long way from last year in its attitude towards YouTube, when CEO Eric Schmidt called YouTube monetization “the holy grail” and “our highest priority this year.”

“In general we’re really pleased about YouTube’s performance — it is going very well,” said Pichette. Arora added: “We’re pleased with our ability to monetize YouTube so far, and we like the trend.”

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The trough will get even deeper in 2010 as local online advertising continues to slow and as a bevy of new competitors rush in to become purveyors of hyperlocal everything. PBS, ESPN, AOL, Huffington Post, The Knot, Microsoft, Yahoo and scores of others have announced plans to reach deep into local ad sales. While they missed this crest, there is plenty of money yet to be made in local online ad sales.

Meanwhile, the next waves are forming on the horizon, as they always do, and companies that know what to look for can begin moving to catch them. Online promotions and mobile advertising are two such waves. This 2010 Outlook offers observations and forecasts intended to help that process.

Local online advertising will hit $14.2 billion this year, 12 percent more than 2008. For 2010 we are forecasting that it will grow just 5 percent, to $14.9 billion. In the past five years, local online advertising grew at a compound annual growth rate of 46.5 percent. For the next  five, we are expecting that rate to be 2.9 percent. The forecast is predicated upon a slow economic recovery and the fact that “online” as a local media advertising category is approaching what we believe is saturation. Online media buys currently hold a 13.8 percent share of all local advertising. We believe it will peak at a 16 percent share by 2013.

Unfortunately, one of the hottest growth categories – mobile – is not likely to play a significant role on the local media landscape next year. We are estimating that local buys will comprise only 20 percent of all mobile advertising, totaling slightly more than $500 million in 2010. Still, mobile is a category worth watching as the audience grows and as couponing, mobile directory advertising and sponsored text messages find viable applications for local marketers.

The game in 2010 will center more around stealing market share than growing the market. Local advertisers have had plenty of time to assess the effectiveness of banner ads, search, streaming video and e-mail advertising peddled to them over the past decade. They will abandon programs that just do not work, and embrace those that produce measurable results. They are also likely to continue following a few years behind the spending patterns of national advertisers by expanding their use of online promotions, which give them more direct access to their customers and prospects – without having to rely as heavily on media companies to help reach them.

Study provided by Borrell Associates. For more information and to download data samples visit www.borrellassociates.com

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#1 –  Call to Action not clear

Visitor does not know what they’re supposed to do. How to order, what number to call, how to contact?

#2 – Distracting Visuals

Too many images and graphics not related to service or product. Visitor is blasted with too many things, poor separation of content and navigation.

# 3 – Text Overload

Too much detail, poor flow, poor outline. People aren’t going to read a book.

#4 – Landing Page Does Not Match What the Ad Says

Your landing page does not deliver what the visitor is expecting from the ad, banner or other link they clicked on.

#5 – Form and Info Request Overload

Asking for too much irrelevant information, or information that isn’t needed till later.

#6 – Trust and Risk Minimizers

Trust symbols such as BBB, Hacker Safe, Verisign Secure Site are not prominently displayed early in the decision process.

#7 – Trust Verification Missing

Missing third party endorsements, client testimonials, list of current clients and customers, reviews and feedback.

Better landing page design will result in:
Increased conversion rates
Increased revenues

Landing Page Optimization Denver

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