theodp writes “In its just-published patent application for Network Node Ad Targeting, Google hatches plans for identifying the most influential of a circle of friends and providing this ‘influencer’ with ‘financial incentives from advertisers in exchange for permission to display advertisements on the member’s [social network] profile’ (sound familiar, Jeremy?). Doing so will ‘provide advertisers with the option of targeting either all members in the community or advertising only on the profile of the influencer, thereby targeting the entire community,’ explains Google. Who says you can’t purchase friendship!”

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Dekortage writes “The NYTimes has a piece up about the paradox of privacy: ‘Normally sane people have inconsistent and contradictory impulses and opinions when it comes to their safeguarding their own private information.’ More specifically, it’s all how you ask: if you don’t speak about privacy, people won’t worry about it. In one survey, ‘When the issue of confidentiality was raised, participants clammed up. For example, 25 percent of the students who were given a strong assurance of confidentiality admitted to having copied someone else’s homework. Among those given no assurance of confidentiality, more than half admitted to it.’”

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quanticle writes “As you may recall, France previously threatened to cut off broadband access for file sharers. However, after lobbying by the public, the legislation failed in the National Assembly. Now, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to revive the the measure by pushing it as an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package. This amendment has the potential to impose 3-strikes across Europe, not just in France.”

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An anonymous reader writes “The Bavarian Parliament passed a law that grants Bavarian police to place ‘Remote Forensic Software’ (Google translation) on a suspect’s computer as well as on the computers of a suspect’s contacts. They may break into houses in secret to install the RFS if a remote installation isn’t possible; and while they’re there a (physical) search is permitted too. The RFS might be used to read, delete, and modify data.” The translation says that RFSs might be used in cases of an “urgent threat to the existence or the security of the Federation or a country or physical, life or liberty of a person… Even where there is a reasonable assumptions on concrete preparatory acts for such serious offenses.”

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix for everything Google, the July 4th column! Happy 4th everyone!

In this edition:

• Google C++ testing framework
• Google Talk for iPhone
• Google Maps voice search for BlackBerry Pearl
• Use Spotlight to find on the internet Google Docs
• More ways to earn revenue from YouTube

Continue reading Googleholic for July 4, 2008

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An anonymous reader writes “eBay’s has lost its fight to ban all payment methods except PayPal. When Paypal originally announced the scheme it was to be global, but they began with a dry run in Australia to test the reaction of government and consumer authorities. In the public slanging match that followed between eBay and the regulatory ACCC, eBay spammed users claiming it was fighting for ’safety benefits for consumers.’ Fortunately the consumers won. Conceded eBay vice president Simon Smith, ‘While we disagree with the ACCC’s draft notice, we’ve decided to withdraw the notification to halt any further confusion and disruption among the eBay community.’ Nevertheless eBay insists PayPal is now always offered as a payment option. Have huge corporations finally learned that they can go to far? More chillingly, if eBay had launched the scheme in America would they’ve got away with it?”

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CWmike writes “Google has released for free one of its internal tools used for testing the security of Web-based applications. Ratproxy, released under an Apache 2.0 software license, looks for a variety of coding problems in Web applications. A 2006 survey by the Web Application Security Consortium found that 85.57 percent of 31,373 sites were vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks, 26.38 percent were vulnerable to SQL injection and 15.70 percent had other faults that could lead to data loss.”

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kthejoker writes “Apparently companies are even worse about losing our data than we suspected. From the article:’According to a study of 106 major U.S. airports and 800 business travelers published by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Personal, about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost devices. Almost half of the travelers state their laptops contain customer data or confidential business information.’ Kinda scary …”

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A few weeks ago, you asked questions of Lt. Col. John Bircher, head of an organization with a difficult-to-navigate name: the U.S. Army Computer Network Operations (CNO)-Electronic Warfare (EW) Proponent’s Futures Branch. Lt. Col. Bircher has answered from his perspective, at length, not just the usual 10 questions, but several more besides. Read on for his take on cyberwar, jurisdiction, ethics, and more.

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Barence writes “The majority of dial-up Internet users state they don’t want to upgrade their connection to broadband, according to a new study in the US. The Pew World wide web & American Life research found that 62% of dial-up users had no interest in upgrading to a high-speed connection.” (CNN is carrying the AP’s story on the study, too.)

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