Online Real Estate Technology

At Google one of our key philosophies is to take risks and to experiment. To that end, in July 2009 we announced the ability to find property for sale or rent directly on Google Maps. This is one of the “search options” next to the search box on Google Maps, and is currently available in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Japan.

In part due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API (used by listing providers to submit listings), we’ve decided to discontinue the real estate feature within Google Maps on February 10, 2011.

We’ve learned a lot and been excited to see real estate companies use Google Maps in innovative ways to help people find places to live, such as Coldwell Banker’s use of Google Maps and YouTube, or Realtor.com’s Android app that lets you draw a shape on a map to find all properties you’re interested in.

Yet we recognize that there might be better, more effective ways to help people find local real estate information than the current feature makes possible. We’ll continue to explore this area, but in the meantime, Google offers other options to home-seekers: you can still access other information in Maps such as local businesses, directions and transit times, as well as aerial and Street View imagery to explore where you might want to move, and also use Google search results to find helpful real estate information and websites.

Real estate companies can also continue to use tools from Google to help connect with buyers and renters who use the Internet to research properties. For example, companies can use the Google Maps API to embed customized maps that are useful to potential clients right on their own web pages. Our Google for real estate professionals site contains various methods for generating leads and improving real estate business operations.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP, Google Earth and Maps

The “father of the internet” says the world is going to run out of internet addresses “within weeks” – and it will be all his fault.

Google’s chief internet evangelist, Vint Cerf, who created the web protocol, IPv4, that connects computers globally, said he had no idea that his “experiment” in 1977 “wouldn’t end”.

“I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion [addresses] would be enough to do an experiment,” he said in group interview with Fairfax journalists.

The protocol underpinning the net, known as IPv4, provides only about 4 billion IP addresses – not website domain names, but the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each computer, website or other internet-connected device.

The explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the internet means there are only a few million left.

The allocation of those addresses is set to run out very shortly but the industry is moving towards a new version, called IPv6, which will offer trillions of addresses for every person on the planet.

“Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?” Cerf said.

“It doesn’t mean the network stops, it just means you can’t build it very well.”

Google’s leadership shake-up

Cerf said Google’s surprise leadership shake-up was essential because the search giant was beginning to move too slowly.

Today the company announced that Google co-founder Larry Page would take over as chief executive from Eric Schmidt, who has become its executive chairman. Until this point Page and co-founder Sergey Brin ran the company with Schmidt as a “troika”.

“’As we got larger it was harder for us to move as quickly as we would like so I think this is part of the whole practice of speeding up decision processes,” he said.

“Quick rapid execution is absolutely essential, especially in a highly competitive world like this.”

Recent ex-Googlers who left the company to join Facebook, including former Google Australia engineer Lars Rasmussen, have said Google has become too unwieldy as it has grown.

Schmidt gave similar comments in a blog post today, saying that, as Google had grown, managing the business had become “more complicated” and the trio had been “talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making”.

Cerf said Schmidt, 55, had been chief executive for 10 years – “a nice round number” – and Page, now 37, was ready to lead the company into the future.

“Larry and Sergey are 10 years older than they were when they thoughtfully hired Eric to be the CEO … so everybody’s growing up,” Cerf said.

“He was the only guy that stood up to them – these were two young, smart, incredibly brilliant guys who literally had just dropped their PhDs to go start this company.”

It has long been held that Schmidt was brought on at Google to counter the lack of business experience of Google’s founders, and Schmidt alluded to this in a tweet today.

“Day-to-day adult supervision no longer need!” he wrote after the leadership change announcement.

Taking on Facebook

Cerf would not be drawn on whether Google was developing a social networking site to compete with Facebook, as has been rumoured. But he said “our interest is less in the social networking aspect as it is in the patterns of behaviour”.

“We really don’t care about you personally we care about the patterns that you make. If we can match the patterns that you make with the patterns that the advertisers are trying to get in front of you, you benefit as well as the advertisers,” he said.

“This is quite independent of the sort of things that go on in Facebook, which is more about personal information and personal interactions.”

Praising the NBN

Cerf heaped praise on the National Broadband Network, saying Australia was making a long-term investment that would “serve you incredibly well in ways that even I can’t figure out”.

“The idea of being able to export your talents without having to export your people … this is a very attractive proposition,” he said.

“I honestly envy the political will to make this kind of long-term investment.”

Google as ISP?

But despite Google’s work in building municipal Wi-Fi and experimental fibre broadband networks in the US, he said it was unlikely Google would ever become an ISP.

“The intent is that as we build these [networks] out we will then turn them over to some other parties to operate and to make openly accessible,” he said.

“This is not our business model. Our purpose was to document what the costs and problems are … we’re not in the business of building physical infrastructure except for our internal operation.”

Asked whether recent privacy breaches at Sydney University and Vodafone – both of which kept detailed customer records online – highlighted the pitfalls of moving toward hosting everything in the online “cloud”, Cerf said the cloud was not at fault.

“Just because it’s sitting in an enterprise server doesn’t mean that you’re any better protected than you would be in the cloud,” he said.

“When you’re in the cloud business you better be good at securing your systems otherwise you lose all your customers.”

Story source: Asher Moses and Ben Grubb www.theage.com.au

View the original article here

Google just dropped a bombshell: Eric Schmidt is out as CEO (as announced in the company’s earings report. We’ll be covering the company’s earnings call, which is sure to have more on this.

He will step down from the role starting April 4, and co-founder Larry Page will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as CEO. Co-founder Sergey Brin will devote his energy to strategic projects like working on new products.
Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

On the Official Google Blog, Schmidt writes:
When I joined Google in 2001 I never imagined—even in my wildest dreams—that we would get as far, as fast as we have today. Search has quite literally changed people’s lives—increasing the collective sum of the world’s knowledge and revolutionizing advertising in the process. And our emerging businesses—display, Android, YouTube and Chrome—are on fire. Of course, like any successful organization we’ve had our fair share of good luck, but the entire team—now over 24,000 Googlers globally—deserves most of the credit.
And as our results today show, the outlook is bright. But as Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making—and over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured.
For the last 10 years, we have all been equally involved in making decisions. This triumvirate approach has real benefits in terms of shared wisdom, and we will continue to discuss the big decisions among the three of us. But we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.
Larry will now lead product development and technology strategy, his greatest strengths, and starting from April 4 he will take charge of our day-to-day operations as Google’s Chief Executive Officer. In this new role I know he will merge Google’s technology and business vision brilliantly. I am enormously proud of my last decade as CEO, and I am certain that the next 10 years under Larry will be even better! Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead.
Sergey has decided to devote his time and energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products. His title will be Co-Founder. He’s an innovator and entrepreneur to the core, and this role suits him perfectly.
As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.
We are confident that this focus will serve Google and our users well in the future. Larry, Sergey and I have worked exceptionally closely together for over a decade—and we anticipate working together for a long time to come. As friends, co-workers and computer scientists we have a lot in common, most important of all a profound belief in the potential for technology to make the world a better place. We love Google—our people, our products and most of all the opportunity we have to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

Earlier Schmidt wrote an interesting post at Harvard Business Review today indicating that Google’s strategic initiatives for the year are all about mobile. He wrote:

First, we must focus on developing the under­lying fast networks (generally called LTE). These will be 8-to-10- mega­bit networks, roughly 10 times what we have today, which will usher in new and creative applications, mostly entertainment and social, for these phone platforms.

Second, we must attend to the development of mobile money. Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world—and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that.

Third, we want to increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. We envision literally a billion people getting inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years. Can you imagine how this will change their awareness of local and global information and their notion of education? And that will be just the start.

Here’s the full release including the financials (see the balance sheets here):

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 20, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010.

“Q4 marked a terrific end to a stellar year,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. “Our strong performance has been driven by a rapidly growing digital economy, continuous product innovation that benefits both users and advertisers, and by the extraordinary momentum of our newer businesses, such as display and mobile. These results give us the optimism and confidence to invest heavily in future growth — investments that will benefit our users, Google and the wider web.”

In addition, Google has also announced plans to streamline decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

Commenting on these changes, Eric said: “We’ve been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we’ll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I’m excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come.”

Larry said: “Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. Eric is a tremendous leader and I have learned innumerable lessons from him. His advice and efforts will be invaluable to me as I start in this new role. Google still has such incredible opportunity–we are only at the beginning and I can’t wait to get started.”

Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, an increase of 26% compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the fourth quarter of 2010, TAC totaled $2.07 billion, or 25% of advertising revenues.

Google reports operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.98 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.48 billion, or 37% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $3.38 billion, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.76 billion, or 41% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.54 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.85 billion, compared to $2.19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009.GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $7.81 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $6.13 in the fourth quarter of 2009 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $8.75, compared to $6.79 in the fourth quarter of 2009.Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin exclude the expenses related to stock-based compensation (SBC). Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the expenses related to SBC and the related tax benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The tax benefit related to SBC was $89 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $62 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Revenues – Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, representing a 26% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $6.67 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.67 billion, or 67% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 28% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $4.42 billion.

Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion.

International Revenues – Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $4.38 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 52% in the third quarter of 2010 and 53% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2010 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $201 million lower. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $132 million higher. 

Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $878 million, representing 10% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2009.In the fourth quarter of 2010, we recognized a benefit of $25 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $8 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010.

Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 4% over the third quarter of 2010.

TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.74 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $333 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Other Cost of Revenues – Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, content acquisition costs as well as credit card processing charges, increased to $877 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $688 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Operating Expenses – Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $2.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, or 27% of revenues.

Cash – As of December 31, 2010, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $35.0 billion.

Headcount – On a worldwide basis, Google employed 24,400 full-time employees as of December 31, 2010, up from 23,331 full-time employees as of September 30, 2010.

To read more on this story click here

Story by Chris Crum www.webpronews.com

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In contrast to the year-over-year (YoY) declines experienced in 2009, punctuated by a nearly 10% drop in Q3, YoY search spend based on a same-client basis increased by 18.5% in 2010, setting up a positive start to 2011.

Growth of about 35% in Q4 2010 (see more detail below) brought up the overall average, as increases in the first three quarters ranged from roughly 5% to 15% (based on MarketingCharts estimates of SearchIgnite graphical data).

In 2010, Q4 saw particularly strong growth with 35.3% YoY increase in search spend (Q4 2009 YoY search spend was flat). All other underlying metrics in Q4 2010 show positive results, with 20.6% YoY increase in clicks, 2.3% YoY increase in impressions and 17.9% YoY increase in clickthrough rate (CTR).

In particular, search momentum built up throughout the quarter with accelerated spend (YOY Oct +25.4%, Nov +35.3%, Dec +44.8%).

The retail vertical reported even greater increases in search spend (36.6% YoY), average order value (AOV, 31.3% YoY) and conversion rates (22.5% YoY) for Q4 2010 based on same retail spend. Consumers are spending more per order compared to the Q4 2009 holiday season, which SearchIgnite says signifies an improvement in consumer sentiment.

Notably, AOV was up 48.3% YoY in December 2010. This is a significant improvement from 2009, when Q4 AOV declined by 13% YoY.

The top five rankings for total core search queries and total core search share were identical in December 2010, according to new data from comScore. However, Microsoft was the only search provider that saw its share grow, rising 6% from 11.3% to 12%. Google stayed flat with 64.3% share, while Yahoo lost 2.6%, dropping from 19.3% to 18.5%.

View the original article here

After a six-month investigation, the Australian Federal Police has determined Google may have breached telecommunications interception laws when it hoovered up reams of personal information from home Wi-Fi networks.

However, it has decided not to pursue the matter further due to the difficulty of gathering evidence and its determination that the privacy breach was inadvertent.

The breach, which landed Google in hot water with authorities all over the world, was dubbed the “single greatest breach in the history of privacy” by the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy.

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It involved Google sucking up 600GB of “payload data” from unsecured wireless networks over several years while taking pictures for its Street View mapping service.

In July, the Privacy Commisioner’s review into the matter found the company breached the Privacy Act, but the then commissioner, Karen Curtis, said she did not have powers to impose any sanctions on the company.

Instead, Google gave several undertakings to improve its privacy credentials and published an apology on its official blog.

Late on Friday, the AFP announced it had concluded its investigation into whether Google breached the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act after receiving external legal advice.

“Advice provided by the senior counsel concluded that the activities of Google may have constituted a breach of the TIA,” the AFP said.

“Evidence exists to suggest that the potential breach of the TIA by Google was inadvertent. Coupled with the difficulty of gathering sufficient evidence required for an examination of potential breaches, the AFP has concluded that it would not be an efficient and effective use of the AFP’s resources to pursue this matter any further.”

The AFP said it believed the likelihood of a successful criminal prosecution in this matter was low, and that it was satisfied that Google had given undertakings to the Privacy Commissioner in relation to preventing similar incidents in the future.

“Law enforcement agencies have made comparable conclusions in relation to similar experiences in overseas jurisdictions that have been resolved within the privacy regimes that exist in those jurisdictions,” it said.

Meanwhile, earlier this year a Senate inquiry into the adequacy of online privacy laws wondered whether Google may have also been breaching the TIA by scanning the contents of users’ emails on Gmail for keywords in order to push more relevant advertising.

The Attorney-General’s Department examined the matter and late last week responded that it did not believe Google was breaking the law.

This was partly because Gmail’s terms of service say that users consent to having their emails scanned for advertising purposes. Furthermore, the scanning takes place once emails are open in the mailbox of Gmail users, not when the communications are passing over the telecommunications network, meaning there was no “inteception”.

Story by Asher Moses www.smh.com.au

View the original article here

The Chinese government may have ordered cyber attacks on Google, according to the latest US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

Citing the cables, the New York Times said China made repeated and often successful hacking attacks on the US government, private enterprises and Western allies as far back as 2002.

Google closed its China-based search engine service in March, two months after saying it would stop censoring results.

It said the move was a response to what it described as a sophisticated cyber attack that it traced to China.

The dispute was resolved in July after Google tweaked the way it directs users to an unfiltered search engine.

The paper quoted one cable dated earlier this year as saying: ‘A well-placed contact claims that the Chinese government co-ordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems.

‘According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level.’

It added that the cable quoted the contact as saying the hacking of Google ‘had been co-ordinated out of the State Council Information Office with the oversight’ of two members of the Communist Party’s Politburo: Li Changchun and Zhou Yongkang.

It said Zhou is China’s top security official.

But the New York Times said that in an interview with the paper, the redacted contact named in the cable, ‘a Chinese person with family connections to the elite,’ denied knowing who directed the attack.

The person said it was one of Li’s subordinates who orchestrated a campaign to force Google to abide by censorship regulations, and Li and Zhou signed off on the plan at several points.

‘But the person did not know whether senior leaders directed the attack,’ the paper added.

There has not been an explanation of the discrepancy between what the person said in the interview and what was attributed to the person in the cable.

The cables did not make clear how the cyber attacks blamed on China were co-ordinated, and it is believed that the cables contain suppositions passed along by diplomats.

According to the cables, at least one previously unreported 2008 attack, which US investigators code-named Byzantine Candor, yielded more than 50 megabytes of email messages and a complete list of user names and passwords from a US government agency.

Source: bigpond.com

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Europe has launched a full-frontal attack on internet giant Google, formally opening an antitrust probe after rivals accused the Silicon Valley giant of rigging the online search market.

European Union competition watchdogs on Tuesday announced their investigation, after smaller companies accused Google of ‘unfavourable treatment’ of their services in both unpaid and sponsored search results, the crucial listings that make the web navigable.

Competition authorities are also probing whether Google’s own services – including YouTube video, book-scanning project or telephony – are getting ‘preferential placement’ when users punch in search queries, some of which may lead to consumer spending.

Brussels ‘will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority,’ a statement said.

Already nine months in gestation, however, it carries echoes of a decade of antitrust pursuit of fellow computer giants Intel and Microsoft – each of whom copped billion-euro fines in total – over issues from PC chips to web browsers.

An investigation does not necessarily trigger legal action, but the latest blow for the company comes on top of an earlier rap from France over restrictive advertising practices and ongoing national probes in Germany and Italy – not to mention its Street View application raising vociferous privacy concerns.

Google’s share of the EU’s online advertising was last pegged at around 30 per cent in 2008.

Its part of the core US search market grew to 66.1 per cent in September, according to industry tracker comScore.

The company posted a 32 per cent leap in net profit to 2.17 billion dollars between July and September, its latest available results.

One of the complainants, British search site Foundem, said in a lengthy statement outlining its February complaint that Google’s methods ‘stifle innovation, suppress competition, and erode consumer choice.’

The commission wants to check if Google was ‘lowering the ranking of unpaid search results’ and examine other allegations of advertising interference including the imposition of exclusivity clauses, restricting ads from competing providers and data on consumer impact.

‘When a user searches for queries like ‘flights from San Francisco to London,’ we think the most useful answer is showing fares and flights, not just a collection of links,’ a Google spokesperson argued.

The company said it would cooperate with the probe, saying: ‘There’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the commission to address any concerns.’

Insisting ‘ads are always clearly marked,’ the spokesperson set the tone for the battle ahead by recalling that ‘sites have complained and even sued us over the years, but in all cases there were compelling reasons why their sites were ranked poorly by our algorithms.’

Microsoft’s portion of the US search market improved a fraction to 11.2 per cent, while that of Yahoo! slipped from 17.4 per cent in August to 16.7 in September, comScore reported last month.

Approximately 12.4 billion dollars will be spent in the United States this year on ads on search engines, with Google expected to rake in 73.3 per cent of that cash, according to eMarketer.

Story source: ninemsn

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Facebook versus Google… but what round are we on now? It’s a little salvo this time, but Facebook has removed all mention of Google’s Gmail service from its “Find your Friends” feature. It’s just one more of the squabbles between Google and Facebook that all began when the former blocked access to the latter’s ability to find new Facebook friends via Gmail itself.

Why’s that? Google was irked that Facebook allowed users to find new friends based on one’s contact listing within a Gmail account, but Facebook itself didn’t allow the procedure to go in reverse. By that, we mean that there’s no way to populate your Google Contacts listing with any information that’s found in Facebook.

In response, Google denied Facebook the ability to pull in information from Google Contacts. Facebook successfully investigated a workaround. Google responded by posting a large missive for those trying to use Facebook’s workaround to import Google information.

“You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends,” read a message on Google’s Gmail page.

“We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Although we strongly disagree with this data protectionism, the choice is yours. Because, after all, you should have control over your data.”

Well, it appears that the squabbling between the two—at least, over the issue of contact importing—is set to die down. Facebook has since removed Gmail as an eligible candidate within its “Find Your Friends” feature, which means that users will be unable to access Gmail contacts—workaround or otherwise—via Facebook.

Attempting to do via Facebook’s “Other email service” link within Find your Friends brings up an error message for any who try to use a standard Gmail address: “Everyone on this contact list is already on Facebook or has already been invited.”

According to TechCrunch, Facebook has also removed any kind of Gmail importing functionality from its Friendfeed site as well.

Story by David Murphy www.pcmag.com

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Google admitted in a blog post Friday that external regulators have discovered that e-mails, URLs and passwords were collected and stored in a technical mishap, while the vehicles for Google’s Street View service were out documenting roadway locations.

According to Google, data was mistakenly collected in more than 30 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, some of Europe, and parts of Asia.

In the blog, posted by Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, he noted "we failed badly here" and added that Google has spent months analyzing how to strengthen their internal privacy and security practices.

"We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place," Eustace wrote.

Google announced in May that it had collected unencrypted WiFi data by mistake through its Street View service, but the severity of the situation was unknown.

According to a Google spokesperson, the company first became aware of the problem when the Data Protection Authority in Germany asked Google to review all of the data collected through its Street View cars as part of a routine check. The spokesperson added that in addition to street locations, Street View cars also collect WiFi data about hot spots in order to improve the location database for things such as Google Maps for mobile.

When Google went back and looked at the data, it turned out that in addition to WiFi hot spots, they were mistakenly collecting information that was being sent across unencrypted networks.

For the information to have been collected by Google, a person had to have been sending something over an unencrypted network at the same time that a Street View car was collecting data in that same location.

According to Google, the vast majority of the data is in fragments, but in the past week several countries have issued reports that they have found entire emails and passwords.

The data has since been segregated and secured, and WiFi data is no longer being collected from Street View cars.

Google has deleted the data collected from Ireland, Austria, Denmark and Hong Kong, but other countries have opened their own investigations, and Google has not been given permission from authorities to delete the data.

In a statement, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, "This alarming admission that Google collected entire e-mails and passwords validates and heightens our significant concerns. Our multistate investigation, led by Connecticut, into Google’s alleged invasion of privacy through wireless networks is continuing."

In the blog post, Eustace outlined the steps that Google is taking to strengthen its internal privacy and security practices including appointing a director of privacy across both engineering and product management and enhancing the core training that engineers and employees responsible for data collection receive.

"We are mortified by what happened, but confident that these changes to our processes and structure will significantly improve our internal privacy and security practices for the benefit of all our users," Eustace wrote.

Story by Marina Landis, CNN – www.cnn.com

Google gained ground in its dominance of the US explicit and total core search markets in September 2010, according to monthly comScore qSearch analysis.

Google Takes Larger Share of Explicit Core Search
Google Sites held 66.1% of the US explicit core search market (which measures user engagement with a search service with the intent to retrieve search results) in September 2010, up 1% from 65.4% in August 2010.

Second-ranked Yahoo Sites lost 4% of its explicit core search market share, dropping from 17.4% to 16.7%. No other explicit core search provider experienced significant month-over-month fluctuation.

More Explicit Core Search Queries Performed via Google, Microsoft
More than 16 billion explicit core searches were conducted in September 2010, up 2% from 15.7 billion the previous month. Google Sites ranked first with 10.6 billion searches, up 3% from 10.2 billion searches; followed by Yahoo Sites in second with 2.7 billion, down 2% from slightly more than that total the previous month.

Microsoft Sites came in third with 1.8 billion explicit core searches, up 3% from 1.7 billion.

Google Also Grows Total Core Search Share
Google Sites accounted for 63% of total US core search queries conducted in August 2010, up 4% from a 60.5% share the previous month. Yahoo Sites followed with 19%, down 9.5% from 21% the previous month, and Microsoft Sites came in third with 12.5%, down about 2% from 12.8% in August 2010.

Google Sites Jumps in Total Core Search Queries
The total number of core search queries performed via Google Sites jumped 8%, from 10.2 billion to 11.1 billion. Meanwhile, second place Yahoo Sites lost 5%, dropping from 3.6 billion to 3.4 billion. Third place Microsoft Sites increased its total number of core search queries 2%, from 2.16 billion to 2.2 billion.

Total US core search queries grew 4% in September 2010, rising from 16.9 billion in August 2010 to 17.7 billion.