GOOGLE - YOUNG BABYSITTER

Website for this image

by aangirfan

The old Google is no more and youtube is no more

"When you search for [young babysitter] or other keywords like it, the majority of the results, like 90%, are links to pornographic and adult oriented sites." (Website)

On 25 January 2012, Google's stock closed at $569.49, down from $670.25 earlier in January.

"Google has the world calling it evil once again."

"(That’s at least the third time in 2012. Kudos, Google.)" (Internet Freak-out Over Google's New Privacy Policy.)

"Google collects and can integrate almost anything that's already in the Google ecosystem: calendar appointments, location data, search preferences, contacts, personal habits based on Gmail chatter, device information and search queries, to name a few." - Google privacy policy is subject of backlash

"Starting in March, your search and surf habits across all of Google’s products will be combined to form the mother of all behavioral profiles.

"On March 1, Search will know the contents of your email and the videos you watch on YouTube.

"If you use Google Docs for work, Search will know which company you work for and which industry you work in.

"Via Google Reader, Search and YouTube Google will know what content you like to consume."

- Google is FUBAR



The USA's Department of Homeland Security does social media monitoring.

Homeland Security Is Reading and Recording Every Keystroke

"Google was busted by the US Department of Justice last year for facilitating the sale of illegal Canadian prescription drugs through its AdWords program, agreeing in August 2011 to pay $500 million.

"One of the biggest cash settlements of its kind in history, the sum nevertheless represented a small fraction of Google's reported $45 billion in ready cash."

GOOGLE DOWN

by aangirfan

Google's share price is down.

On 21 January 2012, we learn that Google's share price is down 9%.

Billions have been wiped off Google's market value.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2089326/Googles-shares-plummet-wiping-billions-market-value-earned-2-7billion-just-months.html#ixzz1k4jYibGV

On 12 January 2012 Aangirfan suggested that GOOGLE could be in trouble?

In December 2011, Aangirfan referred to the NEW YOUTUBE DESIGN and asked if people should SELL GOOGLE?

In July 2011, Aangirfan complained that GOOGLE PERSONALISES RESULTS


Google is still making big profits, but, financial figures from Google worry the analysts.

There has been 'a surprising downturn' in the prices Google collects for 'clicks' on its advertising.

Cost-per-click, the money firms pay Google when people click on ads, has decreased for the first time in two years.

JP Morgan analysts have cut their price target on the Google stock to $686 from $730.

Some analysts, such as those at Barclays, are worried about Google's increased spending on such things as Google+.


John Shinal has given Three reasons not to hold Google shares.

1. Google's operating expenses are going to rise significantly once it acquires Motorola Mobility Holdings...

2. Google is not really a public company...

Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and other insiders, control company voting rights.

Google has always has very poor grades from corporate governance advocates.

3. Larry Page seems to not care much about investors...

~~

Google misstep hints at tech landscape shift

Want a Google Account? Now You're Automatically Signed Up for Google+

Activist Down!

Reason and Jest -- Scott Lazarowitz's Blog – Defending Market Voluntaryism

It appears that one of my newest favorite websites, Activist Post (www.activistpost.com) has been taken down by its host, Blogger.com. Activist Post posts original articles and articles from other websites that highlight the news items of what various government agencies and the military are up to, and investigative reporting on the latest injustices, corruption and crimes, that we don’t hear about from cowards government lapdogs gutless weasels mainstream news sources.

I am suspicious of this, especially given that Blogger.com is owned by Google. And we know about the cozy relationship between Google and the Obama Administration. It’s very suspicious. TPTB do not like their corruption and crimes being exposed, and they have been very happy lately with the complicity and cover-ups of the mainstream media, the subservient, obedient stenographers of the so-called “free press.” It would not surprise me that Blogger shut down Activist Post for political reasons, not particularly from the web people and managers of Blogger.com, but from pressure from TPTB.

Does this mean that they are going to shut down MY website, too? Or LewRockwell.com, Infowars, Future of Freedom Foundation, Antiwar.com, Strike the Root, The Daily Bell, Washington’s Blog, Economic Collapse Blog, the SHTF Plan, The Burning Platform, Glenn Greenwald, the Tenth Amendment Center, and many other “challenging the status quo” websites and blogs? These websites and blogs are openly critical of the status quo of statism and centralism, and have been trying to expose how governments in America, federal, state and local, have been removing our liberty and our rights, from the left and from the right, and the people who cherish freedom DON’T LIKE THAT!

I can see why those people in power don’t like being exposed for what they are. But they do have power, that’s for sure.

In fact, just recently, the other major blogging website (in competition with Blogger.com), WordPress.com, had threatened to suspend Rick Rozoff’s website, Stop NATO, but it is still up. The message from WordPress was: “Warning: We have a concern about some of the content on your blog. Please click here to contact us as soon as possible to resolve the issue and re-enable posting.”

Do you think the same kind of thing happened to Activist Post? But this time, they’ve been taken down without warning, without the chance to copy their material to transfer to a different blog? (Jeepers, I hope it doesn’t happen to me, after two years of a lot of writing and hard work that I put into this website.)

Google has temper tantrum in Belgium

Google has thrown its toys out of the pram.

It has thrown a temper tantrum and decided to “boycott” a range of Belgian newspapers from its web search results.

Although the humongous baby says it was forced to take the measures following an impending court case, the Belgian papers have said the company was taking action as a means of retaliation.

The spat goes way back to 2006, when a range of Belgian newspapers claimed Google was not entitled to post links to articles on its news page without permission or payment. The courts ruled in their favour and despite Google appealing, the papers remained victorious - with another positive ruling in May this year.

According to La Capitale, the company began "boycotting" it last week.

It said Google searches showed no signs of any of the websites of the newspapers who sued it.

Google responded to the allegations claiming that it “had no choice but to block the papers from its searches”.

It said that it allowed the newspapers to appear on either Google News or Google's index, it would “potentially” face fines of around $35,359 per infringement.

It added that, of course, it regretted having to do so and would be happy to work with the papers if they decided to “waive the potential penalties.”

La Libre, another paper which has fallen foul of Google’s antics, pointed out on Friday that the company had taken the orders out of context.

It said it's necessary to distinguish Google search engine from the Google News service, and that the news editors did not oppose having their content referenced on the search engine.

However, it admitted that they did refuse their “informational content” to be included in Google News.

Read more: http://www.techeye.net/internet/google-has-temper-tantrum-in-belgium#ixzz1SusvmZ1Q

Schmoogle This! - the Anti-Google Search Engine Index

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"I believe that all entities, whether government or free-market, need to protect the sanctity of free speech. This is a basic civic responsibility. Those who do not are cowards. Sadly, we live in an era where civic responsibility is disposable, considered a burden instead of a privilege."
-- Frank Salvato, publisher of The New Media Journal

They banned The New Media Journal. They banned MichNews.com. They banned The Jawa Report. Google is on a political and ideological campaign of political correctness that sees them denying access to their service to any website - be it news, opinion or a hybrid of both - that dares to address the subject of radical Islam.

Click here to see the original email from "The Google News Team."

Interesting that the same three articles that got NMJ banned from Google News are still accessible: Article 1, Article 2, Article 3

This sets a dangerous precedent. What will the next subject be that serves as a catalyst for Google to promote their unique brand of corporate censorship? Which website will be the next to have it's Internet presence diminished at the hands of Google's "progressive" ideological agenda? WorldNetDaily? JihadWatch? NewsMax?

It is because of this - and our dedication to American Free Enterprise and the free market - that we have established The Anti-Google Search Engine Index. This index offers an ever-expanding list of search engines, many more comprehensive and many who do not manipulate content based on the ideology of political correctness.

We urge you to switch from using Google as your search engine and try the ones listed below. If you would like to suggest a search engine for inclusion on the list click here.

We may not be able to force Google to stop censoring free speech, but we can affect their bottom line.

Note: Of the above mentioned websites The Jawa Report has been re-instated. The New Media Journal and MichNews have been re-instated in Google's general search index but remain banned from Google News. Attempts to contact Google for a clarification on this matter have been unsuccessful.

Schmoogle, Fukushima and Mainstream Propaganda

Where can you go to find "trusted" news about Fukushima? Well according to Google News, only the mainstream sources are "trusted" these days. That's why they've removed nearly all alternative news sites from their news index, leaving only the monotone, mindless canned mainstream news sources for people to read.

But just how mindless are these mainstream news sources? To find out, I did a Google search on spent fuel rods and plutonium, and the results were a massive regurgitation of the exact same news from multiple mainstream news sources.

See the search result yourself with the screen shot we took at: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/G...

Here are the news story titles you see in the Google search results:

Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Yahoo! News
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Physorg.com
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Washington Post
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Fox News
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Forbes.com
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - CBS News
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - San Francisco Gate
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Boston Globe
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - MSNBC
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools - Denver Post

... followed by a long list of local TV news stations regurgitating the exact same news, word for word.

Copy and paste the propaganda

Now, keep in mind that these news sources are considered the "trusted" news sources by Google News and most consumers. And yet, when you really get right down to it, these are all news sites that merely copy and paste the same exact stories from Associated Press or Reuters. In other words, these sites aren't even writing their own news! They are worse than bloggers who at least offer some unique analysis of the news.

Google says its search engine penalizes sites for carrying "duplicate content." And yet we see no evidence of penalties for these mainstream news sites that rip off the same exact news, word for word, from the AP and Reuters news wires. After all, these are the top-ranking search results -- and they're all exactly the same!

If anybody other than the mainstream media did this, they would be immediately accused of running a "content farm" and be banned from the Google index. For some reason, Google seems to allow the mainstream media a free pass on the mass duplication of the exact same content. In fact, Google News actually seems to favor it! The more you parrot AP and Reuters, the more they love ya!

Do you have original news content? They aren't interested in that. But if you copy and paste Associated Press stories, you get top billing!

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032022_mainstream_media_Google_News.html#ixzz1JOxyP2vE

Schmoogle is for SPAM

If you use Google, you may have noticed the increasing number of 'made for AdSense' sites.

These sites usually contain masses of adverts and zero original content.

Sometimes the content has been 'stolen' from YouTube.

If you use Google, you may have found that, for a variety of reasons, it takes longer and longer to find what you are looking for.

There is too much junk, produced by people manipulating Google's page-ranking systems.


On 1 January 2011, Vivek Wadhwa explained why we desperately need a new (and better) Google

Vivek asked his students at UC-Berkeley to research the work history of the founders of certain companies.

"But it turns out that you can't easily do such searches in Google any more.

"Google has become a jungle: a tropical paradise for spammers and marketers.

"Almost every search takes you to websites that want you to click on links that make them money, or to sponsored sites that make Google money.

"There's no way to do a meaningful chronological search.

"We ended up using instead a web-search tool called Blekko."

http://blekko.com/

With Blekko, if you are looking for information about swine flu, you can add /health to your query and search only the top 70 or so relevant health sites rather than tens of thousands spam sites.

If you are doing searches by date, add /date to the end of your query.

/people

/date

/blogs

/forums

/noporn

/image etc etc.

Google is like the manufacturer of a brand of spam.

At first the spam contains the very best pork.

Eventually it contains an awful lot of offal.

...MORE HERE...

Schmoogle in Sweden

Sweden's IT privacy watchdog has recommended Google remove data that it inadvertently captured from wireless networks in Sweden while it was taking photos for its Street View service.

• Google sets sights on Sweden (19 Nov 10)
• Google resumes taking Street View photos (11 Jul 10)
• Swedish man sues Google for defamation (29 Apr 10)

"We recommend once again that this data can, and should, be deleted," said Göran Gräslund, director-general at the Swedish Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen), in a statement.

Google contacted the board earlier this year and admitted that it had mistakenly collected data from wireless networks while photographing Swedish cities for its Street View mapping service.

The firm sought clearance to remove the data, which it received from the board in May.

However, the firm chose to retain the data due to ongoing legal proceedings in other countries. At a meeting on November 15th, the board concluded that the information had not been deleted and it has now renewed its recommendation.

"As the WiFi data was collected by mistake, it should be deleted as soon as possible," Gräslund said.

"One of the Data Inspection Board's most important tasks is to get businesses, government agencies and others who handle personal information in an incorrect way to remedy the situation and this is an example of that."

In May, the board informed the firm that the deletion of the information was an "adequate and appropriate measure from a data protection perspective."

Gräslund confirmed that since Google has declared its intention to delete the data, the board does not currently intend to open a "supervisory investigation," but required the firm to confirm when it has completed the deletion of the data.

The Street View service has been dogged by controversy around the world and particularly in Europe. In March, the company said it may cancel the service in the EU if data protection regulators reduced the storage time of the images to six months from 12.

Vivian Tse (news@thelocal.se)

As The Pirate Bay Guys Lose Their Appeal, When Does Google Regret Not Coming To Their Defense?

from TechDirt

As you probably already know, last Friday (while we were enjoying some much needed time off), the Swedish appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling against the four guys the entertainment industry claims were behind The Pirate Bay. The appeals court shortened the jail sentences, but increased the fines that each had to pay (one of the original four guys, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, missed this trial, but will be tried again separately). I don't think anyone watching the two trials is all that surprised by the outcome -- though, if you look at the details, it certainly suggests a court and law enforcement system that still has no clue concerning what it was actually dealing with. One of the defendants, Peter, has a rather interesting blog post (Google translation from the original Swedish) in which he details a number of blatant factual errors made by the courts in the latest ruling. I'm sure that those who dislike The Pirate Bay will not pay attention to what he has to say and will assume he is lying. But it does appear that much of the ruling against Peter is based on a pretty blatant misunderstanding of basic technology, blaming him for things it's unlikely he had anything to do with whatsoever.

What strikes me about this ruling -- and Homeland Security's seizure of a bunch of domain names, which I'll cover in a later post -- is that at some point, I believe Google is going to regret not getting involved on the side of The Pirate Bay in this trial. It's obvious why they did that. Google is already having enough trouble with the entertainment industry, and The Pirate Bay is still seen as sort of radioactive when it comes to these discussions. Supporting The Pirate Bay was simply not politically possible. In fact, Google went the other direction and tried to specifically distance itself from The Pirate Bay. Yet, for all intents and purposes, The Pirate Bay was also a search engine. A specialized one, but really no different in important respects than Google. The specific points that got The Pirate Bay in trouble could all be equally applied to a general purpose search engine like Google. And with Google already dealing with executives given prison sentences due to its services in other countries, you'd think it would be a bit more sensitive to realizing the slippery slope created when you send someone to jail for the way a search engine is used.

Schmoogle Spies

The company has admitted it downloaded personal data from wireless networks when its fleet of vehicles drove down residential roads taking photographs for its controversial Street View project.

Millions of internet users have potentially been affected.

One privacy campaigner described the intrusion as "absolutely scandalous" and called on Google to launch a full inquiry into the affair.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the privacy watchdog, said it would be looking into Google's admission.

Images for Street View were gathered by vehicle-mounted panoramic cameras starting in 2008.

In May this year, Google confessed the vehicles had also been gathering information about the location of wireless networks, the devices which connect computers to the telecommunications network via radio waves.

Now the California-based company has revealed that far more information was harvested than was previously thought, after privacy regulators in seven countries analysed the data.

"It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs [web addresses] were captured, as well as passwords," said Alan Eustace, Google's vice-president of engineering and research.

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

Street View pictures were taken in the UK, US, Germany and other countries. Sources told The Sunday Telegraph that Britain was among countries affected by the privacy breach.

The company archived all the material it had gathered, which included emails being sent by private individuals, the web pages they were viewing and passwords they may have entered as the Street View vehicle passed their homes.

It is believed that only wireless networks that were not password-protected were affected.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: "It's absolutely scandalous that this situation has developed and so many people have had their communications intercepted.

In March this year Google announced that 95 per cent of Britain's roads had been covered by Street View, amounting to nearly a quarter of a million miles from Penzance to the Shetland Isles.

The camera vehicles are still at work on Britain's roads, collecting new images and filling in gaps which remain in the panoramic sequences.

...MORE HERE...