We all know that Google engages in massive invasions of privacy on a daily basis through their tracking of every search along with their ability to track a single user to almost every site they visit.
What do we have to show for it? Simply put: nothing.
Google has snapped up a portfolio of 1,030 granted patents formally owned by one-time PC behemoth IBM.
Having tried and failed to do the same with a 6,000-strong portfolio built and owned by networking outfit Nortel, which eventually went to a high-bidding consortium fronted by Apple, RIM and Nokia, Google has strengthened it position in the patent troll wars currently raging in Technoland with the acquisition.
Is the shine beginning to fade for Google+?
Google's social-networking foray saw fewer U.S. visitors last week, and those who did visit spent less time on the site on average, according to new data released today by market researcher Experian Hitwise. Google+ had 1.79 million visits for the week ending July 23, a decrease of 3 percent compared with the previous week when the network had 1.86 million visits, Experian Hitwise reported.
When you have a new social network populated by a large number of outspoken and opinionated tech enthusiasts, they're going to be watching very, very carefully for any kind of misstep.
"Soviet-style" negotiations and an opinion "not based on sufficient facts" – the judge presiding over the case of Oracle versus Google concerning violations of Java patents criticised the two parties harshly in a written statement handed down on Friday.
Android has had its fair share of malware problems. Whenever malware are detected, Google reacts swiftly and remove them. However, according to security researcher Neil Daswani, around 8% of the apps on the Android market are leaking private user data.
A British blogger stumbled across a way to remove any website from Google's search results, even if that site has nothing to do with you whatsoever.
James Breckenridge of Romsey, Kent, wrote that he was just noodling about with Google's Webmaster Tools and built a Chrome extension to remove his unwanted URLs more quickly. Then, he said, "I made a little mistake and accidentally removed a URL of a website I have no relation to?!? I was stunned it could be that easy. Surely there was no way Google would actually remove the page, right?"
Apple has approved Google's social networking for app for the iPhone.
The Facebook-bating network unveiled recently by the search engine giant has made its first foray into the mobile arena today when it quietly appeared on the iTunes App Store. The free app has all the same functionality as its desktop-bound sibling featuring Circles, Stream and Huddle which do all the same stuff as Facebook has been doing for years.
So, Google has come under scrutiny by the US Federal Trade Commission for possible anti-competitive practices. While I would say the FTC has far larger threats to competition to worry about (the inevitable p-word), it would appear there's sufficient suspicion to take a gander at Google's business practices.
Internet activist group Anonymous recently had their “Your Anon News” account banned from Google+ for posting content that violated the “Community Standards.” According to the organization’s website, Google also disabled the group’s Gmail account. At the time it was thought that this only affected “Your Anon News,” but it was later revealed that the shutdown hit “a handfull [sic] of Anonymous accounts.”
