Google: Unified Privacy Policy and TOS
Google updates and unifies its different privacy policies and TOS: Sure it’s evil? http://eicker.at/GooglePrivacyPolicy
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google’s Graveyard 2012
More Google shut downs: Urchin, Social Graph API, Picnik, Needlebase, Sky Map, GMC; http://eicker.at/GooglesGraveyard2012
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Here’s an update on some products that will be merged, open-sourced, or phased out in the coming months: Google Message Continuity (GMC) … Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract and are encouraged to consider using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform. – Google Sky Map … We will be open-sourcing Sky Map and are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in a partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects. – Needlebase: We are retiring this data management platform, which we acquired from ITA Software, on June 1, 2012. The technology is being evaluated for integration into Google’s other data-related initiatives. – Picnik: We acquired this online photo editor in 2010. We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. … Social Graph API – This API makes information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers. The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today. It will be fully retired on April 20, 2012. – Urchin: In 2005 we acquired Urchin, whose online web analytics product became the foundation for Google Analytics, helping businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. We’re fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so we’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.”
Google: “The success of Google Analytics has been incredibly rewarding and humbling, and we are very thankful for the support of our early Urchin customers and investors. The Urchin Software product has now been completely overshadowed by its tremendously popular offspring. And so, it is time that we now complete the cycle by officially retiring the Urchin Software product and focus exclusively on online analytics. On behalf of the original Urchin crew and Google, we thank you and hope that we can continue to serve you with amazing products. – Urchin has only been available during the past several years through Certified Urchin Resellers, and new sales will officially discontinue at the end of March 2012. We are encouraging Urchin users to migrate to Google Analytics, although expect that current installations of the software will continue to work fine on most systems for years to come. You can learn more about the retirement of this product on the Urchin Website.”
RWW: “As Larry Page said in yesterday’s earnings call, Google’s current focus is on speeding up its execution. To make way for its main teams, Google has been closing down and open-sourcing its less-used projects over the past year. – Many interesting projects have moved on to bigger and better things as open-source initiatives. The Android App Inventor found a home at MIT. Knol, once Google’s effort at a Wikipedia-like knowledge database, has become Annotum, a WordPress-based system. Google Body became Zygote Body, and now it, and even the 3D viewer software behind it, is open-source. Today, Google Sky Map goes open-source, and it will live on as a student-run project.”
VB: “Looks like the picnic is officially over. Google announced today on its blog that it will be retiring the picnic-themed photo editing service Picnik in April of this year. – The news comes about a week after Flickr announced it will be dumping Picnik, which now seems like foreshadowing of the news that was released today. – If you use Picnik for your editing needs, you can download your images as a zip file with Picnik Takeout for the time being. You can also move your photos over to your Google+ page until the service shuts down on April 19.”
TC: “Today’s culling follows this summer’s shut downs of Google Labs and most of the products internally developed by former acquisition Slide. While Google has long encouraged experimentation, its found itself overextended. The company needs all hands on deck fighting the wars for social, mobile, and the cloud. – Google typically reassigns employees from scrapped projects rather than fire them. The teams from Picnik and Sky Map could increase the concentration of product leaders working on Google+. With any luck they can give Google’s social network a more human feel.”
RWW: “Google announced today that it is closing a number of services that it wasn’t able to attract millions of users to without making any effort. The worst of the lot to lose are two: the Social Graph API and DIY data extraction service Needlebase. Following on the heels of the kitten-stomping-bad sunsetting of Postrank, these latest closures are really meaningful, even if the adoption of the services never was. … The worst loss to humanity at the hands of Google’s startup eating monster of late remains PostRank, which Google acquired this Summer. … It was captured by Google and refashioned as a mirror for the fairy’s hideous ogre sister Naked Self Interest, which the ogre (a publisher using Google Analytics) thought made her more beautiful and rich with pageviews, but which really only made her uglier and more vacuous every day. – I can’t believe they are killing Needlebase and the Social Graph API. I can believe it, of course, but I’m thankful that my cynicism is still thin enough that it hurts every time something like this happens again. There are only so many more tools like this on the web left to kill, though.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Search Plus
Google Search goes Plus Your World: personal search adds Google Plus, global doesn’t; http://eicker.at/GoogleSearchPlus
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Search, plus Your World – Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. … We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features: Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts-both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community. – Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World. Search is simply better with your world in it, and we’re just getting started. … When it comes to security and privacy, we set a high bar for Search plus Your World. Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection. That’s part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signed-in users last year. … We named our company after the mathematical number googol as an aspiration toward indexing the countless answers on webpages, but that’s only part of the picture. The other part is people, and that’s what Search plus Your World is all about.”
SEL: “Google’s search results are undergoing their most radical transformation ever, as a new ‘Search Plus Your World’ format begins rolling out today. It finds both content that’s been shared with you privately along with matches from the public web, all mixed into a single set of listings. … The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems. – However, Search Plus Your World may cause some privacy worries, as private content may appear as if it is exposed publicly [it is not]. It might also cause concern by making private content more visible to friends and family than those sharing may have initially intended. … ‘The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful,’ said Amit Singhal, who oversees Google’s ranking algorithms, when I talked with him about the new features. … Search Plus Your World doesn’t cover content on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Flickr. Or any social network or place where content might be shared to a more limited audience. Currently, ‘Search Plus Your World’ would be better described as ‘Search Plus Google+’ … As said, the ability to search for private content on Google+ isn’t new. However, I wonder if having it integrated into Google’s search results itself might cause some surprises and issues for both Google and its users. … Don’t like the idea of personalized search? Disappointingly, Google didn’t go the opt-in route. Instead, you have to deliberately opt-out. … Personalized Is The New ‘Normal’ … Overall, I like the integration that allows for searching through private and public material. As I’ve said, I think many people will find it useful. – I do think there are some additional privacy controls that could be added, in particular, the ability for people to opt their content out of being found through search, if they want. … Yes, there are things that Facebook or Twitter might not allow, not without Google cutting deals or agreeing to terms it may not want to.”
RWW: “If you’re like me, you’ve dreaded this day. Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going to mess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But the new Google unveiled today leaves the user in control. ‘Search, plus Your World,’ Google has called it. It’s two kinds of search, and they’re separate. If you don’t want Google+-flavored results, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized search altogether. … Even when you search in personal mode, Google wants to show you the most relevant result at the top, even if its not from Google+. Prior to today’s update, this wasn’t happening reliably. The source of my concerns about Google+ was the prominence of Google+ results in search when outside Web results were more relevant. … Of course, this mode will still privilege content posted to Google+ ahead of other social networks. … But today’s ‘Search, plus Your World’ update actually softens the impact of Google+ on search. Google+ content is better integrated with outside stuff now, and, of course, it’s optional, even for logged-in users. There are still problems with the state of Google search, but none of them are as dire as they were a week ago. – Now that Google users have control over the level of personalization, I don’t think Google+ will mess up the Internet anymore. Social SEO will not take over, because natural search results still matter. My fear last week was that anyone who wanted to use Google would be forced to use Google+. Today’s update shows good faith. Google has given its users control.”
GigaOM: “Google+ just got a new killer app: search – Google has begun to integrate Google+ posts, pages and profiles into its Google.com search results. The move is meant to personalize search, and offers some interesting opportunities for content discovery – but first and foremost, it’s gonna be a big boost for Google+ itself. … The new Google+ search integration comes with a kind of on-off switch, making it possible to switch back and forth between the classic Google view of the world and a more personalized version. Users who opt for the personal approach will get to see relevant posts from the people they have added to their circles as well as pages from brands and celebrities relevant to their search results. … I’ve long argued that Hangouts are a kind of killer app for Google+. With the launch of personalized search, the service just got a new killer app.”
TC: “What most alarms me about today’s ‘Google Search Plus Your World’ announcement is how it will distort name searches. When I Google someone’s name, I’m typically looking for a Wikipedia entry, their Twitter account, a personal website, or an author page on their blog. … I know getting people to sign up for Google+ is crucial to tying people’s behavior across Google products to their identity to power ad targeting. But seriously Google, best-in-class search is why we love you. Is it really worth sacrificing your integrity to drive signups?”
VB: “Twitter is not happy with Google’s new social search features. So unhappy, in fact, that the company is calling it a ‘bad day for the Internet’ and media overall. ‘We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone,’ the company said in a statement. ‘We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.’ … One Google spokesperson told VentureBeat: ‘For years now we’ve been working with our social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your friends and social connections, no matter what site that content is on. However, Google does not have access to crawl all the information on some sites, so it’s not possible for us to surface all that content. Google also doesn’t have access to the social graph information from some sites, so it’s not possible to help you find information from those people you’re connected to.’”
GigaOM: “Is adding Google+ to search a red flag for regulators? – Neither side has said why the arrangement with Twitter came to an end (sources say the company wanted a lot more money in return for its data), but today’s note about unfair competition suggests the two won’t be working together any time soon – and the odds of Facebook suddenly wanting to make its data available seem equally remote. But as others have pointed out, Google is being somewhat disingenuous when it says it can’t get information from Twitter, since all tweets and profile info (unless explicitly hidden by a user) is available to be crawled and indexed by anyone, including Google.”
TC: “But Twitter does have a point: people trust Google to serve up the most timely, relevant information possible. And without Twitter’s data, it’s going to have a hard time doing that. Of course, Google probably already has its own answer to this drafted, and I suspect it reads something like, ‘if Twitter wants people to find tweets in Google, they can open up their API.’ I’m reaching out to them for their official response now. – Update: Google just posted this response to its official Google+ Page: ‘We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.’”
RWW: “Sure they’re concerned. Is it true, though? It’s not like Twitter’s own search tools are that helpful; Google is still the best Twitter search tool there is. It recently acquired Julpan, a social search company, so maybe Twitter has a better idea. But if you search for content that’s on Twitter, Google will find it. If Twitter wants full-featured integration into Google search, that’s up to them. I’m sure Google would be delighted to oblige. – Nothing about today’s update makes things worse for Google’s competitors in Google results. If anything, it just means they have more work to do.“
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webwerkstatt
Google ist still no.1 and they will keep their position for years. Twitter is only a short message service and an integration would be great for them
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Gerrit Eicker
Well, I suppose Twitter wouldn’t be Twitter if it’d be “only a short message service”, but that’s just my 2 cents. – But I’m with you regarding the question who’s got to deliver: it’s Twitter, not Google. Twitter will have to decide if they want money or attention…
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Stats
Allen: Google Plus passes 62 million users, adds 625K new per day. 400M by end of 2012; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusStats
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Gerrit Eicker
Allen: “Google+ Growth Accelerating. Passes 62 million users. Adding 625,000 new users per day. Prediction: 400 million users by end of 2012. – Google+ is adding new users at a very rapid pace. It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks. – Each week my team from elance runs hundreds of queries on various surnames which we have been tracking since July. We revised our model based on the actual user announcements made by Google on July 13th and Oct 13th. … If this rate of new signups (625k daily) continues then Google+ will reach 100 million users on Feb. 25th and 200 million users on August 3. They will finish 2012 with 293 million users. – I expect the growth to continue to accelerate however. Google can continue to integrate Google+ into its other products and word of mouth will continue to build. … Based on the accelerated growth I’m seeing and all the dials and levers Google can still utilize, and the developer ecosystem that will be developed, I predict that 2012 is going to be a breakout year for Google+ and that it will end next year with more than 400 million users.”
TC: “Google+ now has more than 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, Ancestry.com founder and unofficial traffic analyst for Google’s social network. That’s not 62 million active users, though – a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It’s just the number of total users. And specifically, it’s the number of new surnames that Allen’s team has tracked being created on the service. – Because Google has aggressively integrated G+ into many other properties, including its top navigation bar and the OneBox, one would expect a certain baseline amount of sign-ups from among the hundreds of millions of people using other Google products. … But there’s support out there for Allen’s latest numbers, from someone trying to answer the usage question. Last week, comScore told us that G+ had grown to 67 million monthly unique visitors in November, up 2 million from October. That’s significantly more than the 50 million total users that Allen reported at the end of the month. … Allen’s big conclusion, based on the most recent growth increases, is that the service could reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. If that turns out to be the case, I’m sure active usage will also be increasing. But the question remains the same: how many G+ users stay active?”
VB: “For a social network that was invite-only until July 2011, those numbers are not bad. However, Google+ has a long way to go if it wants to catch up to Facebook’s 800 million users. … A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that the company does not ‘have any additional metrics to provide based on Paul Allen’s estimates,’ but that more than 40 million people have signed up for the social network. That number comes from Google’s latest earnings call which took place on October 13. … In an attempt to garner more attention, Google+ rolled out a new ad campaign over the holiday season. The ads featured NBA annoucers and the Muppets to highlight Hangouts and other cool features of the social network. Perhaps the ads were enough to remind people that yes, Google+ does still exist and help it nab those 12 million extra users for December.”
TC: “For Google+, User Count Is A Journey Not A Race – That’s a good thing because Google+ missed the starting gun. And its ‘invite only’ launch strategy saw all its disconnect users flailing independently. But in the long run that might not matter much, because Google+ doesn’t need a critical mass or tons of engagement. It needs signups so it can get its identity layer under users of its other products. That way it can turn everyone’s searches, mapping, email, and more into fuel for its ad targeting engine. … With enough cajoling, users are registering even if their social network needs are already being met by Facebook and Twitter. – Google may never beat those services in terms of engagement with a content stream. … If it takes Google 4 years to start catching up to Facebook in terms of user count, so be it. The company has plenty of money to burn so it can take this long-term approach. What matters isn’t when, but if if it can eventually grow its registration base large enough for Google+ to produce ROI.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Analytics Social Data Hub
Google opens its Social Data Hub to 3rd party social networks to integrate with Google Analytics; http://eicker.at/SocialData
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Every day, millions of people share and engage with content online. But most sharing doesn’t happen on the site where it was published, it happens throughout the social web. Marketers and publishers are looking for a comprehensive view of all interactions with their content – on and off their site – and so we’re working hard to make this happen. – To enable our customers to discover who’s sharing, voting and bookmarking their content on the social web, cross-network measurement needs to become easier. So today we’re inviting social networks and platforms to integrate their activity streams with Google Analytics. Through these integrations, marketers and publishers will be able to discover off-site engagement, optimize their engagement within each social community, and measure the impact of each social channel and its associated digital investment. … To make integration easy for social networks and platforms we’ve created a social data hub – it’s based on widely deployed, open web standards such as ActivityStreams and PubsubHubbub. A number of partners are already working with us to improve measurement of social actions – including Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Gigya, LiveFyre, ReadItLater, Reddit, TypePad, Vkontakte, and of course, Google+, Blogger and Google Groups.”
Google: “Plug your social data into Google Analytics – As the number of social networks and activities performed grows, there’s no comprehensive way for marketers and publishers to see the big picture of how social behavior really impacts their brand, let alone understand how these social actions lead to engagement or true return on investment [ROI] of their content. – That’s why we’ve developed the social data hub – so any network can integrate their activity streams – like +1, votes, and comments – into Google Analytics Social Analytics reports, which will be available next year.”
Google: “The social data hub is a free platform that social networks and other social platforms can use to integrate their activity streams- like +1, votes, and comments-with Google Analytics. – Enable your social network to be visible to marketers, publishers and analysts using Google Analytics – Promote a broad, comprehensive and inclusive picture of the global social media landscape – Advance accessible measurement of all social media platforms and activities … To integrate your social network with Analytics, you need to meet the following criteria: You operate a Social Network/Platform – You own the social data and/or are legally able to share it with Google.”
Google: “Google Analytics will provide a social reporting suite so marketers and publishers can see how their content is being shared or interacted with off their site. This will include visibility into social actions such as voting, commenting and sharing amongst other reports helping marketers tie social activity back to engagement and conversion. The social data hub will supply the data needed to enable these Google Analytics reports.”
WMG: “In other words, the platform vendors did little if anything to tie the output of their platforms with anything specific or practical enough (probably, because they couldn’t yet do so) to be meaningful. While Facebook may drag their feet implementing and interfacing with Social Data Hub, Twitter already has been using Google Analytics to track every important action, and it’s not a stretch to see Twitter adopting the Social Hub, and eventually, Facebook will have to, as well, because advertisers and publishers will demand it. – Which, as Lovett says, is good for all of us. Will it be good for the vendors? That all depends.”
SEW: “While social media integration into analytics packages is relatively new, there are a few enterprise-level analytics software that already offer users the ability to integrate not only social sharing sites, but also information about apps in their respective stores. Webtrends, for one, allows users to enter their usernames and passwords for various social sites and app stores directly into the software and data from those respective sites are seamlessly integrated into reports. … Is this a good idea or a bad idea for social networks? How would you use integrated social analytics in your day-to-day analytics reports?”
WPN: “I couldn’t help but notice that Facebook and Twitter are not on that list.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Currents
Google wants to go Flipboard/Zite with Google Currents… but misses the opportunity; http://eicker.at/GoogleCurrents
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Today we’re expanding our content offering with the introduction of Google Currents, a new application for Android devices, iPads and iPhones that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger. … We’ve worked with more than 150 publishing partners to offer full-length articles from more than 180 editions including CNET, AllThingsD, Forbes, Saveur, PBS, Huffington Post, Fast Company and more. Content is optimized for smartphones and tablets, allowing you to intuitively navigate between words, pictures and video on large and small screens alike, even if you’re offline. … Alongside Google Currents, we’re also launching a self-service platform that gives publishers the flexibility to design, brand and customize their web content. … Great content needs a great audience, which is why Google Currents is integrated with Google+ so users can share articles or videos they’ve enjoyed with their circles. … Google Currents is now available for download in Android Market and the Apple App Store for US users.”
RWW: “Google Currents is to Social Media as Justin Bieber is to the Beatles – Google Currents is a new tablet app launched today that makes reading of syndicated web content easier, faster and more enjoyable than almost any other interface you can imagine. It’s like Flipboard but for RSS feeds. People are going to love it. That’s the nice way to describe it. – You could also call it the sterilization of the social web. Just like today’s new Twitter redesign makes things nice and pretty for non-technical users – Google Currents is infinitely friendlier and more accessible than any RSS reader – even Google’s own Reader. Unfortunately, in the current application that ease of use comes at a great cost: Google Currents does away with many of the best parts of the social web. … Google Currents doesn’t let you do that. If you’ve got a Google Reader account from the hard old days you can add one subscription at a time to Currents, but if you discover something new out on the web at large – clicking the RSS icon does nothing. It’s like an empty smile – not a portal into a world of potential learning and fun – just a dead link. It’s a violation of an important universal law to kill an RSS link, but that’s what Google Currents has done. … Back in the old days, all that clicking around, free subscribing, commenting and reading comments – that was the stuff that gave new little blogs a reason to live. … Take that away from them and just put the best big blogs in a pretty box and what have you got? The death of blogging is what you’ve got.”
Forbes: “Unlike RSS readers, like Google’s very popular Google Reader, Currents is designed with aesthetic qualities at the top of the design totem pole. Instead of incorporating web standards like links Google treats sites more like an old-fashioned magazine. It all looks great, but you can’t click a link and hop on to your browser. You don’t see comments on posts and you can’t subscribe via RSS. … Google, you’re not Apple okay? You’re never going to be Apple no matter how hard you try. Apple does its own thing very well already. The closed universe of apps and proprietary everything is Apple’s domain. The last thing Google should try to do is imitate Apple’s success. The future of the internet is a mixture of closed and open models. I don’t think apps will rule the world, or that proprietary software and hardware designs are the only way forward.”
GigaOM: “[W]hile Google Currents is superficially similar to these other services, there are some important differences that make me wonder whether Google really understands how media has changed and is changing. For a company that’s usually so forward-thinking, Currents as it stands now is more than a little disappointing. … Unlike both Flipboard and Zite, it doesn’t pull in your Twitter lists or streams from those you follow, or content from your Facebook social graph. In other words, you can push content out to these networks, but you can’t pull content in from them and view it inside your news reader. … The second element Google Currents seems to be missing is recommendations or some form of smart filtering of content, apart from the limited amount that appears in the ‘trending’ section. … Currents feels about as innovative as your garden-variety app from a traditional magazine – in other words, not very innovative at all. More than anything, it feels like a giant missed opportunity.”
RWW: “We’re not out of the woods yet, but Web publishing is starting to hit its stride. Product offerings are getting smarter, prices are getting better and, most importantly, the content is getting more interesting. We might not even be half way to the future of publishing yet, but the industry is picking up steam. – There are new ways to read, new ways to write and new ways to advertise. Publishing is a rapidly changing high-tech business now, so the tools change the content and vice versa. … Reading was the first thing that had to change before the business of Web publishing could change. … But the new rules in publishing are empowering independent content creators, too. Social media have created a new class of publishing, in which content created by everyone gets stitched together into a narrative. … The do-it-yourself publishing platforms have also become more powerful. It’s a great time to be a WordPress publisher, because it’s creating revenue streams for independent content creators and developers alike. … New publishing tools are great, but what publishing really needs is new business models. … Fortunately, things are looking up on that front, too. For one thing, thanks to WordPress and its partnership with Federated Media, ad revenue streams are now available to independent bloggers, not just mainstream sites. But there is also a whole new kind of advertisement on the horizon, one that takes advantage of the new hardware and the touchscreen sense of control. As devices get increasingly powerful, the limits on Web publishing fall away.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus + Gmail
Google adds Plus sharing, circling, contacts to Gmail: late after Search, Apps, Reader, News; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusGmail
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “We want to bring you a great experience across all Google products which, for Gmail and Contacts, means understanding what you care about and delivering it instantly. With that in mind, we’re introducing some new integrations with Google+ that we think will make Gmail and Contacts even better. … Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they’ve shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they’re not in your circles yet, it’s easy to add them straight from Gmail. … If you’ve spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. … If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they’ve shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. … Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox… Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image[s] will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.”
TC: “With an automatically updated address book, Google is leveraging one of its key strengths – the 200 million+ Gmail users – in order to attack Facebook in an area where it struggles. Due to Facebook’s bungling of privacy issues over the years, many mainstream users are wary of inputting their contact information, like their home address and phone number, into Facebook. – Google, however, and especially Gmail and Contacts, are seen as utilities. It may be a bit creepy here too, but the benefits of an automatically updated address book will outweigh the risks for many of Gmail’s heaviest users.”
VB: “One other convenient and cool feature in the new update allows you to directly share a photo attachment from an email to Google+. You used to have to download an image and re-upload it to Google+, but now you will see a Share link next to an image that sends the image to Google+. – The updates will be pushed out over the next few days according to The Official Google Blog, so be on the look out for a new Circles list in your Gmail and all the other nifty new features.”
RWW: “So far, it doesn’t look like my Gmail account has received the updates. At least, it doesn’t have all of them. I do see the latest G+ update from some of my contacts that I follow, but none of the filtering or sharing features have appeared yet. Naturally, if you’re a Google Apps user, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to get the features. Google says that the features in Contacts won’t be available right away but that they’re ‘actively working’ to make them available. – Google has been promising to integrate Google+ more deeply into its other offerings. This seems like a major step in that direction. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?“
Gerrit Eicker
Zukunftsbilder und Monitoring Deutschland
Deutschland digital im internationalen Vergleich: Zukunftsbilder und der IKT Monitoring-Report 2011; http://eicker.at/DE2011
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Gerrit Eicker
TNS Infratest: “Zukunftsbilder der digitalen Welt. Nutzerperspektiven im internationalen Vergleich. – In der vierten Phase der ‘Zukunftsstudie Münchner Kreis’ stand der Nutzer mit seinen persönlichen Einschätzungen zu exemplarischen, IKT-unterstützten ‘Zukunftsbildern’ im Mittelpunkt. Um die Einstellungen und Vorlieben, aber auch Vorbehalte und Befürchtungen der Nutzer im Zusammenhang mit der digitalen Zukunft zu untersuchen, wurden 16 so genannte Zukunftsbilder innerhalb sieben konkret erfahrbarer, alltäglicher Lebenssituationen entwickelt. Über 7.231 Internetnutzer in Deutschland, Schweden, USA, Brasilien, China und Südkorea wurden zu diesen 16 Zukunftsbildern im Sommer 2011 befragt.”
TNS Infratest: “Im Ergebnis zeigt sich deutlich: Für viele der zukünftigen Anwendungen sind hohe Akzeptanz und Zahlungsbereitschaft vorhanden. Allerdings haben die Menschen weltweit große Befürchtungen im Hinblick auf den sicheren Umgang mit ihren persönlichen Daten. Für den Erhalt der starken Wettbewerbsposition muss die deutsche Industrie am Wachstum in den neuen Leitmärkten auch im IKT-Bereich verstärkt teilnehmen. … Visuell aufbereitet und auf sieben elementare Lebenssituationen bezogen, lässt die Auseinandersetzung der Befragten mit diesen Zukunftsbildern Aussagen über die Bedeutung individueller Erfahrungen, Einstellungen und kultureller Prägungen für die Akzeptanz und Nutzung neuer Anwendungen zu. ‘Ohne den differenzierten Blick in die Zukunft und die Bewertung möglicher Zukunftsbilder ist zielgerichtete Innovation nur schwer möglich. Damit Deutschland auch als IKT-Standort eine führende Rolle einnimmt, halte ich es für sehr wichtig, dass sich der Münchner Kreis in der Zukunftsstudie kontinuierlich um Erkenntnisse zu zukünftigen Entwicklungen, Herausforderungen und Chancen der IKT bemüht’, betonte Franz Josef Pschierer, IT-Beauftragter der Bayerischen Staatsregierung.”
Zukunftsbilder der digitalen Welt 2011 [PDF]: “[S.30] Im Mittelpunkt der vierten Zukunftsstudie des Münchner Kreis und seiner Projektpartner steht der ‘normale’ Nutzer von IKT und Medien: dessen Einstellungen, Vorlieben, aber auch seine Vorbehalte und Befürchtungen zu ausgewählten zukünftigen IKT-Anwendungen. Denn letztlich können nur die Anwender und Nutzer vor dem Hintergrund ihrer individuellen Erfahrungen neue Perspektiven für die zukünftige Technikentwicklung und Gestaltung der digitalen Zukunft eröffnen. Repräsentativ befragt wurde in sechs Ländern: Deutschland und Schweden stellvertretend für Europa, die USA und Brasilien für Amerika sowie China und Korea für Asien. … [S.29] Die Themenbereiche Kompetenz, Sicherheit und neue Geschäftsfelder in einer digitalen Gesellschaft werden in der Zukunftsstudienreihe des Münchner Kreis als kontinuierliche Analysepfade verfolgt. Die Zukunftsbilder der vorliegenden Zukunftsstudie lassen hier neue Erkenntnisse zu. … [S.28] Schutz persönlicher Daten. Die Nutzer haben weltweit – vor allem aber in Deutschland – große Befürchtungen im Hinblick auf den Umgang mit ihren persönlichen Daten. Insbesondere befürchten sie unbefugte Datenspeicherung und kriminellen Datenmissbrauch. Die bereits in den vorausgegangenen Zukunftsstudien aufgezeigte international steigende Bedeutung eines sicheren Umgangs mit persönlichen Daten wurde nun auch aus Nutzersicht bestätigt. In der Konsequenz muss sich der Anspruch auf den Schutz der Persönlichkeit und der persönlichen Daten noch stärker im gesellschaftlichen, politischen und individuellen Bewusstsein sowie in institutionellen Regelungen verankern. … [S.38] In Bezug auf den Schutz der persönlichen Daten zeigt sich überall eine große Angst vor unbefugter Datenspeicherung und kriminellem Datenmissbrauch, was sich bereits in den Einschätzungen zu den verschiedenen Zukunftsbildern widerspiegelt. Dabei erstaunt nicht, dass das Thema in Deutschland noch sehr viel problematischer gesehen wird als in China, Korea, Schweden, den USA und Brasilien. Gleichzeitig wird insbesondere bei der Datenspeicherung deutlich, dass Anwendungen wie der Online-Datenmanager zukünftig interessant sein könnten. … Aus gesellschaftlicher und individueller Sicht ist es somit offenbar noch nicht gelungen, den Anspruch auf den Schutz der Persönlichkeit und der persönlichen Daten – der als ‘informationelle Selbstbestimmung’ expliziter Bestandteil der deutschen Verfassung ist – durch geeignete Maßnahmen so umzusetzen, dass sich dies im Bewusstsein niederschlägt und in IKT-Systemen breite Anwendung findet. … [S.39] In Bezug auf das Thema ‘Vertrauen in Technologien‘ zeigte sich in allen Ländern und über alle Zukunftsbilder: Die größten Sorgen in Bezug auf Technik machen sich die Befragten hinsichtlich des Ausfalls der Technik, Zuverlässigkeit und falsche Anwendung und dadurch entstehende Haftungsfragen. Hierin liegt für Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Politik eine große Herausforderung. … Gleichzeitig muss sich die Gesellschaft noch stärker auf digitale Veränderungen einlassen und darf nicht abwarten, bis die Praxistauglichkeit in anderen Ländern demonstriert und sämtliche kritische Fragen abschließend beantwortet wurden.”
FS: “Die Zukunftsstudie 2011 des Münchner Kreis stellt die Menschen als Nutzer von Technologie mit ihren Bedürfnissen, Erfahrungen und Befürchtungen in den Mittelpunkt einer internationalen Befragung. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich deutlich: Für viele der zukünftigen Anwendungen sind hohe Akzeptanz und Zahlungsbereitschaft vorhanden. Allerdings haben die Menschen weltweit große Befürchtungen im Hinblick auf den sicheren Umgang mit ihren persönlichen Daten. … Zur Sicherung der industriellen Wettbewerbsposition muss die deutsche Industrie am Wachstum in den neuen Leitmärkten auch im IKT-Bereich verstärkt teilnehmen. – Für den Erfolg in diesen Wachstumsmärkten braucht es koordinierte Aktivitäten von Politik und Wirtschaft. Nötig sind spezifische Zielmarktprogramme, um detaillierte IKT-Markt- und Nutzerkenntnis zu erlangen und in erfolgsversprechende Anwendungen umzusetzen. – Produkte sollten nicht mehr zuallererst mit Blick auf den Heimatmarkt entwickelt werden.”
TNS Infratest: “Die aktuelle Studie des Langzeitprojekts Monitoring Deutschland Digital – Der IKT Standort Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich 2011 zeigt, wo der IKT-Standort Deutschland im 15-Länder-Ranking positioniert ist. Top-IKT-Experten haben die wichtigsten Handlungsfelder identifiziert, um Deutschland mit Spitzentechnologien an die Weltspitze zu bringen. … Deutschland erreicht 56 Prozent der bestmöglichen Performance und platziert sich unter 15 IKT-Nationen gemeinsam mit Schweden auf Rang sechs. – Die Position Deutschlands hat sich im Vergleich zum Vorjahr um eine Position von Rang sieben auf Platz sechs verbessert. – Deutschland positioniert sich als viertstärkste Nation mit 5,1 Prozent Weltmarktanteil nach IKT-Umsatz im TNS-Benchmark. – Wesentliche Standortnachteile sind der strukturell bedingte IKT-Fachkräftemangel, die strikten Regelungen des nicht angepassten Datenschutzgesetzes, die unzureichenden Investitionen in Bildung, keine steuerliche Begünstigung der Forschungsförderung. – Die größten Chancen bestehen beim zügigen Ausbau einer leistungsfähigen, flächendecken Netzinfrastruktur sowie der Fokussierung auf die strategischen Wachstumsfelder. – Branchenübergreifende Wachstumsfelder: Cloud Computing wächst bis 2020 um jährlich 20 Prozent – die Wachstumsraten betragen bei Embedded Systems 8,5 Prozent jährlich bis 2020 und bei IT-Sicherheit 8,9 Prozent bis 2025. – Industriekonvergenzfelder: In 15 Jahren verdreifachen sich die Umsätze mit E-Energy, steigen die Umsätze mit Elektrofahrzeugen auf das Fünfzehnfache, verdoppeln sich die Umsätze mit E-Health und verneunfachen sich die Umsätze im Bereich Smart Home.”
Monitoring-Report Deutschland 2011 [PDF]: “[S.12] Deutschland und Schweden belegen im Ranking der bedeutendsten 15 IKT-Standorte gemeinsam den sechsten Platz. … Deutschland erreicht in keinem der 23 Indikatorbereiche den ersten oder zweiten Platz. Die beste Platzierung für Deutschland ist ein dritter Platz beim Kernindikator ‘Anteil der Internet-Werbeumsätze am Werbemarkt’. … [S.13] Die USA liegen mit unverändert 69 Punkten als Zweitplatzierte knapp hinter Südkorea. Sie positionieren sich beim ‘Marktanteil der IKT-Umsätze am Weltmarkt’ und bei der ‘Internethostdichte’ als bedeutendster IKT-Standort im TNS-Benchmark. … Im Teilbereich ‘Infrastruktur’ erreicht Deutschland mit 80 Indexpunkten eine überdurchschnittliche Performance. Allerdings verschlechtert sich Deutschland um zwei Punkte. Damit belegt das Land unverändert Rang fünf und teilt sich diesen mit Norwegen. … [S.14] Die deutsche Performance im Bereich ‘Anteil der IKT-Exporte an allen Exporten’ [ausschließlich IKT-Services und Software] verschlechtert sich um zwei Punkte auf 23 Indexpunkte. Deutschland platziert sich mit 6,8 Prozent nach 6,9 Prozent im Vorjahr erneut auf Rang neun. … Bei den ‘E-Commerce-Umsätzen‘, verstanden als Umsätze mit Produkten, die online von Internetnutzern bestellt, aber nicht notwendigerweise über das Internet bezahlt werden, liegt Deutschland mit E-Commerce-Ausgaben von 222 Euro pro Internetnutzer wie im Vorjahr auf dem neunten Platz. Die durchschnittlichen Umsätze pro Internetnutzer stiegen um 11 Prozent. Großbritannien liegt wie im Vorjahr auf dem ersten Platz mit 518 Euro pro Internet-Nutzer. … [S.19] Schaffung von Vertrauen in Netz- und Informationssicherheit als Voraussetzung zur Ausschöpfung von IKT-Potenzialen – Urheberrecht: Die zunehmende Anwendung digitaler Technologien bei der Verbreitung von Inhalten in Bild, Ton und Schrift macht einen neuen Interessenausgleich zwischen Urhebern, Rechteverwertern und Nutzern notwendig. … Datenschutz: Privatsphäre und Schutz personenbezogener Daten wurden vom Bundesverfassungsgericht zu Grundrechten erklärt. Angesichts einer freiwilligen Einbindung großer Mengen privater Daten in soziale Netzwerke und eines wachsenden kommerziellen Interesses daran ist eine Aktualisierung des Datenschutzgesetzes geboten. … Netzneutralität ist der von ökonomischen und politischen Erwägungen unabhängige und somit diskriminierungsfreie Wettbewerb von Datenpaketen, um die technisch zur Verfügung stehende Bandbreite in vollem Umfang nutzen zu können. … [S.122] Nutzung von sozialen Netzwerken … Deutschland kann ebenfalls eine deutliche Verbesserung vorweisen. Von 2009 auf 2010 verbesserte sich der Indexwert bei der Nutzung von sozialen Netzwerken um 13 Indexpunkte auf 61. Dies bedeutet, dass 50,8 Prozent der Internetnutzer hierzulande aktive soziale Netzwerker sind. Das bringt Platz 13 im TNS-Benchmark der Länder. … [S.123] Die hohe Nutzung von Facebook führt zu entsprechenden Umverteilungen der Werbebudgets. Jede fünfte Online-Werbung in Deutschland wird auf Facebook geschaltet. … Social Media verändert die Art, wie Menschen kommunizieren – auch im Geschäftsleben. Gartner geht davon aus, dass bis 2014 jeder fünfte Angestellte in seiner beruflichen Kommunikation Social Networks statt E-Mails verwenden wird.”
Heise: “Die Studie von TNS Infratest sieht Deutschland bei der Mobilfunknutzung und vor allem bei den Online-Werbeumsätzen in führender Position. Im Bereich E-Commerce hat Deutschland seinen ersten Platz aus dem vorigen Jahr an Südkorea verloren. Dies liegt vor allem an der ‘schleppenden Adaptionsgeschwindigkeit’ beim E-Government, der beim E-Commerce mitgewichtet wird, erklärte Studienleiterin Sabine Graumann von TNS Infratest. … Die schlechteste Platzierung belegte Deutschland mit Rang 13 bei der Nutzung sozialer Netzwerke: 51 Prozent der deutschen Internetnutzer halten sich in ihnen auf.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus + Google News
Google News: Spotlight section will include articles that have been publicly +1′d by contacts; http://eicker.at/GoogleNewsPlus
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: Over the past few months, myriad sites across the web [including Google News] have adopted the +1 button to help start conversations. But there hasn’t been an easy way for signed-in users to see what news articles your friends are enjoying – until now. – Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1′d. You can see their profile pictures and click through to their Google+ profiles, just like on Social Search. And of course you can +1 the stories too, expressing your opinion and optionally sharing with your circles.”
SEL: “If you are logged in while using Google News and your friends or contacts have used the Google +1 button to like the stories in your Spotlight section, that information will show up in the Spotlight section near the article. It will even let you click on the name of your friend/contact to see their social profile on Google.”
RWW: “Yesterday, Google converted Google Chat to be based on G+ circles rather than email addresses. Earlier this month, the +1 button came to image search. YouTube and Google Reader have both gotten complete G+ makeovers, though YouTube’s hasn’t rolled out yet. – Google Web search has treated public G+ posts as search results since soon after the social network launched. Google is insisting upon making its new social layer a pervasive, personalized filter for the whole Google experience.”
VB: “Since it’s eventually going to be part of everything Google does on the web, some have determined Google+ usage to be practically unavoidable, or at least inevitable. – ‘We think of Google+ as a mode of usage of Google,’ said Google executive Bradley Horowitz in a recent interview with VentureBeat. – He went on to say that the Google+ features around other Google products will serve as ‘a way of lighting up your Google experience as opposed to a new product. It’s something that takes time to appreciate, even internally. It’s easy to think of Google+ as something other than just Google, and I think it’ll take more launches before the world catches up with this understanding.‘”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Failures
Google doesn’t get social: Google Plus‘ failures are plenty – but calling them dead? http://eicker.at/GooglePlusFailures
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Gerrit Eicker
Slate: “Google+ Is Dead – The search behemoth might not realize it yet, but its chance to compete with Facebook has come and gone. – [A] social network isn’t a product; it’s a place. Like a bar or a club, a social network needs a critical mass of people to be successful-the more people it attracts, the more people it attracts. Google couldn’t have possibly built every one of Facebook’s features into its new service when it launched, but to make up for its deficits, it ought to have let users experiment more freely with the site. That freewheeling attitude is precisely how Twitter – the only other social network to successfully take on Facebook in the last few years – got so big. When Twitter users invented ways to reply to one another or echo other people’s tweets, the service didn’t stop them – it embraced and extended their creativity. This attitude marked Twitter as a place whose hosts appreciated its users, and that attitude-and all the fun people were having-pushed people to stick with the site despite its many flaws (Twitter’s frequent downtime, for example). Google+, by contrast, never managed to translate its initial surge into lasting enthusiasm. And for that reason, it’s surely doomed.”
Scoble: “I wish I had never heard of Google+’s brand pages – The problem is that there’s no editorial tools for anything posted to our Google+ account. Google+ brand accounts are woefully inadequate for public companies’ needs. … Yes, Facebook didn’t have those features for its brand pages at first either but then when Facebook first came on the scene no one thought they would use it for business. Heck, when I first heard about Facebook it was still for college students only. … Did anyone really think these things through? Why did they take five months to get done? – Anyway, this is just a way for me to tell anyone thinking of signing up their company for a Google+ brand account to think twice. You might, because you signed your company up for such a thing, get saddled with an entirely new job that you might not like one bit. One that you’ll find that Google didn’t equip you for success in.”
Ruble: “I have decided not to post here for the time being. I will leave my profile up. Google+ is great. I wish them luck. Really i do. But I have to make choices about where I spend my time and for me that’s Twitter, Facebook and soon Tumblr – where I will be doing more so. It’s where I get the most value for the time invested. So, adios for now. See you on one of those networks. I may change my mind one day, but right now this is my plan. See you online.”
GigaOM: “[T]he problem with many of these criticisms – as with Manjoo’s premature obituary writing – isn’t just that social networks take time to evolve, and users need time to find out what they are useful for and what they aren’t useful for (Twitter is a perfect example of that, since its own creators didn’t really know what it was for when they built it). The problem is that they are seeing Google+ as JASN: just another social network. … But Google has made it clear that it has a lot bigger plans for Google+ than just making it a Facebook clone. Chairman Eric Schmidt has said the company wants to make the network an identity platform for all of its properties… So yes, Google+ is noisy for some, and for others is a ghost town. Many of its features are raw and need work, like the brand page rollout. But Google is not just trying to build a place to share photos of your cat – it wants Google+ to be a social layer for everything it does, and it has some powerful levers it can pull when it comes to encouraging people to use it, such as search and email. The full impact of that integration remains to be seen, but it is far too soon to call the network dead or a loser. It’s barely even the third inning.“
Gerrit Eicker 09:29 on 26. January 2012 Permalink |
Google: “In just over a month we will make some changes to our privacy policies and Google Terms of Service. This stuff matters, so we wanted to explain what’s changing, why and what these changes mean for users. – First, our privacy policies. Despite trimming our policies in 2010, we still have more than 70 (yes, you read right … 70) privacy documents covering all of our different products. This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google. … While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy. – Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies – and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the web. … The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. … Second, the Google Terms of Service-terms you agree to when you use our products. As with our privacy policies, we’ve rewritten them so they’re easier to read. We’ve also cut down the total number, so many of our products are now covered by our new main Google Terms of Service. … Finally, what we’re not changing. We remain committed to data liberation, so if you want to take your information elsewhere you can. We don’t sell your personal information, nor do we share it externally without your permission except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order. We try hard to be transparent about the information we collect, and to give you meaningful choices about how it is used… We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy practices as well as enable Google to improve the services we offer.”
Google: “One policy, one Google experience – We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. – This stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service now. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012. … Our new policy reflects our desire to create a simple product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. … If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. … By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.”
Google, Privacy Policy Preview: “As you use our services, we want you to be clear how we’re using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy. – Our Privacy Policy explains: What information we collect and why we collect it. How we use that information. The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.”
Google, TOS: “Our Services are very diverse, so sometimes additional terms or product requirements (including age requirements) may apply. Additional terms will be available with the relevant Services, and those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those Services. … You may need a Google Account in order to use some of our Services. … Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. – When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.”
GigaOM: “It certainly makes for a more personal experience – and really just confirms the direction Google has been heading in for a while – but it’s not necessarily a more-welcome experience. Personalizing someone’s search experience is potentially great, but potentially problematic if another user on the same device sees results they were never supposed to see. – That said, Google is making the right decision in announcing the changes up front and so publicly highlighting what the changes will be. … Google and Facebook, of course, are in a slightly different situation than are most other web companies. Both companies have settled with the FTC around charges of privacy violations, and among the settlement terms for both is that they can no longer misrepresent their privacy claims. So expect to this trend of privacy transparency – even as the sites continue to overhaul their platforms – to continue for at least the next 20 years.”
TC: “The main change, say Google, is that if you are signed into your Google account, Google will combine user info across its products to better serve account holders. As Google says: In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. – This is exemplified, says Google, in its more personalized search product that debuted recently, and received major criticism. You’ll see Google+ posts and data in your search results, and allows for the seamless transfer of data in between other services, including Docs, Calender, Gmail and more, says Google.”
pC: “The announcement is a bit puzzling given that so much of Google is integrated already. Indeed, the company has been taking flack for weeks after forcing users to opt-in to Search Plus Your World, a feature that displays personalized search results replete with friends, photos and so on. – So why the major announcement? In a word, YouTube. – While Google’s core products are already bundled into its search results (if a user is logged in), the popular video sharing site is not. … For Google users, this means that the personalized search results will likely become more personal still with the inclusion of video. … This policy may not only represent a way to fend-off antitrust hawks but, in the long term, a potential competitive advantage for Google.”
eWeek: “Google is changing its privacy policies around Google+, streamlining identity services and paring the terms of service. The move makes opting out hard, which will raise regulatory flags. … Google’s streamlining comes as regulators in the United States and Europe have criticized Google, Facebook and other Web service providers for offering long-winded and legally gnarled privacy protocols. … The Federal Trade Commission, already looking into Google’s search business practices and which had previously ordered Google to submit to 20 years of audits after breaching user privacy with its Google Buzz feature, will certainly take notice. … Increased personalization across Google Web services will also help improve Google’s ad targeting. Google downplays this benefit, but it is a major reason why it is changing its privacy policies; it wants to refine its ad-serving features to boost relevance for each of its 1 billion search users.”
Economist: “Some of this is welcome and arguably long overdue. Too many web firms have a smorgasbord of privacy documents laden with legal jargon that appear deliberately designed to deter people from reading them. If Google’s new master policy is more accessible and concise than its existing plethora of notices – and preserves the safeguards embedded in them – then it will be a great improvement over the status quo. – But the search firm’s plan to expand the ways in which it can use data provided by someone signed into a service such as Gmail, its e-mail service, or YouTube, its video-streaming site, is likely to provoke heated debate. … Critics fret that this is a departure from its traditional habit of giving people power over their data (for instance, by letting them extract it easily from Google if they want to as part of the firm’s “data liberation” initiative).”
Gizmodo: “Google’s Broken Promise: The End of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ – This has been long coming. Google’s privacy policies have been shifting towards sharing data across services, and away from data compartmentalization for some time. It’s been consistently de-anonymizing you, initially requiring real names with Plus, for example, and then tying your Plus account to your Gmail account. But this is an entirely new level of sharing. And given all of the negative feedback that it had with Google+ privacy issues, it’s especially troubling that it would take actions that further erode users’ privacy. … So why are we calling this evil? Because Google changed the rules that it defined itself. Google built its reputation, and its multi-billion dollar business, on the promise of its ‘don’t be evil’ philosophy. That’s been largely interpreted as meaning that Google will always put its users first, an interpretation that Google has cultivated and encouraged. … This crosses that line. It eliminates that fine-grained control, and means that things you could do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone number come March 1st. If you use Google’s services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy. Yet a real concern for various privacy concerns would recognize that I might not want Google associating two pieces of personal information.”
TC: “You Call That Evil? – There’s a nice little insider quarrel going on over Google’s just-announced privacy policy changes. A number of sites and commentators have let their fingers jump up mechanically in accusatory fashion. Google, caught red-handed being evil! – Here, I think, is a time when the word ‘bias’ is actually warranted. Everyone wants so badly for Google to do something truly evil (instead of just questionable or inconvenient) that their perceptions of Google actions are actually being affected. … What about not being able to opt out? What is it people want to opt out of exactly? The new, simplified privacy policy? What would you opt into instead – the older policy? Being tracked per-site instead of by account? Perhaps you would you like to opt into pre-Timeline Facebook as well? Maybe you’d like to opt out of Apple’s restrictions on selling your iBooks? How, specifically, are people being harmed by the new policy, and in what way can they be demonstrated to have less privacy than under the old system, under which the exact same data and behaviors were recorded, analyzed, and packaged? Google is not collecting more information, they are not selling new information, they are not changing anything but the level at which the data is collated before you are anonymized into an ad group (baseball, travel, Boston, gadgets) and exposed to ads targeted to your general type of consumer. – And of course, you can opt out of the part worth opting out of: ‘Opt out if you prefer ads not to be based on interests and demographics.‘ … The worst one can say about this change is that it causes yet more overlap between Google services that people may not have requested. If you call that evil, you’ve forgotten what evil looks like.”
Forbes: “Internet Freak-out Over Google’s New Privacy Policy Proves Again That No One Actually Reads Privacy Policies – What’s changing is not Google’s privacy policies but its practices. By combining information from across all of its services, Google will be able to better target users with ads, offer more innovative features, and, importantly for Google, better compete with Facebook. … I hate to tell you all, but Google already knew all these things about you – to get a sense of how much Google knows about you, check out the Dashboard – and already had permission to combine that info, they’re just now actually going to do that. And kudos to them for being so explicit about that.”
GigaOM: “The bottom line is that whether you see Google’s new privacy policy as evil or not depends on what you think the company’s purpose is: Is it to help users find information that is relevant to them? If so, then pooling information is probably good. But if Google’s potential distortion of that purpose with its personalized search and favoritism towards Google+ results has you suspicious about its motives, then it might look a little evil. In the end, you have to answer the question: ‘Does Google have my best interests at heart?’“