eBay yanks ads from Google AdWords network

The article below is directly related to my earlier posting about GOOGLE's incessant invasion of private citizen Email with their KEYWORD searches. As I have ranted about before, GOOGLE scans all your communications (email, chat, documents) that you have not unchecked the boxes for on your options. Then they turn those KEYWORDS over to advertising, which then uses that private conversation data to send you tailored advertising in your side bars. Test it out as I described in a previous post, if you think I am wrong.

Reuters
Published on ZDNet News: June 13, 2007, 7:00 PM PT

Online auctioneer eBay has pulled its advertising from search company Google's AdWords network in the United States, an eBay spokesman said on Wednesday.

"This is part of an ongoing experiment to look at how we market across all media channels," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.

AdWords is Google's advertising system that shows ads based on words in Web searches and is the source of virtually all of Google's revenues.

Technology trade publication Computerworld, which originally reported the move, cited a source as saying it was in response to Google's decision to hold a party starting at the same time as an eBay conference for merchants who sell on its site.

The Google event, called the Checkout Freedom Party, is part of an effort to lobby eBay to accept its online payment system, known as Checkout, which competes with eBay's PayPal.

Durzy acknowledged that eBay was disappointed about the Google event. "We don't view that kind of activity as an appropriate activity for one partner to do to another."

GOOGLE Rated Worst on Invasion of Privacy - TOLD You So - Validated After Ranting for a Year

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.

In a report released Saturday, London-based Privacy International assigned Google its lowest possible grade. The category is reserved for companies with "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy."

None of the 22 other surveyed companies _ a group that included Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL _ sunk to that level, according to Privacy International.

I just LOVE this article! I rant and rave to anyone who will listen about the SERIOUS global implications (think genocide) of the GOOGLE search machine's invasion of personal citizen rights to privacy in email, chatting and all web based communications. When will the Populous wake up to the fact, that unless you are a computer genius, you can not possibly avoid un-checking all the boxes and refusing all the options that allow GOOGLE to strip you of your personal data, give it to advertisers by reading all your email and other communications?

IF you think I am wrong, then try it yourself. If you have given GOOGLE permission to search your emails and communications, you can easily see for yourself what I mean. Send someone a letter containing a given key word that is good for advertising. For example, flowers or Plasma television sets or even medical illnesses. Then you will see a ad sense bar to the right of your email screen. That will have ads that are in response to your keywords. So if you write about flowers, all sorts of flower sites come up, or if you write about diabetes you get TONS OF PHARMA ADS.

Is this an invasion of personal privacy? Does anyone agree with me? Am I yelling into the wind as always?

While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to "achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy," Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings.

The health care implications are enormous. If GOOGLE is allowed to search your private PC and your are a health care provider, then where is HIPAA? Can your child accidentally bring up and read your patient records when searching for something in GOOGLE?

Here is the GOOGLE Response:

In a statement from one of its lawyers, Google said it aggressively protects its users' privacy and stands behind its track record. In its most conspicuous defense of user privacy, Google last year successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests.

"We are disappointed with Privacy International's report, which is based on numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services," said Nicole Wong, Google's deputy general counsel.

"It's a shame that Privacy International decided to publish its report before we had an opportunity to discuss our privacy practices with them......

Hoping to placate its critics, Google has pledged to begin erasing the information about users' search requests within 18 to 24 months.

The company says its stockpiles data to help its search engine better understand its users so it can deliver more relevant results and advertisements.

As Google becomes more knowledgeable about the people relying on its search engine and other free services, management hopes to develop more tools that recommend activities and other pursuits that might appeal to individual users.

Here is Privacy Internationals':

Privacy International contacted Google earlier this month, but didn't receive a response, said Simon Davies, the group's director.

The scathing report is just the latest strike aimed at Google's privacy practices.

An independent European panel recently opened an inquiry into whether Google's policies abide by Europe's privacy rules.......

Privacy International is particularly troubled by Google's ability to match data gathered by its search engine with information collected from other services such as e-mail, instant messaging and maps.

"Under the microscope, it turns out that Google is doing much more with our data than we ever imagined," Davies said.

Founded in 1990, Privacy International said it reached its preliminary findings after spending the past six months reviewing Internet privacy practices with the help of about 30 professors, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. The group plans to update the report in September.

Seven of the Internet companies and Web sites included in Privacy International's analysis received the second lowest grade of "substantial and comprehensive privacy threats." This group included: Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Apple Inc., Facebook.com, Hi5.com, Reunion.com, Microsoft's Windows Live Space and Yahoo.

None of the companies or sites received Privacy International's top grade, but five rated as "generally privacy-aware." They were: BBC, eBay Inc., Last.fm, LiveJournal.com, and Wikipedia.com.

Of course, everyone can not take up every issue, BUT this issue has such broad implications, much like bad PHARMA practices, that SOMEONE in POWER needs to speak up. I think perhaps, that the government might step in, although I don't think this is the correct approach to this problem.

The U.S. Gov Response:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking into antitrust concerns raised by the DoubleClick deal, but has not indicated if privacy issues will be part of the inquiry.

Black Kitty's Response:

IBM was to the Holocaust AS GOOGLE is to ______________?

I wish I did not know this answer. Maybe you have a better one for me.

Peace, Love and End to Searching Private Citizen Email for Keywords by ANYONE.

Take a Day OFF of GOOGLE - Can You Go COLD GOOGLE?

This is a very interesting article. "Has Google become so ingrained in our lives that we can’t live without it? There’s only one way to find out: Stop using Google for a few weeks." Could I go COLD GOOGLE? It seems very unlikely. Larry Dignan figures there's only one way to find out: Stop using Google for a few weeks. He's swearing off Google to try other search engines.

Is the Benign Cancer such is GOOGLE Search, Turning Malignant?

From IgniteBLOG: The Perfect Storm: Where Marketing, Technology, and Healthcare Converge - "Google is undertaking the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages.

This posting sends shivers down my back, and my fur is standing along my spine. This is REALLY scary stuff. Think about it! They will search everything. That is, all the web, all books, TV, radio, images, video, AND last but not least, ALL TERABYTE drives AND your PC's hard drive.
This way, when little David goes looking up James Blunt songs on Myspace, and he uses GOOGLE search without quotes, he could easily click on the HARD DRIVE search, and come up with Mommy's case notes, where a patient had a psychotic delusion involving Mr. Blunt.

I am guessing that GOOGLE might respond - "That is not OUR responsibility, its the fault of the Mommy. She should of set the 45 permissions up correctly to protect the privacy of her files when she installed GOOGLE DESKTOP." What is so laughingly absurd about this argument, is that as a Kitty that has to fix many computers belonging to MD Mamas, there is NO WAY in hell, that most of them can NOT even understand what is being asked by the check boxes. It is TOO easy to forget to check a box, and inadvertently violate HIPAA regulations.

What are the HIPPA regulations for GOOGLE DESKTOP and SEARCH ENGINES? I would appreciate being directed to URLs that discuss this issue. I am still scared...

IBM is to HOLOCAUST as GOOGLE is to _____________

Fill in the blank correctly (in my biased opinion) and you get a prize :) It doesn't count if I already told you the answer :)

I think Adam Bosworth knows that I am talking about. I think that he can clearly see a future where his POSITIVE intentions COULD possibly used for not so positive actions against private citizens. Just the fact that GOOGLE advertising searches for KEYWORDS in your private citizen Emails, would, in my small Kitty brain, seem to be very disturbing. However, no one even seems to notice. I challenge you all, to look at the sidebar when reading email. Notice the connection of the ads to your PERSONAL PRIVATE citizen words. Is this OK with all of you?

Tuna for Thought... Love and Almost Live Sushi..

Amazing Google Map direction from New York to Stockholm, Sweden

Check out Google Map's suggestion for how to cross the Atlantic ocean from "Question Authority." Dr. Rost decided to travel from New York to Sweden, and the GOOGLE MAP had him driving or I guess I should say - boating? swimming? across the ocean :)

I added Seattle Washington as a destination, and I was told to swim back and then drive across the country. I just WISH I could do that. I remember this boat/car I saw once... is that what they are talking about?

I hope GOOGLE fixes this BUG soon, it is embarrassing, and very funny.
read more | digg story

Is Google doing advertising evil with new model? by ZDNet's Donna Bogatin -- Is Google doing advertising evil with new model?

I Finally Woke Up to Smell the BRIIE - BLOG RSS-Type Intellectual Information Exchange (BRIIE)

Welcome to my first posting.

I am exploring the new world of GOOGLEs’ mind-blowing array of free products. I feel humbled and overwhelmed by how many different products GOOGLE is offering me, now that I have started using GMAIL. I have been so insanely busy that I have not taken time to learn any new non-work related apps is quite a while. I am having a blast!

The GOOGLE engineers seem to jump right out at you from the basic setup as inidividuals, and theyfeel very humanistic and caring to to the user. This is in strict contrast to installing proprietary software, which needs to only be done by IT experts. GOOGLE makes every level of instruction seem so nurturing, forgiving, polite and full of options for customization and your individualization as a person. It even tells you that it "understands that change is difficult." I think that is awesome!!! It is great to have supportive software in this world.

The permutations of information seeking programs like DIGG, style setting templates, people to link to, and feeds to choose, approaches infinity. People can dog paddle or Olympic style crawl in the ocean of the WEB using GOOGLE products and the links that GOOGLE supports, which are also free. Free to the end user is a very good model.

I also really enjoy the subtle way GOOGLE gives the user hints. I was typing, and in the bottom out of the way is permanently written hints for control keys. That IS very useful AND it IS NOT annoying.

MS 2003 software is TOO helpful. It is just too aggressively helpful by constantly telling you what it THINKS you mean. Moreover, it does not always give you help when you need it or give you suggestions you could readily apply. Hints about shortcuts or options that could actually improve your performance are given in GOOGLE space, but not in MS apps.

I know I am probably ignorant, and would appreciate being told how to turn off all those horrible helping suggestions [auto-format or that terrible little lightening bolt that you can’t move away from your view] and other annoying characters. I am also bothered by the waste of a huge column of space on the right side of the screen, which you need to click off each time you open WORD.

I just love how nicely the end user is treated with in the WEB space of GOOGLE products. It feels very therapeutic, welcoming, and billowing with information potential. Overall, I cannot think of a better product with a better worldview from what I have come understand about GOOGLE at this current time using BRIIE. Ironically, of course, since GOOGLE controls all the content of GOOGLE Space, they can certainly control the information about GOOGLE that hits the WEB.

The amount of information that is accessible within this new BRIIE is totally making me rethink some of my measurement models. My Tivo is totally backed up, because I am exploring the BLOG RSS-Type Intellectual Information Exchange (BRIIE) people and places instead of watching episodes of my favorites of soon to be cancelled TV shows. My WMC HD is also backed up with many episodes of shows, which were cancelled,

I listened to Adam Bosworth, Vice President of GOOGLE say many interesting things about the models behind and functionality of RRS-1 and RRS-2. From my naive end-user POV, Bosworth’s arguments seemed to correlate with my experiences using both the first and second version of the GOOGLE READER.

I am waking up after many years in a self- and academia- induced masochistic coma, and finally realizing (2 years too late) that a new form of communication had totally developed under my sleeping brain. I am ignorant about its usage, but am learning at a rapid speed. This really sucks. This does not happen often. I am an innovator end-user. I was one of the first people in my set of peers to have a PC, to use Email, the IRC, Metacrawler, SPSS, GOOGLE, Readers, etc.

Once I understand BRIIE, and I love good cheese, I will then try to use this medium to talk with like-minded individuals about my favorite topic, health care, and in specific mental health care.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first post.

JR