Google and Privacy

The issue of privacy online is becoming an acute issue - not least because major ISPs such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, are able to collect such a wealth of personal data about users of their services - name, gender, location, likes, dislikes, when you look for things, what you look for, what services you […]

Google Big Daddy loses 6 months of Platinax

I ran a search on Google for one of the more popular threads on the Platinax forums.
Was surpised to find that Google no longer has a recent copy - in fact, the cache is dated July 25th 2005.
Ran a site: check for the main keyword, and Google shows about 30 supplemental results based on similarly […]

Halifax phishing spam

I’m getting a lot of phishing spam, claiming to be from the Halifax bank (I don’t even have an account with them).
Seems the moron trying to do the phishing (the link IP is 81.215.230.160) thinks that if he sends me two dozen phishing e-mails, I’ll eventually get around to actually opening an account with the […]

Google are Vorlons

Google are like the Vorlons in Babylon 5.
I realised it this week, after having to take a lot of time off work to look after my girlfriend and kids (she did her neck in this week, being too tense in her driving lessons I bought for her birthday - the kids are going through various […]

Blurring the lines between spam and niche targeting

So I’m looking to generate content sites with custom-written news in key verticals. I’m looking at “businessdaily.com” as a potential domain name for the general business vertical.
The domain is registered, so I visit it to see if it’s for sale - and stumble into the biggest niche targeted networks I’ve ever seen.
Run by World News […]

No follow: one year on

Contents:

Blogs and links
Blogs knee-capped
The Blog Evolution
Blog Spam
Nofollow - one year on

Blogs and links
Bloggers have traditionally seen themselves as a community experience.
A blogger would comment on a topic, and a string of other bloggers would give it coverage. Great.
An issue developed: the use of trackback and comment links created a massive linking platform.
Blogs could rank very […]

Virus exposes paedophile

Funny story this from Security Focus:

A 20-year-old German man turned himself and his child-porn collection into authorities after believing a message propagated by the recent Sober virus that law enforcement officers were investigating his activities

Apparently, the Sober X (aka Sober Y) virus claims to be from a law enforcement agency - the FBI or German […]

Platinax faces legal threat

Today I received a letter through the solicitors for a company, demanding removal of material from the Platinax forums, after people claiming to be customers posted complaints about the company’s sales procedure.
I received two phone calls from a representative of the company in question, telling me to remove the threads or face the legal consequences. […]

Microsoft to be hit by an Apple?

Robert X. Cringely makes some interesting observations on the current state of tension between Microsoft and Google.
On the one hand, he makes a good point that Google are still running fit on adolescent energy, and relates to an enlightening comment by Max Levchin on product development:

Google won’t buy Skype. Google prefers to build rather than […]

Why the gbrowser is coming

Google are going to develop to their own browser. This is not a possibility - this is a necessity. The question is simply: when?
Why am I so certain of this? Simple.
According to Google’s financial report for Q1 2005, Google had revenues of over $1.2 billion.
97% of this is generated by its AdWords advertising program.
Of these […]

Death of the car salesman?

(aka: How the internet could reveolutionise buying a car)
Car salesmen
Of all the types of salesmen in the world, the car salesman is probably the most universally reviled.
In an industry of high-priced consumer goods with a relatively low product turnover, commission-based aggressive marketing has become a norm.
Whatever the car salesman is telling you is pivoted […]

The really big secret about the internet

So I asked how I view the internet - and replied “as just a metaphor for the hundreds of millions of people using it - it is a virtual community”.
True, that’s the people on the internet, who you see through the websites they build.
But the internet is more than that.
Something I often used to […]

Yahoo! publishing

So, Yahoo! look like they’re about to release Overture results in a form similar format to AdSense? About bloody time.
It’s incredible to think that Yahoo! and Microsoft have left Google to build a massive advertising empire for themselves across the net via AdWords/AdSense. Heck, at least Yahoo! can be expected to enter in soon - […]

The Future of Google?

Something I’ve wondered before now: What happens to Google after Sergey and Brin?
It’s something I’ve considered a few times, especially after The Times raised concerns about proprietary rights with the Google library project.
And after reading Dana Blankenhorn’s analysis of a young Microsoft vs IBM, in comparison to Google’s recent behaviours, I can’t help but wonder […]

IR7 beta

So Microsoft announced that the new beta Internet Explorer 7 will be out this summer.
Somewhere amongst all that thick self-fellating marketing spin is a tacit admission that Microsoft have failed utterly on security with internet explorer.
Despite arguing that they would not release a new browser before Longhorn, delays on that project, and the fact […]