Group items tagged

'Freedom of speech' for one country is another country's 'propaganda attack'. Country is also a debatable term. Google is synonymous with the USA in most reports, and indeed the US Secretary of State is responding to China over this Google issue.

Interesting comparison between Microsoft and Google experiences in China. 

Letter to Google from the Canadian government regarding their concerns about Google's disregard for privacy standards when joining GMail to the social network - Google Buzz.

Google has mistakenly collect private unsecured Wi-Fi payload data from their street view car that was meant to collect mapping data. It may be hard for google to earn back our trust after this event.

Google did not not quit China completely. The decision of Google could not influence the censorship framwork in China. Most if domestic media groups tend to disregard the claim from Google.

Survey shows that majority of adult internet users in the US Google themselves. Just shows that more people are becoming aware of how it may be difficult to detach their online selves from their offline lives.

Ilse Aigner, Germany's minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection, who usually concentrates on issues over rotten meat, genetically engineered corn and imitation cheese, recently took on a different kind of issue: the Internet and data privacy. Suddenly Aigner finds herself facing online giants Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google. Soon Google plans to send cars equipped with cameras out onto Germany's roads once again for the company's Street View project. Aigner is now insisting that Google should ask permission before violating the privacy of German citizens. The minister's attack and the following discussions reveal just how divided the German government is when it comes to the online world. The debate revolves around questions of national security and individual self-determination on the Internet. But it also concerns the power of the large giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and MySpace, as well as the question of what these companies are doing with the records of our everyday data, and how they will be able to obtain information from us, influence us or perhaps even control us in the future. It seem like, once again, a German politician is exploiting the popular issue of internet privacy and censorship in a superficial way in the hope of scoring political points.

Google launches an application to find people affected by the Chilean earthquake. Note disclaimer.  "PLEASE NOTE: All data entered will be available to the public and viewable and usable by anyone. Google does not review or verify the accuracy of this data."

A TOP Google executive told US lawmakers yesterday that the internet giant is prepared to leave China if Beijing says it must censor web searches or quit the world's most populous online market.

For Google, the project is a pre-emptive move to get a foothold in the living room as more consumers start exploring ways to bring web content to their TV sets.

"I think Google is gearing up to be potentially quite a formidable competitor to existing telcos and ISPs, given their moves into the infrastructure level," Warren Chaisatien, research director and principal analyst at Australian firm Telsyte, said. First they're making phones, now they're putting in the pipes.

Google thought they were jumping on the social networking bandwagon with this but it seems to have backfired! Talks of privacy issues puts google in a bad position with their users.

This article is dealing with the recent disclosure by Google that it had fallen victim to a cyber attack. It renews the growing sentiment that a global response to the issue of cybersecurity is needed with particular emphasis on the cooperation between the government and business sectors.

Interesting comparison was made in this article regarding President Obama's priorities. It stated that "Obama has made cyber security a top priority for his administration, and has listed the threat from cyber weapons along with other weapons of mass destruction - such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons." Is it fair to make a comparison between the threat of nuclear weapons and threats which exist within the world of computers?

GOOGLE appears increasingly likely to close down its Chinese-language search engine, in a step that would remove one of the last major foreign players from the world's most populous and fastest-growing internet market.

Even with existing knowledge of the limitation that China government has in term of internet, I still find this quite surprising. Funny enough that as a Taiwanese, we've been taught that how strickly and misarable our Chinese friends live there; as years go by, we've been told again that what our old belief of our Chinese friends is no long true and those people are actuallly "set free." Apparently, there are still lots of unbelievable limits for our Chinese friends in internet wise.

Some great analysis and summary from Fast Company on Google pulling the plug on their Chinese search engine, and how this relates to their submission to the Australian Government regarding their proposed ISP filtering. If you're not familiar with Fast Company, this is how they modestly describe themselves: "Fast Company sets the agenda, charting the evolution of business through a unique focus on the most creative individuals sparking change in the marketplace. By uncovering best and "next" practices, the magazine and website help a new breed of leader work smarter and more effectively. Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and create the future of business."

Self-googling will not sound as vain or egotistic as it may seem if it means that an individual can be aware of what information the internet holds about him or her. To me, it's a form of "damage control". 

Google in the articulation of a 'foreign policy'??? Could Internet companies develop these kinds of policies?? 

Google's position about internet filtering on China reveals the need for internet companies to develop their own foreign policies. Clay Shirky is interviewed on the topic and he shares his view about how the social effects of internet and how different are the mentalities behind microsoft and google

After declaring its withdraw from China, Google faced some arising questions such as the usage of other apps. Dashboard appeared to help the chinese people about the availability of their apps.

In the US a coalition consisting of Google, Microsoft, Ebay, AT&T, and Intel is fighting for a change of the Electronics Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) that was enacted in 1986. The coalition stresses the fact that the Internet has changed tremendously since then and the law therefore needs to be adapted. It protects files in the homes of people but law enforcement entities do not need judicial warrant to view files stored with ISPs, in the cloud or get GPS data from mobile phones.\nDefinitely a case worth fighting for - and an opportunity for Google & Co. to get good press. What about the law that allows checking and copying peoples' computer harddrives at airports though?

Bug off standards! It is "www.google.com", not "http://www.google.com"!!