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The future of search is the recent I/v with Eric Schmidt, CEO of google, which outlines a bit more than the need to change your name to avoid bad teenage pix. Schmidt talks about Google being AI, the place where search has become syntax and google can tell you what you want to do next, not what you're looking for now.

A GROUP of Google's partners in China have sent an impassioned plea to the internet giant, saying their businesses are in jeopardy if Google closes its Chinese search engine, and demanding to know how they will be compensated.

The deal has been done, it's only the matter of how Googld deal with those partners and its financial problem accordingly.

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.

PJFenwick is doing a PhD on facebook privacy and his explorations have shown that even when you lock up your settings, your friends (and friends of) can leak your information all over the place. "But by far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they've completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you're a friend. They don't show up in search results. They don't show up on friends' lists. You can't send them messages. If you try to navigate to their user page (assuming you know it exists), you get redirected back to your homepage. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find. However like dark matter, dark users are observable due to their effects on the rest of the universe. If a dark user comments on a stream entry, I can see that comment. More importantly, I can see their user-ID, and I can generate a URL to a page that will contain their name. I can then watch for their activities elsewhere. Granted, I can't directly search for their activity, but I can observe their effects on my friends. For want of a better term, I've been calling this "dark stalking". What makes this all rather chilling is that I'm doing all of this via the application API. If your friend has installed an application, then it can access quite a lot of information about you, unless you turn it off. If your friend has granted the application the read_stream privilege, then it can read your status stream. Even if a friend of a friend has done this, and you comment on your friend's status entries, it's possible to infer your existence and retrieve those discussions through dark stalking."

SEDO (Search Engine for Domain Offers) has partnered with VeriSign (the operator of the valuable .com and .net gTLDs, amongst other network inrastructure) to conduct a .TV auction between 1 April - 8 April 2010. Having a semiotic association with rich media content and a memorable quality, it seems likely the auction will attract bids from brand names already harnessing rich media content and looking to capitalise on new revenue streams that the expansion of gTLDs offers. Reserves will be around $5000 for each auctioned name ( a list of all names can be found at http://sedo.com/search/searchresult.php4?auctionevent=tvPremium&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us ) causing some annoyance amongst those who have already made costly .TV purchases in excess of the reserved price.

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."

The topic of domain names as a commodity isn't new, but the prices auctions are fetching for names is. When $2 million is refused for 'jeans.com' it paints a picture of the cost/benefit ratio of domain investment - where the potential financial benefits are clearly outweighing initial costs. The trend developing is for multinational companies to buy domain names with commonly understood verbs (eg dating.com) or nouns (eg books.com). It strengthens their own branded domain name and targets consumers who are undertaking searches on the net for the thing they want - be it a service or good - as opposed to searching for the company that sells that thing. Does it suggest that searching habits are changing? Is brand awareness and brand loyalty losing power?

Google announced to use SSL to secure user's data, keep it hard for hackers and government to spy on users' searches.

Privacy may not be completely dead with Google promising a broader future roll out of an SSL encrypted Google search meaning companies will not be able to track where traffic to a site comes from...

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.

Seeing google's step out from the users' view, people are angry at what the government has done.

GOOGLE is considering a plan to keep many of its operations in China, even though it is resigned to closing its flagship search engine over a censorship dispute with the Chinese authorities.

I reckon, google is still waiting for the time to cut in, after all it's the biggest market.

google revealed information about government agencies' requests for removing searched contents from google, Australia is the ninth.

The search giant has hit back at state requests (or court orders) to censor content on YouTube or in Google search by releasing a map showing the number of requests for censorship by country. Google has stated this move is "part of its continuing championing of openness of information" and insists the timing is purely coincidental regarding the complaint from 10 nations that Google releases new products without due consideration for privacy implications (as posted by Liz Gan), Reading the comments in these articles is always insightful. Someone points out that a lot of the requests may simply relate to slanderous items requested by courts to be removed (rather than evil government censorship requests).

There has been an underlying shift in the way we live our lives, as a result of technological developments.

A survey which was released as part of the Pacific-wide Privacy Week (last week) shows that people in New Zealand are very concerned about their Internet privacy.It is of main concern how social networks use personal information and how search engines and websites are tracking online behaviour for targeted advertising.

"Google sees 'everything'"\nLooks at cloud computing, benefits, and risks to security. Interesting point around search practices with Google "..everybody is constantly asking Google about the things they're working on. In effect, we're putting a tremendous amount of faith in Larry and Sergey and their claim that they don't do evil".