With Europe's OK, Google closes DoubleClick acquisition
(Tech news blog - CNET News.com)
European antitrust regulators on Tuesday approved Google's $3.1 billion merger with DoubleClick, paving the way for a blockbuster deal in Internet search and publisher-based advertising tools.
The Commission also analyzed the potential effects of nonhorizontal relationships between Google and DoubleClick, following concerns raised by third parties in the course of the market investigation.
These relationships concern DoubleClick's market position in ad serving, where Google, by controlling DoubleClick's tools, could allegedly raise the cost of ad serving for rival intermediaries, and Google's market position in search advertising and/or online ad intermediation services, where Google could allegedly have required purchasers of search ad space or intermediation to also purchase DoubleClick's tools.
"Instead of ensuring competition, (the Commission) and the FTC have literally paved the way for the emergence of a global digital duopoly over online advertising," the Center for Digital Democracy stated.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Google shares could fall another 20 percent
(Yahoo! News)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O), whose shares have plunged more than 40 percent since November, could fall almost another 20 percent due to the U.S. economic slowdown and aggressive spending by the Internet search engine company, according to the latest issue of Barron's.
"While a short-term bounce might follow the stock's swift descent, the shares are likely to head even lower if analysts start slashing their earnings estimates to reflect today's tougher operating environment, as they should be doing," the report said.
The article's headline questioned whether Google shares, which closed on Friday at $433.35, could be headed below $350.
(Yahoo! News)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O), whose shares have plunged more than 40 percent since November, could fall almost another 20 percent due to the U.S. economic slowdown and aggressive spending by the Internet search engine company, according to the latest issue of Barron's.
"While a short-term bounce might follow the stock's swift descent, the shares are likely to head even lower if analysts start slashing their earnings estimates to reflect today's tougher operating environment, as they should be doing," the report said.
The article's headline questioned whether Google shares, which closed on Friday at $433.35, could be headed below $350.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Web search engines slow on the update
(Information World Review)
A researcher has uncovered serious shortcomings in how web search engines update their databases.
None of the search engines in a study by Dirk Lewandowski updated their results on the same day as there was a change in the web pages they were indexing.
“There’s simply no use in indexing a page daily if the search engine is not able to show this as a result on the same day,” said Lewandowski.
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We are always working to improve the freshness of our index while ensuring we don’t waste webmaster bandwidth by downloading pages that change infrequently.
“We have recently made changes to our freshness strategy, including deploying support for conditional gets.”
Google had no comment to make on the findings.
Yahoo did not respond by the time we went to press.
(Information World Review)
A researcher has uncovered serious shortcomings in how web search engines update their databases.
None of the search engines in a study by Dirk Lewandowski updated their results on the same day as there was a change in the web pages they were indexing.
“There’s simply no use in indexing a page daily if the search engine is not able to show this as a result on the same day,” said Lewandowski.
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We are always working to improve the freshness of our index while ensuring we don’t waste webmaster bandwidth by downloading pages that change infrequently.
“We have recently made changes to our freshness strategy, including deploying support for conditional gets.”
Google had no comment to make on the findings.
Yahoo did not respond by the time we went to press.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Search Engine, Sputtr.com, Releases New Single Multi-Search Feature (Cheap Web Hosting Directory)
London, United Kingdom - March 5, 2008 - Multi-search engine, Sputtr, has released a major new feature, designed to provide users with the ability to actively participate in building the comprehensive search engine solution.
Steffen Hilgemann, Founder and CEO of Sputtr.com explained, ''This new feature allows our users to upload and submit completely new search engines to Sputtr's multi-search engine. By doing so, our users will actively contribute towards building the most comprehensive and user-friendly multi-search engine on the Internet today.
Sputtr already includes industry leaders such as Google, Yahoo, Ask, and many more. But in the future we would like to extend our reach to the thousands of alternative or niche search engines that today's internet users increasingly utilize to find relevant results in an ever more complex online world.''
London, United Kingdom - March 5, 2008 - Multi-search engine, Sputtr, has released a major new feature, designed to provide users with the ability to actively participate in building the comprehensive search engine solution.
Steffen Hilgemann, Founder and CEO of Sputtr.com explained, ''This new feature allows our users to upload and submit completely new search engines to Sputtr's multi-search engine. By doing so, our users will actively contribute towards building the most comprehensive and user-friendly multi-search engine on the Internet today.
Sputtr already includes industry leaders such as Google, Yahoo, Ask, and many more. But in the future we would like to extend our reach to the thousands of alternative or niche search engines that today's internet users increasingly utilize to find relevant results in an ever more complex online world.''
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Unjustified Google Panic (Seeking Alpha)
Remember the panic which ensued when comScore (SCOR) announced that Google's paid-click rate was declining? Henry Blodget went so far as to call it a "Google Disaster", and the shares plunged.
But it turns out that the comScore data aren't nearly as disastrous as they might look at first blush. The company has a long blog entry on the subject which explains that it very much looks as though Google is doing this on purpose. In a nutshell, Google is running fewer ads, with higher minimum bids, which are more relevant for web searchers.
Remember the panic which ensued when comScore (SCOR) announced that Google's paid-click rate was declining? Henry Blodget went so far as to call it a "Google Disaster", and the shares plunged.
But it turns out that the comScore data aren't nearly as disastrous as they might look at first blush. The company has a long blog entry on the subject which explains that it very much looks as though Google is doing this on purpose. In a nutshell, Google is running fewer ads, with higher minimum bids, which are more relevant for web searchers.
Monday, March 3, 2008
comScore Search Engine Rankings: Google Up, Double Digit Growth for MSN Live (Search Engine Watch Blog)
Rich search engines got richer in January in the monthly search engine rankings. Among the Top 50 properties worldwide some surprises surfaced this month as comScore reported total searches grew at a 7.9 percent clip.
Sites owned and operated by Google enjoyed 7.7 billion searches. No shock, maybe awe.
Yahoo sites again came in a distant second (2.5 billion searches) -- again growing at less than half Google's overall 8 percent rate.
Google.com grew even faster - 9.4 percent. YouTube's modest 2.6 percent growth rate slowed the core search engine down.
Microsoft sites at 1.1 billion searches means a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would only total 3.6 billion searches.
Rich search engines got richer in January in the monthly search engine rankings. Among the Top 50 properties worldwide some surprises surfaced this month as comScore reported total searches grew at a 7.9 percent clip.
Sites owned and operated by Google enjoyed 7.7 billion searches. No shock, maybe awe.
Yahoo sites again came in a distant second (2.5 billion searches) -- again growing at less than half Google's overall 8 percent rate.
Google.com grew even faster - 9.4 percent. YouTube's modest 2.6 percent growth rate slowed the core search engine down.
Microsoft sites at 1.1 billion searches means a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would only total 3.6 billion searches.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Search Engines Must Comply With Strict EU Privacy Rules (Mashable!)
What goes in the US doesn’t necessarily carry over to the European Union. European data privacy regulators issued a short report which says that all internet search engines, even those based outside Europe, must comply with EU privacy rules. Does this include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo? Yup. As the EU folks put it, “Search engines fall under the EU data protection directive if there are controllers collecting users’ IP addresses or search history information, and therefore have to comply with relevant provisions.”
These rules include users’ consent to their data being collected, as well as giving users the ability to object to or verify their personal information. The regulators, known under the “Article 29 Working Party” moniker, are working on a more detailed report; it will be interesting how it pans out, because users, for example, at this time don’t really have a good way of making Google change their personal data.
Reacting to the short report, Google gave the standard “we’re working with everyone to improve privacy online for all users” answer; Yahoo didn’t comment, while Microsoft said that companies should remove the IP address from saved information. The full report by the Article 29 Working Party is due in April.
What goes in the US doesn’t necessarily carry over to the European Union. European data privacy regulators issued a short report which says that all internet search engines, even those based outside Europe, must comply with EU privacy rules. Does this include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo? Yup. As the EU folks put it, “Search engines fall under the EU data protection directive if there are controllers collecting users’ IP addresses or search history information, and therefore have to comply with relevant provisions.”
These rules include users’ consent to their data being collected, as well as giving users the ability to object to or verify their personal information. The regulators, known under the “Article 29 Working Party” moniker, are working on a more detailed report; it will be interesting how it pans out, because users, for example, at this time don’t really have a good way of making Google change their personal data.
Reacting to the short report, Google gave the standard “we’re working with everyone to improve privacy online for all users” answer; Yahoo didn’t comment, while Microsoft said that companies should remove the IP address from saved information. The full report by the Article 29 Working Party is due in April.
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