Has the Google bubble burst? (Herald Sun, Australia)

GOOGLE'S stock price sank overnight in the wake of a report hinting that boom times may be over for the internet darling's money-making advertising.

It may be Google's data, but it's you they'll arrest
(Computerworld Malaysia)

Right now, Google feels like a much bigger threat to my privacy than Microsoft and Yahoo combined.

For example, try asking Google what it's planning to do with all the user information it collects after it has fully digested DoubleClick? Or why it needs to retain IP addresses for Google searches? Good luck getting any response at all.

In fact, Google's biggest privacy accomplishment in the last year has been deciding to hold onto users' IP addresses for only 18 months instead of 24. Gee, I feel more anonymous already. Don't you?

Last week, Google's Public Policy Blog posited the argument that IP addresses are not personal information, because they are often shared between machines and users. (Though, personally, my home office has a static IP.) This makes sense until you think about it for 15 seconds. Strangers have also occupied my home address in the past, and probably will do so in the future. But if you ring my doorbell today, I'm the one who answers.

Of course, Google won't share this information with anyone... unless they have a court order. Or a National Security Letter. Or maybe the spooks have already tapped into one of the Network Access Points outside the Googleplex.

SEOs of the World, Unite!
(Search Engine Watch Forums)

January was a bad month for SEO reputation. Will February be SEO Groundhog Day?

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, along comes "SEO Expert" the world's most evil cartoon character.

We don't know whether we should sue, or just let him do battle with Cartoon Barry. Danny calls these attacks "SEOs are scumbags" incidents. He says, "I find myself with little energy to push back against them with yet another defense of the industry."

So SEOs of the World, Unite!

How Does One Find New Clients for Search Engine Optimization? (Search Engine Roundtable)

A High Rankings Forum member is starting his own SEO consultancy firm and wants to know how to find clients. Where would you look if you're just beginning?

EU: Search Engines Under EU Rules (PhysOrg.com)

European data privacy regulators said Thursday that Internet search engines based outside Europe must also comply with EU rules on how a person's Internet address or search history is stored.

Germany's data protection commissioner Peter Scharr, who has just stepped down as the head of the group, said last month that IP addresses, a string of numbers that identifies a computer, should generally be regarded as personal information.

Treating IP addresses as personal information would have implications for how search engines record the data they need to understand search patterns and correctly bill online advertisers for the number of times their ad is viewed.

The Black Swan, Or You Can't Predict The Next Google
(Information Week)

If you read one book this year, make sure it's Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable." Taleb's thesis is that everything the experts think they know about forecasting is wrong, and if you think you can predict the future performance of the stock market from a study of past trends, you're gonna be losing lots of money. And don't go looking for the next Google, either, because it's going to come out of left field.

Bill Gates vows fight to finish with Google
(IBNLive)

Microsoft Corp plans to invest heavily in Web search to compete against Google Inc, even if it fails to acquire Yahoo Inc, the company's chairman Bill Gates said on Monday.

"We can afford to make big investments in the engineering and marketing that needs to get done. We will do that with or without Yahoo," said Gates in an interview with Reuters.