Posts on State of Search about ‘News’

Google committed “significant breach” of UK’s Data Protection Act, but gets away

Just last week we told you that Google might face charges in the UK for taking e-mails, e-mail passwords, addresses and other data when collecting Streetview data in the UK. After Google admitted that it had taken that data The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said they would now re-investigate after previous investigations had finished already.

The UK information commissioner, Christopher Graham, now confirms Google committed a “significant breach” of the UK’s Data Protection Act. He however does not feel that Google needs to pay a fine. Google however has been ordered to delete the data it collected and sign an undertaking that it won’t happen again. Plus they want Google to further train their employees. (more…)

Google launches its ‘blurred’ Streetview in Germany

There has been no country which has been so hesitant when it comes to Googles Streetview as Germany. Yes, in the UK there were people chasing Streetview cars, as were there people in France, Greece and Spain who highly opposed to the taking of the pictures. But nowhere the opposition was bigger than in Germany.

Now the biggest European country finally is accessible in Streetview. Well, a little bit. The Germans have demanded that before launching they could decide whether or not they wanted their homes to be in there. This resulted in the fact that Streetview now excludes 244,000 addresses that Germans have demanded be pixelated. (more…)

Discussion: what does the new Places Search mean?

Last week Google decided to take a completely different route when it comes to local. With the roll out of Place Search Google made huge changes to the way they are presenting local results. The “7 Pack” is gone, the map moved to the right, local results now are dominating the page on specific searches.

Google made these changes with a purpose. But why? Is Google aiming to go local all the way? Or is there something else? What do you think?

One thing which is remarkable is that Google has made the map “floating” which means that if you scroll down, the map scrolls down too, overlapping the ads…:

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State of Search radioshow: an hour earlier tonight (in Europe!)

As you might know every Tuesday State of Search broadcasts their very own radioshow on Webmasterradio. Every week Bas and Roy discuss the latest on what is going on in the world of search and social.

Tonight the show airs again. BUT tonight the show is not on the air at the regular hour. Usually you can listen live at 8pm every Tuesday CET, which is 7 in the UK, and in the US it’s at 2pm on the East Coast and 11am on the West Coast. But because somebody decided that the US and Europe would not change their daylight savings time at the same time, the show this week is ONE HOUR EARLIER IN EUROPE.

The show now airs 7PM CET / 6PM UK. So when you are still in the office at 6, be sure to tune in and listen to the show!

On the show today we have Nichola Stott, one of our bloggers, on as a guest. With Nichola we discuss the different events which went on last week, working for Liverpool FC and off course we talk about the changes Google made to Places. Follow the discussion on that topic here.

Speaking of the radioshow, you can listen back all the past episodes on our special radio page here on State of Search, but you can now also listen to them through Facebook! We updated our Facebook page and added the shows there.

Go check out what we did on Facebook and like it!!!

Google Instant is making us (or Google?) money!?

When Google rolled out Instant Search only a bit over a month ago (feels like its been there forever doesn’t it?) the first reaction of some was that it meant “the death of SEO”, which was rubbish. The second reaction was that it was “the death of PPC”. Which made more sense, but also was said too quickly. Now it turns out that it was rubbish also, Instant is not costing advertisers money, its making advertisers money!

That is at least if we can believe a research performed by Marin Software, one of the larger managers of advertiser spending on search engines. They noticed that the number of times their advertisers showed up in Google grew by 9% and the clicks on those ads grew with 5%. This lead to an increase of 2% in spending on ads. Which makes both advertisers and thus Google as big winners of the launch of Google Instant. (more…)

Don’t like Streetview? “You can move” Eric Schmidt jokes on CNN…

It is becoming some sort of a running gag. Eric Schmidt showing up in tv shows, at conferences or at press conferences and then trying to be funny. And unfortunately for him, a lot of the times the jokes are misunderstood. And for a reason.

Though Mr Schmidt I think “in real life” most probably is a funny guy and his jokes might do very well in a bar or at a birthday party, I do think that the CEO of Google should choose his jokes more carefully when he is making a public appearance. His timing sometimes just seems to be wrong. Even though personally I like it, I’m not so sure it’s the best way to go for Google. Last Friday “he did it again”. In an interview at CNN he said about those not liking Streetview “You can move…”. See the interview here: (more…)

Google could be sued in UK for taking e-mail passwords and more

Google’s Streetview has been a big headache for Google in Europe. What was supposed to be a fun tool turned out to be a monster when it comes to privacy issues. At least, in Europe. In the US Streetview doesn’t seem to be causing near as much issues as in Europe where countries like Germany, France and Britain really made a big deal out of the images of their streets. (more…)

Google forced to give away data on court order: what’s next?

The web is still relatively young. Which means we still have to get used to how to work with the web combined with the rules we made offline. The web makes it a lot easier for example to pretend you are somebody else. Or to harass others. The Negative SEO panel at A4U Expo last week showed us some interesting angles on that.

But the web might be something online, it doesn’t mean that the things you do on the web are above the law. Far from actually. The rules which we have offline also count online. The problem however in many cases is: where lies what responsibility?

A ruling of the court in New York now has made a possible jurisprudence which might mean some big steps when it comes to what data for example search engines will have to share when the law is broken. (more…)

“Google Me” layers revealing itself: “Shared by”

“Google Me” is not going to be the Facebook killer which some people thought it would be when the rumors about a Google Social Network first popped up. Google CEO Eric Schmidt already announced that what Google will be releasing in the coming months are “layers”. The first one of these layers in my opinion was already there: the option to see results “from your social circle”.

We all know Google tests out stuff in the wild. That means that once in a while a blogger might see something which Google is rolling out pretty soon. It happened to Distilled’s Rob Ousbey when he spotted Instant and Patrick Altoft who spotted the full page previews. This time its Malcolm Coles who has spotted one of the testings of Google, and this might very well be one which has something to do with the social layers Schmidt was talking about: “shared by”. (more…)

Mobile web search on Android is the future? 247% increase in UK says yes

Mobile is hot, hotter, hottest. Everybody wants to be on mobile devices. And numbers show us why. Not just the ‘apps’ on smartphones like the iPhone or Android are booming, mobile search also is. I also find myself using mobile search more often these days. When discussing something at a dinner party and wanting to find out something quickly I often take out my phone and do a quick search. And I am not the only one, if we can believe the whitepaper which was conducted by research firm YouGov for the annual Tamar Search Attitudes report. (more…)

Google suggests to autocomplete

Sometimes little changes have a bigger story to them. That is the case with a name change which Google announced this weekend. After they changed Google Local to Google Places last year again a product gets a name change: Google Suggest becomes Google Autocomplete.

In a blogpost wrapping up the week Google shortly mentioned the change in names for Google Suggest. The feature, which was first launched in 2004, was according to Google renamed “As part of our launch of Google Instant, we thought “Autocomplete” fit better with the new functionality—automatic queries and automatic results.” (more…)

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