A Crash Course in Filter Bubbles aka Google Search+ Your Web

The chances are over the last few days if you have even the slightest passing interest in SEO you will have come across Google Search Plus Your Web (of Search+ to it’s friends) It’s easily one of the biggest single changes in the UX of Google search ever made and is the endgame many have foreseen in Google’s march towards personalisation.

While talking about it many have referred to changes as encouraging ‘filter bubbles’ while the name is fairly self-explanatory I thought many people might benefit of a ‘primer’ on the filter bubble concept and some further reading which you might find interesting in light of Google’s changes. … Continue Reading

Google vs Facebook On Privacy and Security

Both Google and Facebook have major privacy issues. And both of them made deals with the FTC to kind of get a grip on that. But who is worse, Google or Facebook? Let’s take a look… … Continue Reading

Google holds back Organic keyword data in Analytics – lobotomising the marketer!

A Few weeks back one of my employees, Ciaran, said to me “Have you heard? Google is going to hold back keyword data in Analytics?” My reply? “Ha! That’s ridiculous, they would never do that. That would be shooting themselves in the foot”. Ciaran, I owe you an apology. Although they are not  really shooting themselves in the foot, more like sawing of their foot and leaving it in a box with a grenade.

Saying I’m outraged is an understatement, but I’m probably more shocked that there is not more noise in the internet marketing industry (especially SEO) than it is. People wake up, Google is lobotomising us! … Continue Reading

Another Look at Page and Schmidts Quotes

We have talked before about Eric Schmidt and his famous quotes. Some think he was crazy for saying them, others believe that if you listen carefully you can get a lot of information out of them.

The Consumer Watchdog in the US is not a big fan of Google and the way they handle privacy. They ‘hit’ on Google once in a while, like in their latest video below. You might agree or disagree, but one thing is for sure: it is very nicely made.

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Google Take Out: is Google Taking Privacy Serious Now?

The left hand navigation of your Google Profile account when you are editing it has something special to it. Not that you can make your profile as nice as possible, but if you look well, most of the items are related to privacy.

After “Account overview” there is the “Profile and privacy” tab, which lets you change all sorts of privacy settings. In the sidebar you’ll also find ‘connected accounts’ which enables you to look and edit accounts connected to your name. And finally there is the “Data liberation” tab. This option to get all your data out of Google has never been that visible before. Is Google taking privacy more seriously? … Continue Reading

Dutch researcher downloads 35 million Google Profiles

Aren’t they lovely, the new Google Profiles? And you can put so much information in it. Information which everybody can see. And download… We’ve discussed the privacy matters around the profiles before and I will be talking about the presentation I did at SMX about the profiles soon too. But there is a lot more to the Google Profiles. A Dutch researcher was able to download, export and import 35 million Google Profiles, with data.

The researcher Matthijs Koot, working for the University of Amsterdam, is writing a research paper about anonymity and privacy. For that research he decided to look at the Google Profiles. He noted that a lot of the information can be downloaded pretty easy. … Continue Reading

UK Cookie Law Deferred for One Year

The BBC is today reporting that UK websites have been given one year to comply with EU Cookie Laws by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  So what does this mean for UK business websites? Put simply it means that no business website will be charged for not complying with the EU Guideline until the UK agrees on a workable solution.

In fact, it seems that the UK that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently working with browser manufacturers to offer the cookie blocking/acceptance  feature into their technologies – indeed they have said that is the only option they are currently considering. … Continue Reading

Dutch government discourages Google Maps and encourages the paid version

Now, I’m all for privacy and being open and making people understand of the consequences when it comes to the use of some services, especially Facebook and in some cases Google. But in this case I think there is somebody being a bit to eager.

In the Netherlands, the Local Affairs Office decided to warn Dutch municipalities for the use of Google Maps because of privacy issues. This warning was based on a 68 page counting research which showed that many municipalities use Google Maps on there websites but don’t have any idea about the privacy consequences of that usage. The most remarkable result of the report however is that they advice the municipalities to use not another free service, but the paid Google Maps service, which costs 7000 euros a year or develop a tool for 550.000 euros. Talk about useless spending of public money… … Continue Reading

Retargeting: a blessing or a curse?

A few days ago Google released a piece of research celebrating the success of AdWords Remarketing, the retargeting functionality of the Google AdWords advertising program. They included some success numbers from different advertisers, showing increases in conversions, cuts in costs-per-conversion and higher click-through-rates at lower costs per click. Other impressive numbers Google released include the reach of 84% of the people on remarketing lists accounting for advertising impressions to over 500 million Internet users worldwide. It’s fair to say retargeting is a blessing according to Google.

However where Google is happy about Remarketing some users are not. A search in Google Realtime for “google ads following me” shows a lot of users complaining about being chased around the web by Adwords ads. It’s a sound a hear a lot around the web. … Continue Reading