Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Computerworld reported that 600 tweets are sent per second - 50 million per day which is significant for many reasons. Not the least of which is that 3 years ago Twitter handled 5,000 tweets per day! As well, in early 2009 Twitter raised $35 Million in its third round of financing with no business plan. What’s not clear if 10% of those sending tweets account for 80% of the total volume. Obviously something is happening to cause Twitter’s amazing growth, and it bears watching.

Yahoo, Twitter in deal to share content

A report from the LA Times states that Jim Stoneham, vice president of communities for Yahoo! described the Yahoo! deal with Twitter:

…will enable users to take material from both sites without having to leave either one. Specifically, users will be able to access their Twitter feed on Yahoo's sites. They will also be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo. And Yahoo search and media properties will include Twitter updates.

Hopefully this will help revive Yahoo!’s fortunes and expand Twitter’s reach.

Doonesbury Character Roland Hedley Tweets with 14,000 Followers

Followers of tweets was made a little more interesting in a recent National Public Radio story of “Roland Hedley, a fictional Fox News correspondent created by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, has attracted more than 14,000 followers since he began "tweeting."” As a matter of fact, Garry Trudeau wrote a book about tweets from Roland Hedley entitled My Shorts R Bunching. Thoughts?: The Tweets of Roland Hedley. So maybe all 50 Million tweets a day are not all that serious if a cartoon character tweets regularly! Nonetheless this is worth watching given these astonishing numbers.

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In 3 months Facebook grew another 16.7% to 350 friends worldwide which has led Facebook to create a simpler privacy policy to allow users to control who sees “each individual piece of content you create or upload.” All the more amazing since Facebook grew 200% between August 2008 and August 2009. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent blog that stating among other things that 50% of Facebook friends are member of regional networks, and today there are networks for the entire countries of India and China. The new plan is to remove these regional networks and hopefully create a simpler network and improve its privacy policy.

Facebook Statistics Are Amazing

The current Facebook statistics are pretty incredible and particularly that 35 million (10%) of the Facebook friends update their status every day:

• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 55 million status updates posted each day
• More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

So is it any wonder that Facebook needs to be vigilant in managing personal information of its friends and users. Time will tell how Facebook’s privacy policy works out.

Google Searches for 2009 - Facebook is Number 2!

As 2009 ends Computerworld announced the top search engine hits for the year and of course Michael Jackson was number one, but Google’s number two search of the year was Facebook! Also on Google’s top 10 list of searches was “Twitter, Windows 7 and Tuenti, which is a Madrid-based, invitation only social networking site that some call the Spanish Facebook.” AOL and Yahoo! also listed Michael Jackson as the top searched name, but from the lists varied widely- “AOL and Yahoo! lists popular search terms like '70s icon Farrah Fawcett, who also died this year, socialite Kim Kardashian, singer Rihanna and actress Megan Fox.” Interesting message about the search engine wars that Google, AOL, and Yahoo! would be so different.

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No major changes in the war over search engines in past two months, first place Google grew to 65.4% (+.5%), second place Yahoo! declined to 18% (-.8%), and third place Bing (Microsoft’s newly named engine formerly “Live Search) grew to 9.9% (+.5%). Interestingly the two greatest search increases are for YouTube (+7%) and Bing (+8). So messages can we get from the US search engine competition? Well for starters Google’s and Bing’s growth make sense, but what about the decline for Yahoo!? These numbers may make a Microsoft Bing alliance with Yahoo! more likely.

Wolfram|Alpha -Bing’s New Ingredient?

Microsoft recently announced that Bing would add an enhancement that relies on the computational information from the relatively new search engine named Wolfram|Alpha. There is a video interview of Stephen Wolfram on a Microsoft blog in which he says "What we’re seeing with Microsoft and Bing now is a first step toward taking computational knowledge and deploying it in an application, in this case a search engine."

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I assume everyone knows that the SEO industry has grown dramatically over the past 14 years (since the 4th Big Bang of free Internet Explorer with Windows 95), and one can even get a SEO Certification. Of course SEO is a success because Google and most search engines save all user inquiries for 18 months so that search engines can monetize this information and also as by-product maybe help improve the value of searches for users and websites. Stay tuned as SEO and search engines continue to evolve.

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Apparently large scale phishing attacks resulted in compromises to tens of thousands of webmail accounts, hardly a surprise. However it is pretty amazing that so many individuals fall for the phishing tricks. As a matter of fact this morning I got an email purportedly from PayPal indicating that my account had been hacked and if I would only provide personal information including credit card information, social security number, date of birth, well you get it. Of course it would be incredibly stupid for me, or thousands of these phishing victims to believe the emails that come to our inboxes. What can we do to protect ourselves?

OnGuard Online

Apparently few people take the time to review OnGuard Online before they get duped by phishing and spam attacks. However the OnGuard Online is a great website hosted by a number of federal agencies and non-profits including: Federal Trade Commission, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, Computing Technology Industry Association, National Crime Prevention Council, Better Business Bureau, and Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). OnGuard Online provides cute videos and games to educate consumers about the risks associated with: phishing, computer security, email scams, spam, VOIP, among other topics. The OnGuard Online site also provides publications and allows consumers to file complaints.

Federal Government to the Rescue?

If the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 is any indication it’s probably unlikely that the US government can do much to protect citizens since there seems to be an increase in spam and phishing since 2003, not a reduction as was hoped when the 2003 law was passed. There are estimates that 80% of all email is unsolicited which should be reason enough for individuals to be more leery of suspicious phishing emails. Hotmail claims it has 400 million accounts so the number of compromised accounts could be huge and reports from the APWG estimate that phishing attacks will continue. Since the US government does not seem capable of managing cyber security and the White House cannot get anyone to be Cyber Czar is it any wonder that the webmail accounts are compromised by the thousand?
 

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Watching the world economy meltdown in the past year it’s not much of a surprise that Google value increased by about 25% to number 7 in the world with an estimated value to an $32B! Other technology companies did not fare as well as reported by BusinessWeek and Interbrand:IBM increased by about 2%, Microsoft lost about 4%, Intel declined by 2%, and Oracle lost 1%. So Google’s growth during the down economy means that Google must be doing many things right.

Google Could Become The Leader Source of News

With the announcement of Fast Flip Google now has a site where users can get all the news they need without ever leaving Google. Google reports that the “service is being initiated with the cooperation of about three dozen publishers, including major news outlets like BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek; magazines like Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, Esquire and Good Housekeeping; and Web-only publications like TechCrunch, Salon.com and Slate.” In the meantime Microsoft added a service to Bing called Visual Search which adds a new way to view news and expand the uses of Bing search engine. Given the troubles in the newspaper world is any wonder that Google and Microsoft have new plans to take greater roles in news?

Google Finally Using DoubleClick to Boost Display Ads

After making a fortune on small text ads now Google will make redirect its energy to boosting display ads. No one should be surprised by Google use of DoubleClick to migrate to displays ads and be in direct competition with Yahoo! Yahoo! is the current king of display ads and Google’s move will definitely impact Yahoo!’s advertising revenue. We need to stay tuned to see how things play for Google and Yahoo! Stay tuned.
 

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Behavior Advertising

A recent privacy blog discussed the February 2009 Federal Trade Commission Staff Report entitled “Self-Regulatory Principles For Online Behavioral Advertising,” and the opt-out questions posed by Congress are at the heart of whether new Internet privacy laws are required. The Internet economy, and certainly Google is chief example, are dependent upon the current behavioral advertising model and surely will be impacted by a change in the privacy laws in the US.

eMail Surveillance

Most US citizens believe that their emails are private. However employee privacy regarding emails in the workplace (not personal webmail) may be misplaced since in the US emails are private to employers and in the EU, Canada, and other countries emails are private to the employees. Nevertheless there are more questions being asked in Congress about how many e-mails are being collected in the name of security. The recent report that National Security Agency exceed its authority by intercepting emails and phone calls continues to be debated in Congress. Given President Obama’s cybersecurity agenda it will be interesting to see how the US congress can reconcile the expectation of personal privacy and need for Internet security. These debates will continue as the Internet evolves. Stay tuned for more.
 

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Apparently the US Justice Department is investigating anticompetitive behavior concerning among others Google, Yahoo! , and Apple since many Internet companies restrict recruiting and hiring of one another’s employees. Since anticompetitive employment agreements in the technology industry are the norm it’s particularly interesting that the Justice Department is pursuing these companies. Internet and IT companies rely of these non-competition provisions to protect trade secrets and Intellectual Property so it will be interesting to see how this develops.

EU Unhappy with Microsoft for Not Distributing a Browser

Following the antitrust dispute in the EU regarding Microsoft’s alleged monopolization of the browser market, Microsoft recently announced that when it distributes Windows 7 there not be any browser. The EU regulators are unhappy with this solution, even though on the surface it does seem that the complaining browser companies (Google, Mozilla, and Opera) should be pleased since they claimed that Microsoft’s embedded Internet Explorer violates antitrust laws.

Are Antitrust Laws Out of Touch with the Internet?

Since antitrust laws evolved from the need to try control monopolies in the 1800’s how much sense does it make to still use these concepts in the Internet world of 2009? Microsoft’s deployment of its operations systems took over the PC market was great for the users since before Microsoft there was no operating system standard on PCs. My Internet Third Big Bang was the 1981 advent of the PC, not just because IBM and Microsoft got into the market, but as result of the PC Clones using Microsoft operating systems a de facto standard developed on Microsof. As a result users could depend on continuity and consistency between software and applications. So maybe the US and EU should re-evaluate antitrust laws for the Internet and IT world that we live with today and in the future.

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There are reports that Microsoft’s new search engine known as Kumo is about to be released (ultimately it may be called “Bing”) which will replace “Live Search.” Apparently Microsoft leaked copies of Kumo recently and from all reviews there’s nothing too radical, but what is radical is the Wolfram|Alpha search engine which was seen on TV news last week. The Wolfram|Alpha search engine provides users very different information, however since it is so radically different it remains to be seen how successful its approach will be.

Update on Search Engine Rankings

comScore just released its new search engine rankings without much surprise- Google increased slightly from 63.7% to 64.2% of all Internet searches between March and April 2009 while Yahoo!, Microsoft, Ask, and AOL were relatively flat. Since Microsoft (20.4%) and Yahoo! (8.2%) searches combine for 28.6% of all Internet searches, there has been renewed speculation that Microsoft and Yahoo! will form an alliance to try to get a larger market share and be more competitive with Google.

Microsoft vs. Google- Search Engines and Browsers

From earlier blogs you will recall that Google is complaining about Microsoft’s deployment of Internet Explorer in the EU as anticompetitive. Interestingly part of Microsoft’s defense is apparently that by expanding competition in the browser market in the EU will only encourage more Google Internet searches which will be anticompetitive to Microsoft. So it will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s deployment of Kumo may allow Google to argue to the EU that Microsoft’s defense should fail since Microsoft is aggressively competing with Google in the search engine market.

What do you think? I welcome comments.
 

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Since Google accounts for more than 63% of all Internet searches, it’s no wonder that Google’s stock fell last week when Google users had significant problems when Google’s servers were overloaded and Google services were operating at a crawl. Google claims that there were problems in 3 of their Asian data centers (out more than 30 data centers worldwide) which affected about 14% of Google’s users. Many Internet users rely on Google for services beyond searches, including gmail, Google Apps, and Google Latitude to name a few. Google’s server failures meant many users could not conduct business during this outage period.

Protecting Privacy Google

A recent article in Computerworld gives Google users 6 tips about protecting privacy:

1. Know your privacy rights: Use the Google Privacy Center.
2. Protect your content on the services you use.
3. Turn off the suggestion feature in the Chrome browser.
4. Turn off Web History.
5. Opt out of interest-based ad serving.
6. Add SSL to Gmail.

However, since most Internet users do not take the time to review privacy policies it’s unlikely that this advice will be heeded by many Google users.

More Google

Google announced a number of new services for desktops and mobile phones which includes search capabilities in multiple contexts so that when searching from a cell phone, Google will take into account the GPS location and what other mobile users have searched in that locale. Also Google will offer a new tweak to search on Search Options that allows a user to drill by topics, time, or images. About to make its debut is a much hyped search engine known as Wolfram Alpha.

Google Too Successful?

A big question may now be has Google been too successful? As Google offers these new features to sell ever more ads space, surely Google hopes to draw more users. Without question the recent system slow-down is an ominous sign of potential bad news on the horizon. No doubt Google’s search engine competitors like Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL are watching with great interest to see if they can capture Google users who may abandon Google if the system outages become a pattern.
 

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No surprise at all that the New York Times reported that there has been a rash of mistrials because jurors are searching Google and Wikipedia about the parties, lawyers, and subject matter of the trials. As well, jurors are sending texts, emails, and Tweets (on Twitter) during trials. The traditional rules of trial require that judges admonish jurors to do no independent research about the dispute and to only rely on the evidence presented during trial and argument of the lawyers, and not discuss the case with anyone, even other jurors until deliberations. Actually in days gone by it was relatively impossible to stop jurors from doing their own investigations of going to crime scenes or reading about parties in newspapers, or watching television stories about trials in process. There was virtually no way to police jurors from discussing among themselves the issues in dispute before deliberations. But in today’s Web 2.0 world it’s not possible to restrict jurors at all.

Power of Cells

Without a lot of imagination it is easy to realize that our cell phones allow jurors to text, send emails, post blogs, and send Tweets, not to mention search the Internet while sitting in a jury box or room. So even if courts were to confiscate jurors’ cell phones during trial, surely when the jurors go home at night they can use their cells and the Internet to their hearts’ delight.

Evidence Present in Court

Lawyers spend most of their time in preparing for trial by examining trial witnesses in depositions and reviewing documents to determine what evidence will be presented during trial. The opposing parties do everything possible to restrict bad evidence under the rules of evidence and procedure, and it’s the job of judges to determine what evidence may be shown to jurors. Actually evidence is presented in trial by asking witnesses to identity and authenticate, and then it’s up to the jury to weigh all the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses who vouch for the evidence.

Accuracy of Information on the Internet?

One of the sharp realities of the Internet is that there is no assurance that just because information is found on the Internet that it’s true and accurate. This has been one of the challenges of the Wikipedia in that the articles are posted and updated by individuals who may, or may not want the truth to be portrayed. As a matter of fact many judges will not allow lawyers to cite Wikipedia as legal authority because of skepticism of the authenticity of the content. On the other hand just because Google, Yahoo!, or other search engine happens to push a particular link, pdf, or website to the top of its search list does mean that there is any truth to the content found at that url.

Where are we Headed?

It’s likely that the mystique of a jury trial where jurors only rely on evidence presented in the courtroom will never be the same. Without question the number of mistrials will only grow and cause great difficulty for the judicial system.
 

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Facebook claims to have more than 120 million active members and it is the 4th most trafficked site in the world. Of course there are many other popular social network sites including LinkedIn and MySpace to name a few, and only to make things more interesting a recent report indicates that more than half of MySpace visitors are 35 or older. Not much of a surprise that more mature individuals are getting into social networking as the Internet evolves.

What about the Content?

The terms of use vary between Facebook and other social network sites, but one common provision in the terms of use is that the users grant these sites a worldwide license to the user content that is irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferrable, royalty free to use, copy, or just anything they want. Facebook also limits its liability to the amount of monies paid (if any) or $1000. Even users of Google Apps grant Google a license to their content.

Web Universal ID?

Facebook recently announced Facebook Connect which is an Universal ID that will allow its users to only logon once and then navigate to third party sites. Not much of a surprise that Google, Yahoo!, and MySpace are also developing similar technology. However, it seems that either few individuals don’t care or understand that they are providing Facebook, MySpace, Google, and the all the rest with licenses to their personal content. Regardless of what users understand the growth of the social networking websites will be based on increased data from their users’ content which will generate more online advertising revenues.
 

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The saga of where Yahoo! is headed took another turn when Google decided that it was not worth the federal scrutiny for Google and Yahoo! to work together. Clearly to the two largest search engines working together meant an increase in revenue for Yahoo! Microsoft a spurned suitor made it clear that it did not want Google and Yahoo! working together. As well, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been reviewing this joint marriage since it was first announced.

How Did the Elections Impact the Cancellation?

Google’s decision to abandon the Yahoo! deal happened a few days after the election. However, Google CEO’s Eric Schmidt campaigned for President-Elect Obama, so one might have concluded that Google would have continued with this deal. In an unrelated event Thomas Barnett, Assistant AG for the Antitrust division of the DOJ, who was skeptical of the Google deal, resigned the day following Google’s decision to abandon the Yahoo! deal. What’s the message here?

What’s Going to Happen Now?

All indications are that Yahoo! has to do something for economical survival and maybe a new deal with Microsoft will be more appealing since the deal with Google ended. Google is the 800 pound gorilla in the search/ad business and everything it does to expand will continue to anticompetitive scrutiny, not unlike virtually every move that Microsoft makes leaves it subject to court scrutiny. However a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is anything but a sure thing since the DOJ will want to scrutinize any proposal that may be anticompetitive. As a matter of fact, a DC District Judge still gets reports about Microsoft’s compliance with the 2001 Antitrust Settlement.
 

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