Article

In search engine results, glimpses of what we wonder:

By Quentin Hardy and Matt Richtel / New York Times News Service

Published: November 26. 2012 4:00AM PST

There are the questions you ask friends, family and close confidants. And then there are the questions you ask the Internet.

Search engines have long provided clues to the topics people look up. But now sites like Google and Bing are showing the precise questions that are most frequently asked,

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Staying off the search engine’s grid:

Admittedly, its hard to stay off all the grids all the time. Sometimes you worry about energy – another time its the pesky info-theft by the big companies after your marketing profile.

All major search engines collect, store and share search data – that is how they make much of their money. Some, such as Google claim that the data is held in a way which is “anonymous and untraceable” but that is not always the case. Certainly Google can assist any state or law enforcement organisation with a legitimate enquiry (for a small fee).

This data can also be accessed by rogue

Article

Search engine bill before German parliament:

tSearch engines, German newspaper publishers and users have traded barbs ahead of a copyright amendment to be debated Thursday by Germany's parliament. The government bill would allow charging of large content recyclers.

An intellectual property bill long sought by Germany's struggling newspaper houses has prompted a campaign by search engine Google. It has called on Internet users to dissuade parliamentarians from adopting the bill ahead of its first reading.

"We are pleased that this important debate about the German Internet is finally taking place," said a Google spokesman.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the New Year 2013 How to Take Of Your SEO from the Current Level to the Next Webmasters and SEO’s are very eager to know what holds in future for internet search, five years from now. The two consecutive years 2011 and 2012 played a great part in changing the face of SEO and search via Google. Businesses started showing disinterest in making their websites SEO friendly after these catastrophic algorithm updates (possibly 500 per year) got dumped upon low quality sites. Now, why should you avoid SEO? Do you fear that Google penalizes sites that do SEO? If so that's your ignorance. SEO is trick only for those practitioners who do black hat techniques. Despite any algorithm updates, it’s really important for you to know that your site is optimized for search engines

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Why Google 'vertical' search shouldn't face antitrust action:

It's likely we'll finally see the U.S. Federal Trade Commission make a decision on whether to take antitrust action against Google in the coming days. Among the charges is the idea that Google somehow is being unfair to competitors with "vertical" search. That has been, and remains largely to me, a laughable argument.

If the FTC did take action on this issue, it would be punishing Google for doing exactly what a good search engine should do.

Make no mistake. There are issues where Google deserves some antitrust attention. But vertical search isn't one of them. Taking action over that would be like punishing CBS for not airing ABC television programs or being upset The New York Times runs its own sports section rather than that of the Los Angeles Times.

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Google is publisher according to Australian court:

Google will have to be quicker to remove defamatory content, at least in Australia, after it lost a $200,000 libel action there. The decision may strengthen Lord McAlpine's hand if the Tory peer, who obtained settlements of £185,000 and £125,000 from the BBC and ITV respectively, decides to target the search engine next.

Google has, until now, been relying on court decisions which absolve it of liability for defamation on the basis that, because it provides search results automatically using algorithms, it is not responsible for online content produced using its search engine. In England the courts have agreed with this analysis so far and in the Tamiz case earlier this year Mr Justice Eady held that Google should not be regarded as a publisher.