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Posts Tagged “Google
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Your Privacy is an Ilusion
Google doesn't care about widget users, security analyst says
SecTheory CEO Robert "RSnake" Hansen, a security consultant — and therefore a professional fearmongerer — for clients like Microsoft and eBay, says computer fraudsters can insert malicious JavaScript and HTML into Google Gadgets — widgets for Google's customized iGoogle homepage. Google doesn't screen the widgets for this code, he claims, and so users put themselves at risk of data theft and computer-killing worms. "Google cares more about tracking users than they do about consumer safety," Hansen told an audience at a convention yesterday. More »
crime
Is Google helping an employee avoid alimony payments?
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and in a recent case at least some of that wrath is being directed at Google. Seems the managing director of Google's operations in Latin America, Gonzalo Alonso Pérez-Verdía was transferred to Buenos Aires by Google, and brought along his wife Mariana Alvarado Castillo and their two sons last July. Less than a week later, Pérez-Verdía found a new lover (pictured here) and demanded a divorce. As part of the resulting settlement, Pérez-Verdía agreed to pay alimony from the well over $2 million a year in earnings according to tax statements. But after three months and one check for $55,323.47, Pérez-Verdía has apparently stopped paying. More »
online video
AdSense video unit, presumed extinct, discovered in the wild
YouTube has an embeddable player with features that might feel familiar to publishers who've used Blip.tv's show player — it's not meant for casual embeds, and isn't accessible from the standard embed code found on most video pages. It's meant for static placement on Web sites for featuring multiple videos from a single partner, and can carry both the standard in-video overlay ads as well as a text ad block from Google. It was released last October for AdSense customers, but isn't in particularly wide use. Why mention it now? More »
Google sells the search marketing business it never wanted to own
As promised, Google has found a buyer for Performics, the search-marketing business it acquired when it bought DoubleClick. French ad conglomerate Publicis will take the Chicago-based company off Google's hands for an amount that so far remains undisclosed — probably because the fire-sale price will be low enough to be immaterial to both companies. [Reuters]
As promised, Google has found a buyer for Performics, the search-marketing business it acquired when it bought DoubleClick. French ad conglomerate Publicis will take the Chicago-based company off Google's hands for an amount that so far remains undisclosed — probably because the fire-sale price will be low enough to be immaterial to both companies. [Reuters]
Google plays catchup in China with MP3 search
Google announced today a search service, available only in China, to find and download MP3s from popular artists through partner Top100.cn, a Chinese music site funded by basketball star Yao Ming. Baidu, the search company which emerged from China's homegrown bubble and producers of crazy ads, has had MP3 search available since 2005, and many attribute its lead in its home market to that feature. [News.com]
Google announced today a search service, available only in China, to find and download MP3s from popular artists through partner Top100.cn, a Chinese music site funded by basketball star Yao Ming. Baidu, the search company which emerged from China's homegrown bubble and producers of crazy ads, has had MP3 search available since 2005, and many attribute its lead in its home market to that feature. [News.com]
lise buyer
There were no tech IPOs last quarter and that's a good thing
“I get cranky when talk turns to an IPO ‘drought,” says Lise Buyer, the former Wall Street analyst who took Google public in 2004, in an interview with Private Equity HUB. There were zero tech IPOs last quarter. July 2008 had the fewest IPOs of any July in the past four years. Buyer's not sure all that is such a bad thing.VCs may be frustrated, but they should be happy about having to wait longer. Going public requires a lot of time and focus and energy on things that don’t involve growing a business. And companies that wait longer to go public tend to perform much better once they do. The market is much more finicky, but that means the folks who are planning for an IPO in 2008 have rock-solid finances. The balance sheets are stronger this year than last year because they have to be. Public investors just don’t have the appetite for risk. They’re saying: don’t take these off the grill until they’re well done.More »
lise buyer
Here's a worthy contrarian to pop the bubble in Facebook bears. In 2003, former Wall Street analyst Lise Buyer wrote Google CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin a note reading: “I don’t know if you’ll ever want to go public but I bet that, having been on the other side of the table, I could be helpful to you if so.” Now, four years after Schmidt, Page and Brin said yes and Buyer helped take Google public in 2004, she's got the same message for Facebook. "To be candid," Buyer told Private Equity HUB, "I’d love to work with them." She said why:
More »
Banker who helped take Google public wants to do the same for Facebook
Here's a worthy contrarian to pop the bubble in Facebook bears. In 2003, former Wall Street analyst Lise Buyer wrote Google CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin a note reading: “I don’t know if you’ll ever want to go public but I bet that, having been on the other side of the table, I could be helpful to you if so.” Now, four years after Schmidt, Page and Brin said yes and Buyer helped take Google public in 2004, she's got the same message for Facebook. "To be candid," Buyer told Private Equity HUB, "I’d love to work with them." She said why:
More »
commenter of the day
Norcross
In a post about Google engineers using Street View to propose, commenter Norcross points out why the sign said "Proposal 2.0": More »
caption contest
Apparently there's a glitch in the Google Trends algorithm
Who invited Henry David Thoreau to the Google Street View campus spectacular? Twenty bucks he spent time in Portland, where flannel shirts, Mario Savio and critically reading the bible are still well in vogue. Write your own caption for this post and we'll use the best one as its new title. Yesterday's winner is Vulture with "Cashmore's Kazakhstani wedding pics."
geek love
Google employee uses Google Street View to propose
We're romantics at heart here at Valleywag — don't you know that's why we're so bitter? — but even we can't get behind Google employee Michael Weiss-Malik's marriage proposal, pictured above. It's not because we don't appreciate how clever it was of him to make a sign and wait for the Google Street View car to drive by — as smooth a move as you'll ever get from an engineer. It's because Weiss-Malik had to go and ruin it all by slapping a "2.0" on his proposal. What is this, a marriage proposal, or free marketing for Tim O'Reilly?
hires
Googler jumps ship for Faceb... erm, Friendster
Richard Kimber, managing director of Southeast Asian operations at Google, won't be moving into the search giant's new Sydney offices. Instead, he'll serve as the new CEO of Friendster — probably enticed by a healthy share of the early social network's latest $20 million in venture capital. While it remains to be seen if Kimber can help the company's investors limp to liquidity (read: trolling for cash with Friendster's social network patents), he can probably introduce Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams to all sorts of Vietnamese hotties.
failanthropy
How Eric Schmidt funds Wendy Schmidt, tax-free
We always wondered what, exactly, Wendy Schmidt saw in her husband Eric, the billionaire CEO of Google who sometimes prefers the company of other women. A review of the couple's charitable ventures makes things clearer. The Schmidt Family Foundation, which reported $84 million in assets in December 2006, has handed out some grants since its formation two years ago. But its biggest charitable project seems to be Wendy Schmidt herself. More »
death of print
Eric Schmidt laments lack of Iraq war coverage, while hiring away journalists
Google CEO Eric Schmidt stopped by Advertising Age's Madison and Vine conference last week, and proceeded to weep incredibly expensive tears over the fate of investigative journalism after Google helped eviscerate newspapers' business. "It's a tragedy for America," Schmidt declares before noting how few resources are going into reporting on the war in Iraq. "We'd spend a little more money to cover it, but our economic system doesn't justify that." Meanwhile, across the pond, Google hired away veteran BBC newsman Peter Barron of Newsnight for the company's public relations machine. Maybe Google will open a new PR bureau in Baghdad and send flacks to the front lines to cover the war. Would certainly be one way to improve Google News.
online advertising
Fox exec on MySpace: Google's ads aren't working, but ours are
News Corp. reports earnings tomorrow — but no one's worrying about how many copies of The Simpsons Fox sold on Blu-ray. Wall Street's worries are centered on how ads are doing on MySpace. After months of denials, a Fox executive has conceded the obvious to the Wall Street Journal: Google's keyword-pegged ads are bombing on MySpace. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said as much in discussing his company's results, but MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe was quick to deny a problem at the time. With Fox Interactive's parent company, News Corp., reporting quarterly results tomorrow, we suspect the Fox source let the bad news leak early in an effort to mix a hint of optimism in the story. The result: More »
real estate
Larry Page's $7 million manse
Eager to expose Google's threats to our privacy, the National Legal & Policy Center proved so inept at technology that it ended up exposing Google cofounder Larry Page's street address in a publicity stunt. Hidden in plain sight within the NLPC's PDF document: Waverley Oaks Court, the Palo Alto street on which Page lives. (Last year, Valleywag published a Google Maps view of Page's home, but not the address.) It only took a little digging through publicly available records to turn up the actual house number — 100 Waverley Oaks Court, Palo Alto, Calif. So how much is it worth? More »
caption contest
How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."
And in the end the stock you take is equal to the mess you make
How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."
Bill "Bubba" Clinton breaks Google party plane
Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin graciously lent their plush Boeing 767, otherwise known as the Google party plane (photographed in Newark last week), to former president Bill Clinton for a media tour of Africa. However, on a runway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, en route to Rwanda, the takeoff was aborted and the plane grounded, forcing Clinton to ride on Jon Bon Jovi's old 707 commandeered for the press gaggle in New Jersey. My guess? Clinton just couldn't lay off the injera and tej and the plane blew a gasket. [Industry Standard]
