policies

Texas Wants Google to Spill Its Secrets–Here's the List

John Paczkowski in News on February 16, 2011 at 8:14 am PT

The antitrust investigation Google is facing in Texas is quite a bit broader than originally thought. A civil investigative demand sent last July by the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott, and first reported by Bloomberg, reveals an inquiry not just into ad pricing, but site ranking and “the manual overriding or altering of” search results as well.

Google Cuts Off AppNexus, and the Ad Tech World Shudders

Peter Kafka in Media on November 30, 2010 at 4:57 pm PT

AppNexus, a high-flying ad technology start-up, just had a very bad few days. The next few weeks could be rough, too.

News Byte

Google to Apply Translation Skills to Privacy Boilerplate

Voices in News on September 3, 2010 at 12:12 pm PT

Perhaps out of concern for all the ice-cream-loving children of the world, Google is lowering the comprehension difficulty level of its privacy policies. The search giant said today it would be updating its privacy documents on Oct. 3–no changes in practice, but much rewriting of legalese and wringing out of redundancies. That should cut down on the plethora of individual product policies currently linked from the Google Privacy Center.

Voices

Facebook Grapples With Privacy Issues

Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 19, 2010 at 12:00 am PT

A backlash over Facebook Inc.’s privacy practices has triggered disagreement inside the company that could force Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to scale back efforts to encourage users to share more about themselves in public. The social network has come under fire for a series of recent changes to its policies that have limited what users can keep private, as well as embarrassing technical glitches that exposed personal data.

Google Shutters Google.cn

John Paczkowski in News on March 22, 2010 at 12:08 pm PT

Google has finally adopted the “New Approach to China” that it announced back in January, making good on its threat to end censorship of its services in the country. Earlier today, the company begun redirecting Internet traffic away from its Chinese-language site at google.cn to google.com.hk in Hong Kong.

L’Oréal Unable to Do It eBay

John Paczkowski in News on May 22, 2009 at 9:30 am PT

Cosmetics giant L’Oréal is 0-5 in its legal cases against eBay over the counterfeit perfumes and face creams listed on the auction site. Today the High Court in London ruled that eBay was “not jointly liable” for trademark infringements committed by its users, though it could do more to prevent them.