Archive for January, 2009
Search Engine Privacy
European privacy organisations are again pressuring Search Engines to do more to protect the privacy of their users, as the topic is brought to the fore at The Second Annual European Data Privacy Day.
According to a report from VNU Net, the major search engines have offered to lower their retention times in Europe from three to eighteen months.
Robert Beens, CEO of Dutch Search Engine Company LXQuick has commented that “Using a search engine is sharing your innermost secrets and habits, which should be safe”.
Search Engine News tends to agree with Mr Been’s comments. A lot of valuable information about user behavior is kept by the search engines, giving them an upper hand when it comes to marketing and analytics, but many people aren’t aware that when they search for information in Google or other search engines, that their information is kept in a database as a profile built around their internet habits. That is a lot of trust users are giving to the search engines, which can easily be lost if the search engines abuse their power.
LXQuick has decided to stop recording it’s visitor’s IP Address amid privacy concerns, and all details of it’s users will be deleted within 48 hours. This follows the search engine privacy leader Cuil, which has a policy of not storing logs about it’s users activity, nor storing any cookies that could identify it’s users.
Google has in the past been criticized over the length it stores it’s cookies and the community at large has had concerns over Google’s usage or potential misuse of that information, however when the three major search engines were issued subpoena’s by the US Government for information on it’s users search queries, Google was the only one that fought the subpoena to defend it’s customers information.
Google’s new browser Google Chrome also has increased privacy modes, fondly dubbed “porn mode” by some of the tech community due to it’s ability of wiping any evidence of browser history
Many countries around the globe already have in place very strict privacy laws, such in Australia and the UK, and the European Union is beginning to clamp down on it’s own privacy laws with a major emphasis on protecting personal data, it seems that so far, the search engines have complied with many requests, but one can only wonder just how hard they’ll fight to retain the data that they still have.
Search Engine News brought to you by Search King.
Agora Phone not ready for Australia
Australian importer Kogan, had been set to launch a new phone named Agora this week, however there have been some set-backs.
The Australian launch of the Agora Phone, equipped with the Google Android operating system, was reportedly delayedamid reports the Operating System designed by Google has bugs. In addition to the software quirks, it seems the phone’s screen may be blurry and not yet ready for the consumer market.
The Google Android operating system for mobile phones is currently functional on several commercial mobile phone handsets overseas, however it’s launch in Australia has been delayed, and despite Kogan taking pre-orders, there is no confirmation when the phone will hit the market in Australia, if at all.
Kogan needs to be quick, because many manufacturers such as Samsung are already increasing productivity to meet demands for the Android handset, and Australian Telco Optus confirmed yesterday that it’s phone network is Android capable, and ready to go.
It won’t be long now before we see tech geeks in Australia sporting the Android, but we’re still not certain the hype machine or demand is anywhere near that of the Apple Iphone, which still gets heads turning to this day.
Search Engine News is waiting to receive a handset to report on the search functionality and how well the phone is for interacting with the web on-the-go.
Is this what you paid for?
The new 2009 edition of Yellow Pages has been arriving on doorsteps of businesses and homes around the country, or in this case conveniently placed in the stair-well of SearchKing’s premises.
Are your customers fingers walking or typing?
Phone directories were once a reliable customer acquisition and search tool, and getting your listing in on time for print was crucial for businesses to be discovered by their customers.
Here at the SearchKing premises however, the new edition of Yellow Pages is nothing more than a door stop, and much like the 2008 edition of the White Pages (still sitting under the stairs after several months) will likely go unused, in favour of more modern search tools.
Listings in the Yellow pages are often in excess of $500.00 AUD, for a return that is difficult to measure, and given the non-searchable nature of the format, being significantly overlooked for Search Engines and web directories.
Would you pay $500 for your ad to be featured in an almost redundant format which poses a potential tripping hazard, or would you allocate your budget toward an online marketing or other campaign?
New Domain name: Dot Tel
DotTel ( .TEL ) is a new type of domain name that promises a new way of locating information on the web. It may also include benefits to compliment your existing SEO Strategy.
Search news contacted the Dot Tel registry recently for some information about the new TLD, to see what all the hype was about, and the benefits it has to offer for a company’s Search Engine Optimisation Strategy.
DotTel is a different concept from most other ordinary domains such as .COM or .COM.AU, because rather than using the domain for ‘regular purposes’ such as hosting a traditional web-page that presents your company or product information using a HTTP web server, Dot Tel is a ‘directory service‘ of sorts, which presents a company or person’s contact information, and that content is serverd over the ‘DNS’ or Domain Name Service protocol.
DNS is s the underlying technology that runs the domain name system, in essence, allowing you to type a web address into your web browser, and it locates where on the web you need to go to retrieve that information or website.
A spokesperson for .TEL said the new domain has very specific and unique content, which allows customers to locate your business and provide information on the products or service you provide, in addition to your contact information and location. You are also allowed to to specify keywords related to your business, so this has the added benefit of being crawled and indexed by local search engines.
Making use of DNS technology presents many incentives for search engines such as Google to crawl and index the information because it is in a standard and easy to read format, and updates to content are almost instant, search engines have more incentive to re-index .TEL content in short intervals.
Finally, the spokeperson feels .TEL adds a great deal of value to the end customer because .TEL content is easy to maintain, can be updated at short intervals and has the best return on investment in the SEO business because it is expected to retail at very low prices (approx $15-20 USD/year).
When asked about privacy concerns, DotTel has advised that just like many social networking sites such as Facebook, customers can decide on what information is made public and who gets to sees information that they would prefer not to be seen by the public. In a similar way that you can see the friends of your contacts in Facebook, DotTel will also allow you to see a limited amount of information to people in your approved contacts network.
The Dot Tel landrush is currently on (Jan 09 to February) and landrush applications start on Feb 3rd at a premium price, and general availability (GoLive) begins on 24th March.
Visit the Telnic website for more information on this new and exciting Domain TLD, and view their demos for demonstrations of the many features and benefits offered by DotTel.
We’d like to thank DotTel for supplying this information.
Article brought to you by Search King.