Episode 0092,
03/14/2009
Title/Description: Don't Be Evil?,
Google Voice, and other tech news
Welcome to Course
Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 92, recorded March 14, 2009. This
is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast
is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology
for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.
Story 1 - Don't Be Evil?
Google, the company with
the motto, "Don't be evil”, has apparently flip-flopped its view on
behavioral advertising. Just last year, Google said it had no plans to engage
in behavioral advertising and admonished companies that did. Now, Google has
announced a new service it calls "Internet-based" advertising.
Internet-based avoids the controversial term behavioral, but is none the less
the same. Google will use the information it gathers about Google users in
order to present targeted ads on all Google-owned services as well as on the
millions of Web sites that use Google's AdSense.
Google's move to behavioral
advertising is considered an invasion of privacy by some. It illustrates how
Google is drawing extensive information about users from across Web sites to
create detailed consumer profiles. This is the same type of activity that
landed the Web advertising company, DoubleClick, in
hot water in 2002. DoubleClick ended up paying $1.8
million to settle a law suite charging the company with invasion of privacy.
Besides the hefty fine, DoubleClick had to agree to
stop collecting private information on users across Web sites on which DoubleClick advertised. Google purchased DoubldClick in 2007. Now we know why.
Google is fighting off criticism
of its targeted advertising by citing the fact that users are provided with a
method for opting out of the program. Users can also edit their profiles to
control what kinds of ads are served to them.
Privacy groups are up in
arms about Google's decision. The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) is calling
on Google to change the service to opt in rather than opt out in order to
insure that users involved are well informed. The
Google isn't the only
company collecting tons of user data in hopes of profiting from it. Cell phone
companies have also begun selling location information and activity information
gathered from the handsets of their subscribers. This information is valuable
for analyzing trends both on an individual level and on a community
level. Software available from citysense.com uses the location of cell phones
in
User information from
social networks is also being harvested for marketing purposes. Twitter is seen
by advertisers as a gold mine of up to the second information that can be used
to measure the pulse of public sentiment. With millions of users answering the
question "What are you doing" several times a day, Twitter is the
perfect tool for gaining insight on social and cultural trends.
Google's move to behavioral
marketing has prompted a reaction from congress. Representative Rick Boucher
and two other congressmen are working to revive portions of the Consumer
Privacy Protection of Act, an effort to protect consumer privacy online that
was defeated in 2002. The Bill requires online companies to notify consumers
when information is being collected about their online activities. It also
allows consumers to opt-out once notified.
Two trends are likely to
make online consumer privacy a headline topic in coming months. First is the
growing trend of consumers to lead transparent online lifestyles, providing
personal information about themselves through social networks, and spending
increasing amounts of time online through mobile wireless connections. Second,
is a troubled economy pressuring companies to test the limits of public and
governmental tolerance, in order to profit from the data collected from online
activity. Consumers should be aware that all of their online activities are
being monitored, analyzed, stored, and sold by those that provide Internet
services and content. Only government regulation and public sentiment will keep
that information from being widely distributed and monetized.
Privacy
groups rip Google's targeted advertising plan [Network World]
What
Your Cell Phone Is Teaching Companies [NewsFactor]
Google
Introduces Behavioral-Based Advertising [NewsFactor]
Targeted
Ads Wake Up Congress on Consumer Rights [NewsFactor]
How Twitter Could
Bring Search Up to Speed [Technology Review]
Story 2 - Google Voice
This week, Google announced
a new service that could revolutionize phone communications. Google Voice is
based on technologies developed by Grand Central Communications to merge text
communications with voice communications. The service allows free phone calls o
be made over the Internet, making it a strong threat to Skype and other Voice
over IP services. Phone calls can be made directly through your computer, or by
routing calls from your cell phone through Google's service using a special
phone number. Google Voice provides the ability to route incoming calls to a
different phone number or multiple phone numbers. Calls can be filtered,
screened, or routed based on caller ID. Google Voice also uses speech
recognition to transcribe Voice Mail messages to text which can be forwarded to
email or SMS text messages, searched, sorted, and organized. The new service
provides a Web-based call center for managing all of these services along with
conference calling, call recording, and many other services. Google Voice will
be available to the genera public in a matter of weeks. The big question is,
will Google be capturing and analyzing voice communications as it does Gmail
communications?
Google Voice: Flawed
but still awesome [c|net]
Google’s
Free Phone Manager Could Threaten a Variety of Services [NYTimes]
Google
turns voicemail into email [Reuters]
And that brings us to News Briefs:
That's it for this week's CourseCast.
Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are
provided at the CourseCast Web site at coursecasts.course.com. E-mail us with
your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com.
Until next time, have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power
-- of Technology!