Myspace has agreed to develop a comprehensive privacy program to settle charges that it violated its privacy policy by leaking users' personal information to advertisers. The agreement, announced on Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission, also calls for Myspace to submit to 20 years of audits. The charges apparently stemmed from a 2009 report that Myspace (and other companies) leak users' personal information to advertisers by including it in the HTTP header information that is automatically sent to ad networks. In Myspace's case, the company transmitted users' age, gender and "FriendID" to ad networks via referrer headers, according to the FTC. Advertisers were then able to use the FriendID to access users' profile information, which included the full names of around 84% of Myspace users, the FTC alleges. The commission says that Myspace's transmission of FriendID constituted a deceptive business practice because the company's privacy policy promised that it would not share "personally identifiable information" with outside companies. The FTC says in its complaint that starting in 2009, Myspace automatically sent users' FriendIDs to its Fox Audience Network, which in turn often transmitted the information -- in clear text -- to third-party advertisers it worked with. In June of 2010 it began encrypting the data, but provided the key to Fox Audience Network, according to the FTC. After Rubicon Project purchased Fox Audience Network in October of 2010, Myspace allegedly provided the encryption key to Rubicon -- which had no relationship with the social networking company. That arrangement lasted through October of 2011, according to the FTC's complaint, which was unveiled on Tuesday along with the settlement agreement, The upshot was that "a third-party advertiser could take simple steps to get detailed information about individual users," the FTC alleges. For instance, advertisers could use FriendID to visit users' Myspace pages and obtain their real names. Advertisers also could "combine the user’s real name and other personal information with that advertiser’s tracking cookie and the history of websites the user has visited that it contains," the FTC says in its complaint. Myspace isn't the only company to face scrutiny for its referrer header practice. The FTC's recent complaint against Facebook also included charges that the social networking service violated its privacy policy by including personal information in the referrer headers. That case also was settled. In addition, Google is facing a potential class-action suit stemming from allegations that it shared users' names with outside companies when it passed along search queries in the referrer headers; those queries occasionally included users' names. Specific Media, which now owns Myspace, said in a statement that one of its first moves after acquiring the company last June "was to thoroughly examine the company’s business practices and, where applicable, make improvements." The company added: "In order to put any questions regarding Myspace’s pre-acquisition advertising practices behind us, Myspace has reached an agreement with the FTC that makes a formal commitment to our community to accurately disclose how their information is used and shared."
Google has developed a technique that mimics professional camera movement and applied it to videos recorded by handheld devices, such as smartphones. While professionals use tripods and dollies, panning a swiftly running cheetah at the San Diego Zoo and getting a clear picture could become quite frustrating on an Android or an iOS phone. The technology supports an algorithm that automatically determines the best camera path and recasts the video as if it were filmed using stabilization equipment. It's part of the research at Google looking at methods to make casual videos appear more professional. The research is being integrated into YouTube to support videographers. In a research paper -- Auto-Directed Video Stabilization with Robust L1 Optimal Camera Paths – Google researchers describe the process of dividing the original, shaky camera path into segments to create a smooth video. The optimization finds the best of all possible partitions, using what researchers call a computationally stable algorithm. More recently, the research has been working to resolve a related problem common in videos shot from mobile phones. Camera sensors in phones contain an electronic rolling shutter. When taking a picture the image is not captured instantaneously, but rather one row of pixels at a time, with a small delay when going from one to the next. Consequently, if the camera moves during the capture it causes image distortions that are especially noticeable in videos where the camera shake is independent across frames. Google researchers are working to smooth out the shakiness of the video. Microsoft Research also continues to work with video, but for the patent company headquartered in Redmond, Wash., the work points to mobile gaming. Not the type of gaming where the keyboard becomes the weapon that slingshots at "Angry Birds," but mobile motion that turn the phone into a sword. With phone in hand, the users block the attacks of the counterpart in the game. Phone-to-phone mobile motion games must have the ability to calculate accurate distance and range from each other. Then range, speed, and accuracy are calculated. The process works similar to Kinect, a fixed infrastructure motion capture system that supports game motion in real-time.
During its Digital Content NewFront presentation last week, Google said it would spend $100 million helping original video content producers set up channels on YouTube, in addition to committing $200 million to market these channels to consumers. Now, according to reports Monday from All Things Digital and The New York Times, Google is considering investing directly in some of YouTube’s Web video producers, including the video game content maker Machinima, which is the No. 1 brand channel on the video-sharing site. Anonymous sources told All Things D's Peter Kafka, who broke the story, that Google is talking about taking a stake in it that would value the company at close to $190 million. Total funding for the round would be about $30 million, Kafka says, and Google would be one of the lead investors. This would be the first time that Google has taken an equity stake in a content company. Kafka says the move makes sense because it would be like TV networks having a stake in or owning a production studio, which many do. He also pointed out that the investment would differ from YouTube pledging to pour $100 million into the creation of content partner channels, because these are loans to content makers that Google will recoup from future ad sales on those channels. Machinima, which says it reaches 168 million unique users per month -- most of which fall into the coveted 18-34 male demographic -- creates videos for and about video game players, who watched an aggregate total of 1.61 billion videos in April. According to an unnamed source in a New York Times report, Google is also contemplating investing in other original video content producers on YouTube, although no specific names were revealed. As Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, CEO of the video production company WatchMojo, told the Times, Google’s potential investment in its YouTube content partners is “a bit like Zynga and Facebook getting closer.” He pointed out that Google acquired Next New Networks last year when it was the No. 1 channel on YouTube. The move made sense because Google was selling ads in its videos and giving Next New a big cut of the revenue, he said. Now, Next New staffers manage relationships with other YouTube content creators.
I have to admit it – yesterday’s column by Ryan DeShazer got my dander up a little bit. Just the headline -- “Doesn’t Google Owe SEOs Something?” -- caught me and wouldn’t let go. So, I decided I’d present the other side of this discussion today on why Google does not owe anything to SEOs. First, it’s important to clarify that I, myself, am an SEO. And, I like many other SEOs, feel great frustration with Google on a regular basis. But Google doesn’t owe me, or you, anything. Here’s why: 1. Life is not fair. At home I have two daughters, ages 3 and 6, and I often have to explain to them that life is just not fair -- a basic tenet that everyone must learn. Yes, it sucks. But the best person does not always win, the best product doesn’t always sell the most, and just working hard won’t always get you that promotion. That’s life. Google doesn’t have to be fair. Google is a business. It has the right to make decisions that affect its business without so much as warning us. Google has the right to make its product better – whether or not WE agree that the change is actually for the better. 2. Google is free, but you have to accept its terms. Google doesn’t charge any of us to use its search engine or its many tools like Gmail and Google Docs. But in return, as users, we must accept the company’s terms -- essentially the price we pay. Part of that price is that as content publishers (be they companies, ecommerce sites, etc.) have to constantly respond to Google’s changes to survive. That’s just part of doing business. Yes, Google encrypted search keywords, and now upwards of 50% of traffic in Google Analytics shows as (not provided). Move on. Innovate. Innovation is what keeps SEO alive. You also have the right to take your “search business” elsewhere. Don’t like what Google’s doing? Leave it, and use Bing. You’ll make Duane Forrester very happy. 3. Google keeps you employed. One line that stuck with me from Ryan’s piece was this one: “it’s equally rational to expect SEO practitioners to freak out when Google changes the rules of the game – changes that often seem irrational because of the lack of a believable explanation.” SEOs shouldn’t “freak out” every time there’s an algorithm change. My phone never rings more than after a big update. I see all sorts of new work from businesses that weren’t prepared for updates or accidentally had rankings reduced because of simple issues. Google, along with the other search engines, created the need for search engine optimization in the first place –- an entire industry that keeps SEOs like me employed. A recent ranking of U.S. search agencies showed that the top ten U.S. agencies accounted for $471 million dollars (including both paid and organic search). 4. SEO isn’t the only industry dependent on another. Ryan said, “it’s become plain to me that SEOs make their living off the ecosystem built by Google. They have a right to expect more” -- but I disagree. When I first graduated from college, I lived in the Washington, D.C. area, and many employers there are defense contractors. My first job was working as a designer and editor for a defense contractor. In 1995, there was a government shutdown. Congress couldn’t agree to a budget, so the government just shut down. When you work for a defense contractor, your company’s revenue comes from the Department of Defense. No Department of Defense funding = no job. Workers at defense contractors lost their jobs or were furloughed without pay. I remember thinking back then that I would never again work for an industry so dependent on another industry. But frankly, that’s not realistic. It’s not how our economy works. Every industry is dependent on others. Home improvement stores are dependent on good housing markets. Sales of SUVs at car dealerships are directly proportional to gas prices. No matter what the industry, we are all dependent on other industries. And without warning, at any time, fluctuations and changes in one industry affect another. As businesses, we have to learn to adapt. 5. Google doesn’t need SEOs to rank good content. Ryan also said, “Would Google have discovered the most relevant content without SEO? Probably, but we have accepted the responsibility of indicating which sites and content we believe are most important for a given query.” Google DOES NOT need SEOs to find good content for them. In fact, many of Google’s updates, like the recent “over optimization” update with Panda, are designed to get rid of terrible content that rises to the top because of poor SEO execution, spammy techniques or overabundance of duplicate content. In the end, we should all, albeit sometimes begrudgingly, embrace Google and its changes. Without Google (and other engines), what would you be doing right now? The beauty of SEO is its constant change – the constant challenge. It keeps our industry innovating and forces us to create better websites. Embrace it!