Google Chairman Eric Schmidt talks with CNN about securing data to protect user privacy against hackers and the National Security Agency (NSA), as well as the Rockstar patent suite brought on by Microsoft, Apple and others. And while he declined to answer questions about the floating barge in the San Francisco Bay that many believe supports a data center or a Google Glass showroom, Schmidt did say "think of it as an investment in barges."

Rob Carpenter reminds us that conversions occur throughout the customer journey, making it more important to test and optimize every step of the way. He suggests that as marketers think about the next split test, they should take a step back and look at the big picture -- stop optimizing at the top of the funnel, look deeper into conversion tests and results, and add segmentation to conversion rate optimization. Here's how. Read the article here.

Google said good-bye to its personalized iGoogle page, redirecting users to google.com. The apps like Finance -- once available on iGoogle -- are now accessible from a new app launch page. Google said it will permanently delete the data from iGoogle pages. Google said in June 2012 that it would shut down the page. 

Privacy has become a real concern for most, and this week's reports that the NSA hacked into Google and Yahoo data centers just makes matters worse. Megan Carpentier serves up some insights on what your search history says about you and how to shut it up. It's a bit complicated to opt out so the engines can't track information for advertisers, but you might want to bookmark Carpentier's steps as she takes us through the process for the top three search engines: Bing, Google and Yahoo.

Marketers debate about the influence of Google+ on search results. Rand Fishkin explains how having the right circles on Google+ can lead to top-ranked results for even the broadest queries in search engine results pages. Rather than just the traffic from a share, Fishkin tells us that marketers earn high rankings on their Web site from the audience they choose to circle. Read the article here.