Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular search engine, may be violating the European Union's privacy laws by storing information on customer queries for as long as two years, advisers to EU regulators told the company.

Google's privacy counsel in Paris, Peter Fleischer, said the company received a letter this month from the EU's data-protection advisory agency asking it to explain why records of user searches are retained.

The scrutiny of policies at Google, the gateway to the Internet for tens of millions of users, has increased since it announced plans in April to buy New York-based online advertiser double click Inc. for $3.1 billion. Regulators have said that competition among Google, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. to deliver ads to specific users may violate civil liberties.

"Google may have initiated personalization efforts which are more advanced in some ways, but it's an industrywide issue," Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in Oakland, California, said in a telephone interview. "It is something that the industry as a whole should tackle."

Google's Fleischer said in a May 22 e-mail that the company will reply before the next meeting of the advisory group, called the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, in June.

Google's Response "We are committed to engaging in a constructive dialogue with privacy stakeholders, including the Article 29 Working Party, on how to improve privacy practices for the benefit of Google users and for everyone on the Internet," Fleischer said.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, on March 13 cut the time it keeps users' data on Web searches to between 18 and 24 months. Peter Schaar, Article 29's chairman, called the changes "very much a step in the right direction," according to the May 16 letter.

Still, he said the new storage period, "on the basis indicated by Google thus far," doesn't seem to meet EU data protection rules. Schaar didn't return three phone calls for comment to his office in Bonn, Germany, this week.

"We first wanted to give Google the time to respond before we comment," Schaar's spokeswoman, Gabriele Loewnau, said in a telephone interview today. Loewnau, who is also an Article 29 member, said the group will consider the U.S. company's response at its next meeting on June 19 and 20.

Yahoo, Microsoft The privacy-law advisers are also reviewing the policies of Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, and Yahoo, Alexander Dix, a German member of the group, said in a telephone interview April 27. No one at Dix's office answered a telephone call for comment on May 22. The privacy inspectors haven't been in touch with the two companies in writing, Loewnau said today.

Alex Laity, a spokesman for Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, said in a telephone interview May 23 that he wasn't aware of the group's investigation or whether it had contacted Yahoo, the second-biggest Internet search engine.

Tom Brookes, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, said in a May 23 e-mail that the company couldn't comment.

Privacy issues are also a focus of regulatory reviews in the U.S. over the double click takeover. The New York State Consumer Protection Board on May 9 urged federal regulators to delay Google's takeover until the company gives consumers the right to prevent tracking and storing of information about Web sites they visit.

Key to Growth The company made 43 percent of its revenue outside of the U.S. last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gathering more personal data will be key to Google's expansion, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive officer, told the Financial Times in a report published May 23.

A separate probe of Google's privacy policy by the data regulator in Norway, which isn't part of the EU, may not conclude until after the EU group's meeting, its senior legal adviser Guro Slettemark said. The Norwegian Data Inspectorate began investigating Google's data-storage system in January on concern that the practice breached national privacy laws.

Google said in a statement last month that it received a letter from Norway in March, inquiring about the way the company collects information and about the announced changes to its data- retention policies.

Courtesy: iht.com

IAC CHAIRMAN AND CEO BARRY Diller wouldn't make any predictions about a possible Microsoft buy of Yahoo, but said such a transaction would be good for IAC's Ask.com, which still gets its ads from Google under a deal that expires at the end of this year.

"You've got to have competition in the word search business," Diller told the audience at the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference yesterday. "I don't want a world where there's one ad system."

Ask.com now represents about 10% of Google's syndicated ad business, Diller said, and a renewal of the contract could be contingent on Ask getting more queries rather than on financial aspects. "Whomever handles our ads must help us get more distribution," he stated, adding that "Google also knows they need to have healthy front-page competitors [as distinguished from the backend AdSense biz, for example]."

Asked if Google might object to helping a competitor increase market share, Diller responded to laughter: "If you have a 55% share, a few little points here and there aren't going to kill you."

On other Ask.com matters, Diller said the upcoming Ask X will be better than iGoogle in vertical searches and will "absolutely change the game," that the search engine's demo continues to age following the changeover from research-centric Ask Jeeves to a more general interest and commerce model; and that he doesn't want to see display ads on search sites.

Diller touted IAC's internal Ad Solutions group, which he said is working to blend advertising into the company's wide range of properties--and he expects advertising to account for a third of all IAC revenues in the future.

Diller, a renowned former TV network executive, also said that IAC will soon announce a "large significant investment in a television/Internet program company"--saying that with the coming growth in Internet television, 'it would be crazy for us not to [use] our residual expertise."

Courtesy: publications.mediapost.com

Robert Cringely says Google has 400 ticking time bombs in the Googleplex.

That's 400 brilliant ideas created by Googlers every year during their 20 percent time, only 10 of which Google will possibly pursue.

Google has designed a working environment that provides almost everything their technical people need except a guaranteed sense of satisfaction. By design, each worker is no more than 100 feet from a bathroom or food and drink (at Google the food is always free). This creates an environment where people tend not to go home, which Microsoft discovered and leveraged decades ago. But nobody works every minute they are AT work, which means the Google Geeks are constantly talking with each other, team building, bonding and goofing off. And for 20 percent of that goofing-off time I'll guarantee you that many of these people are discussing their pet projects, 99.75 percent of which have been REJECTED by the company.

Cringely goes on to say the employees whose ideas get rejected will think the company misguided. When their options vest, they'll found their own companies. Well of course. There's been no shortage of stories exploring how Googlers are slowly weening themselves from the big G teat. But here's the real rub: Everything a Googler invents at Google, stays at Google. Don't take my word for it. Just read this excerpt from their employee agreement:

(b) Assignment of Inventions: I agree that I will will promptly make full written disclosure to the Company, withholding trust and full right and benefit for the Company, and hereby assign to the Company, or its designee, all my right, title and interest in and to any and all inventions, original works of authorship, developments, concepts, improvements or trade secrets, whether or not patentable or registerable under copyright or similar laws, which I may solely or jointly conceive or develop or practice, or cause to be conceived or developed, or reduced to practice during the period of time I am in the employ of the Company [collectively referred to as "Inventions"], except as provided in section 3(f) below. I further acknowledge that all original works of authorship which are made by me (solely or jointly with others) within the scope of and during the period of my employment with the Company and which are protectable by copyright are "works made for hire" as that term is defined by the United States Copyright Act.

In other words, everything you do here, stays here. And if you think section 3(f), referenced above, exempts that 20% time, think again. That clause simply refers to California Labor Code section 2870, which says an employee owns an invention if and only if they didn't use any of the company's resources.

So that fabled 20% free time at Google is really just 20% more time for Google. You can download the full employee agreement here (PDF).

Google knows what it's doing. And while I have no doubt that the current Google employees will go on to make wondrous companies, Google is ensuring they snatch up most of the good ideas first. In that light, working for Google could be the worst decision an entrepreneur ever makes.

Courtesy: googlewatch.eweek.com

Everyone has certain words they struggle to spell correctly. When it comes to spelling, we're not perfect—you can count on us to occasionally botch recieve (sic), accomodations (sic), and relavant (sic). With the Scripps National Spelling Bee on the horizon, we figured it was a perfect time to come clean about our erroneous ways.

The superb spellers at the Bee will rake in even more Buzz this year with the finals being televised in prime time on ABC. Searches on "spelling bee" have doubled over the last week and we've seen related search spikes on "national spelling bee," "spelling words," and "commonly misspelled words."

What are the common words that vex our searchers? We applied our best spell checking skills to the data and came up with this list of the top 20 misspelled words in Search...

1. Wallmart (Wal-Mart)
2. Rachel Ray (Rachael Ray)
3. Amtrack (Amtrak)
4. Hillary Duff (Hilary Duff)
5. Katherine McPhee (Katharine McPhee)
6. Britany Spears (Britney Spears)
7. Geneology (Genealogy)
8. Jaime Pressley (Jaime Pressly)
9. Volkswagon (Volkswagen)
10. Wikepedia (Wikipedia)
11. William Sonoma (Williams-Sonoma)
12. Tatoo (Tattoo)
13. Travelosity (Travelocity)
14. Elliot Yamin (Elliott Yamin)
15. Kiera Knightley (Keira Knightley)
16. Kelly Pickler (Kellie Pickler)
17. Brittney Spears (Britney Spears)
18. Avril Lavinge (Avril Lavigne)
19. Rianna (Rihanna)
20. Jordan Sparks (Jordin Sparks)

What words give you the most trouble? We'd love to know. Leave us a coment beelow...

Courtesy: buzz.yahoo.com

Not able to attend the Google Developer Day on May 31? No problem, there will be a live webcast at the time of the event and Google will record the video and host it on YouTube so you can attend the Developer Day just as much as the 5,000 developers who will be attending the sessions in 10 different Google office locations worldwide.

Courtesy: Googlified.com