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Google Nips Mark Lucovsky – Distinguished Microsoft Engineer – from Microsoft

Mark Lucovsky may not be a household name in your household, but his name is well-known among Microsoft pundits and geeks. However soon his name will be associated with Google, and not just because “Lucovsky” turns up more than 13,000 hits in a Google search. It’s because Mark Lucovsky, who…

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Google Apologizes for “Jew” Offensive Search Results

Google has taken the unusual step of apologizing for its search results. But only, it seems, for results obtained by searching on the word “Jew”, the results for which have been deemed offensive. Linked from the top result obtained by searching the word “Jew”, by a link entitled “Offensive Search…

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Click Fraud: It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Google

Have you heard about Adsense “click fraud”? It’s one of the latest Internet scams. Click fraud has been in the news a lot lately, and with good reason. Click fraud accounts for 10-20% of all clicks on Internet ads such as Adsense, and by some estimate click fraud accounts for…

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Coming Soon to an Internet Near You – the Library!

First the library brought you the Internet. Now the Internet is bringing you the library. Google has just announced exclusive deals with five libraries, including the New York Public Library, and university libraries at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and Oxford, to scan some or all of their collections and incorporate the results into the Google search engine database.

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Google Sued By Pornographer for Their Search Engine Working…Too Well?

Just when you think that you have heard everything. Perfect 10, a website which offers nude photos of women, has sued Internet search giant Google, claiming that Google’s search engine allows people to access lists of Perfect 10 usernames and passwords, and that it also allows them to view photos…

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The Great Google Wall of China

Reuters is reporting today that China has blocked its citizens’ access to the English-language version of Google News, instead providing access to a special, sanitized Chinese-language version which it has arranged with Google. According to media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders, China has been blocking the English-language site for the…

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Tempted to Click on a Friend’s AdSense or Have Them Click on Yours? Don’t Do It!

Are you ever tempted to click on a friend’s AdSense, or to have them click on yours? Well, don’t do it! Google takes doing this, which is known as “click fraud”, very seriously. Why just last week, Google filed a lawsuit against someone for doing exactly that. They mean business….

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Gmail for Outlook and Other POP Clients

Google has announced that their Gmail service is going to start offering POP access to users’ email accounts, meaning that rather than having to log in through Gmail’s web interface, users will be able to download their Gmail to their own computer using Outlook, Eudora, or whatever other email client…

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I’m Sorry Teacher, the Spam Filter Ate My IPO

Two things are now clear to Aunty about Google’s upcoming IPO: 1) They are moving forward with their somewhat novel concept of making their initial offering directly to individuals, by email, and 2) they are worried about that email being zapped by spam filters. As such, Google and their investment…

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California Senate Sends Gmail a Message

The BBC reports today that the California Senate has passed SB 1822, aimed at limiting Google’s ability to scan email coming in to the users of their Gmail system, and also limiting Google’s ability to archive and sell the resulting information. Now, Aunty is old enough to remember some real…

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A Gaggle of Google Giggles (Gmail)

As many of you know, Aunty was one of the people blessed with a Gmail account early on (relatedly, she was also ‘blessed’ with everybody and their brother coming out of the woodwork asking her to please get them a Gmail account, too). After the initial testing, which you can…

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Gmail’s Spam Filter Isn’t So Hot, But We Can Get You to Zimbabwe Cheap!

I’ve been testing Google’s Gmail for 5 days now, since April 18th. Woohoo. In addition to openly soliciting email to the account, and even posting the address on the web, I’ve forwarded all of my email coming to my other accounts to the Gmail account. I wanted to give Gmail…

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Gmail Ad Nauseum II: Those Wacky AdSense Ads

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, Google’s Gmail’s “sophisticated spam filtering technology” isn’t. And I’m beginning to wonder about their AdSense technology as well.

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Stalking the Wild Gmail Account: First Impressions

Somehow, I lucked into having a Gmail beta account (who knew I had friends in those high places?) Here are my first impressions: First, Gmail doesn’t work with Safari; very annoying. It does, however, work with Firefox. I also found it frustrating that you can’t set up a forward, or…

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Gmail: email Gspot or Gmen?

Much has been made in the past dozen days about Google’s announcement of their new service, Gmail. First, the press release was leaked on April 1st, leading to wide speculation: was it an April Fool’s gag, or was it not? (It wasn’t.) Then nobody could believe that the world’s largest…