Google

The data protection commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has come out against Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.

Such a merger would "lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights" for consumers in the European Union if the databases of the two companies were combined, says Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner for Germany's northernmost state.

In a letter to the European Commissioner for Competition, Weichert writes that search engines in general already violate consumer rights to "informational self-determination" by retaining data for so long, among other things.

A … Read more

When I was in high school, all those years ago, being a nerd, or a geek, was a painful thing. We were the outcasts, the forgotten ones who couldn't get a date to save our lives, and for whom the future seemed certain to be a blur of solitary days and nights spent coding.

Over the years, as my lot in life improved, it occurred to me from time to time that I should go back to that school, take a few of these unfortunate souls aside, and give them the good news: Sure, today you're alone and … Read more

I know Google is getting into a lot of areas, shaking up the ad industry, moving into the enterprise space with hosted apps (much to Microsoft's chagrin), even betting on wireless and 700MHz spectrum. But banking?

Granted, Google offers Google Checkout as a payment method option to merchants and consumers buying online. And now Google in Malaysia is offering AdSense payments to be made through Western Union, according to the Ades blog That news was noticed by Steve Arnold, author of The Google Legacy and Google Version 2: the Calculating Predator, and pointed out to Bear Stearns analyst Robert … Read more

Links are the fundamental vehicle that gets us from here to there on the web. Without them, we'd have no where to go, or at least a much harder time getting there. Links are, of course, deeply important to search engines as well. In fact, links and PageRank are at the very core of Google.

Spend a little time on just about any website and it won't be long before you come across a "click here," "click this," or "more" link. You probably wouldn't trade a $20 bill for $5, yet … Read more

Looks like Google is acquiring Zingku, a site that offers a social network for mobile users. "We've entered into an agreement to have Google acquire our Zingku service," the site says.

A Google spokesman confirmed the news: "I can confirm that we acquired certain assets and technology of Zingku. We believe these assets can help build products and features that will benefit our users, advertisers and publishers. Aside from that, we have no plans to announce at this time."

The move is only the latest on Google's part in the mobile space. In 2005, … Read more

Americans using Google are 10 times more likely to encounter a problem accessing the Google search site than Brazilians, according to a new study.

From September 1, 2006 to September 1, 2007, Brazil had only three minutes of downtime on Google search, compared with 31 minutes for the U.S., says Pingdom, a Swedish Web site monitoring firm that tracked Google uptime in 32 countries over the past year.

Which country in the study had the most downtime on Google? Strangely, Sweden, despite its otherwise great track record of Internet accessibility. Sweden had 48 minutes of downtime over the year. … Read more

Wednesday night, my colleague Anne Broache and I posted our article previewing the U.S. Senate hearing Thursday where Microsoft and Google will face off regarding the search company's attempt to purchase DoubleClick.

The hearing is about to start and can be watched via Webcast. Anne is there and will be writing about the hearing later Thursday.

That article previewed Google's arguments. Now we have a copy of Microsoft's prepared remarks by Brad Smith, the company's general counsel, and we're sharing this excerpt. Smith, no newcomer to antitrust fights, says the merger would be bad … Read more

I'm sitting here at Microsoft's "Searchification" event in Mountain View, Calif., but I can't tell you any of the news because it's all embargoed until tonight at 9 p.m. PT. Check back then for the full story. In the meantime, you can get a mini preview leaked by a Microsoft employee last week.

I realize the search market is a hot space and the major players, along with a lot of minor players, are all trying to hold themselves out as industry leaders. But some of the names of the events are getting … Read more

For some time now, we here at CNET News.com have been hearing whispers that Google might be looking to get into the virtual world space, particularly in light of the increasing interest of existing environments like Second Life, and the success of Google Earth and the search giant's purchase of the Sketchup technology.

Well, now we might finally be on to something. According to TechCrunch, Google may already be testing its own 3D virtual world technology, in a secret experiment at Arizona State University.

And according to a report published Monday from eMarketer, Google is "planning enhancements … Read more