Google Does China

" Google looks out for Google.

That's probably the best explanation for the Internet search giant's apparently contradictory behavior in two recent dust-ups with national governments.
On the one hand, Google is fending off a U.S. Justice Department request to see Google's indexes of Web sites and all the search terms that Googlers type in. The Feds want the information to buttress a defense of a federal Internet pornography law that had been overturned by an appeals court. At issue is the effectiveness of commercial software filters designed to shield innocent eyes from scandalous sites.
At a moment when privacy advocates are already riled about government snooping, Google invited and got much praise for resisting the request. But its stand probably had less to do with civil liberties ... "

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13788662.htm

Start-up hopes to challenge Google

" Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, who knew Googles cofounders while the four studied at Stanford University together, are launching an ambitious new search engine company, Kosmix.

Theyre betting they can challenge Google on many types of searches by gleaning more about the overall content of Web pages searched.

Kosmix hopes to make online search even better and more relevant than Google especially when people are researching information on specific topics.

So far, Google, has searched for pages based on a sort of popularity contest. You enter a word or phrase, and Google will search its database of Web pages to find out which pages with that ... "

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/13791484.htm

Privacy of Internet Search Records

" Here are some recent interesting links about the privacy of Internet search records:

Check out Patriot Search for a laugh. Its a new search engine where your results are reported directly to the government "Our mission is to provide the best possible search engine to you while at the same time, making sure the government is informed should you search for something obscure, illegal, or unpatriotic." Thanks to Scott Forbes for the link.

CNET has interviews with Internet search companies about the kind of data they retain about their users. Of the many questions asked, the answers to these two questions are particularly interesting ... "

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/02/privacy_of_inte.html

German BMW Banned From Google

" From what it looks like, the German websites of car maker BMW have been kicked out of the Google index. BMW.de at this time has a PageRank of 0. A search for BMW Germany, which only days ago yielded BMW.de as a top result, now doesnt show any sign of BMW.de at all. Instead, BMW.com BMWs international site is on top for this search.

The reason for the ban is likely to be that the BMW websites have been caught employing a technique used by black-hat search engine optimizers: doorway pages. German and international bloggers last week were quick to spread the news ... "

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-04-n60.html