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05/22/2013 01:26:14 Daily, February 03Condemning Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Is Cheap And Easy
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In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: Condemning Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Is Cheap And Easy
2. Today's Top Story
- Google Rolls Out New Search Infrastructure
- Newspapers Fight Back Against Search Engines
3. Breaking News
- General Motors Awards $15 Billion In IT Services
- Mozilla Releases Firefox Update--On Purpose This Time
- Apple Hit With iPod Hearing-Loss Lawsuit
- SAP Offers On-Demand CRM
- AMD's 4Q Growth Rate Bests Intel's--For Now
- About.com Expands Online Video Offerings
- AT&T Allegedly Provided Customer Data To Feds
- 1Q Federal Contracts Total $28 Billion: Study
- Sun, Imation Expand Storage Partnership
- IPv6 Targeted By Tony Investment Group
- CA Makes New Name Official
- Review: The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet's Lost Potential
4. Grab Bag: News You Need From Around The Web
- Adobe Intel Support: October At The Earliest
- Internet Brings U.S. Telegram Era To A STOP
- New Exam Aims To Measure Tech 'Literacy'
5. In Depth: Security
- Countdown On For Kama Sutra
- FAQ: How Bad Is Kama Sutra?
- Brief: Worm Spoofs Security Firm's E-Mail Address
- Feds Charge 19 In Piracy Ring
6. Voice Of Authority
- Podcast: Keep Your Google Searches Private
7. White Papers
- IDC Focuses On Symantec's E-Mail Security And Availability Solution
8. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
9. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription
Quote of the day:
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends
most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against
scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression
must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H.L. Mencken
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been acting like grownups
recently in their decisions to cooperate with the Chinese
government in censoring Internet comment. You may not agree with
their course of action--you may even condemn what they're
doing--but you have to admit that they've taken responsibility
for their actions and decisions, and not tried to claim that the
whole thing is beyond their control.
I wish I could say the three companies' critics are also being
grownups. It's easy to be outraged by companies that cooperate
with oppressive regimes, easy to post angry blog entries and
issue impassioned press releases. But it's harder to work for
change.
In the latest developments, as reported in our story by Tom
Claburn, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo tried to enlist the
U.S. government to work to stop censorship in other
countries, such as China. "As a U.S.-based company that deals
primarily in information, we have urged the United States
government to treat censorship as a barrier to trade," said
Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel, in a statement
prepared for a meeting held Wednesday by the Congressional Human
Rights Caucus.
Google was condemned after it launched a Chinese Web presence
that censors content deemed unfit by the Chinese government. Last
month, Microsoft blocked access to the site of a Chinese blogger,
Michael Anti. And Yahoo came under fire in September, following
revelations that it supplied information to the Chinese
authorities that led to a 10-year prison sentence for Chinese
journalist Shi Tao.
This week, Google and Microsoft took steps to take responsibility
for their actions and discuss the issue with Internet users.
Microsoft outlined its procedure for taking down
blogs. Microsoft will cooperate with censorship only if faced
with a legitimate order from a foreign government. That may not
sound like much--but still, it's progress.
Likewise, Google explained, in frank and plain language,
why it took the action it did and what it proposes to do to
improve the human-rights situation in China.
Since the Google story broke recently, I've found myself reaching
for the keyboard, ready to write a blistering diatribe denouncing
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo as a bunch of evil greedheads, ready
to throw aside principle in the name of profit. It'd be an easy
editorial to write and a popular opinion to have.
To read the rest of this editor's
note, and add your $0.02 of comment, visit the InformationWeek
Weblog.
Mitch Wagner
Google Rolls Out New Search Infrastructure
Related Story:
Newspapers Fight Back Against Search Engines
General Motors Awards $15 Billion In IT Services
Mozilla Releases Firefox Update--On Purpose This Time
Apple Hit With iPod Hearing-Loss Lawsuit
SAP Offers On-Demand CRM
AMD's 4Q Growth Rate Bests Intel's--For Now
About.com Expands Online Video Offerings
AT&T Allegedly Provided Customer Data To Feds
1Q Federal Contracts Total $28 Billion: Study
Sun, Imation Expand Storage Partnership
IPv6 Targeted By Tony Investment Group
CA Makes New Name Official
Review: The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet's Lost Potential
In the current episode:
John Soat With 'News--Or Not'
Doug Henschen With 'Don't Be Big Brother'
Elena Malykhina With 'Super Bowl On Your Cell Phone'
Innovative Strategies
Podcasts
A Week's Worth Of Dailies--All In One Place
Subscribe To Your Favorite Authors
-----------------------------------------
Adobe Intel Support: October At The Earliest (The Mac Observer)
Internet Brings U.S. Telegram Era To A STOP (Yahoo News)
New Exam Aims To Measure Tech 'Literacy' (Yahoo News)
Countdown On For Kama Sutra
FAQ: How Bad Is Kama Sutra?
Brief: Worm Spoofs Security Firm's E-Mail Address
Feds Charge 19 In Piracy Ring
Podcast: Keep Your Google Searches Private
IDC Focuses On Symantec's E-Mail Security And Availability Solution
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InformationWeek Daily Newsletter
1. Editor's Note: Condemning Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft
Is Cheap And Easy
mwagner@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com
The changes are taking place behind the scenes, in Google's data
centers, to solve a couple of problems. One has to do with
Google's search engine determining the correct domain name of any
given site after a user types in just a portion of the name.
An international group of publishers is exploring options,
including collective action at either a national or international
level, for enforcing copyright and preventing search engines from
taking their content for free.
EDS will lose more than $500 million a year in GM business, while
Hewlett-Packard and Capgemini will gain business.
The release of version 1.5.0.1, with minor security and stability
enhancements, is official after inadvertent upgrades confused
users last week.
The suit asks for unspecified damages and demands that Apple
Computer update the iPod software so its portable music players
can't blast tunes at more than 100 decibels.
SAP takes a different approach than its on-demand competitors by
running applications on servers dedicated to individual customers.
Thanks to strong sales of dual-core PCs, AMD saw quarterly
revenue jump 45% to $1.8 billion. Intel posted $10.2 billion in
quarterly revenue, with much more modest growth of 6%.
Shows about tech gadgets, health, and home and garden are already
running or will be soon.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation is suing AT&T, charging the
telecom company with giving the National Security Agency direct
access to a database of private information about AT&T customers.
There's more going on now than there was at the same time last
year, Input says. Key players include the Air Force, Army, and
Department of the Treasury.
Due from the two: an extension of the Sun StorageTek T9840
tape-drive platform and projects in advanced storage, including
tape and archival technologies.
An industry powerhouse headed by a former IRS commissioner is
investing in firms aiming at the government and corporate IPv6 market.
It's just "CA Inc." now, part of a larger overhaul aimed at
remaking its image in the wake of accounting scandals.
What the tablet does--Web browsing and a number of Internet
applications--it does very well. But Nokia blew it by failing to
include basic PDA functionality. The device also falls down on
battery life.
RFID reaches China, AMD inside Dell, GM outsources IT, and more.
An interview with Jim Dempsey, of the center of democracy and
technology, about online privacy and surveillance controversies.
Watch press conferences, the half-time show, and more from the
Super Bowl on your Sprint phone or handheld device.
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4. Grab Bag: News You Need From Around The Web
Adobe has detailed its road map for Intel-based Mac native
support, and it won't be releasing Universal Binary updates for
its current applications.
The Internet STOP just brought the age of the American telegram
STOP to a stop STOP. In a final irony, Western Union, which
flashed good and bad news to Americans in distinctive yellow
envelopes for a century and a half, quietly announced its
decision to end the service on its Web site.
The ICT Literacy Assessment touches on traditional skills, such
as analytical reading and math, but with a technological twist.
Test-takers, for instance, may be asked to query a database,
compose an E-mail based on their research, or seek information on
the Internet and decide how reliable it is.
Starting today, the worm will begin corrupting 11 different file
formats by overwriting those documents and files with a mindless
string of text.
Sometime today, computers already infected with the Kama Sutra
worm will suffer potentially catastrophic damage. Here's what you
need to know.
The E-mails were crafted so that they appeared to be from a
nonexistent employee of F-Secure, a security-software vendor.
Authorities say the group, known as RISCISO, collected more than
19 terabytes of pirated data, including software, games, and movies.
Word that the government has been seeking search data from Google
has struck fear into the hearts of Internet Explorer and Firefox
users. Here's a podcast outlining five simple steps you can take
to keep outsiders from uncovering private information about your
Web-browsing habits.
This document identifies the current drivers for E-mail security
and availability, describes an "information integrity" strategy
for building a resilient E-mail infrastructure, and evaluates the
role of Symantec in this market.
8. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
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