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01 Mar 2012 22:40

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Tech: Three things you need to know about Google’s privacy policy changes

  • one Google consolidated its privacy policies from over 70+ to one; the change took effect today, covering services like Gmail, Google+, Google Docs and Picasa. It will also combine information from across all accounts.
  • two “We can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day,” said Google’s blog. Creepy or not?
  • threeYou can remove your Google search history, but the company could still be “gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes.” It often gives users’ personal info to the government. source
  • » An advertising play: “We can provide more relevant ads too,” Google points out. “For example, it’s January, but maybe you’re not a gym person, so fitness ads aren’t that useful to you.” More relevant for users, possibly, but more relevant for advertisers, too? It’ll be interesting to see what happens a few months down the line with this policy.

02 Jun 2011 14:59

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U.S.: FBI investigating China for hacking job

  • cause Hackers went after Gmail, but didn’t compromise many accounts. However, some of the hacked accounts belong to some pretty high-ranking officials here in the U.S. Google claims that the hack originated in China, and the accounts have since been secured.
  • effect The FBI is investigating the hacking, which the Chinese government is saying that they had nothing to do with. However, Google believes the attack originated from the same city as one that targeted U.S. companies last year, including Google. source

22 Mar 2011 10:33

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Tech: China responds to Google’s Gmail accusations with just four words

  • This is an unacceptable accusation.
  • China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu • Regarding Google’s claim that China has been infiltrating users’ Gmail accounts lately. We bet you’re wondering if she had any elaboration on this quote, considering its brevity. But, no, she didn’t. That’s all she said. Kinda awkward, isn’t it? source

21 Mar 2011 10:24

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Tech, World: Google: China’s messing with users’ Gmail accounts

  • then Google reported they had been victim of cyberattacks around January of last year. Come to find out it was China. They made a big stink about it, had their access temporarily revoked in China, and eventually moved to Hong Kong. It was kind of a big deal.
  • now In the wake of potential Jasmine Revolution uprisings, Google’s now accusing China of messing with Gmail — hurting users’ abilities to send e-mails and mark them read. Google thinks China is using a vulnerability in IE to compromise Gmail’s usability. source

01 Mar 2011 11:10

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Tech: Fortunately they have backups: Google explains that Gmail hiccup

  • what Thousands of people lost access to their Gmail accounts recently. When they got back into the accounts, they were empty. Yikes. (This is our nightmare.)
  • why Google explains that a bug caused the issue, and that although they lost several copies of the data, they fortunately had a backup that was disconnected from the cloud. source

03 Dec 2010 17:56

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Tech, U.S.: FBI agents seize the wrong email account

  • good The FBI obtained a warrant to seize the emails of prolific Internet spammer Oleg Nikolaenko, wanted on a felony charge.
  • bad Due to a typo, they accidentally seized the wrong Gmail account (the FBI agent in charge dropped an ‘n’ by mistake).
  • bashfulThat agent now has to go back to federal court and get another search warrant – this time for the right email address. source

13 Nov 2010 12:04

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Tech: Uh-oh: Is Facebook prepping to attack Gmail head-on?

  • issue Over the last week or so, Google and Facebook have been entwined in an argument over Facebook’s importing of Gmail contacts; Google wants them to open up, but Facebook instead has worked around Google’s roadblocks.
  • reason? So why has Facebook been so resistant to Google’s open-up-your-datastream advances? Well, it seems Facebook is about to launch some sort of messaging thing on Monday. Is it e-mail? Because if it is, that would explain a lot. source
 

10 Nov 2010 11:17

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Tech: That Facebook-Google fight over your friends gets nasty

  • The war over importing contacts escalates. The other day, Google decided to stop allowing Facebook to import their contacts, partly for competitive reasons. Facebook then devised a way around it that was actually pretty clever. Google has now put up this scare page to let people know that no, you shouldn’t offer your data to Facebook so quickly. So, why won’t Facebook bend on this issue again? And what does this mean for other services that aren’t Google? Well, a key Facebook engineer argues that Google doesn’t practice what it’s preaching. This is a pretty drama-laden fight that keeps getting bigger. source

06 Nov 2010 19:47

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Tech: Proxy war: Facebook, Google fighting over your friends

  • cause Google, looking to build its own social networking product to compete with Facebook (Orkut doesn’t count apparently) wants Facebook to open up its data stream so they can use it.
  • reaction Facebook says no, so Google changes their policy so Facebook can’t simply grab contacts from Gmail accounts anymore. You joined Facebook five years ago, so it doesn’t matter. source

31 Aug 2010 12:09

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Tech: Google’s Priority Inbox promises to change your life, help you lose weight

  • Just what we’ve been looking for: A video about e-mail clutter. Seriously, though, Gmail’s new Priority Inbox feature allows us to do what we’ve always wanted: Ignore the crap we get (e-mails from readers) and focus on what we really want to read (e-mails from people responding to our Craigslist “Missed Connections” ads). source