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Friday, October 11, 2013

Google to put user names, photos, comments in ads

2 hours ago

Users under 18 will be exempt from the ads and Google+ users will have the ability to opt out of the new program.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google plans to launch new product-endorsement ads incorporating photos, comments and names of its users, in a move to match the "social" ads pioneered by rival Facebook that is raising some privacy concerns.

The changes, which Google announced in a revised terms of service policy on Friday, set the stage for Google to introduce "shared endorsements" ads on its sites as well as millions of other websites that are part of Google's display advertising network.

The new types of ads would use personal information of the members of Google+, the social network launched by the company in 2011.

If a Google+ user has publicly endorsed a particular brand or product by clicking on the +1 button, that person's image might appear in an ad. Reviews and ratings of restaurants or music that Google+ users share on other Google services, such as in the Google Play online store, would also become fair game for advertisers.

The ads are similar to the social ads on Facebook, the world's No. 1 social network, which has 1.15 billion users.

Those ads are attractive to marketers, but they unfairly commercialize Internet users' images, said Marc Rotenberg, the director of online privacy group EPIC.

"It's a huge privacy problem," said Rotenberg. He said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission should review the policy change to determine whether it violates a 2011 consent order Google entered into which prohibits the company from retroactively changing users' privacy settings.

Users under 18 will be exempt from the ads and Google+ users will have the ability to opt out. But Rotenberg said users "shouldn't have to go back and restore their privacy defaults every time Google makes a change."

Information Google+ users have previously shared with a limited "circle" of friends will remain viewable only to that group, as will any shared endorsement ads that incorporate the information, Google said in a posting on its website explaining the new terms of service.

Google, which makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising, operates the world's most popular Web search engine as well as other online services such as maps, email and video website YouTube.

The revised terms of service are the latest policy change by Google to raise privacy concerns. Last month, French regulators said they would begin a process to sanction Google for a 2012 change to its policy that allowed the company to combine data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and social network Google+. Google has said its privacy policy respects European law and is intended to create better services for its users.

Google's latest terms of service change will go live on Nov. 11.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663301/s/325a33b5/sc/21/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cgoogle0Eput0Euser0Enames0Ephotos0Ecomments0Eads0E8C11379331/story01.htm
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Thursday, March 21, 2013

YouTube now serving videos to 1 billion people

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? YouTube says more than 1 billion people are now visiting its online video site each month to watch everything from zany clips of cute kittens to sobering scenes of social unrest around the world.

The milestone was announced Wednesday at a splashy event in Santa Monica that was aimed at advertisers and featured performances from some of the website's biggest stars, such as the bands CDZA and Monsters Calling Home. It marks another step in YouTube's evolution from a quirky startup launched in 2005 to one of the most influential forces in today's media landscape.

YouTube crossed the 1 billion threshold five months after Facebook Inc. said its online social network had reached that figure for the first time. YouTube first hit 800 million monthly visitors in October 2011.

The vast audience has given YouTube's owner, Google Inc., another lucrative channel for selling online ads beyond its dominant Internet search engine.

Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in 2006 when the video site had an estimated 50 million users worldwide.

Since late 2011, YouTube has refocused its site to prioritize watching along distinct channels of its creators. Such channels were seen as better allowing advertisers to focus on certain genres of content like beauty or music.

In 2012, it seeded 96 channels with around $100 million in funding to help them accelerate that growth, often partnering with big-name Hollywood producers and directors that had made it big in movies or TV but not on the Internet, including "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker. Later, YouTube vowed to spend another $200 million marketing the channels to boost viewers.

But Wednesday's event focused largely on those who had succeeded on YouTube before the channel-funding strategy was in place, such as Michelle Phan, a YouTuber who has been giving viewers makeup tips since 2006.

Robert Kyncl, vice president and global head of content partnerships, acknowledged to reporters after the event that the channel funding strategy had not worked as well as hoped.

When asked if the channel funding investment had paid off, Kyncl said, "Every year we reserve the right to get smarter."

He said that while YouTube was committed to continuing to invest in content, he said more of such investment in the future would go to those channels that had already proven they can be successful at building an audience on their own.

"What we're looking for is the acceleration of those who are figuring out how to retail their content," he said.

___

AP Business Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/youtube-now-serving-videos-1-billion-people-013554165.html

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Monday, March 18, 2013

Ex-gov. Blagojevich teaching history class in prison

You probably haven?t been wondering how former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is holding up in federal prison. You?re probably just happy that a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to solicit bribes and a host of other counts related to a brazen effort to sell President Barack Obama?s U.S. Senate seat.

Just in case you have been wondering, though, Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the disgraced Democrat?s incarceration. Blagojevich?s family says that he has been whiling away his time in the hoosegow by teaching history to other inmates, reports the International Business Times.

?He teaches a class on the Civil War,? Blagojevich?s wife, Patti, told the world on her Facebook page on Friday.

?He is surviving ? trying to make the best of an untenable situation,? she also wrote.

Patti Blagojevich explained that her husband?s absence has been especially hard on the couple?s two daughters. Birthdays, music recitals, driving tests and even mundane moments can be trying.

?Unfortunately, those moment[s] have been stolen from my children and there is no getting them back,? she wrote.

Patti Blagojevich added that Blagojevich?s nuclear family has visited him ?many times? over the past year.

The former governor?s home away from home while he serves his 14-year sentence is the Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood, a low-security federal prison for male inmates located some 15 miles southwest of Denver.

Provided that he doesn?t win an appeal currently in the works, Blagojevich must serve at least 85 percent of his term. That works out to almost 12 years.

In addition to his newfound role as a pokey professor, Prisoner No. 40892-424 stays in shape by running extensively on the quarter-mile track inside the prison walls.

As so many prisoners seem to do, Blagojevich has also picked up the guitar, according to his wife.

Other notable prisoners at FCI Englewood include Enron?s former president Jeffrey Skilling and Orange County, California?s former sheriff Mike Carona. Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence related to securities fraud and insider trading. Carona is serving a 66-month sentence for witness tampering.

It is unknown whether Skilling or Carona are pupils in Blagojevich?s course on the Civil War.

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Friday, March 15, 2013

SXSW Review Wrap-Up: 'Evil Dead,' 'Burt Wonderstone,' 'Spring Breakers' And More

The fine folks over at Film.com headed to central Texas for a little something the locals like to call SXSW. Now that most of the movie-related festivities have wrapped up in Austin, it's time we take a look at what SXSW turned up. Clip past the jump for our roundup of Film.com reviews from SXSW! [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/03/14/sxsw-review-wrap-up/

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Thursday, March 14, 2013

BHP Billiton faces corruption probe over Beijing Olympics

By Sonali Paul and Lucy Hornby

MELBOURNE/BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.S. government is investigating top global miner BHP Billiton Ltd for possible corrupt practices, the company confirmed, after media reports said it was being probed for its sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Australia's Fairfax Media reported that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) were investigating allegations that BHP provided inducements, hospitality and gifts to Chinese and other foreign officials.

The U.S. Justice Department told Fairfax, in response to a freedom of information request, it was conducting "law enforcement proceedings" involving BHP, which supplied the materials for gold, silver and bronze medals used in Beijing. The Department of Justice declined to comment after U.S. office hours on Tuesday.

Australian police confirmed they had been working with foreign counterparts and local regulators on Australian aspects of the U.S. investigation, without providing further details.

BHP said it had been cooperating with "relevant authorities", and in response to media queries said it believed it had complied with all applicable laws in regards to its Olympics sponsorship.

"BHP Billiton is fully committed to operating with integrity and the Group's policies specifically prohibit engaging in bribery in all its forms," BHP said in an emailed statement.

The world's biggest mining company has been under investigation for possible corrupt practices since at least 2009, disclosing in 2010 that it had uncovered possible violations of some anti-corruption laws.

BHP said on Wednesday it could not comment on whether that investigation had been expanded or whether the probe referred to on Wednesday was separate.

WOOING CUSTOMERS

Fairfax reported that between 2000 and 2008, BHP spent millions of dollars on a major Olympics sponsorship deal and hospitality package which according to a former China staffer involved more than 170 VIPs, including senior government officials and Chinese steel and mineral company CEOs.

Unlike most major consumer-focused sponsors, BHP's involvement at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was targeted mostly at its close circle of Chinese buyers and employees.

"Most sponsorships focus on media buys and advertising. We've done almost none," Maria McCarthy, the head of BHP's Olympic sponsorship team, told Reuters in March 2008.

"Instead, we are focusing on community leveraging, stakeholder leveraging that involves governments and customers, and our staff," she said.

A former BHP employee involved in the Olympics arrangements told Reuters BHP went out of its way to comply with Australian rules and compiled extensive documentation on its activities.

Fairfax Media said the officials BHP entertained included the head of state-owned Chinese aluminum producer Chinalco and the secretary-general of the China Iron and Steel Association, which coordinates industrial policy for China's steel sector.

"The long-standing enforcement practice of the U.S. DoJ (Department of Justice) and SEC has been to treat executives of SOEs as government officials for purposes of the anti-bribery provisions," said Nathan Bush, an attorney specializing in anti-corruption regulations with O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Beijing.

An employee from China's flagship steelmaker, Baosteel, said BHP held a roundtable for its iron ore clients during the Olympic Games, where they discussed the outlook for the steel industry. He said lower-ranking employees attended.

"It was all part of their sponsorship, there was nothing out of the ordinary," he said, adding that BHP gave participants Olympics T-shirts and tickets from its sponsorship package.

At the time, BHP was championing market pricing for iron ore instead of annual contracts, drawing an angry response from Chinese steel mills forced to pay much more for raw materials.

BHP was not one of the 12 sponsors in the International Olympic Committee's elite "TOP" program - companies such as Coca Cola, Adidas, McDonalds and Johnson & Johnson who paid for the right to market themselves worldwide as partners.

The miner was instead a local sponsor, as it had been for the 2000 Games in Sydney, paying Beijing organizers an undisclosed amount of money and providing materials for the 6,000 or so medals required for the Olympics and Paralympics.

In 2010, after receiving questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, BHP said it had discovered possible violations of anti-corruption laws mainly related to some exploration projects that it had already terminated at the time.

It said then that the SEC's requests for information did not relate to any activity in China or any of BHP's sales and marketing activities.

(Additional reporting by Rob Taylor in Canberra and Nick Mulvenney in Sydney; Editing by John Mair and Richard Pullin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bhp-billiton-says-faces-questions-over-olympics-hospitality-002241253--finance.html

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Monday, March 11, 2013

U of M gay bias lawsuit turns on cellphone, text records ? Business ...

Ongoing employment discrimination litigation between the University of Minnesota and a former golf coach is now focused on a cellphone. Former women?s associate golf instructor Kathryn Brenny sued the university, claiming that golf director John Harris stripped her of her duties once he discovered she is a lesbian.

Brenny had moved to Minnesota to take the position, but was fired shortly after arriving. She alleged the university discriminated against her based on her sexual orientation.

Key to her claim are text messages from Harris? university-issued phone. Starting two years ago, Brenny?s attorney repeatedly asked to examine the cellphone, but the university refused.

Finally, the university admitted that the cellphone?s memory had been wiped out before it was issued to another university employee.

The judge in the case ordered the university to pay Brenny $5,000 as a penalty for destroying evidence. The university has appealed, stating that nothing on the phone was relevant to the case.

Advice: Establish procedures to preserve evidence that may be used in litigation, including text messages.

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iMore show. Tonight. 6pm PDT. 9pm EDT. Be here!

The iMore show returns tonight with special guest Brian Klug of Anandtech, and we're going to discuss all the week's news. And science! Keep an eye on the time as well, because some of us shifted to daylight savings time, which means things could be shifted an hour in your part of the world. (Thankfully smartphones and tablets have clock apps for that, right?)

6pm PDT, 9pm EDT. Be here!