• Lost that users manual? You can find it on the Web

  There are search engines to target manuals (About Feb 4 2010)

• Microsoft’s Bing ‘will make money’

  Bing, which has struggled to make headway against Google, can be a viable runner-up and make money online eventually (Independent Feb 3 2010)

• Inside Search: Raymond Bentinck of Exalead

  On the French search engine Exalead and enterprise search (Beyond Search Feb 3 2010)

• Some Insight Into How Bing Handles WWW vs Non-WWW Canonical SEO Issues

  It really doesn’t matter if the site your link is residing on is www or non-www. (SE Roundtable Feb 5 2010)

• Siri: Not A “Search Engine” But You Might Use It Like One

  It’s intended to enable you to do more with your voice and your phone in fewer clicks or moves. (SE Land feb 5 2010)

• Google Maps To Add “Google Store Views”

  Google came to their store to take pictures for a new Google Maps product named “Google Store Views.” (SE Land Feb 4 2010)

• Everything You Need to Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links

  One of the first site architectural issues to consider is how your URLs will read. (SE Guide Feb 4 2010)

• Job Search Shakeup: Monster to Buy HotJobs for $225 Million

  Yahoo! sells off job search site and strikes new ad deal. (SE Watch Feb 4 2010)

• Google to Compete Against Apple Again?

  Is Google preparing to launch its tablet PC that would go up against the Apple iPad? (SE Journal Feb 3 2010)

• Another Googler Joins the Obama Administration–Now We’ve Got a Foursome!

  Sumit Agarwal, who was head of Google’s mobile product management, has become the deputy assistant secretary of defense for outreach and social media (BoomTown Feb 3 2010)

• 50 Ways To Lose Your Link

  Julie Joyce on link building (SEO Chicks Feb 2 2010)

• Google News Allows You To “Star” News Stories

  When a user stars a story Google alerts you to significant updates by putting the headline in bold, so you can get more info (SE Land Feb 2 2010)

• Why Coming In Second Can Be A Good Thing

  The search engines are different in Europe (Bas van den Beld, SE Land, Feb 2 2010)

• Google Plans Store for Online Business Software

  Google Apps May Get Its Own App Store (SE Land Feb 2 2010)

• Google: A recent improvement for Arabic searches

  It is easy to forget to separate words in Arabic (Google Blog Feb 2 2010)

• Spotify revamps recommendation engine

  Dig deeper into the Spotify music catalogue (techradar Feb 5 2010)

• Understanding Google Insights: You Can’t Estimate Traffic with It

  Google Insights is an awesome tool for tracking and comparing trends. (SE Journal Feb 5 2010)

• Bing with Enhanced Cooperation with Facebook on Search

  First, we have deepened our joint work together on web search to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users with Bing. (Bing Feb 5 2010)

• Apple CEO Steve Jobs Says Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Pledge Is BS

  Make no mistake, they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, Jobs says. (Google Watch Jan 31 2010)

• Google Opens Up Its Social Search

  Google announced last week that its social search experiment, which it opened up for limited use last year, is now more widely available. (ResearchBuzz Feb 1 2010)

• Google Squared improved. Perhaps not.

  Google Squared has a new design to better handle queries looking for a single thing, like a specific president or a particular breed of dog. (P Bradley Feb 1 2010)

• Google Chrome Cracks 5% Share as It Creeps Up on Firefox, IE

  Google’s Chrome Web browser continued to gain market share through the first month of 2010, garnering 5.2 percent of the worldwide browser market (Google Watch Feb 1 2010)

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The Sami people, one of the largest indigenous groups in Europe, lives in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages, which are members of the Finno-Lappic group of the Uralic language family.

February 6 was the date the first Sami congress was held in 1917 in Trondheim, Norway. This congress was the first time that Norwegian and Swedish Sami came together to find solutions for common problems. Since 1993 Norway, Sweden and Finland (and now apparently Google) have recognized the date as the Sami National Day.

The Wikipedia on the Sami.

Photo:Sami bride, photo credit: samisknettverk

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• FacteryLabs fact search engine

  Need to research trending topics? Want the basics on a subject quickly and easily? (P Bradley Jan 26 2010)

• Google News Comes Back For More

  Google News has implemented a recrawl feature that allows us to focus on getting the newest articles around while still ensuring that we’re displaying the most up-to-date information. (Google News Jan 25 2010)

• Bing improvements: Twitter Maps, Investor info, and a Mars game

  Bing has set up an interactive game called “Captain Mike’s Mars Adventure” (LiveSide Jan 29 2010)

• Google May Be Crawling AJAX Now – How To Best Take Advantage Of It

  In October 2009, Google proposed a new standard for implementing AJAX on web sites that would help search engines extract the content (SE Land Jan 28 2010)

• Cracking the Google Algorithm, and Understanding Search Patents with Ted “tedster” Ulle

  Stuntdubl: I’m really excited to announce a video that I got a chance to record with Ted, an good friend from WebmasterWorld.com for years who I refer to as “my google oracle” (Jan 28 2010)

• Bing Launches New U.S. Stocks and Funds Feature

  Bing is making it easier for you to keep up with your portfolio and the U.S. stock market. (SE Watch Jan 28 2010)

• How to UNshorten Any URL

  Tools that unshorten any URL you see on a web page to let you where they are linking (SE Journal jan 28 2010)

• Google search is getting more social

  Now when you’re doing a search on Images, you may start seeing pictures from people in your social circle. (Google Blog Jan 27 2010)

• Updated Books Home Page and My Library

  Google Books: We’ve updated the home page by adding the ability to scroll through categories of books and magazines. (Jan 27 2010)

• Ask Jeeves backs Q&A strategy with TV campaign

  Ask Jeeves is launching a TV advertising campaign from 1 February as part of its core questions and answers marketing strategy for the UK site. (Marketing Jan 25 2010)

• Knol Gets Some Publishing Steroids

  Google has added a large number of new embeddable objects for maps, docs, spreadsheets, forms, slideshows, presentations, videos, gadgets and more. (Beyond Search Jan 25 2010)

• Delicious Updates Viewing Options; Adds StumbleUpon-Like Feature

  There’s a new option to “Browse these bookmarks.” (SE Watch Jan 29 2010)

• A Paid Search Glossary

  Before we really start diving into the specifics of managing a paid search account, it is important to cover some standard industry jargon. (SE Land Jan 28 2010)

• Google Maps’ Search Suggestions Get Personal

  Google has announced that it’s now personalizing search suggestions that appear on Google Maps. (SE Land Jan 28 2010)

• Yahoo! Earnings: Revenues Down but Profits Up

  Revenues came in at $1.7 billion, which was down 4% compared to a year ago but up 10% compared to the third quarter. (SE Watch Jan 26 2010)

• Disabling The Google Toolbar Doesn’t Stop Google From Tracking You

  Ben Edelman uncovered evidence that even if you disable the Google Toolbar, Google may still be tracking your web browsing behavior. (SE Land Jan 26 2010)

• Bill Gates defends China’s ‘limited censorship

  But doesn’t mention Google by name (techradar Jan 26 2010)

• No Feed, No Problem – Google Reader Now Tracks (Mostly) Any Website Change

  All you do is copy the URL into Google Reader and click on “create a feed.” Google Reader will then periodically visit the page and publish any significant changes. (SE Land Jan 25 2010)

• Google Introducing a new Rich Snippets format: Events

  Google Webmaster: Last year we introduced Rich Snippets, a new feature that makes it possible to surface structured data from your pages on Google’s search results. (Jan 22 2010)

• Twitter Testing Local Trends

  Twitter Trends shows you what Tweet topics are currently hot and trending on Twitter. SE Land Jan 25 2010)

• Bing Serves Up Recipe Search

  Ratings and a quick look at nutritional information accompany the results. (SE Watch Jan 25 2010)

Video of the Week:

Video on the new recipe search feature over at Microsoft’s Bing:

SMX East: NYC Oct 5-7
Click Here for Agenda!

There has been a lot of negative comments on the iPad. It doesn’t do this, it doesn’t do that, and nearly all of these comments come from geeks comparing the iPad to a regular computer. This is not a netbook, even if it can do much of what a netbook can do. Nor is it a plain ebook reader.

It is what I for a lack of a better word will call a media reader on steroids.

The reference tool

Back home we have an old laptop lying in a shelf in the living room. We don’t use it much for word processing, heavy calculations or for designing web sites.

We use it as a reference tool. If we watch a movie, we look it up at IMDB. If we need a recipe we search for one using Google. If we want to convert some measures, we find an appropriate tool. We use it for YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. And we use it for reading news.

My wife also uses it for games, and I pretend not to notice.

We do use the keyboard, but not for heavy lifting.

The ebook reader

On another shelf you will find the Amazon Kindle my wife gave me for Christmas.

I love it! I am a parallel reader, and tend to read several books at the same time, fact and fiction. If the book I am looking for is available for Kindle I download it to my Kindle using the Kindle itself or the Amazon store. I use the simplistic interface to switch between the various publications.

It remembers my latest position for each book, and I can write in comments with the small keyboard and store clippings.

The black and white epaper screen is crisp and easy on the eyes, and for reading plain text it is a dream. It works very well for reading fiction, although the screen is often too small to get the full benefit of scholarly publications. The pictures are too small, and it is hard to navigate between the main body of text, footnotes and references. You should buy the big screen Kindle for that, or go for the iPad.

But this is only the beginning. The Kindle is not there yet, but I can see what Apple is going for.

First you may subscribe to newspapers. Not just selected articles on a web site, but a whole newspaper.

I am subscribing to the International Herald Tribune on my Kindle (the Tribune is the international version of the New York Times). Every morning the 3G has downloaded the latest issue — all of the text and a few black and white pictures.

It works very well. Still the number of pictures is limited. Any color supplement will be missing. I do not miss the ads, but I am sure the Tribune would have like to add some to keep the paper going. And would it not be great if they could embed video?

You cannot do that on the Kindle, because by using epaper Amazon has sacrificed speed and colors for readability and a long battery life.

Apple goes the other way. By using an LED screen, they sacrifice readability and battery life for the wonders of color, design and moving pictures. But by doing so they have turned the ebook reader into a media platform.

Kitchen and airport computing

This is the future of kitchen and airport computing:

1. An ebook reader.
2. A newspaper and magazine reader.
3. A gaming platform.
4. A reference tool (dictionary, Wikipedia, phone catalog etc.)
5. A viewer for short videos (YouTube)
6. A social communication platform (chat, twitter, Facebook)

The iPad can be used for a lot of other purposes as well (like listening to music, word processing, watching movies and more, but there are other tools more suitable for that kind of thing).

Tablet search

Search will become an essential part of the user experience of the multimedia tablets. You need search to find facts, applets, videos, news, friends and colleagues.

Given the larger screen, the regular search engines should be able to provide the services without much fuzz. In fact, present day Bing, Yahoo! and Google can perform this task well.

There will be room for a new type of combined search tool, however. As I noted, the temptation to subscribe to magazines and newspapers is big.

It is cheaper to by magazines this way. You get them on your doorstep as soon as they are out. No, strike that! You get them in your lap as soon as they are out, and they include a lot of information that is not available online.

Accessing the hidden subscription based web

What I would like to see, is a search tool that lets me search both the web and the content of the magazines and newspapers I am subscribing to at the same time. I want this tool to be able to search not only the downloaded issues of the Tribune (or the Economist, the New Scientist, Time or whatever it is I am subscribing to), but also the content of the online archives of the same publications.

Then I want to be able to access that historical content by clicking on the relevant link in the search results, in the same way as I would go to any of the free content available on the web, and without having to go to their web site and log in as a subscriber.

So listen up, you old fashioned paper publishers! You are constantly complaining that Google and Craig’s List have been taking your livelihood away. Make sure that someone makes a search tools that lets me search your own databases, and help them do it.

If you do so, you will see that the decline of paper based publication will be compensated by the rise of tablet subscriptions.

The future of the Kindle

For Amazon the iPad poses a huge problem. In the US you may use the Kindle for some kind of web browsing and searching with Google, but given the limitations of the screen, it isn’t that useful. Since I live in Europe I can use it for browsing the Wikipedia only. That is helpful, but it cannot in no way replace a proper web browser.

Given the Kindle’s reliance on epaper (which is slow and can only “print” in black and white), video and colors are out of the question for the time being. For this reason the Kindle will remain primarily a good ebook reader, and nothing more.

Amazon could launch another iPad like type of Kindle, of course, in order to compete with Apple. I am not sure they will. Amazon’s main objective is to sell ebooks.

You can already read Kindle ebooks on the iPhone. That app can be used on the iPad as well. They will probably also make a new app for the iPad, making it easy to read Amazon ebooks on the Apple tablet. In other words: They can use the iPad in the same way Apple will be doing with their new iBook store. They can use the iPad to beat Apple in the ebook selling game.

I doubt very much that Apple will dare to stop them from doing so. Stopping Amazon’s iPad app would give them too much bad press, even if the Kindle ebooks are cheaper than Apple’s iBooks. If Apple is to fight Amazon in this game, it must be by making exclusive agreements with publishers that let the iBook store sell their books earlier than Amazon.

photo credit iPad: nDevilTV

photo credit Kindle: oskay

SMX East: NYC Oct 5-7
Click Here for Agenda!

• Ballmer Critical Of Google’s China Decision

  Ballmer suggested that Google’s decision to no longer filter out internet searches objectionable to the Chinese government was an irrational business decision. (SE Land Jan 22 2010)

• Google Founders To Sell 10 Million Shares Over Five Years

  Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares (SE Land Jan 22 2010)

• Google Still the Top Search Property Worldwide in 2009

  Interestingly, while Google retains its lead among the search properties worldwide, Microsoft’s search market share seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. (SE Journal Jan 22 2010)

• Google Adds More Answers & Info To Search Results

  Adding to last year’s announcement of rich snippets for reviews and people, Google has created one for events, too. (SE Land Jan 22 2010)

• Google SEO resources for beginners

  Google Webmaster Central on search engine optimization (Jan 21 2010)

• Search Engines Bringing Back Variables In URLs – At Your Expense

  Now search engines are saying variables in URLs are good, as long as you use the canonical meta tag. (Online Marketing Blog Jan 21 2010)

• New Data on Twitter Usage Can Strengthen Your Twitter Outreach

  The average Twitter user is now following around 170 people and is being followed by an average of 300 other people. (Jennifer Laycock Jan 21 2010)

• New York Times to erect pay-wall by 2011

  Will it take a year to build? (techradar Jan 2010)

• SEOmoz Launches Open Site Explorer, A Competitor (Replacement?) To Yahoo Site Explorer

  Open Site Explorer provides a number of data points pulled from SEOmoz’s Linkscape tool and its index of the web. (SE Land jan 20 2010)

• Microsoft And Apple Discuss Making Bing Default Engine On The iPhone

  Becoming the default search provider on 70 million (roughly) iPhone OS devices would be an enormous boost for Bing. (SE Land Jan 20 2010)

• Microsoft To Purge Search Data on Bing After 6 Months

  Microsoft’s Bing blog announced they will reduce the time frame they store search data, from 18 months to only 6 months. (SEO Roundtable Jan 20 2010)

• Helping computers understand language

  Google Blog: Enabling computers to understand language remains one of the hardest problems in artificial intelligence. (Jan 19 2010)

• Google Now Shows Synonyms Bold

  Google considers the word “photos” to be synonymous to “pictures” and bolds it. (Blogoscoped Jan 20 2010)

• Bing Updates Autosuggest With News & Trending Queries

  Bing’s autosuggest feature now provides more current suggestions as you type a query. (SE Land Jan 19 2010)

• 44% of Google News Visitors Don’t Click Through

  It seems that many online news consumers are more like grazers. (Marketing Pilgrim Jan 19 2010)

• 11 Tools For Domain Name Research and Registration

  I’ve used each of the following domain tools at one point or another, and they each have a different approach. (Will Reinhardt Jan 19 2010)

• hakia Launches NoBrandSearch.com, a Blind Test of Search Engines

  Each time you search, two sets of results are provided. They’re chosen from four search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and hakia. (SE Watch Jan 18 2010)

• Marketing in the Age of Google: Vanessa Fox Interview

  Vanessa has a new book coming out called Marketing in the Age of Google, which I’ve had the opportunity to preview (Online Marketing Blog Jn 18 2010)

• Kngine Launches Web 3.0 Search Engine

  Multiple meaning word perception, question answering technology, structured information as well as new user experience model (AltSeachEngines Jan 24 2010)

• Kartoo gone?

  Kartoo, one of the first of the visual search engines, with it’s particular mapping technique would appear to have died. (Phil Bradley Jan 23 2010)

• Rummage Through 450,000+ Comic Book Covers

  A huge collection of comic book covers (over 450,000+), more resources, and fun tools for playing with them. (ReseachBuzz Jan 20 2010)

• Sweet Search - new search engine

  Phil Bradley: “To be honest, I think I’d be more inclined to produce more, smaller search engines based on Google’s custom search engines. ” (Jan 19 2010)

• Local.com Starts Up Events Site

  It gives you a list of what’s happening in your area, including music, festivals, conferences, sports, family-friendly events, etc. (ResearchBuzz Jan 18 2010)

• Insta.Found - insta flop more like

  Phil Bradley is not impressed (Jan 18 2010)

• 20 Real-World Uses for Google Wave

  Share your photos, files, projects, draft documents, plan trips etc. (MacLife Jan 13 2010, via Beyond Search)

• Bing’s Stefan Weitz: Rethinking The Search Experience

  And part of the problem comes with a decidedly human factor that doesn’t play well with artificial intelligence—language. (SE Land Jan 22 2010)

The video of the week

Listen to Matt Cutts on the stage of the Google index. He gives a good summary of what Google has been up to in 2009.

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This is what hakia says about the tool:

“NoBrandSearch is an experiment to compare the core competencies of the search engines in the market. (…) Each time you enter a query, each side of the screen is randomly selected from the search engines in the market. Their brands and special features are screened out. All you have to do is to decide which set of results are better.”

Every time you search you will get two anonymized sets of search results side by side. Click on the result set you like the best, and you will get the name of both search engines. The idea is that this will give you an unbiased idea of the search quality of search engine like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and — obviously — Hakia.

Note that No Brand Search only includes the regular organic search results. There is more to the search engine result pages of the major search engines than that, of course.

The real reason for this service is that hakia hopes you will select the hakia search results as often as possible, making you understand that theirs is the search engine for you. We admire their self confidence!

By the way: Do take a look at hakia. It is one of the few serious alternatives to the big three (which are to become the big two when Yahoo! starts delivering Bing results).

See also: Hakia, a meaning-based search engine

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By guest writer Evan Britton

Fresh news on your subject of choice

The main thing users can get out of the real time web is information. You can find out what is being said right now about any particluar subject. If you want to see what people think about a sports event, movie, celebrity, or any other breaking news - a real time search will inform you.

You can head to Twitter’s homepage to perform a real time search. Twitter makes it very easy to see what is being said about a respective subject.

It is also interesting to see which links are being shared on the real time web. Sency has built an interesting real time engine which shows you both what is being said, along with today’s most popular links for a particular search term.

Hot trends

In addition to seeing popular links and what is being said, it is also interesting to see what the hot trends are this moment. Often times, real time trends can show you breaking news before major media outlets pick up the story.

What The Trend is an interesting site which shows you both the current trends as well as reasons behind why a given topic is popular right now. You can also check out this what’s going on lately page which will show you 100 popular topics that have been talked over the past few days.

Find related topics

Lastly, users can use the real time web to see topics related to a given topic. If you head over to Tweet Cloud, you can enter any keyword you’d like and see other topics that are being discussed alongside this topic. In addition, you will notice that certain words are larger font - which means that this respective keyword has been used more often along side the initial keyword that was searched for.

As more and more users take advantage of the real time web, understanding how it works and the places you can go to will surely benefit any internet surfer.

photo credit: garryknight

Evan Britton is an internet marketing veteran who recently founded Sency. The mission of Sency is to help bring the real time web to internet users so that at any time, they can find out what’s going on right now.

SMX East: NYC Oct 5-7
Click Here for Agenda!

• Google Agrees to Censor Encyclopedia Dramatica Entry in Australia

  Google has agreed to take down links to a website that promotes racist views of indigenous Australians. (Blogoscoped Jan 17 2010)

• How Google Ranks Tweets

  Algorithms judge the relevance of microblog posts containing 140 characters or less. (Technology Review Jan 13 2010)

• Find Twitter Lists by Exploring Tags

  I like List Tags, which allows you to enter a Twitter user, find out what tags are associated with them, and then get lists based on those tags. (ResearchBuzz Jan 11 2010)

• Search for Scholarly Journals on CiteULike with DeepDyve

  DeepDyve and CiteULike announced today that the companies are collaborating to deliver a superior way to easily and affordably share and read scholarly information on the Internet. (AltSearchEngines Jan 14 2010)

• Wolfram|Alpha Adds Physical Activity Data

  Wolfram|Alpha announced last week that it has added data for a variety of physical activities. (ResearchBuzz jan 11 2010)

• Social science meets computer science at Yahoo

  Yahoo Labs has bolstered its ranks of social scientists, adding highly credentialed cognitive psychologists, economists and ethnographers from top universities around the world. (SFGate Jan 11 2010)

• Yahoo To Kill Shopping API & Outsource to PriceGrabber, Not Bing

  Yahoo quietly announced they are discontinuing their Yahoo Shopping API, because they are going to be outsourcing the Yahoo Shopping component of their site to PriceGrabber.com. (SE Roundtable Jan 12 2010)

• Doing Real Time Search? Watch Your Word Order

  Google does change the real time search results based on your word order. (ResearchBuzz Jan 13 2010)

• Bye Bye Baidu : China’s Largest Search Engine Hacked

  The Iranian Cyber Army has done it again. Their clever team of hackers has taken hostage of Baidu.com, China’s largest search engine (SE Journal Jan 12 2010)

• Serious Information Trapping on Twitter with RowFeeder

  Got some keywords you want to monitor and you don’t want to miss a thing? (ResearchBuzz Jan 13 2010)

• Upload and store your files in the cloud with Google Docs

  Google Docs Blog: We’re happy to announce that over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. (Jan 12 2010)

• Doesn’t Google know how to rank social media?

  Pagerank is not dead at all, its alive and kicking and its looking at Twitter. (SearchCowboys Jan 13 2010)

• Baidu: The Official Google Blog You Seek Does Not Exist (and Don’t Even Try Looking For It)

  Chinese Baidu puts a lid on the Google/China war (SE Land Jan 13 2010)

• Want Your Tweets on Google? Get More (Better) Followers

  One of the many ranking signals they use is the number and quality of your followers (Marketing Pilgrim Jan 13 2010)

• Google Now Corrupting Lingual Identity

  Google UK gave you American English - for a while (SE Journal Jan 14 2010)

• Shashi Seth Now At Yahoo From AOL, Cooliris & Google

  Shashi Seth will be managing Yahoo’s Search team and all things related to Yahoo Search. (SE Land Jan 14 2010)

• Google Gets 72% of Searches in December 2009

  Just like Nielsen’s stats, Google is also leading the pack with Hitwise (SE Journal Jan 14 2010)

• Where Have All The Old Tweets Gone?

  You won’t find any that are more than a week or so old on Twitter. (SE Land Jan 14 2010)

• Google Offers Mobile Search Suggestions

  Google announced that it is offering optimized search suggestions for your mobile searching pleasure. (Marketing Pilgrim Jan 15 2010)

• Yahoo Adds Feature to Import Google Adwords Campaigns

  Yahoo is saying “We know how much you use Google Adwords so just ‘copy and paste’ it to us and spend with us. Please!” (Marketing Pilgrim Jan 15 2010)

• Search Engine for PowerPoint Presentations

  SlideFinder, at http://www.slidefinder.net/, helps you find PowerPoint presentations on the Web. (ResearchBuzz Jan 13 2010)

The video of the week: On Google’s Personalized Search

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photo credit: QiFei

As we reported earlier this week, Google is no longer willing to censor search results in China.

The announcement is dramatic, to say the least, and we have no reason to believe that Google will not follow up on its threats: i.e. close down its operations in China and the google.cn site if the Chinese government does not allow uncensored result.

It is also pretty obvious that the Chinese Communists are not going to allow this. Google knows that. This again means that Google will leave China. The “talk about talks” is just a formality.

The cyber attack

It has been known for a time that there has been internal disagreement in the Google leadership regarding China. Co-founder Sergey Brin, who had his childhood in Soviet Russia, has been particularly uncomfortable with the idea of giving in to the Communist regime. Still, the dream of conquering a huge Internet market, as well as the argument that it is better with some information than none prevailed until this week.

What changed was the fact that someone launched a co-ordinated attack against the services of Google and other American companies looking — apparently — for business information as well as information on Chinese dissidents and human rights activists in other parts of the world known for supporting the Chinese opposition.

It seems they were two attacks: One where someone hacked into the Google servers directly (although not achieving their goal) and another using spyware exploting a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, tapping information from infected computers, and getting login information by spying on the users for these PCs.

Although this hasn’t been proved, it is reasonable to conclude that the attacks were orchestrated by the Chinese government. Who else would want access to the Gmail accounts of the Chinese opposition?

This told Google that the tactic of placating the Chinese government is not working. Instead of allowing more freedom for its citizens, the regime is so scared of a “democratic revolution” that it is doing anything it can to keep an eye on possible threats.

The dilemma of the Chinese regime

The Chinese regime has learned from history. The fall of the Eastern Block was partly caused by the fact that the citizens of countries like East Germany and Hungary had access to Western TV and radio. This enabled them to see through the lies of their governments’ propaganda. The revolutions of Georgia, Ukraine and (right now) Iran have all been driven by an active use of the Web.

The Chinese government also knows the danger of building up an educated and wealthy middle class. In spite of what Communist doctrine tells you, it is the middle class that normally demands democracy. This means that the Communists need to do two things at once:

(1) Ensure economic growth that will placate the middle class. For this they need to develop a knowledge based economy with a well educated population - i.e. produce a large number of potential enemies of the regime. This is their Catch 22.

(2) To get around this dilemma, the regime tries to control the affluent middle class by censoring information flow. In this way they hope that the middle class will be unwilling or unable to demand political change.

This is why they took the chance of attacking Google’s infrastructure, trying to get access to Gmail accounts.

Attacking the Cloud

That was a huge mistake. By attacking Google’s cloud computers and the accounts of Gmail holders, they were threatening the Google strategy of moving all types of computing onto the Web.

Google’s plan is to beat Microsoft and the other traditional software companies by offering online services that accomplish the same tasks online as traditional software is doing locally today. They hope that in a few years you will replace Windows and Microsoft Office with Google Chrome and Google Docs. But for that to happen, the potential users have to be able to trust Google with their personal information. The fact that the Chinese government has been able to hack into the Gmail accounts of dissidents undermines this trust. If the Reds can do it, others can do it too.

This is what made Google declare war on the Communist regime. They were already under attack, a kind of threat Google cannot live with.

Google’s mistake

Google had made a terrible mistake. They probably believed they could handle China and its regime, in spite of Brin’s misgivings. They were wrong. This is not a regime that will give in to Western ideas of freedom of information and democracy, simply because it cannot afford to do so without losing its grip on power.

The only way to do this kind of business with China is to swallow your pride and do the dirty work of censorship for them. A lot of American and European companies do that. It is business, after all. But Google with it’s “Do no evil!” slogan should know better.

The cyber attacks made Google realize its mistake. Now it has, belatedly, come to its senses. That’s good. Now it is time for companies like Yahoo! to do the same.

Here’s the CNBC coverage of the Chinese attacks:

Here is another report from the Newshour:

Google/China coverage from around the Web:

• Microsoft admits IE fault in Google China hack

  Microsoft suggests users can avoid any problem by using protected mode and the highest security settings. (techradar Jan 15 2010)

• On Rumors of China Attacks Targeting a Google Search Warrant Compliance System

  and About Google Allegedly Already Lifting Censorship (Google Blogoscoped jan 15 2010)

• After Google’s Stand on China, U.S. Treads Lightly

  Peering inside the hacked machine, engineers saw evidence of attacks, not only at Google, but also at at least 33 other companies (NYT Jan 14 2010)

• Follow the Law, China Tells Internet Companies

  China is unlikely to give ground on Google’s demands that its search engine results be unfiltered. (NYT Jan 14 2010)

• After The Hack, Should I Still Trust Google & The Cloud With My Data?

  Danny Sullivan is wondering if the GoogleHack will develop into a major reversal for the growth of cloud computing. (SE Land Jan 14 2010)

• Google China’s Office Becomes a Shrine

  placing flowers and candles by their Google sign outside the building. (SE Roundtable Jan 14 2010)

• So, just how did Google get hacked?

  Security expert Graham Cluley asks whether infected PDFs were to blame (techradar jan 14 2010)

• The China Google rift: is it good for Bing?

  Microsoft and Bing are bound to face the same challenges faced by Google – a fierce resistance to opening up China to the connected world (Liveside.net Jan 13 2010)

• Baidu: The Official Google Blog You Seek Does Not Exist (& Don’t Even Try Looking For It)

  Chinese Baidu puts a lid on the Google/China war (SE Land Jan 13 2010)

• Google’s China Gambit: Day Two Reaction

  Google’s public statements and decision are being applauded, dissected and heavily tweeted within and outside China. (SE Land Jan 13 2010)

• Google’s Tortured History With China

  John Battelle: This is politics at its finest, and it’s a very clear statement to China: We’re done playing the game your way. (Jan 13 2010)

• Google Just Says No To China: Ending Censorship, Due To Gmail Attack

  Google has willingly allowed self-censored its search results since January 27, 2006, on its Google China service (Jan 12 2010)

• Google makes encryption on Gmail the default

  Https becomes the standard setting (techradar Jan 13 2010)

• Does It Matter Why Google Did It? The Real Point Is China’s Appalling Internet Behavior.

  Maybe Google finally went on the offensive against China to take focus away from a significant security breach. (BoomTown Jan 13 2010)

• Google: A new approach to China

  The Official Google Blog on Google’s break with China (Jan 12 2010)

• Google’s Handle on China Flap Freezes the Evil Meter

  Attacks on Google’s cloud are actually attacks on its consumers, because Google hosts its users’ data on thousands of servers in data centers all over the world. (Google Watch Jan 14 2010)

• Google: Keeping your data safe

  The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. (Google Enterprise Blog Jan 12 2010)

• Google, Citing Attack, Threatens to Exit China

  Google said Tuesday that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether (NYT Jan 12 2010)

• China at Odds With Future in Internet Fight

  But to many of the young, well-educated Chinese who are Google’s loyal users here, the company’s threat to leave is in fact no laughing matter. (NYT Jan 16 2010)

• The White House on the Google/China conflict

  Gibbs: Helene, you heard the President in Shanghai take a question from the Internet about the universal right of a free Internet. He strongly supports that, and we support Google’s action in a decision to no longer censure searches that happen using the

• Google Prompts Soul-Searching in China

  China Digital Times: This highly symbolic move by Google demonstrates the fundamental conflict between the free flow of information and an authoritarian regime (Xiao Qiang Jan 13 2010)

• Researchers identify command servers behind Google attack

  Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents (ars technica Jan 14 2010)

• Yahoo stayed quiet about Chinese cyber-attacks

  US search giant remained silent, unlike Google (techradar Jan 16 2010)

• Google and China: Business Morality or Reality?

  Mike Moran: They look like the model world corporate citizen for standing up to the Chinese. Sure they lost some opportunity there, but the rest of the world thinks they are heroes. (Jan 14 2010)

• The real reason Google wants out of China

  It’s not about human rights, says Oxblood Ruffin (techradar Jan 15 2010)

• Google China cyberattack part of vast espionage campaign, experts say

  Computer attacks on Google that the search giant said originated in China were part of a concerted political and corporate espionage effort that exploited security flaws in e-mail attachments (Washington Post Jan 14 2010)

• A Heated Debate at the Top

  Sergey Brin was the one arguing for Google withdrawing from China (WSJ Jan 14 2010)

• Google’s China Stance: More about Business than Thwarting Evil

  I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business. (TechCrunch Jan 12 2010)

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What has happened?

This has not happened due to any security breach at Google, but most likely through phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered have led Google to review the feasibility of their business operations in China: They are no longer willing to continue censoring results on Google.cn.

In the weeks to come Google will discuss with the Chinese government how they could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. On the official Google blog they write:

“We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

A brave decision

This is good news indeed! When Google.cn launched three years ago, Pandia and many others worried that the decision to censor search results was a serious breach with Google’s corporate motto “not be evil” and that it would lend legitimacy to the censorship and other human rights violations of the Chinese regime.

But China is a huge and quickly growing market and the temptation at the time was too big for Google. However, it turns out that they were trying to keep the evil to a minimum. In the same blog post quoted above, Google quotes their own blog post (or testemony as they called it) on the launch of Google.cn:

“we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

We are happy to see that these words have indeed provided a guideline for Google and that they have taken a decision which will probably cost them a lot of business but sends a very strong signal to the Chinese authorities.

photo credit: Ed-meister

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