WebProNews

Keeping Data Is Good, Says Google

Retaining search data helps Google improve its search results, despite privacy concerns that such retention could end up in the hands of the government via subpoena.

Facebook Joins Data Portability Group

This is pretty big news, it seems to me, after all of the back-and-forth about data being trapped inside Facebook — the social-networking site has joined the Data Portability Group, along with Plaxo and Google, and will now be helping come up with a standard for moving personal data into and out of different networks.

The Data Portability Issue Isn't Going Away

So Robert Scoble has his account suspended by Facebook for using an automated script to harvest his contacts and their email addresses (see my previous post), and all hell breaks loose. Scoble, whose account is later reinstated, is denounced for being a publicity-seeking limelight hog, and for using a script from Plaxo that is an egregious breach of Facebook’s terms of use (since it uses optical character recognition to grab email addresses, which the site keeps as image files).

Who Does This Facebook Data Belong To?

In his post about Facebook disabling his account, uber-blogger and Facebook tart Robert Scoble admits that he was doing something that breached the site’s terms of use — specifically, he was running a script that accessed the social network and “scraped” data from it.

Online Advertising Might Benefit From Better Data

Suppose you’re promised one reward, and then often given two. Or promised two rewards, and sometimes given one. Studies have found that both humans and monkeys prefer the first scenario, but in the world of online advertising, execs expect to know exactly what’s going on.

UK Agency Loses Data On 6,000 Drivers

Computer discs containing the names and addresses of 6,000 Northern Ireland drivers has gone missing.

SES Round-up

Jolina and Mike had a great time at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Not only is it the windy city, but a festive, cold and snowy one too by the sounds of it.

SEMPO Organizes Annual Meeting

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is organizing its annual meeting. For this round-robin discussion, it is bringing representatives from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. All the companies will discuss together about their latest plans and initiative programs.

Hitwise Adds Paid And Organic Search Data

Hitwise announced today that it has added new features to its Search Intelligence product, including paid and organic and fast moving search terms data.

Facebook Responds To Silent Data Report

Security researchers at CA found the Facebook Beacon keeps Facebook abreast of one's activities on an advertiser's site, whether the Facebook user opted out of that instance or not.