Search pundit Danny Sullivan often jokes that he remembers when “Google used to be a search engine.” They’ve become an advertising business, a cell-phone operating system maker, a blog platform, and now a venture capital firm.

But at their core, Google is about search. And Knol, their “answer to Wikipedia,” creates a screaming conflict of interest between Google and just about any self-publishing copyright holder. Aaron Wall’s SEO book describes the degree to which Knol gains preferential treatment from Google’s search engine.

What does skipping to the front of Google’s search listing mean? A lot, particularly to spammers and link farmers. If your copyrighted work exists on a blog, or webpage, and is “shared” on Knol, there’s a pretty good likelihood that “shared” content will eclipse the original content in Google’s search listings. Yes, Google tries to exclude duplicate content, but that’s not the practice in Knol. Spammers are getting ready to “share” your content.

The video below, first pointed out by PlagiarismToday, promotes a product to help link farmers do just that: To grab content from all over the Net and use it to build their reputations and traffic adword-festooned Knol pages. And yes, less than a week after Knol’s debut, programs for automatically posting to Knol exist. The video below shows just how spammers see the “Knol opportunity.” And why, I suggest, publishers on the web should see a Knol threat.

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A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google on the grounds that their privacy was invaded by the dilettante search company during the capturing of street images to be incorporated in Google’s Street View software.The filed complaint can be seen here at The Smoking Gun.

At issue is whether or not the “Google gander van” was in violation of the reasonable expectation of privacy when it ventured down a supposedly marked private road.

According to IT News, Google’s response to the lawsuit is predictable and off the mark:

“Today’s satellite image technology means that even in today’s desert, complete privacy does not exist,” says Google’s submission.

“In any event, the Plaintiffs live far away from the desert and are far from hermits.”

Not only does Google attempt to dismiss privacy concerns by conflating its Street View technology with satellite imagery, but it misses the point of the suit’s premise of reasonable expectation of privacy through the act of trespassing.

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Bill Patry has decided to discontinue his popular copyright blog.

He lists two reasons:

1. The tendency of readers and the media to link his personal writing as a professional position. Patry is Google’s top copyright attorney (there, see? I’ve done it too).  It’s easy to identify bloggers as whatever their current job is, especially if that’s relevant to their topic.
2. The state of copyright law is depressing. And nobody wants to spend their creative efforts decrying the state of their own industry.

The almost-daily insight of this centrist thinker, with 26 years of full-time copyright law experience, has been a gift. In four years, his blog has inspired thousands of non-specialists to take an interest in IP law. This is critical, because most IP law specialists represent various rights holders, rather than the broad public. As a regular reader, I will miss his frequent opinions.

I’ve absolutely felt both of the risks he cites as his reason for ending his blog.  I’m always glad for weird copyright news, such as Devo not suing McDonalds, for the opportunity it gives for a happy post. There’s a lot ripe for reform in copyright law.

Candor is often more appreciated in blogs than in business. So, like Bill Patry, I generally separate my personal thoughts, which I share here, from those of my employer. I certainly have colleagues who read this blog, and readers who have become clients, but thankfully the overlap is small.

I’ll miss Patry’s daily posts, and am thankful for his efforts over the last four years.

This week I participated in a the wrap-up panel discussion at Boston stop of the Online Marketing Summit. My co-panelists were Blake Coyle, a sales exec from Google, Paul Hyland, Executive Producer, edweek.org, and Theresa Regli, Principal, CMS Watch.

As usual, I’m injecting personal observations along with what happened. If you were there too, please join in. My soapbox is your soapbox.

Why the Final Panel Discussion Is Cool
There are a few things that make the final discussion at the OMS conference unusual. Anyone who asks a question is rewarded with an early drink from the conference’s reception. This helps keep things lively. Also, it’s when participants can ask practitioners how they bring the day’s ideas together, and which ideas they in fact ignore or disagree with in practice. Last year, Mike Angiletta had comments about the need for online brand protection, which were seminal. I was interested in what would emerge, and was honored to get to kick in some thoughts.

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North Oaks, Minnesota, population 4,500, has sent Google Maps a big message:

“Go away, and don’t come back.”

You see, in North Oaks the roads are privately owned by the residents. So when the Googlemobile toured North Oaks and photographed people’s homes from the street, it was technically trespassing. That’s what the North Oaks City Council claimed in a letter sent to Google, which requested that the company remove the images and destroy the files or potentially be cited for violating the city’s trespassing ordinance.

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Viacom recently amended it $1 Billion lawsuit against YouTube (Google) for copyright infringement which it filed last year. Google claims that Viacom is trying to overturn precedent by making carriers and hosting providers liable for what their users post or transmit.

Viacom claims it has found over 150,000 instances of copyright infringing material on YouTube, and that YouTube has done little or nothing about them.

Google counters that it has assists in all copyright infringement claims, and follows the DMCA faithfully.

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Has Google finally stepped over the “Do No Evil” line?

Over the past few months, Google has invested in two DNA-mapping companies: 23andMe (a company created by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife) and Navigenics, which maps genetic data and screens for anomalies. In theory, information of a predisposition towards a certain disease could be made available to a physician so they could monitor a patient’s health more specifically.

This touches many nerve-endings, including privacy, data retention policy, HIPAA, and healthy distrust of a large corporation dedicated to exposing data about people to advertisers.

As Google says on its corporate info page, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” But when that includes information about the blueprint that uniquely identifies you, made available to those who would benefit from additional information about your past, present and future, have they gone too far?
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Currently, federal authorities can only collect DNA from convicted criminals. That may soon change, so that anyone arrested for a crime, or merely detained, can be forced to provide a DNA sample. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is fronting the legislation, which was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee recently. The argument is that the new measure would prevent crimes. But like a lot of ham-fisted and over-reaching legislation coming out of this Congress these days, there is no actual reasoning behind this. Continued

Effective February 11th, Google will stop monetizing all domains if they are less than five days old.  This single move will force a dramatic reduction in the Internet scheme known as domain kiting. Industry experts attribute over 90% of all current domain registrations to kiting performed by a group of rogue registrants, so this is a big deal for advertisers, brand holders, publishers, and legitimate domain purchasers.

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Google’s motion is an attempt to scrape away the assorted claims made by American before any stick legally or in public opinion. This article summarizes the complaint, the response, and presents perspectives which may be useful in considering this case.
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