Google acquires G.co domain for shortened URLs

Google has acquired G.co to use as the exclusive domain for shortened URLs of its sites, following in the footsteps of other major Internet companies that have bought .co domains recently and bypassing the crowded field of .com sites.
Google will use G.co for creating URLs that act as shortcuts to its sites, making their URLs easier to distribute via social networks and microblogging services and simpler to remember for end users.
"We'll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service," the company said in a blog post on Monday.
The announcement will not affect the Goo.gl public URL shortening service that Google runs for end users who want to shrink website addresses before sharing them on social media sites.
For the .CO Internet SAS registry operator, this is another high-profile customer win. Overstock paid US$350,000 for O.co, a domain it is using to rebrand the company internationally, while Amazon bought A.co, Z.co, K.co and Cloud.co. Twitter acquired T.co for its URL shortening service.
The .co domain has historically been the country top-level domain for Colombia, but with the government's blessing, .CO Internet SAS took over the domain's administration in early 2010 with a commercial strategy to position .co as an alternative to the overcrowded .com.
.CO Internet SAS recently announced it exceeded 1 million domain name registrations, which the company views as a sign that it is succeeding in its strategy to market the domain as a safe, attractive option for businesses.
.CO Internet SAS has gone to great lengths to prevent domain name squatting and repel speculators, by charging higher fees and working with a select number of reseller registrars that have to comply with strict policies.
The magazine World Trademark Review recently chose .CO Internet SAS' in-house trademark team as one of the best among Internet companies, along with ones from Amazon, eBay, Yahoo and Google, which was the winner.

Google shuts off Chrome access to offline Gmail

Until Gmail's summer HTML5 upgrade is ready, Google is telling Chrome users to run IE8 or Firefox 3.6 to gain offline access

Google this week told Chrome users to switch to outdated versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox if they want to access Gmail when they're not connected to the Web.
On Tuesday, Gmail dropped offline support for Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), Firefox 4, Safari and Opera.

 

The company had announced Gmail's offline shut-off two months ago when it said it was shifting the Web mail service's offline support from Gear, its now-obsolete plug-in, to HTML5. At the time, Google said it would drop Gear from Chrome as of version 12.
The current "stable" build of Chrome is version 11; even so, that edition doesn't run Gmail in offline mode.
"Beginning on Tuesday, May 24, 2011, users will no longer be able to use Chrome with Google Gears-based Gmail Offline," the company said in a note to users.
Until Google restores offline support to Gmail with HTML5 this summer, Google recommended that users switch to IE8 or Firefox 3.6, versions that have been supplanted by IE9 and Firefox 4, respectively.
Google plans to provide offline support to Gmail using HTML5 this summer.
"We realize that there will be a temporary gap in Gmail offline access via Chrome," said Google, "and we are working hard to deliver offline capabilities through a new Gmail Offline Chrome Web app as quickly as possible."

PayPal, eBay sue Google over mobile payments secrets

The two companies allege that former employees and Google misappropriated trade

Google unveiled on Thursday its Google Wallet, that will let people with special phones pay for goods in retail shops by tapping the phones against a payment terminal.
Bedier has in fact misappropriated PayPal's trade secrets by sharing its mobile payment, point-of-sale, and digital wallet information with Google, the suit says.
EBay and PayPal have alleged that Bedier transferred digital documents outlining PayPal's mobile payment and point-of-sales strategies to a non-PayPal computer a few days before leaving the company for Google on Jan. 24 this year. Those documents were critical to its mobile payments strategy, the companies said in the suit.
PayPal and eBay have alleged that Osama Bedier was the senior PayPal executive responsible for mobile, platform, and new ventures. In this role, he was PayPal's senior leader charged with bringing its mobile payment and point-of-sale technologies and services to retailers. Bedier had an intimate knowledge of PayPal's capabilities, strategies, plans, and market intelligence regarding mobile payment and related technologies, which is information constituting in part PayPal's trade secrets, according to the suit, a copy of which is available on eBay's website.
Bedier was put in charge of mobile payments, after he left PayPal for Google. He is now leading Google's efforts to bring point-of-sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf. In the course of his work at Google, Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers, PayPal and eBay have alleged.
The plaintiffs also allege that Google hired Bedier after another former eBay executive, Stephanie Tilenius, solicited and recruited him. In doing so, Tilenius violated her contractual obligations to eBay. Before and since his arrival at Google, Bedier has also violated his obligations to eBay by soliciting and recruiting PayPal employees to work at Google, the complaint said.
Bedier also represented PayPal in negotiations with Google between 2008 and 2011 for using PayPal as a payment option for mobile app purchases on Google's Android Market, without informing PayPal that he was interviewing for a job at Google, according to the complaint.
Google scuttled a deal with PayPal to build a competing product with former PayPal employees and executives at the helm, it said.
Google said Thursday in an e-mailed statement that it had not yet received a copy of the complaint, and would not be able to comment until it had a chance to review it.
PayPal said in its blog that spending time in courtrooms is generally not its thing. But sometimes the behavior of people and competitors make legal action the only meaningful way for a company to protect its trade secrets, one of its most valuable assets.

secrets

PayPal and parent eBay have filed a suit against Google and two former executives alleging that they have misappropriated their trade secrets in the area of mobile payments and point-of-sale strategies.

The suit filed Thursday before the Superior Court of the State of California in the County of Santa Clara also charges two former employees, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, who now work with Google, of breaching their obligations to PayPal and eBay.

Google now selling its last shipment of Nexus Ones

The phones will still be available through some carriers and to developers

Google, which broke mobile industry practice by offering the Nexus One smartphone for sale exclusively on its website, has received its last shipment of the device for online sale.
Once the fresh inventory is sold out, the Nexus One won't be available anymore from Google, though it will still be sold by some mobile operator partners, according to a post on the official Nexus One blog on Friday.


The phone will still be sold by some carrier partners, including Vodafone in Europe and KT in South Korea, and Google will continue to provide support for existing devices, the blog post said. Developers will still be able to buy a Nexus One by logging into Google's Android Market Publisher site and going through a partner company, Google said.
Google introduced the Nexus One on Jan. 5, calling it a showcase for the Android software it was developing. Made in close partnership with Taiwan-based hardware vendor HTC, it featured a 3.7-inch OLED display, a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and the Android 2.1 operating system.
But possibly the most innovative thing about the Nexus One was how it was to be sold. Google offered it unlocked for US$530 or with a T-Mobile USA service contract for $179. Either way, customers could only buy it online, without being able to touch or try out the phone in a store. They had to have a Google login and use Google Checkout to buy the Nexus One.
Soon after the phone went on sale, Google's support forums were hit with numerous complaints from buyers who said they hadn't been able to get prompt assistance from Google, T-Mobile, or HTC when they had problems with the phone. Complaints also cropped up about the cost of getting out of the T-Mobile contract early. The terms of service listed early termination fees imposed by both Google and the carrier, adding up to as much as $550. In the first weeks after the introduction, Google began responding to more customer complaints, and the company later reduced its termination fee.
Versions of the Nexus One also became available for other mobile operators, including AT&T, Vodafone, and South Korea's KT. But on May 14, Google said it would shut down the e-commerce functions of the Nexus One site because sales had fallen short of expectations. "It's clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone," and more service plan options, Google Vice President Andy Rubin wrote in a blog post then. The company said it would expand retail availability of the phone through partners.

 

PHP development comes to Google Android

Spanish open source venture provides tools and documentation for PHP developers who want to create Android apps

Developers at an open source company in Spain are leading an effort to boost PHP application development for Android-based phones.
Called PHP for Android (PFA), the project supports Google's Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A) project, formerly called Android Scripting Environment (ASE).

"PFA aims to make PHP development in Android not only possible but also feasible [by] providing tools and documentation," said PFA founder and developer Ivan Mosquera Paulo, a software engineer at Irontec, near Bilbao, Spain, in an email on Friday. More information and releases are found at PFA's website.
PHP support would follow the availability of Android interpreters for Python, Lua, and JavaScript, Mosquera Paulo said.
"I thought that there was no reason why PHP support couldn't be added, so I started to work on it with my team at Irontec. We were really interested in achieving this because we had already worked in Android development (in a project for Vodafone) but our favorite tool is PHP," said Mosquera Paulo. "We thought that it would be great having PHP available.
"We thought that this project would be really interesting for any PHP developer. And we have had far more than 10,000 unique visits, so this proves that we were right. We want this project to be a chance for a lot of people for whom there was a huge development wall: Java," Mosquera Paulo said. The Java language is the primary means of authoring Android applications.
Currently, it is possible to run PHP scripts on Android via PFA's unofficial ASE build or its PhpForAndroid application.

"Our current APK (Android app) provides support to SL4A," Mosquera Paulo said. "Thanks to this, PHP developers can run scripts and test their PHP code on their Android phone or emulator. Our APK installs a PHP version compiled for Android phones and a few extra needed files."
Soon, it will be possible to distribute that PHP code as an Android application.
"We're working on this, and this will mean that PHP developers will be able to sell their apps like Java developers do," said Mosquera Paulo.
The success of the project depends on community feedback and support, Mosquera Paulo said: "We have seen a lot of interest, so we hope that more and more people get involved."
SL4A brings scripting languages to Android by allowing developers to edit and execute scripts and interactive interpreters directly on the Android device, according to Google Labs.

 

Google, China look for way to coexist after six months of public battles

With renewal of ICP license, Google can once more do business in China, but questions about privacy and censorship remain

The Beijing government's decision to renew Google's license to do business in China could be a big step in a long process of negotiations between Google and China to find a way to coexist.

Google announced Friday that China had renewed the company's Internet Content Provider (ICP) license, which enables the search giant to do business in the country. There was widespread speculation over whether the Chinese government would renew Google's license after the public battles the two have been have been waging over censorship and privacy in the past six or seven months.

[ For a less reverent view on Google-China relations, check out what InfoWorld's Robert X. Cringely has to say in "Google's Chinese troubles are over -- for now" | Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]

"This implies that relations are warming between [Google] and China," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "Actually I think this reflects concessions Google has probably made that we don't know of yet. China is historically very rigid ... Google will need to learn to cooperate with the country if they want to continue there."

According to Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell, Chinese authorities informed Google of its decision to renew the license early Friday. "We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license, and we look forward to continuing to provide Web search and local products to our users in China," the company said in a blog post.

Hadley Reynolds, an analyst with market research firm IDC, said this step is another chess move in the back and forth of negotiations between the two superpowers.

"I think the Chinese authorities have shown that they are open to exercising some restraint when dealing with non-Chinese businesses," Reynolds said. "This will be an ongoing process, and this could be a short-term compromise from the Chinese perspective. The terms of Google's Internet Content Provider license give the Chinese multiple opportunities to revisit the terms of this relationship."

Google applied for renewal of its ICP license on June 29, a day before the cutoff for submission. The license expires in 2012 but must be renewed every year. Google cannot do business in China without the license.

Industry watchers have questioned whether China might drag its feet or even deny the license as part of its ongoing feud with Google.

The first salvos between China and Google were fired in January when Google threatened to halt its operations in China after contending that an attack on its network from inside China was aimed at exposing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the same time, Google said it was reconsidering its willingness to censor the search results of users in China as required by the government.
After several months of negotiations with Chinese officials, Google announced in March that it had stopped censoring search results in that country. Chinese users would be redirected to Google's Hong Kong-based site, where they could receive uncensored search results in simplified Chinese.

However, Google made a concession to China late last month when it announced just two days before the deadline for its license renewal submission that the company would no longer automatically redirect search traffic from China to its Hong Kong search engine. The company said it hoped the move would placate Chinese officials, who had threatened to revoke Google's ICP license if the company did not stop redirecting search requests from Chinese users.

It's not clear how much that compromise played a role in getting the license renewed.

Regardless, Enderle said the license renewal is great news for Google's financial end. Google may not be getting a big chunk of its revenue from the Chinese market today, but since the country is an economic and digital powerhouse, the company can't afford to be locked out of it.

"Not being able to compete in China implied a weakness that Google could ill afford," Enderle said. "Being unable to compete in what may become the largest economy in the world would leave an impression of coming obsolescence that no company wants to create."

Augie Ray, an analyst with research firm Forrester, however, was quick to caution that too much shouldn't be read into China's renewing Google's license.

"I think too much could be made of China's actions here," he said. "The country certainly has not changed its stance on Internet control. And with Google's license requiring renewal every year, issues of censorship and control are still likely to be contentious ones in the future. China's actions are good news for Google and demonstrate a desire on the part of the country to work with foreign corporations, but this by no means resolves the many substantial discussion points that remain between China and Western companies."

China pushes out Google

On January 24, 2010, China-based Google's servers were massively attacked by the hackers. The intrusion caused a lot of tension that now it has reached the state level issue. Even more, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech on this issue infuriated Chinese Officials temperament. Remarks like 'Information Imperialism' are coming out from Chinese side. 

What was in that speech? Part of the speech was
" In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all. "
This is obvious to me that Chinese hackers attack on Google's servers is the attack on US. The message is conveyed. I just wish this doesn't go any further than that.

It kind of looked like a movie called 'wargame', where one kid accesses a network thinking it's not inter-connected, and launches a cyber-war game just out of fun. Later, it turned out to be connected to security networks and the simulation of attacks taking place in virtual world, and then Nation's generals getting freaked out thinking it's real and almost getting ready to launch real life attacks to other suspected Nation without thinking a bit. That was a movie.

The fire is lit someway similar, and now it's become in-between Nation's issues. With some Chinese hackers attempt to access human right's gmail accounts, Google almost readied to back out and then big mama had to step in.

China think it's disrespectful how the comment was made upon. It further said, they need no Internet lesson from US when US advocated for Net Neutrality. They claimed that they are themselves the victim of cyber-attacks and urged not to make harsh comments before proper consultation which could deteriorate two-nation's relationship.

Whatever was done, that was so wrong. You have no right to break into other peoples house and try to steal things. That's what Chinese hackers did. They should resolve this issue ASAP by stopping such activities instead of cover-up.

When asked, if Google would stop all it's products and services in China, the answer was negative. They wish to remain in China for their other products and services.

Let's hope it doesn't go anything further than this and they settle down things on mutual understanding.

Before things get heated up, we must understand that we're going no where if cyber battle continues.

Baidu will become more dominant in China once Google backs out. But recent developing news is getting more interesting. Baidu is suing US based domain registrar over Iranian Hackers attack on Baidu.com. Now, someone needs to put big powerful glasses. Stop acting blind.

Thank you for reading my post.

Google Wi-Fi data grab snared passwords, e-mail

Google claims it picked up only 'fragments' of personal data


Wi-Fi traffic intercepted by Google's Street View cars included passwords and e-mail, according to the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL).
CNIL launched an investigation last month into Google's recording of traffic carried over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, and has begun examining the data Google handed over as part of that investigation.
Google revealed on May 14 that the fleet of vehicles it operates to compile panoramic images of city streets for its Google Maps site had inadvertently recorded traffic from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google's intention was only to record the identity and position of Wi-Fi hotspots in order to power a location service it operates, the company said. However, the software it used to record that information went much further, intercepting and storing data packets too.
At the time, Google said it only collected "fragments" of personal Web traffic as it passed by, because its Wi-Fi equipment automatically changes channels five times a second. However, with Wi-Fi networks operating at up to 54M bits per second, it always seemed likely that those one-fifth of a second recordings would contain more than just "fragments" of personal data.


That has now been confirmed by CNIL, which since June 4 has been examining Wi-Fi traffic and other data provided by Google on two hard disks and over a secure data connection to its servers.
"It's still too early to say what will happen as a result of this investigation," CNIL said Thursday.
"However, we can already state that [...] Google did indeed record e-mail access passwords [and] extracts of the content of e-mail messages," CNIL said.
Data protection authorities in Spain and Germany have also asked Google for access to Wi-Fi traffic data intercepted in their countries, but the CNIL was the first to have its request granted, it said.
Google also told CNIL that the data collected by the Street View cars is also used by other services, including Google Maps and Google Latitude, which allows users automatically transmit their location to friends, and to track others who choose to share their location via the service.
That's of interest to CNIL, because Google has still not made the necessary statutory declarations regarding its processing of personal data for the Latitude service in France.