“How did a newspaper reveal so much about me…?”

PYING provides information. Information is power. The simple implication is that spying grants an organisation extra power. Especially, it gives an organisation advantages over its competitors. For this very particular reason, search engines put an end to privacy over time. As a matter of fact, the Internet in general has exposed most of us at a certain level. Controversially enough, Google can finally analyse the behaviour of rival search engines as they possess statistics of many Web sites.

Search engines and information management authorities are not alone in this. What I see more and more of are signup requirements for reading on-line newspapers (the New York Times is a notable example). I am not speaking of paid subscriptions, but rather about identification. It is no longer a secret that sales of in-print newspapers decrease, if not slowly diminish. As previously said, one must evolve and this includes publishers. More and more people simply find greater convenience in reading news on their personal workstation. So how can publishers keep up and protect their revenue? Can spying provide a solution?

Newspapers and publishers might not like the use of network bandwidth, which even when accompanied by advertisement, does not give them the same touch with the readers. Moreover, newspapers become more susceptible to plagiarism (which is a simple copy & paste), frequently due to millions of bloggers, some of whom are immoral. I occasionally find a heavily-cited article in blogs and it is ranked higher than its origin, which stems in mainstream media. Needless to say, such articles are copied verbatim, in full, and neglect to link to the source. No wonder the media is afraid of blogs.

All in all, newspaper head towards targetted content and they attain to get full information about their readers. This way, content (e.g. articles), as well as commercials, can be tailored to individuals. By localising items and customising them to a person’s taste, the relevance and thus value rises. This all comes at the expense of the individual’s privacy, of course. It all depends on the ability to make assumptions and generalisations in the process of ‘profiling’ an individual reader. Since the reader enters personal details at the start, too much is known. The browser cookie sooner or later contains full personal information about the reader, as well as all the article s/he has read. Similar issues and can in fact be ascribed to Google’s cookie.

I thought that the following story would be of interest. A little hack in the new service allowed it to be spammed rather quickly.

A technology glitch temporarily turned Google’s new personal listings service, Google Base, into a vast, virtual red-light district earlier this week.

Some bystanders speculate that Google Base is intended to take the place of eBay and Craigslist (as previously mentioned). I heard another analysis that said Wikipedia is under threat too. The rate of Google’s expansion is by all means phenomenal.

N airplanes, I frequently get assigned the seat that is adjacent to the emergency door. I don’t know if it’s merely a coincidence, or perhaps they ‘pre-allocate’ particular people whom they trust (shameless flattery, pat self on back). Either way, I always wonder what mechanism/s they have to ensure that suicidal individuals cannot open that door in during flights. The news from Australis give a bit of a clue.

A 34-year-old French woman, who tried to open the emergency door of a plane so she could have a cigarette, has appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

[...]

Today she pleaded guilty to a charge of endangering safety on an aircraft.

The famous E=mc^² equation finally see its centenary.

Physicists are celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein’s best known equation: E=mc².

[...]

It seems so simple: three letters standing for energy, mass, and the speed of light, brought together with the tightness of a soundbite.

Related item: Einstein Manuscript Archives

An academic study suggests that long-standing habits are difficult to break for a reason. It attributes this chronic and dangerous entity to physiology. This might, at least in part, explain why so many of us struggle to change recurring activities or rid ourselves from addictions.

Old habits don’t die. They hibernate.

Habitual activity–smoking, eating fatty foods, gambling–changes neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain when habits are formed.

Google Analytics will know
even more than the Google cookie

OOGLE have introduced their site statistics service only a few days ago. They teamed up with Urchin who are among the best in their field, if not best in terms of the popularity and functionality of their software package, which analyses log files. With all the enthusiasm, concerns emerge as well, at least in my own mind.

Google continue to spread their wings, assigning innovative projects to their highly talented and Internet-savvy staff. This time, for a change, Google penetrate information that only sites can retain, i.e. in-house data. In that sense, they benefit from inside information, which perhaps leads to unfair, unbalanced competition which puts privacy in greater jeopardy.

Google’s quick expansion frighens me; it passively becomes a Web monopoly. First they stole the thunder from Alex King’s FeedLounge and now it may be Jeff Veen’s Measure Map (among others like Mint). I volunteered to help both projects, so I have seen or can foresee Google’s impact on ‘mom-and-pop’ sites. I have mentioned this implicitly in:

• Feed Readers Everywhere
• Google Print and AI

It all develops into a scary situation as you can never fight or resist scale, no matter how ambitious you might be. Services integration is yet another major factor which elevates the brand. Google can finally take a deeper look that transcends the level of SERP‘s and will be able to see what MSN, Yahoo and the others are up to. Moreover, expect abuse of reports, e.g. fabricated (i.e. spam) statistics that attempt to enhance a site’s image, at least in Google’s perception.

Is it just me who is slightly apprehensive? Are all bases belong (sic.) to Google? Google Base, which was officially launched just a few hours ago, crops to mind. I mentioned its possible impact among my Google pet peeves.

Google Analytics, by the way, is said to provide no statistics as yet. Many people suggest that its state is dormancy. I am not sure if the service is overwhelmed by demand or perhaps it is still in beta, much like most services from Google.

man was found to have cured himself of HIV, perhaps owing to his immune system. There appears to be no official confirmation, but doctors and researchers want the man for further tests. Understandably, the man declined the offers. The photo embedded in the BBC article rules out anonymity as a factor in his decision.

Doctors say they want to investigate the case of a British man with HIV who apparently became clear of the virus.

Andrew Stimpson, 25, was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2002 but was found to be negative in October 2003 by Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust.

This came just a couple of days after I had watched Constant Gardener, which is a strong and emotional film involving AIDS in Africa. The film can be rather cold and depressing, so it is most-suited for the faint-hearted. My negative reaction is amplified by the fact that I watched drama/comedy types at the cinema one week beforehand, namely Thumbsucker and Broken Flowers .