Tagged 'internet'

Norton helps Internet users control their online reputation

Published by Jessica Vaughn - New York on August 29, 2012 in North America. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

It’s a rarity today when someone meets you IRL—a date, a job interviewer, a potential roommate—without conducting a thorough Web stalking and “getting to know you” digitally. Trouble is, we have little control over what comes up in our top Google search results. With more of our social lives chronicled across multiple online platforms, it’s increasingly difficult to regulate our digital image.

Keen to the anxiety around this, online security firm Norton created Top Results, a free app that allows users to determine what pops up first in searches for their name. The app, currently available only in Scandinavia, helps users create a personal Google AdWords ad that links to the URL of their choice, which becomes the top search result. “We believe that you should have control over your search results. … Next time someone Googles your name, you’ll decide what their first impression will be,” says this video. Norton is smartly giving consumers a tool to actively and easily manage their online reputation as more people grow concerned about the repercussions of unsettling search results.

Who’s the most private of them all? Microsoft takes on Google

Published by Jessica Vaughn - New York on February 7, 2012 in North America. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Google Privacy On the heels of its “Good to Know” campaign—an effort to tutor consumers about good online safety practices—Google announced a shift in its privacy policy. The changes will see Google using one privacy policy to cover user activity and data across a number of its services (including Gmail, YouTube and gCal). The changes are touted as a means for streamlining the Web experience and making the privacy policy easier to understand but have drawn harsh criticism from some, who see them as counter to Google’s longstanding promise to “Do no evil.”

Microsoft has taken Google’s announcement—and the resulting consumer paranoia—as an opportunity to position itself as more privacy-friendly. Last week the company unveiled a series of full-page print ads in publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, pitching its own offerings—Hotmail, Office365, Internet Explorer and Bing—as alternatives to Google’s various services. The ads and accompanying blog post directly knock Google with headlines such as “Gone Google? Got Concerns? We Have Alternatives.” Google has retorted with its own post, as well as banner ads reading, “We’re changing our Privacy Policy. Not our privacy controls.”

As the PR battle over privacy ramps up, so too is consumer anxiety over what exactly to be concerned about and whether to change longstanding Web habits.

Photo Credit: mediafury; blogs.technet.com

Google teaches Web safety 101

Published by Jessica Vaughn - New York on January 24, 2012 in North America. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Our attitudes toward online privacy tend to be rather cavalier. We’ll routinely broadcast our latest transactions and travel plans as well as our geo-tagged thoughts and actions via tweets and Foursquare check-ins. Ironically, however, we’ll immediately call foul each time Facebook, Google and the like unveil an update that makes broadcasting life a bit easier. As Fast Company writer Farhad Manjoo pointed out in 2010, “We want some semblance of control over our personal data, even if we likely can’t be bothered to manage it.”

With these Web giants coming under fire for violating consumer’s online privacy—which has yet to be fully hammered out in the legal sense—Google recently launched the U.S. portion of its “Good to Know” campaign. The effort, which kicked off in the U.K. last fall, focuses on tips for online safety. The ads comically draw parallels between real-world and online behavior. One print ad features an excited cartoon bandit strolling through a home’s unlocked front door; copy asks, “Ever go out for the day and leave your front door wide open? Exactly. And the same rule applies to the computers you use.” Other messaging breaks down the basics and (benefits) of cookies and IP addresses, an attempt to ease anxieties about sites such as Google collecting personal information.

Though “Good to Know” has drawn criticism from Internet privacy advocates (“This campaign should be nominated for some kind of award for fiction,” said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy), the effort will likely help to assure consumers that Google does have their interests at heart and that it can be trusted with handling personal data and protecting privacy.

Photo Credit: google.com/goodtoknow