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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Sept. 9, 2005:

Archived blogs for the week of September 5, 2005

985 - September 9, 2005 - 1.33 PM EST

Google settles its trademark lawsuit with Geico

Google has finally settled the last segment of an important lawsuit alleging it's advertising network illegally exploited Geico's insurance brand. Geico announced the settlement two days ago, without providing further details of the agreement.

A Google spokesman didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. Geico's statement described the settlement terms as confidential.

Mountain View-based Google had already scored a major victory in the trademark infringement case, filed in May 2004 in a Virginia federal court.

In a ruling late last year, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected Geico's request to block Google from letting rival insurance companies to pay for the right to have their ads displayed after Geico's name is included in a search request.

Posted on Businessblog™

984 - September 8, 2005 - 5.32 PM EST

Wrong metrics used in search engine marketing

According to a recent survey commissioned by Isobar's iProspect and conducted by JupiterResearch, many search engine marketers and Internet advertisers aren't using the right metrics to analyze the performance of their search marketing people, which in turn has a direct impact on their search engine marketing campaigns.

The iProspect Search Marketer Performance Study found that only four out of 10 search marketers are being evaluated based on business goals, such as ROI or total sales generated. Instead, most marketers are being measured against intermediate metrics, like Web site traffic volume or top search engine ranking.

"It should be more like eight out of 10," Rob Murray, iProspect's president, told ClickZ News. "I would expect more companies to look at end results than focus on the means to the end."

Posted on Businessblog™

983 - September 8, 2005 - 5.49 AM EST

Google, Microsoft and the Kai-Fu Lee squabble

Yesterday, former Microsoft employee Kai-Fu Lee told a judge that he was being honest, but not necessarily providing a full answer when asked by Microsoft executives in June whether he planned to go back to Microsoft after a sabbatical.

Lee's response came after King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez asked him whether he felt he was being misleading when he told Microsoft executives he planned to return to the company.

Lee said that whether he took a job with Google or another company, he intended to return to Microsoft after the sabbatical to wrap up a few projects.

In your mind, was that an honest and complete answer?" Gonzalez asked. "In my mind, that was not a complete answer, but it was honest," Lee said. The judge's questions came after Microsoft attorneys wrapped up a morning of cross-examinations of Lee.

Microsoft claims that Lee violated a noncompete agreement when he went to work for Google in July and should be barred for one year from doing tasks similar to his duties at Microsoft.

The hearing in Seattle and documents made public in the squabble have already generated sparks between the rival companies, including claims that both Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates engaged in profane tirades in front of employees about Google, its CEO and China.

Posted on Businessblog™

982 - September 7, 2005 - 7.03 PM EST

Spyware program hijacks Google searches

Internet users are strongly advised to watch out for software that secretly modifies Google search results, then tries to download bogus programs on your hard drive by luring you to a fake eBay link. The whole thing can be classified as a downright phishing scam.

That appears to be what is happening with a new program documented by security software vendor Webroot Software Inc. Called 2search, the program secretly hijacks some Google searches by presenting fake results in the midst of legitimate ones. Because the pages shown look identical to regular Google results, most victims would have no clue anything is amiss.

As if that weren't enough, one of the fake results Webroot researchers recently saw seemed to be leading to product auctions on eBay. Webroot researchers could not say who was behind the eBay links, but they suspected what they were offering was more "spyware" -- a general term for software installed on computers without the owner's knowledge.

So why would the creators of spy software be lurking in the shadows of Google and eBay? "If you had a Web site that said, 'Hey, get your spyware here,' no one would go to it," said Paul Piccard, Webroot's director of threat research. "So they look for ways to confuse or fool the user and make sure they are willing to download the spyware."

Spy software is going mainstream as it becomes big business, generating about $2.4 billion in annual revenue, according to a report issued last week by Webroot. Eager to make money by installing advertising and spy programs on more computers, the purveyors are using clever new tactics, such as pretending to be a Yahoo page or a music file from iTunes.

Posted on Businessblog™

981 - September 7, 2005 - 5.01 PM EST

Is Yahoo hosting 5,000 phishing websites?

According to anti-spam group Spamhaus, Yahoo is hosting 5,000 phishing Web sites that have domain names containing the words "bank", "PayPal" or "eBay".

Spamhaus claims most of these domains are linked to fraudulent website scams. Richard Cox, CIO at Spamhaus, said: "They are hosted on Yahoo! I just took three hot words, but there are dozens of others including misspellings. They are mostly phishing websites that we cannot control on a daily basis."

Spamhaus, a non-profit organisation, currently has 20 Yahoo! domain names on its block list SBL. Cox said Spamhaus had written to Yahoo! on a daily basis but had no success in removing the domain names.

Posted on Businessblog™

980 - September 6, 2005 - 4.35 PM EST

Microsoft launches its paid-search engine

MSN just launched its first paid-search engine that offers Internet advertisers more information on searchers and their query activities, with the frequency at which keywords or keyphrases have been entered.

According to Eva Balan, MSN's international marketing manager for MSN Ad Center, advertisers pay a one-time subscription fee of S$10 (US$5.97) for MSN Keywords.

For each keyword, they bid a minimum of 10 cents and pay for the number of times search users click on their advertisements, which appear as sponsored links alongside search results.

The placement of the links will depend on the bid price, click-through rate as well as the types of user profiles captured by the system.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

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