new virus, broken smartphone?
A new virus that was build to target smartphone in chine has a pretty huge reputation.
The article states:
"Anti-virus firm Lookout Mobile Security estimates that the number of phones that have been infected by the virus, dubbed Geinimi, ranges from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Researchers said that the virus has yet to wreak havoc, though, and that they were unsure what its authors were seeking to accomplish."
If you ask me I think they have just started, How many smartphones are in use?
if it is like 80% there would be more sense in making viruses for Android, iPhone and Windows phone 7 platforms.
In my reacher's over the years I have saw that people make viruses for many reasons: 1. to make money and 2.earn revenge on hate or crime (if you were to hack someone, you would hack them for one of two reasons ether for personal data or pass codes, because when you have data you can easily blackmail someone.
when you have pass codes you can login to whatever the pass code is used for from Facebook to Ebay)
" Tainted programs
Still, the emergence of Geinimi underlines concerns that hackers are shifting from focusing on attacking PCs to targeting mobile devices as sales of the powerful handheld computers take off and users increasingly put sensitive data in their pockets.
Phones become contaminated with Geinimi when users download software applications that have been repackaged to include the virus, according to researchers from Lookout and Symantec Corp.
Tainted programs include versions of the video games Monkey Jump 2, President vs Aliens, City Defense and Baseball Superstars 2010, according to Lookout.
Lookout researchers said that so far they have only found the tainted software at third-party apps stores targeting the Chinese market. Legitimate versions of the applications in the official Android market appear to be safe, they said.
Compromised phones call back to a remote computer for instructions on what to do at five-minute intervals. Then they transmit information on the device's location, its hardware ID and SIM card back to the remote computer.
So far the remote computers have been collecting data but have not issued any other orders to the infected phones, Mahaffey said.
Liam Murchu, a research manager with anti-virus software maker Symantec, said that infected devices could be ordered to make calls, send text messages and download other malicious software onto the phones ."
news 24 http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Virus-attacks-Android-phones-20101231
The article states:
"Anti-virus firm Lookout Mobile Security estimates that the number of phones that have been infected by the virus, dubbed Geinimi, ranges from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Researchers said that the virus has yet to wreak havoc, though, and that they were unsure what its authors were seeking to accomplish."
If you ask me I think they have just started, How many smartphones are in use?
if it is like 80% there would be more sense in making viruses for Android, iPhone and Windows phone 7 platforms.
In my reacher's over the years I have saw that people make viruses for many reasons: 1. to make money and 2.earn revenge on hate or crime (if you were to hack someone, you would hack them for one of two reasons ether for personal data or pass codes, because when you have data you can easily blackmail someone.
when you have pass codes you can login to whatever the pass code is used for from Facebook to Ebay)
" Tainted programs
Still, the emergence of Geinimi underlines concerns that hackers are shifting from focusing on attacking PCs to targeting mobile devices as sales of the powerful handheld computers take off and users increasingly put sensitive data in their pockets.
Phones become contaminated with Geinimi when users download software applications that have been repackaged to include the virus, according to researchers from Lookout and Symantec Corp.
Tainted programs include versions of the video games Monkey Jump 2, President vs Aliens, City Defense and Baseball Superstars 2010, according to Lookout.
Lookout researchers said that so far they have only found the tainted software at third-party apps stores targeting the Chinese market. Legitimate versions of the applications in the official Android market appear to be safe, they said.
Compromised phones call back to a remote computer for instructions on what to do at five-minute intervals. Then they transmit information on the device's location, its hardware ID and SIM card back to the remote computer.
So far the remote computers have been collecting data but have not issued any other orders to the infected phones, Mahaffey said.
Liam Murchu, a research manager with anti-virus software maker Symantec, said that infected devices could be ordered to make calls, send text messages and download other malicious software onto the phones ."
news 24 http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Virus-attacks-Android-phones-20101231
apple valuable ?
New York - Apple dethroned Microsoft as the world's most valuable technology company in 2010 as its co-founder Steve Jobs soared to new heights with the touchscreen iPad tablet computer and the latest iPhone.
Britain's Financial Times last week named Jobs its "Person of the Year" and even US President Barack Obama joined in the plaudits to the 55-year-old chief executive of the Cupertino, California-based gadget-maker.
Jobs' appearance on a San Francisco stage in January to unveil the iPad capped what the FT called "the most remarkable comeback in modern business history."
"It wasn't simply a matter of the illness that had sidelined him for half the year before, leaving him severely emaciated and eventually requiring a liver transplant," the newspaper said.
"Little more than a decade earlier, both Mr Jobs' career and Apple, the company he had co-founded, were widely considered washed up, their relevance to the future of technology written off," it said.
Obama, at a White House news conference on Wednesday, held up Jobs as an example of the virtues of the "free market".
"We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products," Obama said. "We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing."
The iPad hit stores in the United States in April and Apple reported sales at the end of September of more than eight million of the devices that the FT said offer a glimpse into a world without a computer mouse or Windows.
Cultural phenomenon
Other technology firms are trying to match Apple's success with tablets of their own, including South Korea's Samsung, Canada's Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and US computer giants Hewlett-Packard and Dell.
But none has yet to prove capable of preventing Apple from establishing the same dominance over the tablet computer market that it exercises over the MP3 music player scene with the ubiquitous iPod, introduced in 2001.
Goldman Sachs said it expects Apple to ship 37.2 million iPads in 2011 - "which could potentially make Apple one of the largest vendors in the global personal computing market" - tablets plus personal computers.
The iPad wasn't Apple's only hit product in 2010.
The iPhone 4, the latest version of the touchscreen smartphone introduced by Apple in 2007, sold 14.1 million units in the quarter which ended in September, up 91% over the same quarter a year earlier.
Even Apple TV, a product Jobs once dismissed as a "hobby," is notching up strong sales. Apple said last week that sales of the latest model of the set-top box that can stream content from the Web had topped one million units.
The rare blemishes on Apple's record in 2010 were its continuing inability to come out with a promised white model of the iPhone 4 and complaints of lost reception due to the radical antenna design on the device.
Apple shares, worth $10 at the end of 2003, gained around 60% this year, closing at more than $320 on Wall Street on Thursday.
In May, Apple surpassed Microsoft as the largest US technology company in terms of market value. The only companies with larger market capitalisation than Apple's nearly $300bn are ExxonMobil and Petrochina.
Meeschaert New York analyst Gregori Volokhine described Apple's rise as "absolutely extraordinary" and said "every analyst has an even higher target price for next year, between $360 and $430".
"Apple's more than just a company," Volokhine told AFP. "It's become a cultural phenomenon. The hard part now will be not to disappoint."
From: news 24
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Apple-Jobs-hit-new-heights-in-2010-20101226
From: news 24
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Apple-Jobs-hit-new-heights-in-2010-20101226
Facebook VS Google !
"New York - Facebook is challenging Google's supremacy on the internet with a radically different approach to how people live, work, play and search online.
While Google delivers search results selected by algorithms that take into account a user's Web history, Facebook boasts a richer level of personalisation based on one's own "likes" and the recommendations of Facebook friends.
Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room six years ago and is now worth an estimated $6.9bn, refers to it as the "social graph".
"I think what we've found is that when you can use products with your friends and your family and the people you care about they tend to be more engaging," Zuckerberg said in an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes".
"The social graph is incredibly broad," said Wedbush Securities social media analyst Lou Kerner, picking up on Zuckerberg's favourite phrase. "It includes not only what you do and what you like but people you know and what they like and the companies you interact with."
For some internet watchers like Kerner, Facebook is building a parallel network built around the interactions of its more than 500 million members.
"I refer to Facebook as the second internet, maybe more valuable than the first because we're all interconnected on it," Kerner told AFP.
Rolling out features
"Social media is an increasingly important part of how you reach people and it's a growing part of every marketer's budget," he said.
"The idea is you do not want to fight Facebook, you want to embrace Facebook and leverage Facebook because this is where people are going to spend increasing amounts of time," he said.
According to online tracking firm comScore, Google receives more unique monthly visitors than Facebook but visitors to Facebook spend more time at the site than they do on Google properties.
Since this spring, Facebook has been rolling out features which put it on a collision course with Google - an @facebook.com email service which competes with Google's Gmail and "Facebook Questions", a search engine of sorts which lets Facebook members ask questions and get answers from other members.
Facebook has also been facing off with Google on the hiring front, forcing the Mountain View, California-based Google to recently raise salaries by 10 percent across the board.
"They've become competitive in some areas, but it's not that Facebook has grown at Google's expense or that Facebook is growing and Google is shrinking," said Danny Sullivan, editor of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com.
Stiff competition
"Google is not going away," agreed Kerner. "Google, in fact, I think is going to benefit from the emergence of social media.
"Because what it's doing is it's driving people to spend more time online and when you’re spending more time online, you end up doing more searches," he said.
"Where they've really been encroaching on each other more is in the display space," Sullivan said. "Facebook has a lot of people who buy display advertising. Google wants to sell more display advertising."
Sullivan also said Google "has been trying to encroach on their social area, but they haven't been very successful."
Zuckerberg, in the "60 Minutes" interview, acknowledged "there are areas where the companies compete." "But then, there are all these areas where we just don't compete at all," he said.
Facebook's growth is not necessarily a bad thing for Google, which has been coming under increased scrutiny from anti-trust authorities in both the United States and Europe.
"Some of it plays very well for Google," Sullivan said. "Google is able to say 'You know, we have this stiff competition out there.'
"It's not necessarily to Google's disadvantage that Facebook is growing.""
From news 24
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Facebook-challenges-Google-20101213
While Google delivers search results selected by algorithms that take into account a user's Web history, Facebook boasts a richer level of personalisation based on one's own "likes" and the recommendations of Facebook friends.
Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room six years ago and is now worth an estimated $6.9bn, refers to it as the "social graph".
"I think what we've found is that when you can use products with your friends and your family and the people you care about they tend to be more engaging," Zuckerberg said in an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes".
"The social graph is incredibly broad," said Wedbush Securities social media analyst Lou Kerner, picking up on Zuckerberg's favourite phrase. "It includes not only what you do and what you like but people you know and what they like and the companies you interact with."
For some internet watchers like Kerner, Facebook is building a parallel network built around the interactions of its more than 500 million members.
"I refer to Facebook as the second internet, maybe more valuable than the first because we're all interconnected on it," Kerner told AFP.
Rolling out features
"Social media is an increasingly important part of how you reach people and it's a growing part of every marketer's budget," he said.
"The idea is you do not want to fight Facebook, you want to embrace Facebook and leverage Facebook because this is where people are going to spend increasing amounts of time," he said.
According to online tracking firm comScore, Google receives more unique monthly visitors than Facebook but visitors to Facebook spend more time at the site than they do on Google properties.
Since this spring, Facebook has been rolling out features which put it on a collision course with Google - an @facebook.com email service which competes with Google's Gmail and "Facebook Questions", a search engine of sorts which lets Facebook members ask questions and get answers from other members.
Facebook has also been facing off with Google on the hiring front, forcing the Mountain View, California-based Google to recently raise salaries by 10 percent across the board.
"They've become competitive in some areas, but it's not that Facebook has grown at Google's expense or that Facebook is growing and Google is shrinking," said Danny Sullivan, editor of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com.
Stiff competition
"Google is not going away," agreed Kerner. "Google, in fact, I think is going to benefit from the emergence of social media.
"Because what it's doing is it's driving people to spend more time online and when you’re spending more time online, you end up doing more searches," he said.
"Where they've really been encroaching on each other more is in the display space," Sullivan said. "Facebook has a lot of people who buy display advertising. Google wants to sell more display advertising."
Sullivan also said Google "has been trying to encroach on their social area, but they haven't been very successful."
Zuckerberg, in the "60 Minutes" interview, acknowledged "there are areas where the companies compete." "But then, there are all these areas where we just don't compete at all," he said.
Facebook's growth is not necessarily a bad thing for Google, which has been coming under increased scrutiny from anti-trust authorities in both the United States and Europe.
"Some of it plays very well for Google," Sullivan said. "Google is able to say 'You know, we have this stiff competition out there.'
"It's not necessarily to Google's disadvantage that Facebook is growing.""
From news 24
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Facebook-challenges-Google-20101213
Yet, another improvement on car safety ?
"Washington - Rearview cameras could become more common in future cars and trucks under rules proposed by the US government on Friday to address concerns about drivers unintentionally backing over children.
The new requirements from the transportation department are intended to improve rear visibility in cars by the 2014 model year. Most carmakers would comply by installing rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays. The government estimated that video systems would add about $200 to the cost of each new vehicle.
Congress in 2008 set in motion the safety upgrades in response to dozens of accidents in which children were reversed over. At issue in particular were blind zones in large sport utility vehicles and pickups.
"There is no more tragic accident than for a parent or caregiver to back out of a garage or driveway and kill or injure an undetected child playing behind the vehicle," transportation secretary Ray LaHood said. He said the changes would "help drivers see into those blind zones directly behind vehicles to make sure it is safe to back up".
Nearly 300 people are killed and 18 000 injured each year because of backovers, according to data kept by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Many happen in driveways and parking lots. Nearly half the deaths involve children under age 5, and the crashes also affect the elderly.
The agency estimated that the requirements could save 95 to 112 lives every year and prevent more than 7 000 injuries annually.
In about 70% of the cases, a family member is responsible for the death, said Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based safety group."
from news 24
Link : http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Rearview-cameras-to-save-lives-20101203
The new requirements from the transportation department are intended to improve rear visibility in cars by the 2014 model year. Most carmakers would comply by installing rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays. The government estimated that video systems would add about $200 to the cost of each new vehicle.
Congress in 2008 set in motion the safety upgrades in response to dozens of accidents in which children were reversed over. At issue in particular were blind zones in large sport utility vehicles and pickups.
"There is no more tragic accident than for a parent or caregiver to back out of a garage or driveway and kill or injure an undetected child playing behind the vehicle," transportation secretary Ray LaHood said. He said the changes would "help drivers see into those blind zones directly behind vehicles to make sure it is safe to back up".
Nearly 300 people are killed and 18 000 injured each year because of backovers, according to data kept by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Many happen in driveways and parking lots. Nearly half the deaths involve children under age 5, and the crashes also affect the elderly.
The agency estimated that the requirements could save 95 to 112 lives every year and prevent more than 7 000 injuries annually.
In about 70% of the cases, a family member is responsible for the death, said Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based safety group."
from news 24
Link : http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Rearview-cameras-to-save-lives-20101203
Amazon, The wikileaks "Web host", the future ....
"Washington - US online retail giant Amazon has stopped using its servers to host the WikiLeaks website, which was sluggish on Wednesday and inaccessible in some regions, a US senator said.
"This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the WikiLeaks website," Joe Lieberman, an independent senator from Connecticut, said in a statement.
"I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on WikiLeaks' previous publication of classified material," Lieberman, the chairperson of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee, said.
"The company's decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material," he said.
WikiLeaks on Sunday began publishing the first batch of more than 250 000 US diplomatic cables the whistleblower website is believed to have obtained from a disaffected US soldier.
Amazon is a major provider of web-hosting services, renting out space on its computer servers to customers around the world. It has not responded to repeated requests from AFP for confirmation that it was hosting WikiLeaks.
But Jon Karlung, chair of the Swedish firm Bahnhof, which also hosts some WikiLeaks documents, said on Tuesday that the WikiLeaks website featuring the US diplomatic cables was being primarily hosted by the Seattle-based Amazon.
Lieberman urged any other company hosting WikiLeaks to "immediately terminate its relationship with them".
"WikiLeaks' illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world," Lieberman said.
"No responsible company - whether American or foreign - should assist WikiLeaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials," he said.
Stolen classified information
"I will be asking Amazon about the extent of its relationship with WikiLeaks and what it and other web service providers will do in the future to ensure that their services are not used to distribute stolen, classified information, Lieberman added.
The global police agency Interpol said on Wednesday it had issued a global wanted notice for WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange on suspicion of rape, on the basis of a Swedish arrest warrant.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian believed to be in hiding in Europe, has denied the charges.
WikiLeaks' Twitter feed, @WikiLeaks, was silent on Wednesday after announcing in previous days that its website had come under distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks.
Classic DDoS attacks occur when legions of "zombie" computers, normally machines infected with viruses, are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming servers or knocking them offline completely.
On Monday, a computer hacker known as the "Jester" claimed responsibility for temporarily taking down the WikiLeaks website on Sunday.
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at computer security firm F-Secure, told AFP he believed the "Jester" who has targeted Islamic jihadist websites in the past, had the ability to carry out the attack on WikiLeaks.
"He's demonstrated previously that he is capable of launching effective denial-of-service attacks, and he's claimed the responsibility for this one as well," Hypponen said. "He has the capability and the motive.""
from news 24
Internet games for kids, midnight BAN ?
"Seoul - South Korea's government is close to adopting a "Cinderella" law to ban youngsters from playing online games past midnight amid growing concerns about Internet addiction, officials said on Thursday.
A bill to be submitted to parliament as early as this December will require South Korean online game companies to cut off services at midnight for users registered as younger than 16, the culture and family ministries said.
"The thing about online games is, once you are in it, it is extremely hard to get out of it, especially if you are a young kid," said Jo Rin, a ministry official in charge of the law.
"A lot of kids play games all night long and have trouble studying at school and going about their normal lives during daytime. We believe the law is necessary to ensure their health and a right to sleep."
The online services would resume at 06:00, he said, adding there would be a year-long waiting period until the law takes effect so that companies can prepare for it.
Deaths
The government is also considering requiring companies to limit young users' access to online games to a maximum number of hours a week or a day if parents request this, said Jo.
South Korea is one of the world's most wired societies, but there have been sporadic reports of deaths related to internet game addiction.
In November a 15-year-old South Korean boy committed suicide after killing his mother for scolding him over playing computer games too much. In February a 32-year-old man died after reportedly playing for five days with few breaks.
A month later police arrested a couple accused of leaving their baby daughter to starve to death while they raised a "virtual" child on the internet. The baby had long been malnourished, an autopsy showed.
The government, which estimates that South Korea has about two million web addicts, is already launching one campaign to combat the affliction.
From 2011, it will offer free software to people at risk, to limit the time they spend on the web. "
From news 24
(link: http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Kids-face-midnight-ban-for-gaming-20101202 )
A bill to be submitted to parliament as early as this December will require South Korean online game companies to cut off services at midnight for users registered as younger than 16, the culture and family ministries said.
"The thing about online games is, once you are in it, it is extremely hard to get out of it, especially if you are a young kid," said Jo Rin, a ministry official in charge of the law.
"A lot of kids play games all night long and have trouble studying at school and going about their normal lives during daytime. We believe the law is necessary to ensure their health and a right to sleep."
The online services would resume at 06:00, he said, adding there would be a year-long waiting period until the law takes effect so that companies can prepare for it.
Deaths
The government is also considering requiring companies to limit young users' access to online games to a maximum number of hours a week or a day if parents request this, said Jo.
South Korea is one of the world's most wired societies, but there have been sporadic reports of deaths related to internet game addiction.
In November a 15-year-old South Korean boy committed suicide after killing his mother for scolding him over playing computer games too much. In February a 32-year-old man died after reportedly playing for five days with few breaks.
A month later police arrested a couple accused of leaving their baby daughter to starve to death while they raised a "virtual" child on the internet. The baby had long been malnourished, an autopsy showed.
The government, which estimates that South Korea has about two million web addicts, is already launching one campaign to combat the affliction.
From 2011, it will offer free software to people at risk, to limit the time they spend on the web. "
From news 24
(link: http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Kids-face-midnight-ban-for-gaming-20101202 )
Google, world dominance ? what !?
"San Francisco - Google's unabashed ascension to the internet search throne has caused some to doubt the sincerity of its "Don't be evil" motto and made it a prime target for market watchdogs.
The latest headache for the firm came on Tuesday when EU officials announced an antitrust probe into accusations by rivals that the Silicon Valley giant was rigging the online search market.
Smaller companies accused Google of "unfavourable treatment" of their services in both unpaid and sponsored search results, the crucial listings that make the web navigable.
EU competition authorities are also probing whether Google's own services - including YouTube video, book-scanning project or telephony - are getting "preferential placement" when users punch in search queries, some of which may lead to consumer spending.
"It's insane," SearchEngineLand.com editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan wrote of the accusations in a post at the website.
"If you step back from the rhetoric, the political jockeying, the concerns that Google is just too big so let's use any argument to stop it - if you logically think about this argument from a user perspective - it makes no sense," Sullivan said.
'Arrogance'
Google's job is to direct people to websites with the information they seek, not to route traffic to other online search engines, he argued.
What does make sense, according to analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley, is that Google is paying a price with regulators and the public for behaving as though it can do what it wants and get away with it.
"Arrogance is what is getting them on the map with the governments," Enderle said of Google. "It is the arrogance that gets people looking at them like they are doing something wrong."
Google's drive to make the entire world's information available on the internet ran it afoul of authors and publishers of books it craved for an online digital library. A settlement to that clash is still in the works.
Google sparked concerns about privacy by sending out camera-equipped vehicles to snap pictures to augment its online mapping service.
That controversy catapulted to concerns about law-breaking after it was revealed that Street View vehicles inadvertently snatched data from open wireless internet networks while gathering images.
Doubts about Google's priorities have been fed by seemingly cavalier comments by its chief executive Eric Schmidt, according to Enderle.
Political target
The result has been an impression that Google has drifted from a path of righteousness to behaving badly, and that makes them a ripe political target.
"When a firm gets as much money as Google has as quickly, they don't get the maturity and the result is they get into trouble," Enderle said. "The reality is money doesn't protect you from everything."
Google's plan to form an alliance with Yahoo! was abandoned after US antitrust regulators expressed concerns.
Google's recent purchase of mobile device advertising firm AdMob underwent intense scrutiny by US regulators. A deciding factor in the deal being cleared was likely Apple's acquisition of a rival mobile ad business.
Google's effort to buy ITA Software, which specialises in online searches for airfares, is being opposed by a Fair Search alliance of businesses that fear it will have unfair influence on the airline travel industry.
The EU probe "underscores why the FairSearch.org coalition is urging the Justice Department to challenge Google's proposed acquisition of ITA Software to protect consumers and competition in the online travel market", said Tom Barnett, a lawyer at travel website Expedia.
Google faces government regulators hardened and honed by years of battle with former top technology world whipping boy Microsoft, according to Enderle.
Fairness
Microsoft, in turn, learned from its own experience how to sic regulators on Google, the analyst said.
"Microsoft had to build this huge antitrust machine," Enderle said. "When that died down, what did you think they were going to do except create holy hell for the people who went at them?"
Google has become a "litigation magnet" also in part because its business depends largely on providing people access to content that it doesn't own, according to the analyst.
Google senior vice president of product management Susan Wojcicki and vice president of engineering Udi Manber on Tuesday posted an online message defending the fairness and transparency of the firm's search service.
"We've always focused on putting the user first by providing the best possible answers as quickly as possible," they said.
"Given our success and the disruptive nature of our business, it's entirely understandable that we've caused unease among other companies and caught the attention of regulators.""
From news 24
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The latest headache for the firm came on Tuesday when EU officials announced an antitrust probe into accusations by rivals that the Silicon Valley giant was rigging the online search market.
Smaller companies accused Google of "unfavourable treatment" of their services in both unpaid and sponsored search results, the crucial listings that make the web navigable.
EU competition authorities are also probing whether Google's own services - including YouTube video, book-scanning project or telephony - are getting "preferential placement" when users punch in search queries, some of which may lead to consumer spending.
"It's insane," SearchEngineLand.com editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan wrote of the accusations in a post at the website.
"If you step back from the rhetoric, the political jockeying, the concerns that Google is just too big so let's use any argument to stop it - if you logically think about this argument from a user perspective - it makes no sense," Sullivan said.
'Arrogance'
Google's job is to direct people to websites with the information they seek, not to route traffic to other online search engines, he argued.
What does make sense, according to analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley, is that Google is paying a price with regulators and the public for behaving as though it can do what it wants and get away with it.
"Arrogance is what is getting them on the map with the governments," Enderle said of Google. "It is the arrogance that gets people looking at them like they are doing something wrong."
Google's drive to make the entire world's information available on the internet ran it afoul of authors and publishers of books it craved for an online digital library. A settlement to that clash is still in the works.
Google sparked concerns about privacy by sending out camera-equipped vehicles to snap pictures to augment its online mapping service.
That controversy catapulted to concerns about law-breaking after it was revealed that Street View vehicles inadvertently snatched data from open wireless internet networks while gathering images.
Doubts about Google's priorities have been fed by seemingly cavalier comments by its chief executive Eric Schmidt, according to Enderle.
Political target
The result has been an impression that Google has drifted from a path of righteousness to behaving badly, and that makes them a ripe political target.
"When a firm gets as much money as Google has as quickly, they don't get the maturity and the result is they get into trouble," Enderle said. "The reality is money doesn't protect you from everything."
Google's plan to form an alliance with Yahoo! was abandoned after US antitrust regulators expressed concerns.
Google's recent purchase of mobile device advertising firm AdMob underwent intense scrutiny by US regulators. A deciding factor in the deal being cleared was likely Apple's acquisition of a rival mobile ad business.
Google's effort to buy ITA Software, which specialises in online searches for airfares, is being opposed by a Fair Search alliance of businesses that fear it will have unfair influence on the airline travel industry.
The EU probe "underscores why the FairSearch.org coalition is urging the Justice Department to challenge Google's proposed acquisition of ITA Software to protect consumers and competition in the online travel market", said Tom Barnett, a lawyer at travel website Expedia.
Google faces government regulators hardened and honed by years of battle with former top technology world whipping boy Microsoft, according to Enderle.
Fairness
Microsoft, in turn, learned from its own experience how to sic regulators on Google, the analyst said.
"Microsoft had to build this huge antitrust machine," Enderle said. "When that died down, what did you think they were going to do except create holy hell for the people who went at them?"
Google has become a "litigation magnet" also in part because its business depends largely on providing people access to content that it doesn't own, according to the analyst.
Google senior vice president of product management Susan Wojcicki and vice president of engineering Udi Manber on Tuesday posted an online message defending the fairness and transparency of the firm's search service.
"We've always focused on putting the user first by providing the best possible answers as quickly as possible," they said.
"Given our success and the disruptive nature of our business, it's entirely understandable that we've caused unease among other companies and caught the attention of regulators.""
From news 24
my Christmas gift to you
http://animoto.com/play/dBl0yNfyTyS8Pd9oRlSJ0A
Safe money with go.tagjag.com
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