Yahoo click fraud settlement gets final OK - CNET News.com

The $5 million settlement agreement in a California case releases company from all similar click fraud claims against it.



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Yahoo names click fraud czar

Yahoo has promoted one of its staff attorneys to an executive-level position that is akin to being click fraud czar at the second largest Web search provider.

For seven years, Reggie Davis helped the Web search company defend itself against lawsuits by advertisers who claimed they were overcharged for pay-per-click ads that resulted from click fraud. Click fraud occurs when clicks are generated by people paid to click ads over and over or by automated software programs, usually for the purpose of boosting revenue for the Web site the ads appear on.

Now, Davis is the company's first vice president of marketplace quality, responsible for reducing the amount of click fraud and making sure advertisers and publishers are happy with the company's display and search listings.

Judge favors Google in 'frivolous' suit - CNET News.com

SEO is either a skill you have or you don't I am soo glad that these people had to pay Google..



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The award for cutest YouTube cat video goes to... - CNET News.com

This week, members of the video-sharing site can vote on their favorite clips in seven categories. Winners will be crowned March 26.



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Week in review: YouTube honeymoon over for Google - CNET News.com

Viacom files suit against the search giant--was Marc Cuban right? Also: Music and hacking at SXSWi, and Microsoft invests in speech tech.



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Federal agencies ban Windows Vista - CNET News.com

Concerns about compatibility and other issues move DOT and NIST to prohibit upgrades to Vista, Office 2007 and IE 7, for now anyway.



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Social Networking Goes Niche

MySpace and Friendster's runaway popularity and exposure have helped spawn an array of targeted networking sites. Advertisers are noticing



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Internet Display Advertising By Category For 2006

HERE'S HOW INTERNET DISPLAY ADVERTISERS allocated their dollars by category for 2006


% Share = % of all category ad dollars spent on Internet display ads


Apparel
1.4%

Auto Other
6.9%

Auto, Domestic
3.1%

Auto, Non-Domestic
2.9%

Beverages Alcoholic
2.4%

Beverages Non-Alcoholic
1.9%

Building Materials
2.6%

Candy & Snacks
2.1%

Computer Products
18.6%

Diet & Fitness
26.1%

Direct Response
2.1%

Education
14.2%

Financial Services
17.0%

Food Products
2.0%

Games & Toys
13.0%

Government & Organizations
4.4%

Home Audio & Video
5.8%

Home Furnishings
1.8%

Household Products
1.5%

Insurance
4.4%

Internet
51.2%

Media
13.7%

Miscellaneous Services
8.5%

Miscellaneous
6.0%

Motion Pictures
3.0%

NonRx Remedies
2.6%

Office Equipment
3.1%

Personal Care Products
1.8%

Petroleum
2.5%

Pets
4.4%

Pharmaceuticals
3.2%

Real Estate
4.2%

Restaurants
0.9%

Retail Department Stores
4.4%

Retail Food Stores
2.1%

Retail Home & Building
1.7%

Retail Other
11.3%

Smoking Materials
4.0%

Sporting Goods
2.4%

Telecom
7.7%

Travel & Tourism
8.3%

TOTAL All Categories
6.5%

Source: TNS Media Intelligence

Viacom is SUING YouTube for $1 Billion+

The suit seeks more than $1 billion in damages, as well as an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. The complaint contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.



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Caller ID Unavialable?

Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service organization launches consumer advocacy blog

DALLAS - March 13, 2007 - If you were paying anywhere from $80 to $100 each year on a service, and you found out that the service provider wasn't supplying you with the service 100 percent of the time, you'd be upset, right? Maybe you should be sitting down. If you subscribe to a Caller ID service, you're probably getting cheated. And that's why Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service, a coalition of consumers and companies tired of paying Caller ID service fees without receiving the service, has started a grassroots effort to educate Caller ID users on the truth behind "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls.

The truth is that while we consumers are spending millions of dollars every year on Caller ID services, telephone companies aren't necessarily providing us with every name they are capable of getting. Caller ID works by matching the phone number of the person calling with a name that is stored in a database. When a number is stored outside a telephone company's database, that company has to purchase the information from another company that owns the database where the information is stored. Most every wireline telephone number is stored in one of these databases, but phone companies aren’t accessing every number.

Why not?

Typically, purchasing this information costs less than half a penny. But these big telephone companies don’t want to spend any money on their customers, which results in those "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls that show up on Caller ID displays. And because most consumers don't even know that their phone companies are capable of providing a higher level of service, they're letting the phone companies continue to profit off of them by providing sub-standard service. That's the purpose for the Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service blog - it's time for consumers to take a stand against these larger telephone companies.

The blog offers Caller ID consumers information on everything from how Caller ID works to contact information for the attorney general's office in each state. The blog includes broadcast and print news coverage from across the country. In addition, it provides users with a forum where they can come together and share their concerns, opinions and experiences. The blog was created both to educate consumers on what they should expect from their Caller ID service and to arm them with the information and strategies they will need to demand 100 percent service.

The blog can be accessed at http://calleridunavailable.blogspot.com/

About Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service

Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service is a coalition of consumers and companies that feel cheated for paying Caller ID service fees but not receiving calling names. Every year, Americans pay up to $120 each for Caller ID service but only get caller names on 30-70 percent of their calls. The technology to fix this problem is already in place. There’s no good reason that phone companies can’t provide it. We’re paying for Caller ID 100 percent of the time. Isn’t it time we got it?

New pictures of the Google Phone

The picture, which is probably photoshopped (even if it's a real product), looks pretty good — nothing too crazy though. It has a concealed qwerty keyboard under the display, and a couple standard buttons that look a bit like Google Talk icons. The screen appears to switch between portrait and landscape view like the iPhone — probably using an ..



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New shield foiled Internet backbone attack

ICANN report says new load-balancing technology helped the Internet withstand a February attack on the domain name system.



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M/C/C Recognized as One of the Best in Texas By Texas Public Relations Asso

M/C/C has been awarded two Best in Texas Awards by the Texas Public Relations Association (TPRA). The Best in Texas Awards recognize outstanding achievement using individual communications tools in support of specific public relations objectives. M/C/C received the Silver Award – the organization’s highest – for its work on the keynote speech deliv



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Google's buses help its workers beat the rush

In Silicon Valley, known for its heinous traffic, Google the search engine giant has turned itself into Google, the mass transit operator.



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Perspective: Why ISPs can breathe easier after a porno decision - CNET News

Attorney Eric J. Sinrod says a Texas federal judge's decision means a major victory for Internet providers.



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Microsoft Web search exec rumored to be leaving - CNET News.com

News comes at a time when Microsoft continues to struggle to compete with Google in Internet search. Gee maybe because MSN search sucks? Is easy to foil? Maybe because they have a lot of spam?



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AP to expand its online video platform - CNET News.com

Developed by MSN, new tools allow wire service affiliates to upload, tag, syndicate and sell local ads on their own videos.



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2007 A Hacking Odyssey Part 2 - Network Scanning & Nmap

This series of papers will take an in-depth look at how someone may target and electronically break into an organisation. The second phase can be generically summed up as ‘Scanning’Covered in this paper:War Driving, War Dialling, Network Mapping, Port Scanning



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Google's Matt Cutts Summarises the Cloaking Debate

After constant debating about web cloaking and SEO, Google's Matt Cutts tries to get over this debate with an informative, summarizing article on the whole issue. - A great article on cloaking by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch.



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Meta Robots Tag 101: Blocking Spiders, Cached Pages & More

Tired of having search engines index pages you don't want indexed? Here is a detailed overview on how to use the meta robots tag. Great Article by Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Land.



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