Darko on July 4th, 2008
All the engineering acumen in the world, or at least in the Googleplex, can’t prevent an old-fashioned burglary of unencrypted employee data held by an outside firm.
A failing company also failed to adequately keep its assets protected from theft. Colt Express Outsourcing Services lost some data to a Memorial Day burglary, and it’s now come to light that the dominant search engine formerly used that company’s services.
Unfortunately for Google, and for CNET employees also affected by the theft, a report at CNET noted employees from both firms were in the same boat. “No credit card numbers were in the stolen data; just names, addresses, SSNs–all the information needed for a thief to open a credit card account under another’s name,” the report said.
An ex-Google staffer, Danny Thorpe, blew the whistle on the Google data loss. Employees hired before the end of December 2005 at Google may now have their personally identifiable information skating around places like the forums favored by identity thieves and traders.
Colt doesn’t appear to be the best managed firm in the world, either. CNET said the company is in financial trouble, with the company’s founder washing his hands of any potential assistance Colt might give affected individuals.
We’re betting Colt will be on the receiving end of more attention from Google, specifically the legal department. “We take the security of our employees very seriously and require outside vendors to meet appropriate security standards,” a Google rep told CNET.
Darko on June 18th, 2008
The European Commission appears to have thrown its weight behind the principle of net neutrality, after the telecommunications commissioner told a global internet forum that the issue was “a political question to be answered by the people”.
Viviane Reding was speaking to delegates on Tuesday at an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting in South Korea, on the subject of the “future of the internet economy”. Because of “explosive developments” such as the dramatic proliferation of online video, she said, “some are starting to question the founding principles of openness and neutrality that have been essential for the development and tremendous innovation power of the internet”.
The net neutrality debate centres on the question of whether internet service providers (ISPs) should be able to charge content providers for traffic. In the UK, this debate has manifested itself recently in the clash between the BBC and certain ISPs, who suggest the broadcaster should help pay for the infrastructure carrying its wildly popular iPlayer online video service.
‘Network neutrality’ refers to the idea that all content should be treated equally by those who run the internet’s infrastructure and access, just as it has been run since its earliest days.
“As the internet is, like the space, the seas, the air, shared by mankind, we have to debate and decide upon such key issues at the global level and in close co-operation with the internet community of users,” Reding said. “The discussion on network neutrality is not a technical question to be answered by regulatory authorities but firstly a political question to be answered by the people: the internet is theirs!”
Reding went on to define the role of policy-makers as being “to prevent powerful interests putting at risk the openness of the internet as a public space and weakening innovation on networks”.
The information society and media commissioner touched on a variety of issues in her speech, such as the need to make a transition to IPv6, reinforce consumer rights and fight online piracy.
She also highlighted the importance of addressing the “security risks and governance concerns” that come along with technologies such as RFID and other sensor technologies, as well as the so-called “internet of things”, in which a multitude of devices are connected to the internet.
“In particular, we must answer citizens’ concerns if we are not to get a rejection of these new technologies,” Reding said. “In order to stimulate the reflection on the various aspects of the [internet of things], the European Commission will launch in mid-September both a recommendation on privacy aspects of [RFID] and a consultation paper on the governance of the internet of things.”
Mark on May 11th, 2008
Here’s a little story for you: An Apple Store employee had a party in her apartment. A couple weeks later her place was cleared out to the tune of about $5,000 worth of electronics, including her new Mac. Days later, a friend sees that she’s online and alerts the Mac’s rightful owner. Since she was running Leopard with Back to My Mac, owner-girl logged in remotely and activated Photo Booth via the screen-share function. And what do you know, it turned out that the thieves were some “friends” who were at the party a few weeks back. She took the photos to the cops and — voila — busted! The thieves, Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Ian Frias, 20, both of the Bronx, have been charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. Go go crafty nerdy girl!
Darko on April 14th, 2008
In a move seen as a “take that Microsoft” deal, Google and Salesforce padded out a current collaboration deal by integrating its Google Apps within Salesforce.
Salesforce clients have a little something extra with their morning CRM. The addition of Google Apps to Salesforce neatly tucks in Gmail and the other Google applications inside the software as a service business application.
Salesforce already had a Google AdWords management component in place as part of their previous dealings with Google, laying the groundwork for this newest announcement.
Any time Google pushes the productivity applications envelope, some people look at it as another not-so-kind push against Microsoft’s Office and its millions of installations. “Google Apps is quickly becoming a pain in Microsoft’s side,” Garett Rogers said at Googling Google, and he’s likely correct.
Though the formal announcement of the deal has yet to make an appearance, both Google and Salesforce published pages touting the new integration. The feature list for Salesforce users who found Google Apps along with the morning bowl of Lucky Charms looks like this:
- Automatically add Gmail communications to Salesforce for a record of customer interactions
- Chat with colleagues right from Salesforce - during sales or customer services calls
- Associate Google Docs to your sales data and collaborate with colleagues in real-time
- View your Salesforce meetings, marketing campaigns, and other business events inside Google Calendar
- Display sales and marketing dashboard components from Salesforce on your Google Start page
No one will mistake the feature set of Google Apps with Microsoft Office or Exchange just yet, and we are motivated to think a small to medium sized business using Office probably counts its Microsoft licenses as a business expense, lessening its cost impact.
Salesforce users probably tote laptop computers everywhere, making the need for Google Apps less critical - if Office is already installed, Apps in-the-cloud availability doesn’t really matter.
Salesforce does tout a few clients as Google Apps success stories currently. This is a good thing; the Office monolith will always need some competition to keep its developer teams on their toes. That’s where we see the real value of the Google Apps/Salesforce expansion.
