Tech News Blog

Google China chief leaves company

The man who led Google’s expansion into China is leaving the company to start his own business.

Lee Kai-Fu, who joined from Microsoft in 2004, will step down as president of Google in greater China in September, the company said.

When he joined, Microsoft sued Google and Mr Lee, claiming he had violated an agreement that prohibited him from working for a rival for one year.

The two sides later settled out of court, without releasing details.

Mr Lee went on to become the face of Google China.

But during his reign Google China had a difficult relationship with Beijing censors.

In June, access to Google in some parts of China was disrupted, amid a row over what Chinese citizens should be allowed to view over the internet.

A Chinese official also accused Google of spreading pornography and breaking Chinese law.

"Kai-Fu has made an enormous contribution to Google over the last four years, helping dramatically to improve the quality and range of services that we offer in China," said Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president for engineering.

Mr Lee will be replaced by John Liu, who currently leads its greater China sales team. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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YouTube lifts music video block

Music videos are once more available to YouTube viewers in the UK after the streaming site reached an agreement with songwriters’ group PRS for Music.

In March, YouTube blocked thousands of music videos to UK users, after it failed to reach agreement over fees.

YouTube, owned by Google, is paying an undisclosed lump sum to PRS, backdated until January and lasting until 2012.

PRS for Music said it was pleased an agreement had been reached but neither side would reveal details of the deal.

Friends

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said both sides needed to get the music videos back online.

Our correspondent explained that YouTube wants to become the venue for all kinds of online content, while the songwriters know that revenue from the internet must play an ever bigger part in their income.

A spokesman for PRS for Music, formerly known as the Performing Rights Society said: "It is a lump sum deal which seems to work for YouTube’s business model and offers recompense for our 60,000 members. We can be friends again."

A spokesman for YouTube said that the "tens of thousands" of videos which had disappeared "will come back over the next few days".

‘Complex beast’

Alongside it will be new material as YouTube signs partnerships with other record labels and guest editors introducing their favourite videos.

The deal had taken such a long time to be hammered out because YouTube was such a "complex beast", he said.

In the UK, PRS for Music acts as a collecting society on behalf of member publishers for licensing fees relating to use of music.

At the start of the row, Patrick Walker, managing director of broadcast and online at YouTube told the BBC that PRS was seeking a rise in fees "many, many factors" higher than the previous agreement.

He said that the two were "so far apart" that YouTube had no choice but to remove content while negotiations continued.

But at the time, Steve Porter, head of PRS, said he was "outraged… shocked and disappointed" by the decision.

He said the move "punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent".

The Music Publishers Association (MPA) joined with PRS urging Google to rethink, while Lord Carter, who was the UK’s Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, also waded into the debate.

Giving evidence before the Business Select Committee the minister said he suspected a degree of "commercial posturing on the part of both parties" but said the row was indicative of a wider issue.

YouTube is the world’s most popular online video site but has been under increased pressure to generate more revenue since its purchase by Google for $1.65bn (then £875m) in 2006.

Services such as Pandora.com, MySpace UK and Imeem have also had issues securing licence deals in the UK in the past 12 months.</p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Service outage hits Gmail users

Google has confirmed its e-mail service Gmail was unavailable to the "majority" of its 150 million worldwide users for nearly two hours.

The cause of Tuesday’s outage – which it later said had been rectified – was not immediately clear.

Google’s last major technical problem happened in May, with millions of people unable to use its main search page, as well as Gmail and Google News.

It follows outages of the Gmail service in February and March.

"We know many of you are having trouble accessing Gmail right now – we are too, and we definitely feel your pain," said Google’s engineering director David Besbris in a blog post on Tuesday.

The free version of Gmail has been ranked as the world’s third most-popular e-mail program, behind similar services provided by Microsoft and Yahoo.</p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Curbs urged for behavioural ads
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

A powerful alliance of privacy and consumer groups have likened behavioural advertising to "being followed by an invisible stalker."

They now want Congress to curtail the practice of tracking consumers online to tailor ads more effectively.

Yahoo, Microsoft and Google all use targeted online advertisements.

"It’s not just about the right ad at the right time, it’s about creating a profile about you," said the Centre for Digital Democracy’s Jeffrey Chester.

"These companies want to know about your likes and dislikes, if you are Hispanic, do you vote, are you on a low income or a high income, where do you travel, what do you like to read.

"It’s about a system that not only targets and influences the products you buy but is also a powerful and invisible system of digital persuasion designed to change attitudes and awareness," Mr Chester told BBC News.

The coalition of ten organisations is expected to call on the government to allow consumers to "opt in" rather than "opt out" of such advertising models.

It will also seek to ensure no data is collected around financial or health matters. The key, many say, is transparency.

"An individual’s data belongs to them and before these companies track you all over the internet, they need to be transparent about what they are doing and how they intend to use that information," said John Simpson, consumer advocate with the Consumer Watchdog.

Tracking

The call to put limits on such advertising comes as the House Commerce Committee is drafting legislation to improve consumer privacy online.

Congress held hearings on the issue in June. Testimony was provided by Facebook, Google and Yahoo.

While Yahoo and Microsoft have used behavioural advertising for some time, Google waited until March of this year to employ what is also referred to as "internet-based advertising".

In general the system uses a cookie – a small piece of text that lives inside a web browser – to track users as they visit different websites.

This information is then used to target online advertising campaigns at consumers because they tend to result in higher online ad return rates.

That means a user who is a keen traveller and visits lots of travel sites would be shown more travel-related ads.

"Golden egg"

A coalition of America’s marketing industry trade bodies, representing about 5,000 companies, published a set of seven principles in July to address concerns around the issue.

"A broad ‘opt in’ would be a sea change and it would be a recipe for disaster"

Mike Zaneis,
Interactive Advertising Bureau

"The vast majority of what happens online is truly anonymous and all marketers and publishers are trying to do is deliver an ad that has some relevancy to the person viewing it at a certain time," Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau told BBC News.

"The beautiful thing is they don’t have to click on that advert, or pay attention to it or do anything."

While Mr Zaneis agreed more has to be done to educate consumers about the issue, he also warned that pushing for a blanket "opt in" measure would be disastrous.

"A broad ‘opt in’ would be a sea change and it would be a recipe for disaster. It would kill the goose laying the golden egg.

"The goose is the internet and the golden egg is the free content and services that consumers enjoy and that would be diminished," said Mr Zaneis.

Other organisations included in this broad alliance include the Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Lives, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, World Privacy Forum, Privacy Times and the Consumer Federation of America. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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