First we had the Google vs China debacle, then came Saudi Arabia’s tussle with RIM. And now it’s India’s turn: threatening to block RIM, Google and Skype unless the companies agree to set up localised servers, all the better for state monitoring of communications.
Curiously, compared to the outrage levelled at the Saudi and Chinese governments, American reaction to India’s move has been pretty muted. Could it be that India is somehow perceived as “less evil” than the Muslim/Communist nations? Also: to what extent is India simply doing what every government – including the US government – tries to do: demanding the ability to monitor digital chatter in the hope of foiling criminal and terrorist plots? After all, if Big Brother can’t read your BBMs, haven’t the terrorists already won?
In this week’s episode of Why Is This News, we talk to Harvard Law professor Jon Zittrain, who explains the differences between governments who obey the rule of law, and those who don’t – and why Sarah’s right to criticize the government by email is totally protected, unless she should happen to email it to Paul.
Video below.
Is Google serving up ads targeted at sites which categorize themselves as “extreme porn,” bestiality,” and “child porn”? Rest assured, it is not. But if you are a website publisher using DoubleClick’s Ad Planner to select categories to match your site to advertiser’s interests, you might think so. The screenshot at right and below shows what one publisher found when choosing self-descriptive categories. Under “Adult” and “Porn” are those three categories. The issue was first brought to Google’s attention in this help forum, and subsequently by TechCrunch.
It turns out this is a software bug, but what a doozy. DoubleClick, which is part of Google, maintains a blacklist of categories and keywords it will not serve ads against. Those include “extreme porn,” “bestiality,” and “child porn.” Somehow categories from the blacklist started appearing as regular options within Ad Planner. Google is removing those now and says no ads were actually served against those categories even if somebody selected them. 
As you type into a search box on Yahoo or Google, a list of suggested keywords pops down below to help you complete your search faster. Today, Yahoo turned on a local component to its keyword autocomplete feature. The search assist now serves up different keywords based on your location.
So if you type in “Santa” in northern California, “santa clara county” might be the first suggestion, but if you type it in southern California, “santa barbara” might be first.
Location is often a very relevant way to filter search, so this makes Yahoo’s search assist smarter. But, as with many things Yahoo, it is lagging behind Google with this feature. Google’s search assist also factors in your location. And, from what I can tell, it does it better.
Ping – ping ping ping ping – ping ping, ping? Ping! Ping, ping ping ping ping; ping-ping ping! Ping.
Ping ping ping, *ping* ping ping #ping ping. Ping, ping:
“Ping ping ping ping ping — ping ping ping (ping ping ping)”.
Ping ping ping ping. Ping. And yet and yet…
Ping?
Ping.
Six Apart is shutting down its free blogging service, Vox, and as Mike points out this announcement is really about cleaning up for an upcoming merger with VideoEgg. With 250 million uniques worldwide spread across thousands of blogs and a growing ad business, Six Apart isn’t a failure. But, like Slide and like Digg, it hasn’t lived up to its promise either. And products like Vox are a big reason why: As blogging was getting more open and commenters more mean spirited, Vox was intended as a clean, well-lit place in the blogosphere. It had a great UI and some nice features like a “Question of the Day” to get reluctant new bloggers up-and-writing. But then it just sort of withered.
My takeaway from the shuttering wasn’t so much “Six Apart is cleaning up for a sale” (which they are and Six Apart Japan is next) but “Good God, Six Apart! What took you so long?”
Mike Yang, Google’s Associate General Counsel, just published a post on the Google blog, informing users that the company is making its privacy policies shorter and easier to understand for non-lawyers. They are also making some other changes, but to be clear, the Mountain View company isn’t altering its privacy practices as such.
The updates will go into effect October 3, which is 30 days from now. 
Music identification app Shazam has announced big feature updates to its iPhone and iPod touch music discovery apps.
There are now customised settings for ‘tagging on start-up’ make the process of identifying a music track faster, a new UI, the ability to search for ringtones and videos on iTunes and better video. You can also share tunes you find via Facebook and Twitter. Shame it doesn’t own its name on Twitter then.
Plex is about to get big. The offshoot of the XBMC project just announced that LG will be using its media platform in upcoming Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players, in turn, making these devices about the best media streamers imaginable — even better than the upcoming Boxee Box or just-refreshed Apple TV.
After all, Plex already works with Netflix, Hulu, BBC’s iPlayer, and supports playback of just about every media format ever created via the best interface in the business. There’s even an iOS remote viewing app coming soon. Forget about having an extra box sitting on your TV stand just to stream random content, it’s going to be built into your HDTV. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentleman.
Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson fame may be too chicken to invest in WeedMaps (think Yelp for pot), but that isn’t stopping other companies from sniffing around the startup, looking to score.
In fact, a company called LC LUXURIES LIMITED, or rather its most recently established subsidiary, US Cannabis, is very close to buying WeedMaps. According to this press release, the Nevada corporation has entered into formal negotiations with the startup to acquire the domain name “weedmaps.com” as well as the current operating website.
We all know Google Music is coming, it’s just a question of when – and what it’ll look like, of course. According to Reuters, Google hopes to launch the service as early as December 2010.
Citing unnamed ‘people familiar with the matter’, Reuters says Google’s VP of Engineering Andy Rubin (which we likened to a Steve Jobs-caliber product fanatic in the past) is spearheading talks with music labels on plans for a digital music download store and cloud-based song locker service, which he hopes will see the light of day before year’s end.
Only thing that could get in the way of a pre-Christmas debut: the company has yet to sign a single licensing deal with the music labels, those same sources told Reuters.
