Google Apps suite causes privacy concerns in Canada

Members of staff at a Canadian university have raised concerns over
possible compromises of their private data that have arisen as a
result of the institution's use of Google's applications suite, it has
been revealed.

Controversy has broken out a Lakehead University in Canada after
employees were told not to use the Apps suite for personal or
sensitive information.

Google Apps features a number of web applications, including Gmail,
Google Calendar and Google Talk.

Staff at Lakehead University, which was one of the first large-scale
operations to adopt the service, were warned that, because the
information they input into the Apps suite is stored on Google's
servers in the US, their personal information may be at risk.

Whereas under Canadian law user data is protected, US authorities have
the right to read everything under the conditions of the Patriot Act.

Commenting on the issue, Tom Puk, a former president of Lakehead's
faculty association, stated: "The [university] did this on the cheap.
By getting this free from Google, [it] gave away our rights," the
Globe and Mail reports.

He added: "You would have no idea what they are up to with your
information until, perhaps, it is too late. We do not want to be
subject to laws of the Patriot Act."

Mr Puk has brought a complaint against the university because, under
the terms of his contract of employment, he is guaranteed private
electronic communications in line with Canada's privacy laws.

Google’s new APIs and their effect on Google Talk, Gmail and yes, Google Phone

The way I interpret some newly posted information, Google could be
preparing to allow developers to fashion applications that will run
with Google Talk, Gmail, and more hot Google services such as the
widely anticipated Google Phone.

After speaking with three Non Disclosure Agreement-signing (but
apparently loose-lipped) sources who attended a supersecret meeting at
the Googleplex (Google's corporate HQ in Mountain View, Cal. Thursday,
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has the scoop on some new initiatives
Google will announce in the next several weeks that will open some
Google apps to projects by third-party developers.

Mike writes:

The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on
November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google's social
graph data. They'll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google's
personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail,
Google Talk and other Google services over time.

My take is that these third-party apps will be able to enhance
GoogleTalk with applications none of us have thought of- at least as
of yet. More than IM, which they do now. I'd think these new apps
would work best when, as Google promises, GT will be SIP-compatible.
This step, promised for nearly two years, would in turn pave the way
for true PSTN termination for Google Talk, much in the manner of Skype
or Yahoo! Voice.

Once this is done, some of these options then available to third-party
developers could, at least in theory, make Google Talk-calls more
manageable, configurable, and measurable. I'd expect for, or even hope
for, diagnostic tools for each call, not unlike corporate-VoIP
solutions we see from such companies as Cisco and Avaya.

I'd also expect a third-party service to come in and construct a
name-searchable directory of all Google Talk numbers and Gmail addys,
as well as enhanced searchability for Google's Orkut social network.

And if Google does get into a GooglePhone type mobile service, maybe
some third-party could tunnel in and construct a searchable directory
of those phone numbers.

Can Google do all this and ensure privacy? Once you grant API rights
to third-party developers, strict access controls to your customer
records becomes an even higher priority.

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:00 am

Google Buys Videoconferencing Tech

On the heels of its stellar first-quarter results , Google announced
Friday that it would add video conferencing software from Swedish
company Marratech to its acquisition arsenal.

The search engine giant will not acquire the entire company, just the
video conferencing software. It will also take on Marratech's
technical team, according to a spokesman.

The deal "will enable from-the-desktop participation for Googlers in
videoconference meetings wherever there's an Internet connection,"
Douglas Merrill, vice president of engineering, wrote in a Google blog
posting. "It will be used in combination with our current
video-conferencing equipment."

"We look forward to learning from the extraordinary ingenuity of
Marratech's engineers as they focus on desktop conferencing research
and development in Sweden, where they will continue to be located,"
Merrill wrote.

Google could provide no further details on additional functionality,
when it will debut or whether or not it will be a free service.

If it is offered free of cost, the offering could be a hit to Cisco,
which last month shelled out $3.2 billion to acquire WebEx, another
provider of video conferencing capabilities. It would also serve as
competition to Microsoft's LiveMeeting and Adobe Connect.

A Google spokesman had no comment on whether the Marratech acquisition
was an effort to go after those rivals.

Marratech technology is based on research that started in 1995 at the
Centre for Distance-Spanning Technology (CDT) at Luleå university of
Technology in Sweden. It was initially conceived as distance learning
technology but later morphed into e-meeting and web collaboration
software, according to Marratech.

The company's technology runs on Windows, Mac or Linux environments
utilizing a broadband connection, though it does not yet support
Microsoft Vista or Mac OS X v.10.5, according to the company's Web
site.

MySpace takes on Digg and Google News

MySpace is to take on Google and Digg with a news aggregator service
that combs the web for stories and allows users to rank their
favourites.

MySpace News combines elements of Digg, which is based on stories
submitted and ranked by readers, and Google News, which organises news
according to subject matter.

The service, now in beta testing, collates stories from across the web
and divides them into 300 sub-sections in 25 topics such as politics,
sport and entertainment. Stories are then ranked according to MySpace
member votes.

MySpace owner News Corp claimed that the service will scan more news
sources than Google News, but said that organisations can opt out of
having their news feed shown if they wish.

Google recently settled a copyright suit with Agence France-Presse,
which complained about alleged unauthorised use of its content on
Google News.

The news service is likely to drive more traffic to MySpace and
attract further ad revenue for News Corp's Fox Interactive Media,
which bought the site in 2005 for $580m.

Google delivers AJAX API

Google has launched an AJAX API aimed to simplify the creation of application mashups using JavaScript.

The new Google AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Feed API eliminates the need for developers to write server-side proxies to access public data feeds using JavaScript, Google announced in an official blog posting.

Instead, with the API, feeds can accessed by writing "a few lines" of JavaScript. "The API automatically handles the proxying and offers a clean, straightforward interface for accessing syndicated data," said a Google spokesman.

Sample tasks the API simplifies include displaying a dynamic blogroll on a Web page or photos from a feed from the Google Picasa photo management service on a site.

The new API supports the Atom and RSS syndicated feed formats.

Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products, demonstrated the Google AJAX Feed API at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

More information about the new API can be found at the Google site.

PowerPoint and Google

Google Inc. plans to launch software similar to Microsoft Corp.'s popular PowerPoint program as the two companies vie to dominate the online experience.

Google announced Friday it would pay $3.1 billion to acquire ad-management technology company DoubleClick Inc. Almost as soon as Google announced the cash acquisition, Microsoft and AT&T executives said the deal could violate antitrust legislation and result in a dangerous concentration of Internet users' personal data at Mountain View-based Google.

But Schmidt, noting that Microsoft and AT&T have had their share of antitrust skirmishes, retorted, "Give me a break."

"They're wrong," Schmidt said. "It's false."

The two companies already offer e-mail, word processing and spreadsheet programs, and other tools. Google's new presentation software will compete against Microsoft's ubiquitous PowerPoint software that's part of its popular Office suite.

"This completes what most users of PCs consider the Office suite," said John Battelle, who leads Federated Media Publishing and grilled Schmidt about the product at the conference.

Google will give away two versions of the presentation software starting this summer, and it will sell a "Premier" version with extra storage for $50 per year. The presentation program is part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, which the company has been unveiling piecemeal for nearly a year.