Ask.com Addresses Internet Privacy Concerns
In response to a privacy advocate group asking a major search company last month to make its privacy policy more accessible on its website, Ask.com released an open letter to its users addressing the issue. In the letter, the company stated that in addition to AskEraser, its current privacy protection tool, the engine will now be placing a link to its privacy policy and practices on the Ask.com home page as well as to two different helpdesk Smart Answer pages (for searches on \"Ask Privacy\" or \"Privacy\") providing search results detailing the company's complete privacy protection policy.
Microsoft Ventures into TV Advertising
Microsoft has announced its newest advertising platform after the acquisition of Navic Networks, a company providing television advertising solutions. Microsoft executives stated that this foray into digital television advertising will allow the company to reach a much wider audience and provide the opportunity for both companies to work together to increase the return on investment for advertisers by using Microsoft's existing advertising platforms in addition to the new digital media capabilities.
Yahoo! Reaches Agreement with Google
After months of negotiation, Google and Yahoo! have reached an agreement allowing Yahoo! access to Google's successful advertising technology. Yahoo! will now be able to display Google ads alongside its own, and more importantly, it will have the option to display more pertinent results to its own users and provide its advertisers with better technology. The agreement is will be in place for up to ten years and is non-exclusive, meaning that Yahoo! is free to join into like partnerships with other advertising corporations.
Google Trends Update
In addition to Google Trends and Hot Trends, tools that allow you to see the world's most popular searches, Google has released Google Trends for Websites. This new tool allows users to see data on website popularity (rankings and traffic) locally and in comparison to similar websites both locally and globally. Whereas Hot Trends allows users to compare the number of people searching on specific keyphrases for different websites, Trends for Websites allows for the comparison of unique visitors between one website and another. Although this technology is available to the public, it is currently part of Google Labs, meaning the engine will likely make several tweaks and changes to the product over the next several months.
Google Ad Planner Debuts
A week after releasing Google Trends for Websites, Google has announced Ad Planner, a marketing and media tool linking advertisers to publishers. Aimed at increasing brand awareness, Ad Planner will allow users to enter a target audience into the system and receive a list of websites visited by that specific demographic. In addition to providing more targeted data for advertising and marketing plans, this tool also hopes to generate greater visibility for seldom-seen websites deep within the Internet. This tool is in beta testing at the moment, so like Trends for Websites, there will likely be minor tweaks to the product in the coming months.