Shore up the defences because this means war! The web was once a happy peaceful place, but times have changed and war hardened internet veterans like Google and Yahoo are digging in deeper than a mole on crystal meth. With suicide spammers and hitman hackers, is anybody safe? Of course that’s not to say that the big players are all on our side. We could have a double agent in our midst.
This week, General Google battened down the hatches by bringing in a beta of a secure SSL homepage. You’ll notice that simply by adding an 's' at the end of ‘http’ for 'google.com' you’ll be sent to their secure version of the site. You know it’s got to be secure, what with the little padlock that pops up beside the URL. After pressure from the EFF, Google brought in the security feature which can help protect the privacy of the searches you’re making. Bear in mind that it’s not a complete solution to online security so you should still make sure that your OS and antivirus software are kept updated and keep your wits about you. Walls have ears you know.
However, with this effort Google seem to have left a man behind. The encryption effect of SSL security can have a detrimental effect on Analytics' ability to gather data, which has left webmasters ready to jump ship.
For Yahoo and Hotmail, they’ve decided to take the battle to the spammers. Nobody likes spammers. They’re like a hair in your dinner, and not even a head hair! In fact, it’s better to describe spammers as dirty smelly back alley hobos who sneak into your party and urinate in the punch. That’s why these two should be commended for developing new weapons to combat the evil underworld of spammers.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Twitter skipped ranks and went on a solo mission by ditching potential advertising partners and going it alone with their ‘Promoted Tweets’ service. Facebook got court-marshalled recently for failing to protect the privacy of their 400 million strong army. However for website owners, Facebook is still one of the good guys with a social plug-in toolkit to slap features across their site.
As for the conscientious objectors, Android put its latest update Froyo out to the public and the Google I/O conference finished with a flurry of Google TV speculation. The Google Content Network got a little bit easier to filter and Ad Extensions moved into AdWords.
Out on the internet battlefront security needs to step up! They may take our bank details, but they’ll never take our Freeeedommmm!
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- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #40: Sleet, Snow and SEO - December 3, 2010
- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #39: Out of the Google Frying Pan… - November 26, 2010
- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #38: The Google, the Bad and the Ugly - November 19, 2010
- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #37: Google Jams A Few Rockets In Your Pocket - November 5, 2010
- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #36: Google Gets All Up in Your Business - October 29, 2010
- Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #35: Google’s Groovy Giftset - October 22, 2010
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