March 27, 2004 edition, issue: 04-0256
Current circulation: 16,682
Editor: Serge Thibodeau

Dear readers, hello and I hope you all a great week. Here, things are getting busier and busier, as companies are realizing the importance of search and the impact it can have on their sales. We are getting more and more work from companies and small businesses that have either been negatively affected in any of Google's November or January updates and that need to get their sites back in a front-row position.

Week ending Friday, March 26, 2004

In the news this week, whether Google ought to obscure information in the name of privacy is a policy issue it would rather not tackle directly. In the physical world, you may try hard to separate aspects of your life. On the Internet, those separate lives merge, thanks to Google.

"Google kind of makes it easy to connect all the dots together," said Richard M. Smith, former chief technology officer at the Privacy Foundation. "To 'google' now means to do some research on that person, and it's common in dating, employment and any situation where a stranger has your name and wants to get to know you," said Jason Catlett, a privacy advocate with Junkbusters Corp.

"I think Google is the biggest privacy invader on the planet, no doubt about it." It's better, Google co-founder Larry Page said, if the Internet community were to reach consensus -- by deciding whether that information is made public in the first place.

Online Web diaries called blogs can also be revealing as writers publicly complain about their friends and ex-lovers by name.

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