A couple of snippets concerning Google’s new Chrome browser:
Pop-ups not shown, but Advertisers billed?
It seems like Chrome’s new Pop-Up hider still loads the Pop-Up ads, but doesn’t present them to the viewer.
This is somewhat different to how traditional Pop-Up blockers work, in that they actually prevent the ad from loading. Our understanding of that approach is that this means the Advertiser wouldn’t be charged, as their ad is not loading.
The situation with Chrome may well be different, as the ad is being loaded but not shown, which could lead to advertisers still being charged for Pop-Ups that no one will ever see.
For Pop-Up haters that’s fine, but if true and if Chrome grabs a significant portion of the Browser market, then this could well lead to changes in advertising methods.
Google promotes Firefox, oops!
In a very public spirited gesture, it seems that Google (via YouTube at least) is still advertising Firefox, even after the launch of Chrome.
Whether this is an oversight on Google’s part, or a requirement of their agreement with Mozilla we don’t know. Is Google still the default search engine bundled with Firefox installs, as per their agreement (which was re-negotiated earlier this year)? If so, how much longer will this arrangment last?
Thanks to Raja of MrFeedback.net for the heads up about the Firefox ad in Youtube.
The ongoing Google/YouTube-Viacom litigation has now officially spilled over to users with a court order requiring Google to turn over massive amounts of user data to Viacom.
That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason. Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely “speculative.”
Meanwhile, the judge denied Viacom’s request that Google turn over YouTube’s source code.
It seems that far more data is in danger of being transferred than is required to satisfy Viacom’s core stated concern, which is to understand the popularity of copyright infringing vs. non-infringing material. Viacom has asked for much more than that, opening up the possibility of their taking legal action to sue individual users (or at least use the threat of a lawsuit) who have watched ‘copyrighted’ material on YouTube.
Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format.
Adobe Systems, owner of Flash, has released a customised version of the Flash Player software that will allow Google (and other search engines) to see certain elements of Web pages embedded with Flash content in the same way a human would.
Search Engines currently have a difficult time “seeing” non-text formats such as Flash, which can lead to sites that make heavy use of the technology being ‘penalised’ in terms of their indexing.
Adobe’s new tool will help crawlers navigate dynamic Flash pages more easily. Google’s crawlers, for instance, will be able to click buttons along the way and remember the information for the index.
Google is already using the new tool and Yahoo plans to soon. Adobe also plans to extend support to other search engines.
