SEARCH CLINIC

European Union data protection regulators will probe Facebook after it started a global rollout of its new face recognition photo tagging system without allowing it’s users’ to opt in.
The new feature “recognises” faces in photos, shortening the often tedious tagging process, which enables users to connect a face in a photo with an actual friend on Facebook.

The process has now been semi-automated- Facebook provides suggestions for individuals in photos, and the user chooses to accept or reject them.

The feature is enabled by default although it can be disabled by customizing your privacy settings.

However, European Union regulators think that this feature is a potential privacy risk.

“Tags of people on pictures should only happen based on people’s prior consent and it can’t be activated by default,” said Gerard Lommel, a Luxembourg member of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party.

In the past, EU regulators have criticised companies such as Microsoft and Google as well as Yahoo for storing data search queries for too long.

Facebook, too, was criticised for not doing enough to protect the privacy of its users.

Dr Search isn’t surprised by Facebook’s ongoing disregard to it’s users’ personal security. They have a long track record of blunderbussing ahead without care and sufferring the consequences later.

Hopefully a large fine might bring some sence- if only to delay their impending IPO due to regulatory uncertainty that this investigation will cause.

Twitter has said it was prepared to hand over data and information identifying tens of thousands of people who have used the website to break privacy superinjunctions.A senior executive from Twitter has admitted for the first time that the social network might turn over information to authorities if it was “legally required” to do so.

Experts had previously assumed that people who breached gagging orders on Twitter were protected from legal reprisals because the website is outside the jurisdiction of British courts.

The admission came after Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, warned earlier this week that people who breached injunctions online were in for a “rude shock”.

Ryan Giggs, the Premiership footballer, last week started legal proceedings against Twitter and “persons unknown” after more than 70,000 users revealed that he had obtained an injunction to hide an extra-marital affair.

On Monday John Hemming, the back-bench Liberal Democrat MP, used parliamentary privilege to identify Giggs in Parliament.

The admission by Twitter, however, could encourage legal action by a number of celebrities who have been named on the website as having obtained injunctions to hide alleged affairs.

Tony Wang, Twitter’s head of European operations, has said that the website would notify users in advance so they could fight the application in the court before Twitter handed over the information.

He said: “Platforms have a responsibility, not to defend that user but to protect that user’s right to defend him or herself.

“If we’re legally required to turn over user information, to the extent that we can, we want to notify the user involved, let them know and let them exercise their rights under their own jurisdiction.

“That’s not to say that they will ultimately prevail, that’s not to say that law enforcement doesn’t get the information they need, but what it does do is take that process into the court of law and let it play out there.”

When Mr Hemming named Giggs earlier this week he said: “With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter, it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all.”

Dr Search wonders if it will possible to trace the anonymous users if they have used fake email addresses and set up Twitter accounts in internet cafes as tracking the culprits will be very vague- especially as the most controversial Twitter account appears to have been posted to on only one day.

The CIM- Chartered Institute of Marketing is 100 years old this week.The CIM was formed on May 16 1911 and marketing as a profession began when 12 people met at the Inns of Court hotel in London and created a new professional association.

Dr Search the Search Clinic’s Principal Consultant is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

The Institute’s solid branch and regional network, first established in 1926, reaches marketers throughout the UK and overseas.

Since the founding of the Sri Lanka branch in 1995, the CIM network has expanded to champion marketing best practice in 11 overseas regions from Asia to Africa.

This is supported by its established professional qualifications, which began in 1928 with the first annual certificate examinations, and today comprises of entry-level marketing certificates and degree-level qualifications, CPD and training programmes.

The CIM is the world’s largest group of marketing professionals.

Events and celebrations planned during this centenary year will provide marketers with an opportunity to show off the positive power of marketing and demonstrate the beneficial contribution that marketing provides to both an organisation’s bottom line and long-term future.

To mark our momentous milestone, a Centenary Banquet was organised on 4 April 2011 at Windsor Castle in the presence of our patron His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, K.G., K.T.

Our long standing patron H.R.H. supports our quests to promote the positive influence marketing has for organisations today and in the future. The Centenary Banquet was an excellent opportunity to celebrate the importance of marketing and the beneficial contribution it makes to organisations’ success and long-term future.

Around 300 selected guests attended the Banquet where H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh addressed the guests followed by one of Britain’s most popular public speakers Tony Ball, MBE.

Twitter recorded its busiest ever day of online traffic in the UK on Monday May 9, as Britons sought to identify the superinjunction celebrities.One in every 200 UK web visits on Monday were to Twitter.com, according to the website traffic measurement firm, Experian Hitwise’s Twitter superinjunction traffic , as people tried to discover which celebrities had been granted gagging orders.

The surge of interest came about after Jemima Khan tweeted a denial of the false claim, made by the Twitter user that she had taken out a superinjunction to try to prevent the publication of intimate pictures of herself and Jeremy Clarkson the BBC Top Gear presenter.

Visits to Twitter increased by 14% on 9 May, accounting for 0.49% of total UK internet visits that day.

Twitter also became the 17th most popular website in Britain, up from the rank of 19th on May 8 2011.

It overtook Yahoo! search and Google Maps after the surge of traffic. Google, Facebook and YouTube, remain the three most popular sites in the UK.

In the last week there were over 500 unique search term variations which included the word ‘super injunction’ typed into Google, Bing or Yahoo!

Searches for the term ‘super injunction’ have increased by 5000 per cent in the last month, as stories surrounding the topic have raised the curiosity of UK Internet users.

Lawyers have called for the Twitter superinjunction tweets to be taken down as they breach the site’s terms of service.

However, Twitter has declined to comment on this observation.

Dr Search notes that as of this morning the number of followers to the controversial account had grown to over 106,000.

Growing by a staggering 84 percent increase in value over the past year, Apple has emerged as the most valuable brand in the world, ending the four-year reign of Google at the top of the table in the sixth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study.The Apple brand, as calculated by Millward Brown Optimor, a WPP company, has increased in value by 859 percent since 2006 and now stands at $153.3 billion.

Other key findings in the study are that during the economic recovery of the last year, the combined value of all the brands in the top 100 has risen by 17 percent and is now worth $2.4 trillion. In terms of geography, according to the 2011 BrandZ study, 19 of the Top 100 brands now originate in “BRICs” markets, versus only two in 2006.

“The importance of brand for global business success is becoming increasingly significant,” said David Roth at WPP. “In the last year, the global economy shifted from recovery to real growth, the combined value of all brands in the Top 100 ranking has risen by 64 percent since 2006 and is now worth $2.4 trillion. Strong brands, while not immune to the vicissitudes of the market, are more protected, prepared, resourceful and resilient.”

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, identifies and ranks the world’s most valuable 100 brands by their dollar value, an analysis based on financial data combined with consumer measures of brand equity.

The Most Valuable Global Brands 2011

_{*The Brand Value of Coca-Cola includes Lites, Diets and Zero}

Other key findings highlighted in this year’s research report include:

• One in five brands is from the BRICs: This year, 19 brands come from emerging markets compared to two in 2006 and 13 in 2010. The growing presence of brands from BRICs in this global ranking highlights the expanding purchasing power of people in these countries. While many of these brands are buoyed by the size of their local customer base, many more now have international ambition including Petrobras in Brazil (No. 61 in the ranking with a brand value of $13.4 billion); ICICI Bank in India (No. 53 and worth $14.9 billion) and China’s largest search engine Baidu. Now listed on the NASDAQ index, Baidu has a brand value of $22.5 billion and moves up 46 places in the ranking to number 29. Despite these successes, consumers in the BRIC regions continue to favor Western brands. Louis Vuitton, for example, (for which Brazil is its second-largest market) benefited from the new energy and confidence in the BRICs region. Its 23 percent growth in brand value to $24.3 billion has helped this luxury retailer achieve 26th place in the ranking, a three-spot increase from 2010.

• Heritage brands stay relevant in a technology age: Coca-Cola (No. 6), GE (No. 10), IBM (No. 3) and McDonald’s (No. 4), stand out in this study of global brand strength as brands that have survived for more than 50 years. Leadership, strategy and tactics aside, what all of these companies have in common is their use of brand to remain relevant to consumers and drive global business success.

• Technology and telecom brands dominate the ranking: Technology brands, which make up one-third of the Top 100 brands, continue to demonstrate their relevance in our daily lives. While Apple leads the ranking, it is followed in second place by Google, with a brand value of $111.5 billion, and IBM in third place with a brand value of $100.9 billion. Facebook makes its debut in the Top 100 ranking this year at No. 35 with the highest increase in brand value, 246 percent, making the brand worth $19.1 billion. Online retailer Amazon also edged past Walmart to become the No. 1 retail brand and 14th overall, with a 37 percent rise in brand value to $37.6 billion.

• Fast food, luxury and technology brands led brand value appreciation: Each of the 13 market sectors covered in this study grew in value over the last year. Fast food led the sector growth (22 percent) followed by luxury (19 percent) and technology (18 percent). The oil and gas sector experienced the slowest rate of growth (1 percent).

• Tech and convergence create brand interdependencies: Brands are ever more dependent on their use of technology to win consumers’ hearts and minds. The brand values of Burberry, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Coca-Cola all benefited from their use of technology for example by harnessing social media and apps. At the same time, the dependencies demonstrated in the physical world between applications, devices and operating platforms are creating similar branded interdependencies. Brands that are aware of the risks can leverage these associations to drive value and growth.

• Toyota reclaims position as most valuable car brand demonstrating the power of strong brands to recover from the most fundamental challenges to product efficacy and reputation. Toyota’s brand, which is rated by consumers as “great value,” rose 11 percent to $24.1 billion.

Dr Search points out that although Apple has a market valuation of $320 billion it has a PE ratio of 16.5. In comparison Google has a valuation of $174 billion with an expensive PE of 19.6.

Apple has finally admitted snooping on it’s users and released a software update after complaints that iPhones and iPads were secretly recording locations.The issue only came to light when security researchers found a hidden file on the devices containing a record of everywhere they had been.

Dr Search posted the story on the Search Clinic blog last month at: Apple in iPhone location tracking data snooping storm

At the time Apple denied that it has used the information to track user location and blamed a bug in the software.

The update, which is available through the iTunes store, cuts the amount of stored data to just a week and no longer transfers it to the owner’s computer when the phone is connected.

And if users disable the location services setting on their iPhone or iPad, it will stop collecting data completely.

It transpires that permission for the tracking was given by users, albeit hidden away in the terms and conditions for the iTunes store.

The data was logged via cell towers and wi-fi access points.

The storage of the data was brought to light in a blog post from researchers Alasdair Allan and Peter Warden.

At the time Mr Allan said that he did not think there was “any sort of conspiracy going on”.

“However, we’re both worried about this level of detailed location data being out there in the wild. While the cell phone operators already have this data, it takes a court order to obtain it from them. You can now do the equivalent by simply leaving your iPhone in a bar. That doesn’t seem right to me.”

Many smartphone owners chose to voluntarily opt in to location tracking services such as Foursquare and Mobile Me but there is rising concern about how companies use such data.

Later this month Apple and Google are due to testify at a US senate hearing on mobile privacy as the firms come under increasing pressure to reveal how they collect and store location data.

Smartphones running Google’s Android operating system also store data but it is an opt-in service, according to the firm.

Speed Kills- so say the road safety brigade, but the adage also applies if you have a slow website.

Recent research published by the Financial Times highlights just how impatient internet shoppers are becoming.

The amount of time customers are prepared to spend waiting for a website to respond to their clicks has reduced significantly over the past few years.

Six years ago in 2005 people would be prepared to wait eight seconds for a retail page to load.

Three years ago this patience had declined to four seconds.

Now forty per cent of people will not wait longer than three seconds and nearly half- 47 per cent expect a website server response in less than two seconds.

It’s not just a slow website which will kill your online marketing.

If you are donating to buy Google shareholders champagne at their AGM aka AdWords pay per click marketing and you have a slow website you are also killing your wallet.

As one of the four key determinant factors that Google use to rank the position of your ads is the download speed of your landing pages which you are trying to drive traffic towards.

You can check the download rate of your website with this free speed checker.

Dr Search summarises by emphasising the adage- because like running a traffic camera your wallet will lose out in the end if you ignore your speedomoter.

One of the Search Clinic’s group members- Health Direct who have been accredited by the Health on the Net Foundation since 2008 has been asked if you would kindly help them by completing a short questionnaire to find out your views on finding health information online.

A survey on search behavior conducted by HON for the KHRESMOI EU project What is your ideal search engine?

We would like to inform you that Health On the Net Foundation is currently participating in a European Union project KHRESMOI which aims to develop a search engine for health and medical information search to meet the needs of general population, MDs and radiologists. In this project, the Foundation and the Society of physicians in Vienna aim to better understand the needs of users (citizens and doctors) searching health information on the Internet. Currently a survey addressing the needs of the citizens is available online.

Help us by participating in our general public survey up until the 17th of April!

You can help us to promote this survey, few options are available here.

English version: Not happy with your online health information search results ? Please Participate in our survey. Our goal: 500 responses by the 17th of April 2011.

How do you search for health-related information on the Internet?

Shares in Research in Motion (RIM) fell 12% in after-hours trading after the firm said profits this quarter will be much weaker than expected.
It blamed the cost of developing it’s new tablet format Blackberry, as well as a migration of consumers towards cheaper handsets in its product range.

The share price fall came despite the Canadian firm reporting £579 million net profits for the last quarter, in line with analysts’ expectations.

Revenues of £3.5 billion – were however slightly short of expectations, according to the results released after the close of trading on the Nasdaq exchange.

The company has seen its share of its core US market steadily eroded by smartphone rivals.

Some 48% of its business now comes from outside the key markets of the US, Canada and the UK.

But growth in these new markets has gone hand-in-hand with a shift towards lower-margin entry-point products, the firm conceded.

RIM is banking on its new tablet computer – the Playbook – to regain the initiative.

It will be half the size of Apple’s iPad and will be compatible with Google’s Android operating system.

As well as the new product launch, the company is also revamping its operating system.

The firm lowered its profit guidance for the current quarter, and also broadened its range due to uncertainty over the possible impact of Japanese supply chain problems.

Dr Search points out that the shares could still represent great value- Google’s price earnings is currently rated at 28, Apple at around 20, yet RIM’s is an amazingly only 8.

The proportion of websites secretly harbouring malware has reached one in 3,000 according to security firm Kaspersky.
They found a surge in the number of web based attacks in 2010, with more than 580 million incidents detected.

Risk was no longer focused on websites with illegal content, such as pirate films and music, the report said.

Instead, criminals were increasingly using legitimate websites, such as shopping and online gaming.

The malware writers target vulnerable web servers, with owners often unaware of the attack, said Ram Herkanaidu, senior security research at Kaspersky Lab.

“They will put a piece of Java code, for example, onto a website and scramble it so it is hard to notice.

“The Java code runs when you visit the site and redirects the user to malware,” he said. “Previously you could avoid these attacks by not visiting dodgy websites. Today the malware writers are targeting legitimate ones”.

Kaspersky’s figures are based on reports from customers who have joined its security network.

The rise in incidents of web based attacks far outstripped the number of new members in 2010, indicating the increasing threat, said Mr Herkanaidu.

“It has become the cyber crooks’ attack of choice,” he said.

The threat from cyber crime is being taken increasingly seriously by government officials.

Last week, Dr Search warned that the UK government published figures estimating that cyber crime costs the economy £27 billion a year in UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year claims government report