For Google, Social Networking Is Just One Chapter of the Book

With its valuations and the number of users going through the roof, Facebook is perceived by many as the company that might dethrone Google as the next Internet superpower. Google, however, doesn’t see Facebook as a direct threat, since social networking is just one part of Google’s overall strategy.
“The digital world is exploding and it has so many chapters — it has cloud computing, it has mobile, it does have social, it has searches, it has so many elements. (…) Yes, absolutely it will be part of our strategy, yes it will be embedded in many of our products. But at the same time remember it’s one chapter of an entire book”, said Google’s Chief financial officer Patrick Pichette to Australian public television on Sunday.
While that may be true, with Facebook’s recent foray into e-mail it’s getting obvious that Facebook is competing with Google on many fronts, not merely as a social network. The real question here is whether Facebook’s core product – social networking – is more powerful a foundation than Google’s core product – search.
Pichette also weighed in on the state of mobile and Google’s great success with Android. “Now that everybody has a smartphone everybody searches, so these few hundred engineers (who developed Android) have accelerated (a market that) would have taken 10 years to develop into a few years,” he said. Pichette also repeated Eric Schmidt’s claim that 200,000 new android handsets are being activated every day.
Finally, Pichette gave his thoughts on what drives Google as a company, delivering another quote that goes hand in hand with Google’s long-standing “don’t be evil” mantra. “The first driving principle of Google is in fact not money — the first driving principle of Google is understanding that the Internet is changing the world,” he said.
courtesy: http://mashable.com/2010/11/21/google-social-media-chapter/

google to delete personal data

Google has agreed to delete all personal data collected by its Street View cars from unsecured wireless networks. Google sparked an international outrage last month after it admitted to collecting information from unsecured Wi-Fi networks as its vehicles roamed residential streets. Thecompany was accused of unlawfully harvesting data, including e-mails, passwords and website addresses, during the creation of its Street View maps.
British Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said Google will also introduce improved training measures on security awareness and data protection issues for all its employees worldwide, reports the Daily Mail.
Graham said: "I am very pleased to have a firm commitment from Google to work with my office to improve its handling of personal information.
"It is a significant achievement to have an undertaking from a major multinational corporation like Google Inc that extends to its global policies and not just its UK activities."
Alan Eustace, Google's senior vice president, signed an undertaking on behalf of Google Inc to put in place improved training measures on security awareness and data protection issues for all employees, the Information Commissioner's Office said.
The company will also require its engineers to maintain a privacy design document for every new project before it is launched and the personal data collected in Britain will be deleted.
The decision is a victory for privacy campaigners, who were furious that Google had refused to back down over claims that it had unlawfully accessed private data, albeit accidentally