Google Phone Is In The Works, Say Industry Insiders

Google Phone Is In The Works, Say Industry Insiders

Google isn't commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States that describe a low-cost, Internet-connected phone with a color, wide-screen design.

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is "investigating" such a project.

Google isn't commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States which describe a low-cost, Internet-connected phone with a color, wide-screen design. Newspaper and blog reports in recent months have Google shopping its phone design to potential mobile phone manufacturing partners in Asia.

"Mobile is an important area for Google," Google spokeswoman Erin Fors said Friday. "We remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce."

Gadget enthusiasts who only two months ago were obsessed with the potential revolutionary impact on the phone industry of Apple Inc.'s iPhone device -- due out in June and at prices starting at $500 -- have shifted their attention to whether Google is developing an even lower-cost phone.

"We obviously need another mythical mobile to drool over and speculate about -- and the natural candidate is, of course, the so-called Google phone," geek hardware site Engadget wrote earlier this month http://tinyurl.com/3b7bow.

To be sure, feverish speculation about Google products has been wrong before. Google was widely reported to be building its own line of personal computers a little over a year ago. What in fact materialized was a set of free software programs designed to make any existing Windows PCs easier to use.

But Richard Windsor, a phone analyst with brokerage Nomura in London, told clients late last week that unspecified Google representatives at a major European conference in Germany had confirmed the company is working on its own phone device.
"Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own," Windsor said in a note entitled "Google Phone: From myth to reality."
"This is not going to be a high-end device but a mass market device aimed at bringing Google to users who don't have a PC," he said.

Over the past year, Google has branched out beyond computers to bring Web search, e-mail, mapping and other Web services to millions of new and existing phone browsers worldwide. Rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. also are racing to run Web services on mobile phones.
Simeon Simeonov, a Boston-based venture capitalist with Polaris Venture Partners, said in a March 4 blog post http://tinyurl.com/2z23o7 that an "inside source close to the company" had informed him that Google was developing a "Blackberry-like, slick device."

The device Simeonov describes could handle voice over Internet phone-calling. He said it is being developed within a 100-person mobile phone group at Google that includes Andy Rubin, the creator of Sidekick, a popular phone/Internet device that he developed at a prior company he founded, Danger Inc.

Lending further clues, Isabel Aguilera, head of Google's Iberian operations, was quoted last week in Spanish news site Noticias.com as acknowledging the existence of a part-time project by some Google engineers to develop a mobile phone.

In her interview at http://tinyurl.com/2feypv/, translated from Spanish, the Google executive said her company "has been investigating" developing a mobile phone that works both as an Internet access device and as a way to extend Internet use to emerging markets customers.
In January, Engadget circulated a photo purporting to be a prototype Internet phone with a wide, color screen designed by Google and built by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. This unconfirmed report replaced an earlier theory published by The Observer in December that Google was working with Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) on a mobile phone.
A source at a rival Internet company who has talked to the same mobile phone manufacturers said Friday that "Google is going to build their own phone, whether it is with HTC or Samsung or some other ODM (original device manufacturer)."

Windsor, the London-based Nomura analyst who tracks mobile phone handset makers like Nokia of Finland, argues that a Google Phone "will meet with limited success and lose money" because it lacks the necessary phone industry relationships to reach the massive scale needed to compete.

Spyware Puts Ads on Google.com

Spyware Puts Ads on Google.com

Cingular Wireless and Travelocity ads appeared on Google.com last month, without Google's consent, thanks to spyware.

Google doesn't sell ad space on its famously white search page. Nonetheless, Cingular Wireless and Travelocity ads appeared on Google.com last month, without Google's consent, thanks to spyware.

In January, Cingular, Priceline, and Travelocity agreed to pay fines and reform their advertising practices, in accordance with an agreement made with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to hold advertisers responsible for the behavior of advertising affiliates.

"Advertisers can no longer insulate themselves from liability by turning a blind eye to how their advertisements are delivered, or by placing ads through intermediaries, such as media buyers," Cuomo said in announcing the settlement.

In a report issued last week, spyware researcher Ben Edelman found that Cingular, Priceline, and Travelocity continue to advertise through spyware despite their agreement.

"[D]espite their duties to the NYAG, both Cingular and Travelocity have failed to sever their ties with spyware vendors," Edelman states. "As shown in the six examples below, Cingular and Travelocity continue to receive spyware-originating traffic, including traffic from some of the Web's most notorious and most widespread spyware, in direct violation of their respective Assurances of Discontinuance."

Edelman claims to have found "only a single example of Priceline ads shown by spyware," an ad placed "through Priceline's affiliate program, operated by Commission Junction." Specifics supporting that claim are not provided on Edelman's site.

Priceline maintains that it does not use or contract with third parties for the use of adware or spyware, a policy that has been in place since April 2006.

Edelman concedes that Priceline has improved its advertising practices. In his report, he said, "Priceline seems to have succeeded in substantially reducing these relationships -- suggesting that Cingular and Travelocity could do better if they put forth appropriate effort."

Travelocity claims that it has been making an effort. "When we found out about the ads, we immediately suspended the campaigns identified in the article because if the report is true, the ads would be in violation of our policies and practices," a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. "We are aggressively investigating these claims to determine if there is a third party inappropriately serving our ads."

Travelocity maintains that it "does not use adware or spyware, and we have terms and conditions that specifically prohibit the ad networks we engage from placing our ads through channels involved with adware, spyware or similar programs. Similar safeguards exist for our affiliate network."

Suggesting that Edelman's motives might not be entirely pure, the Travelocity spokesperson pointed out that Edelman sued Travelocity last year in small claims court in Massachusetts over a reservation dispute, but failed to recover any damages.

In an e-mail, Edelman explained that his report "is not related to, nor motivated by, my separate pricing dispute with Travelocity." That dispute, he said, arose because Travelocity refused to honor the price it offered on its Web site, confirmed via e-mail and over the phone. "I thought (and still think) Travelocity is obliged to honor its confirmed prices in such situations, and I'm disappointed that Travelocity has not done so," he said.

A spokesperson for AT&T, which has been phasing out the Cingular brand name since completing the acquisition of BellSouth late last year, said in an e-mail that "[i]t appears that one of the ad networks we work with was subject to a spyware attack."

"It is our firm policy that the ad networks we work with not use spyware, which as you know can cause pop-ups and spam to appear," the spokesperson said. "We take this policy very seriously and our partners understand how important it is to us. We are working with that network to correct the problem, and are looking at further steps we can take to protect customers and potential customers from spyware."

Edelman concludes that beyond avowed good intentions, advertisers need some mechanism to see their intentions realized. "Advertisers ought not assume that partners and subpartners will follow the rules automatically, particularly when there's so much money to be made from cheating," he said in his report. "Instead, advertisers need systems to monitor and oversee compliance. It's hard to imagine any other context in which a company would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars through dozens, hundreds, or thousands of suppliers without meaningful oversight. Yet such practices seem to remain commonplace in Internet advertising."
As Edelman points out, at least two such services already exist: AffiliateFairPlay.com and ProtectMyMark.com.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

Ballmer On Google: Same FUD, Different Day

Ballmer On Google: Same FUD, Different Day


Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday bad-mouthed Google for being successful at only one business (even though it's a business Microsoft has been trying unsuccessfully to break into). But the target doesn't matter. It could have been Linux. Or Apple. I'm just worn out by the repetition. Ballmer's trash-talking is a tired routine. He needs to get a new act.
For a couple of years now Microsoft has been trying to figure out how Google does it -- how the world's premiere search company provides Web-based services and makes its money by selling advertising. Google has done extremely well at both, and its success has made it the darling of Wall Street.

By contrast, as hard as Microsoft has tried with MSN and its confusing Live announcements, it hasn't done very well at either: Its search services are mediocre, and its Live OneCare antivirus software has famously failed a couple of tests recently.

As far as I can see, Microsoft will never have any success in Web-based, advertising-supported services for two reasons. First, it doesn't trust the model -- Microsoft is unwilling to give away for free any service that might be really useful. And second, it doesn't trust its customers.
Look at Google. The Google search service crushes any competition in Web search, and the reason is simple. It is excellent. And that willingness to do whatever it takes to be excellent runs right through the company. Google's products (and there are many, despite Ballmer's sneers) are, for example, more open than anything Microsoft ever thought of doing. You want to do something clever with Google Maps? It's easy. There's a programming interface you can use. You want to create a blog or turn your photos into a slide show for your mother or share a calendar or create documents? Google's got a Web-based service for those things and many more.

And what's your relationship with Google? Simple. You use what you want. If you like the value you use more. If you look at the ads, fine, they never intrude. Google provides good service and says thank you with good value.

And Microsoft? It wants to compete with Google. So what does it make available on the Web that competes with Google Maps? Some nifty maps and aerial views, but they aren't nearly as usable as Google's; there's no API for building apps on top of them. (Update: Mea culpa. Of course there's an API. See comment below.) Microsoft publishes the most widely used text editor, spreadsheet, and presentation application on the planet. It should be able to do Web-based productivity better than anybody, but it doesn't. Google Docs & Spreadsheets wins by a mile.

And what's your relationship with Microsoft? You pay for its software, and then periodically it accuses you of stealing it and makes you prove you're not -- and eventually it quits supporting its products anyway and forces you to pay for new versions. And does it ever say thank you?
It's no wonder Steve Ballmer is trying to trash-talk Google to death. His rant yesterday seemed to be aimed at spreading conventional Microsoft FUD, perhaps to convince Wall Street that Google is just a flash in the pan, a one-trick pony. Or perhaps he's trying to taunt Google into doing something that's not in its game plan. Or maybe he's just trying to convince us all that Microsoft doesn't care about search or ad revenue after all. But all he succeeded in was convincing us that we've heard it all before.

Bloggers Worry Google Might Reverse Its Position On Net Neutrality

Bloggers Worry Google Might Reverse Its Position On Net Neutrality


Drew Clark over at GigaOM asks a great question: Does Google plan to change its position on net neutrality? It seems that while Google has been the foremost business booster for net neutrality in public, the online company has been cutting deals with the carriers to be their preferred provider.

Google Senior Policy Counsel Andrew McLaughlin made some interesting remarks at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose on Feb. 27:
Cutting the FCC out the picture would probably be a smart move. It is much better to think of this as an FTC or unfair competition type of problem.

Compare this with comments from Google's Vint Cerf during Senate testimony just one year earlier:
For the foreseeable future most Americans will face little choice among broadband carriers. Enshrining a rule that permits carriers to discriminate in favor of certain kinds or sources of services would place those carriers in control of online activity. Allowing broadband carriers to reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need.

McLaughlin's comments are apparently causing bloggers to worry. These comments also are making people inside Google, as well as some of Google's partners in the fight for net neutrality, a little uncomfortable.

Is this an example of an attorney just trying to keep options open or does it hint at a shift in Google's strategy? What do you think? Is Google about to sell out on net neutrality or is it just trying to find some wiggle room?

If Viacom Wins Its Case Against Google

If Viacom Wins Its Case Against Google

Viacom's lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement probably will probably be withdrawn when Google blinks and offers Viacom a major portion of the ad dollars it brings in hosting Viacom content.

But on the off chance that the case makes it to trial and Viacom wins, Google should argue that any damages get reduced by the value of the traffic Google has sent Viacom's way, not to mention the brand awareness Google has helped foster for Viacom by presenting Viacom programming that users have uploaded to YouTube.

My guess is that if the calculations are made, Viacom will come out owing Google money for all the marketing exposure it has provided.

Which Google Phone Did Google Confirm This Week?

Which Google Phone Did Google Confirm This Week?


Google's chief executive in Spain and Portugal, Isabel Aguilera, this week confirmed that the Google Phone is for real. But he downplayed the much-anticipated device, saying it was just one of 18 R&D initiatives Google is currently funding. But which device is it?

Did Aguilera confirm the Samsung Google Phone, the handset Google is supposedly developing for carrier Orange, or the Wi-Fi device Google is reportedly building with Microsoft and Dell?
According to all the rumors out there, Google could have its hands on as many as three different mobile or wireless devices.

Maybe it's working on more wireless gadgets than that. Right now, we know of at least one for sure.