Google launches on the same day delivery service

7:00 AM delivery, Google, launches, service No Comments

MICHAEL LIEDTKE - 21: 00

Internet search leader Google takes a further step beyond information retrieval in food delivery.

The new service called Google shopping Express, first same-day delivery of food and other products online from a small group of consumers in San Francisco and suburbs that offer South of the town bought. The company based in mountain view, Calif., did not say, how many people are part of the test.

If the pilot program goes well, Google delivery service plans on other markets to expand.

"We hope that this will help users, the benefits of a local, same-day delivery service and help us the tires on the new service to connect", Google said in a Thursday statement.

The delivery is in Google's effort to improve confidence in the Internet consumer, have more options, online viewing to generate its sales the most.

Google has learned, the more time people spend online, the more likely are using its dominant search engine or one of their other popular services, such as the video site YouTube and Google mail, contain advertising.

The delivery could buy more online advertising Distributor, if Google's encourages consumers about their online shopping to do this on the same day delivery service, also stimulate. Having days to wait, or in some cases is one of more than a week for the provision of online orders of the biggest drawbacks of Internet shopping.

It is a problem, the Amazon and eBay, which have tried to solve, most e-commerce sites to operate, by we the same day service in some U.S. markets. Wal-Mart stores, the world of largest retailer, offers even same day delivery in five markets.

Are a mix of national, regional, and merchants in Google shopping express enter neighborhood. The most famous names on the list are target and Walgreen's. All dealers in the Google program will sell certain items on a central Web site. Google save courier service to pick up the orders at the dealer and then deliver them set at home or in the Office of the customer.

Although the couriers on a contract basis, they are issued Google-branded vehicles and uniforms society.

It remains unclear whether Internet shopping and same-day delivery can be profitable. Online food retailers Webvan broke in 2001, mainly because there was no pricing to develop plan, which would pay for the cost of delivery on the same day, without antagonizing against unwilling to pay buyers too much extra for extra comfort.

Google is still trying to figure out how much for his on the same day delivery service for free. Consumers do not have to pay a fee for the six-month trial in the San Francisco area. Instead, Google will earn at participating retailers.

Expansion of delivery on the same day there at the same time, which is preparing to Google some of its older on-line services to close, allowing it to devote more attention and money to other projects.

The realignment has angered some Google users. Have biggest complaints on Google Reader, the people to automatically receive headlines and links from their favorite sites allows, centered, and iGoogle, a page, consisting of from the Google search engine weather reports and stock quotes design set up by other online functions such as local allows surrounded.

Google Reader is expected to close in July and iGoogle is closed in November.

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Do Google ads discriminate based on race?

7:30 PM based, discriminate, Google No Comments

Herb Weisbaum, NBC News contributor – 3 days

A professor at Harvard University believes she’s uncovered evidence that race is sometimes used to determine which ads you see when you go online.

Based on thousands of searches, Latanya Sweeney, who runs the university’s Data Privacy Lab, concludes in a recent paper that there is “discrimination” based on race in the delivery of certain ads.

She found that Google searches using names that sounded black (Latanya) turned up strikingly different ads than when the search was done for a name that’s more typically considered white (Adam).

“Right now, we don’t know why it happens or whose fault it is,” she said.

This all started when Sweeney’s colleague, Adam Tanner, went online to search for a previous paper she had written. Alongside the search results was an ad for instantcheckmate.com. It said, “Latanya Sweeney. Arrested?”

Sweeney had never been arrested and wondered what was going on. So they did a search using Tanner’s name and this time the ad said, “Looking for Adam Tanner?

”After a few hours of searching with different names, Tanner said he had figured it out. “Black-sounding names” got the “arrested” version of the Instant Checkmate ad, while names that sounded white got a more neutral “looking for” version.

Sweeney, a computer scientist, was skeptical and decided to show that this was not happening. In September and October of last year, she conducted 2,184 searches (on Google and using the search field on Reuters.com) using racially associated names, such as DeShawn, Darnell, Jermaine, Geoffrey, Jill and Emma.

The searches took place using different browsers at different times of day, different days of the week, with different IP and machine addresses, operating in different parts of the country. Sweeney focused on the ads generated for instantcheckmate.com. They appeared more than any other public records search company and they were the only ads to include the word arrest.

The results, published on Harvard’s Data Privacy Lab website, found that “black-sounding names” were significantly more likely to produce ads that suggested an “arrest” might have taken place regardless of whether the company had an arrest record associated with the name.

With searches for apparently black names on Reuters.com, when Instant Checkmate ads appeared, “arrest” was in the text 60 percent of the time. When names that appeared to be white were searched, “arrest” came up in only 48 percent of the ads.
The names that resulted in the highest percentage of ads with “arrest” in the text were Darnell (84 percent), Jermaine (81 percent) and DeShawn (86 percent). Those that had the most ads without the word “arrest” were Jill (77 percent) and Emma (75 percent).
The disparity was smaller, but still significant with searches on Google.com. The word arrest was used 92 percent of the time for black names and 80 percent for the white names.

“I was surprised,” Sweeney said. “I really did not expect the pattern to hold and then to do so with that much statistical certainty shocked me.”

Reuters told NBC News it does not generate the ad results that appear on its website. The company said they are “wholly determined” by Google’s AdSense program.

In a statement sent to NBC News, Google said:

"AdWords does not conduct any racial profiling. We also have a policy which states that we will not allow ads that advocate against an organization, person or group of people. It is up to individual advertisers to decide which keywords they want to choose to trigger their ads."

Instantcheckmate.com also insisted its advertising is not connected to race in any way:

“As a point of fact, Instant Checkmate would like to state unequivocally that it has never engaged in racial profiling in Google AdWords, and that we have absolutely no technology in place to even connect a name with a race. The very idea is contrary to our company's most deeply held principles and values.”

Why is this happening?
Sweeney suspects there are two main possibilities:

Instant Checkmate did something, such as provide ads suggestive of arrest disproportionately to black-identifying names.
Google’s algorithms simply reflect society’s values. That is, people are more likely to click on such an ad when the suggestion of an arrest is paired with a name that sounds African-American and the ads clicked the most appear most often.

“Whatever the reason, I think it will be interesting to know what the answer is,” she said.

Sweeney and Tanner are conducting more research that should be out in the spring.

So what’s the harm in this?
We all know the Internet enables advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on your search history. It’s one thing to assume you’re a sports fan or just had a baby – and even that creeps out some people. But what if the ads served up were based on race in some way?

Just imagine that someone is searching your name – your boss, a potential employer, friend, someone you just started dating, a financial institution or potential landlord – and they see an ad that intimates you might have a criminal record?

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Authors win class status through Google Books

10:30 AM Authors, Books, class, Google, status, through No Comments

(Reuters) - thousands of authors about his plan, which will create the world's largest digital book library, can sue Google Inc in a class action lawsuit a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. circuit judge Denny Chin in Manhattan also Google's bid to dismiss the authors Guild and several groups, photographers and graphic designers, which individually would have forced their members complaints claims rejected.

Plaintiff in the seven-year-old case have complained that Google's plan for the library, the millions of out-of-print works would include, "massive copyright infringement."

The case originated digital copy from Google's 2004 agreements with several large research libraries books and other writings for their Google Books website, with the aim of help Explorer and locate the public materials.

Google has since more than 12 million scanned books, but planned only excerpts online to say that this activity constituted "fair use" under U.S. copyright law.

Chin said it would be for authors to sue, as a group, rather than different results and the "exponentially" increased costs of individual processes more efficient.

He also said, it unjust, would be the authors Guild, photographers and other groups of the American Society of media Sue persons individually "return due to the nature and indiscriminately Google's unauthorized copying."

The litigation combines complaints against Google mountain view, California-based 2005 on behalf of the authors, and in 2010 for photographers and graphic designers.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement via e-Mail: "as we have said all along that we are confident that Google Books is fully compliant with copyright law."

Lawyers for the plaintiffs not immediately responded to requests for comment.

In March 2011 Chin cited antitrust and copyright concerns at the comprehensive rejection a proposed 125 million scheme, say that went "too far" in Google effectively let it perform "wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission."

Chin was supervised the Federal Appeals Court in New York, but held jurisdiction over the Google case, which he had started in 2010 as a judge.

The cases are the authors Guild et al. v. Google Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, no. 05-08136; and American Society of media photographers, et al. v. Google Inc. in the same court, no. 10-02977.

(C) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

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Google to split stock; announces dividend

1:24 AM Announces, dividend, Google, split, stock No Comments

Google, explains its stock split. Also, what the company is doing to maintain the passion of a startup, with CNBC's Jon Fortt. David Garrity, GVA Research, also weighs in on some of the highlights from the call.

Google announced plans to give investors a stock dividend on Thursday, as the search giant reported first quarter that met Wall Street estimates.

Google said its board of directors has approved a dividend of stock to existing shareholders that it calls a 2-for-1 stock split, preserving its corporate and control structure.

The announcement came as Google co-founder Larry Page completed a year after his return as chief executive.

Shares of Google, which finished Thursday's regular session at $651.01, rose to $655 in after-hours trading.

Net revenue, excluding fees paid to partner websites, totaled $8.14 billion in the three months ended March 31, compared with $6.54 billion in the year-ago period and analysts' average estimate of $8.15 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income was $2.89 billion, or $8.75 per share, compared with $1.80 billion, or $5.51 a share, in the year-ago period when Google took a $500 million charge to settle a government probe into its advertising practices.

Since taking the reins one year ago, Page has cut back on extraneous projects, launched a social networking service to challenge Facebook, and signed a $12.5 billion deal to acquire smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Inc.

Breaking down the details of Google's earnings announcement and the board's decision to approve a 2-for-1 stock split, with Herman Leung, Susquehanna Financial group analyst; David Garrity, GVA Research principal; and CNBC's Maria Bartiromo and Jon For...

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

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Is Google getting ‘evil’ with its stock split?

3:20 PM getting, Google, split, stock No Comments

Paul Sakuma / AP

Workers ride bikes outside Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

With its controversial new stock plan, Google may be going against its “don’t be evil” informal corporate motto.

The company announced a stock split Thursdaydesigned to preserve the control of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin over the world’s leading Internet search engine. It lets Google issue new shares without diluting the two founders’ voting power, creating a new class of nonvoting shares that will be disseminated to existing shareholders in what is basically a 2-for-1 stock split.

Since it first went public in August 2004 in what was one of Silicon Valley’s most anticipated and debated initial offerings of stock, Google has operated with a dual stock ownership structure, where a company issues two classes of shares with different voting and ownership rights. The system allows the company’s founders and management to maintain control, but still solicit investments from the public.

Google’s stock structure has worried corporate governance experts, especially since the format has been adopted by a number of the new Internet technology firms now launching IPOs, including Facebook. Now Google has upped the ante by adding a third class of non-voting shares.

These experts say investors may be willing to ignore the corporate structure now because they are eager to purchase a hot Internet stock. They warn that if there is a crisis for the company down the road, investors will not have much of a say in its fate.

Page and Brin, together with Chairman Eric Schmidt, own about two-thirds of Google’s voting power. The company’s Class A stock has less voting power. The new type of shares, Class C, will have no voting rights at all.

“If you’ve invested in Google, you’ve known from the beginning that you’re a second class shareholder,” Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citigroup, told CNBC Friday. “They’ve just made that a little more apparent.”

Wired Magazine’s Senior Writer Steven Levy said the stock plan may be Google’s way to send a signal to the market that it is ready to take on the new crop of internet companies now coming to market, especially Facebook, Levy said.

“Google is trying to send a message,” he told CNBC. “They’re saying we do have tricks.”

The stock structure adds to the lack of decision making on the part of investors Google, and it would likely have to be approved by Google’s board, Levy said.

“But Google’s board may be less independent than others,” he said, noting that Page and Brin hold 70 percent of the voting rights.

“Anything that happens at Google happens because [Larry] Page and [Sergey] Brin agree on it,” he said.

Google said Thursday it instituted its original dual-class structure to help it build a company designed for stability over long time horizons. That takes time and requires stability and independence, the company said.

“We recognize that some people, particularly those who opposed this structure at the start, won’t support this change -- and we understand that other companies have been very successful with more traditional governance models,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.

“But after careful consideration with our board of directors, we have decided that maintaining this founder-led approach is in the best interests of Google, our shareholders and our users,” Google said.

Google shares were down about $21, or 3 percent, in midday trading after the announcement, to about $630 a share.

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Google shares slump after rare earnings miss

8:08 AM after, earnings, Google, Shares, slump No Comments

Shares of Google Inc fell 8 percent after the Internet giant posted a rare quarterly earnings miss and said money paid by marketers for its search ads decreased for the first time in two years.

The search giant underperformed on both revenue and earnings, despite record U.S. online commerce during the holiday season, prompting several brokerages to cut their price targets on the stock.

Google shares were down $50.77 at $588.80 in late morning trade on Friday on the Nasdaq. They had touched a low of $584.81. It was the stock's biggest percentage fall in 9 months.

About 5.2 million shares changes hands by 1120 ET, more than their daily average volume.

The broader Nasdaq composite index was down 0.25 percent.

Google executives blamed the decline in search ad rates on forex fluctuations and ad format changes but analysts wondered whether mobile advertising -- which has lower rates -- played a more important role than the company admitted.

The fall in cost per click (CPC) had led to a barrage of questions from analysts during the post-earnings conference call on Thursday.

The market needs to shift expectations to paid click growth and lower its estimates for CPC, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note.

Google's heavy investments in mobile and social network initiatives -- to stave off competition from rivals Apple Inc and Facebook -- and its planned $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings have also raised investors' concerns.

Larry Page, who took over as CEO in April, said in July that the company was moving to put "more wood behind fewer arrows."

Analysts said the company has seen growth in display advertising, its Android mobile platform and Google+.

Google+ -- its recently-launched social network -- has 90 million users now, up from 40 million three months ago.

Wall Street analysts called the selloff an overreaction; Barclays said it presents a buying opportunity.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Goldman Sachs titled its research note on Google.

The company's core results were solid as paid click growth accelerated by more than a third, margins improved, and display and mobile businesses performed well, analysts said.

The acceleration in paid clicks suggests that underlying demand for Google ads is quite healthy across devices, JP Morgan said, adding Google is best-positioned for the shift to new media.

Goldman Sachs analysts said, "We expect the growth in mobile to be 146 percent in 2012 and represent 15 percent of gross sales as we exit fourth-quarter of 2012."

The company still has strong earnings power that will reappear during 2012, Canaccord Genuity said, reiterating its "buy" rating.

Barclays, Baird, Jefferies and JP Morgan also maintained their top ratings on the stock.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters.

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Google target the EU Microsoft antitrust protest

5:39 PM antitrust, Google, Microsoft, protest, target No Comments

SEATTLE/Brussels - Microsoft Corp intensified his rivalry with Google Inc., antitrust regulators that in its first complaint, that Google Internet search competition is systematically thwarted.

The formal complaint, European Commission regulators marked a role change for Microsoft, the target of the antitrust action two decades in the United States and Europe.

"The filing of this complaint reflects one of the greatest ironies of the antitrust history", chance, said Thomas Vinje, global head of antitrust practice with Clifford a coalition led won EU fines against Microsoft.

"Microsoft has learned from his own unpleasant experience how one lead maximum for his competitors of competition law."

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The complaint highlights the erosion of Microsoft in the close monopoly of the PC market as Apple Inc. has it in revenue outgrown. Google controls over 90 percent of the Internet search advertising market in Europe, also from Microsoft Bing. And Web browsers such as Firefox and Google chrome to the leadership of Microsoft Internet Explorer have eaten.

In its complaint on Thursday, Microsoft claims that Google committed impede the unfair competition is in a "pattern of action".

Google is under investigation by the European Commission one of them owned by Microsoft already after complaints by three small companies.

Google indicates that it was not too by the complaint. "We are not surprised that Microsoft has done this, because one of their daughters was one of the original complainants," said Google spokesman Al Verney.

"For our part we continue the case with the European Commission discuss and we look forward, for anyone explain how our business works."

EU Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres said in an e-mail statement, that "The Commission takes note of the appeal, as the procedure, will inform Google and will questions for his views on it." "Receive no further information."

"Microsoft always a formal complainant make investigation into Google, running a difference in the Commission", said Christopher Thomas partner at law firm of Hogan Lovells, citing the company's "Resources and determination."

The "complaint will throw a wrench in Google efforts to reach an agreement with the Commission," added Vinje of Clifford chance. "Even the necessary preliminary examination likely to delay such a complaint, any possible settlement of at least six months seems."

A source with the case trust last month told of Reuters that Google and the Commission in the solution of the problem were interested but there were no concrete proposals on the table.

Microsoft said it felt, it was to time Google directly for legal reasons.

"As worrying, because the situation in the United States is, it is worse in Europe,", said Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, in a blog on the company's website.

"Therefore our submission today focuses on a pattern of actions, that has made Google, hide to his dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers."

The complaint charges that Google does competition by "Walling off" hurt on content their YouTube page, so that other search engines, display accurate results makes it difficult for Microsoft's mobile software to YouTube videos show; Block access to content owned by book publishers; not let advertisers their own data about customers gathered from Google to use other websites. Blocking Web sites using competing "search fields"; and it is expensive for potential competitors to Google, to advertise online.

Google "be allowed, should not follow practices that restrict others from innovation and offer competitive alternatives," said Microsoft's Smith on his blog.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

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Nokia, Microsoft team against Google, Apple

9:13 AM against, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia No Comments

HELSINKI - Nokia and Microsoft teamed up on Google and Apple in the fast-growing smart take phone market.

In a significant change in strategy Nokia said it Windows phone software platform for their smartphones as part of the new Chief Executive Stephen Elop's overhaul would use the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The Finnish firm said Friday it would work closely with Windows phone "innovative on the platform in the field of imaging, where Nokia is the market leader."

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"Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unmatched global reach and scope." It now is a three horse race "added Elop."

Friday's deal marks to establish a major breakthrough for Microsoft after years of struggle in wireless. Its Windows phone had a mere 2 percent market parts in the last quarter.

"There is no silver bullet"
Microsoft Windows phone platform but not yet success with consumers is widely regarded by industry experts as a leading technology.

"This is a partnership that fear of marginalization in the hands of Apple and Google, born of both parties but there is no silver bullet," said CCS insight analyst Geoff Blaber.

Nokia has lost at higher margins smartphone market Apple's iPhone and products based on Google's Android platform last quarter claimed the top spot by the company, quickly share.

Story: Verizon iPhone hits store shelves, AT & T's lock ends

"This is a very open admission that Nokia's platform strategy has failed and underlines the seriousness of the Nokia position." Such a move unthinkable just 12 months would have been "added Blaber."

Chairman Jorma Ollila Elop Microsoft brought in a bid limit Nokia's losses last September. The 47-year-old is the first non-Finn at the head of the society.

Nokia said in a statement that it with its current management team with a senior executive stick would leave. There was speculation about a wider cull at the company.

Nokia also said it would use on their mobile phones, Microsoft Bing search engine a huge market for Microsoft potentially opening because you tried to build his challenge for Google as the world's leading search engine.

The Finnish company that invested billions of dollars in building mobile Internet services under its former CEO, had effectively admitted defeat in his services strategy join forces with Microsoft said analysts.

The associated press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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