11 August 2006
11/08/2006 | Filed under Newsletter
This week, Google secured a deal with MySpace to provide search and contextual advertising on the social networking site. The deal, worth $900m (£472m), will start in October and will mean MySpace users will see ads targeted to specific search terms. MySpace visitors will be able to use Google to search for groups of friends. The deal will cover a number of other Fox-owned companies, including Fox’s interactive gaming sites, movie site Rottentomatoes.
com and men’s lifestyle site Askmen.com.
AOL’s recent privacy gaffe which exposed the search histories of 650,000 subscribers could revive plans to restrict the data that web companies can collect. The data collected for an academic project included around 19 million queries on what search terms were used, when the search was conducted and whether the user clicked on the results. AOL has apologised for the disclosure, but the sheer size of the blunder has rocked some search users faith in the service.
Finally, it’s a happy 25th birthday to the humble IBM PC. Over 1.6 billion units have been sold since IBM launched its first PC on 12 August, 1981. It has spawned an IT industry that today tops annual revenues of $200bn, according to Gartner, and gave us access to the web we use everyday.
Have a great weekend.
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