Traffick: Search Engine Enlightenment

Danny's trenchant analysis of this recent court order to Google starts by playing the WTF card, but does much, much more. In this detailed post, he cogently argues for a savvy national Internet privacy act. Absolutely. We cannot endure repeated episodes of clumsy application of outdated law, with judges spinning theories about cookies and IP addresses, sometimes ignoring real privacy concerns, sometimes overzealously protecting users by deriding innocuous practices at the expense of legitimate new economy companies that are the driving force of US productivity.

Physically, my reaction was exactly the same. Reading that Google might have been conciliatory enough to allow that user logins are basically anonymous pseudonyms, my jaw, too, literally dropped.

Will Google refuse to hand this information over? Surely they will fight with every legal means available. Similar to their response to the DOJ, an important principle is at stake. I'm not the legal expert you're looking for, but the legal requirement to hand over private information needs to meet strict tests. The most classic case would be an episodic criminal act where particular information relevant to a particular case is given up by court order. "Fishing expeditions" that allow lawmakers or complainants to see large amounts of data from millions of users is a huge violation of business privacy and individual privacy. Let's hope this putrid decision does not stand.

In whatever legal system, online platforms that do a poor job of preventing harm to companies in a variety of ways - be that stolen content, counterfeit goods being sold as in the recent French case against eBay - are liable to sanctions and fines, and should basically "clean up their acts." How that equates to allowing the legal system and a plaintiff to engage in a full audit of massive amounts of private data is something best left to a legal expert to explain... and, I hope, for Google's legal counsel to argue vigorously against. Decisions like this trend towards the state of affairs private companies and free market advocates have always feared the most: an arbitrary state where "they" can shut you down out of fear, prejudice, or misunderstanding. What national political candidate will now get up to the podium and intone: "America. Deserves. Better."?

Labels: youtube

Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, May 29, 2008

When a certain kind of data is really close to your heart and mind, you'd like to think that some leading indicators are just too blatant to dismiss.

To date, "Internet-inflated" political campaigns have often had that easily punctured quality to them. What turned out to be niche candidates had disproportionately strong donor bases and loyalties through cliquish but still impressive online channels. They got puffed up a bit in the early going, then proved to be paper dragons in the end.

The field is fast evolving, however. Top candidates today are employing real online marketing tactics to boost already solid campaigns, pushing themselves over the top with savvy, controlled, and tightly measured spending of campaign funds on the ads that we here know and love so well: paid search and contextual ads.

ClickZ News is reporting that the Barack Obama campaign spent a cool $1.7 million on Google ads in February alone.

I'll also go out on a limb and take this as a leading indicator for an Obama victory in November. It just doesn't seem that much different for me from customer acquisition in retail and B2B. Companies that are already strong, who add this targeted channel to their mix and pursue it aggressively before their competitors catch on, tend to pull away from the others. It isn't magic.

The only roadblock I see that could prevent this from happening would be a low turnout among youth voters. And by youth, I mean the entire 18-44 demographic that is currently most impacted by the online ad strategy. With unprecedented turnout in this demographic, Obama would win in a cakewalk. Without it, he could actually lose to McCain.

Hard to say what impact the wildly popular "Obama Girl" videos might be having on the candidates' fortunes, but again, if you compare what is happening -- and what *can* happen -- for McCain or Clinton at least in this social media realm... well... this Obama thing feels like a movement; yes, as some have stated, on a par with JFK (or PET for you Canadian viewers).

Labels: google adwords, obama, youtube

Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Look out Youtube, here comes Veoh.

Edit: As I posted this, I came across the news that senior Yahoo ad platforms exec Steve Mitgang has been appointed Veoh's CEO, replacing founding CEO Dmitry Shapiro. This one looks magnetic!

Hmm, so who will buy them out? :)

Labels: veoh, youtube

Posted by Andrew Goodman
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