Last month, Google began showing the new versions of Google TV at CES, giving the press a taste of what was in store. One particular panel discussing Google TV’s new capabilities led Rupert Murdoch to take to Twitter, bemoaning the pirating ways of the search behemoth. Forbes has the backstory here. Google TV posted on its Facebook page yesterday, saying that it has some big announcements in store for Monday.

Today, it announced that it is upgrading the YouTube experience on Google TV with a new, revamped app. The YouTube app for Google TV is available for download on the Android Marketplace. The initial drive behind Google TV was to create a user experience that seamlessly blends web video with the boob tube, to change the way consumers interact with TV, but the first Google TV fell flat. Matt Burns reviewed the version, saying that, while it’s getting closer, it still has a long, long way to go.

In its announcement today, Google is promising some “big improvements” to its new YouTube app, among them that navigation is smoother and faster, along with some much-needed additions to its UX, like the new “Discover” feature, which basically just brings YouTube channel categories to Google TV, enhancing their browse-ability within the app. They’ve also brought its new channel pages, enabling users to navigate playlists and videos and subscribe to favorites.

Google says that users can also now view related videos from the same user by pressing the up and down arrows on their remote controls, or to find the “Info screen” to leave a thumbs up, add to your playlists, or to leave a comment.

The new app looks good, and this certainly stands to improve the YouTube experience on Google TV, though it’s certainly not the “big announcement” that many were hoping for. We’ll be keeping our ears out in the event that there’s more Google TV news in store for Monday.

It was just a few days ago that news of a mysterious home-oriented Google device was being prepped for testing in the homes of 252 company employees, but the associated FCC filing left most of the specifics up in the air. Now, if a new report from the Wall Street Journal holds true, Google’s next foray into the hardware space could be all about pumping up those jams.

According to WSJ’s sources, the device in development is a “home entertainment system” that can wirelessly stream music throughout users’ homes. Google has attempted to make inroads into the living room before with initiatives like Google TV, but this would mark the first time the search giant would be developing and selling products under their own name rather than relying on external hardware vendors.

The pieces we have at this point certainly seem to line up. In their FCC application, Google representatives noted that the at-home beta test was meant to accomplishing the following:

Testing throughput and stability of home WiFi networks using an entertainment device. Testing will include functional testing of all subsystems, including WiFi and Bluetooth radio. Users will connect their device to home WiFi networks and use Bluetooth to connect to other home electronics equipment.

WiFi support seems like a no-brainer when it comes to streaming content, but the inclusion of a Bluetooth radio (commonly seen on phones of all stripes) hints at the possibility of a close connection between the box in question and mobile devices.

The mysterious entertainment device is reportedly the result of years of work from Google’s Android team, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. With movies and more recently music being introduced into the Android Market, it was only natural that the device in question would be able to capitalize on all that content. WSJ’s sources acknowledge that notion, as they note that the Google Mystery Box may be able to stream content other than just music.

Still, media/hardware ventures like Google TV haven’t been as strong a performer in the marketplace as Google would have hoped, so it’s a bit surprising to see that another media-oriented device seems so close to fruition. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise though — Google chairman Eric Schmidt reaffirmed himself as being a proponent of a highly-connected home life while at this year’s CES.

One of the bigger questions that this whole situation raises is whether or not the entertainment box will ever actually see the light of day. At first glance, the answer seems obvious — why put a petition for testing that much new hardware outside of the lab in front of a federal body if it’ll never see the light of day? WSJ’s sources seem to confirm that the device isn’t just vaporware and that it will launch later this year, but a lot could happen between now and then.

If it is real though, and Google can churn out reliable — and preferably cheap — units, they stand a chance at yanking the rug out from under a major competitor: Apple and its $99 Apple TV.

Google has been going to great lengths to keep advertisers who sell counterfeit goods online out of its AdWords program, but as far as Montblanc, the Germany-based maker of ‘writing instruments’, watches, jewelry and whatnot, is concerned, they ought to be doing more. Montblanc-Simplo GmbH, as the holding is called, is taking Google to court in an effort to obtain the identity of a certain – or more – persistent counterfeit goods seller(s).

TechCrunch has obtained the court documents, which make for an interesting read.

Montblanc says it has received numerous complaints from customers who’ve been misled by keyword ads that appeared on Google.co.uk. According to the complaint, many were tricked into purchasing counterfeit Montblanc products from websites that were specifically designed to look like official Montblanc communication channels.

The luxury goods company subsequently turned to Google UK in an effort to identify the advertisers, who were bidding on keywords like ‘montblanc pens’, but according to the complaint, the search giant’s UK office has consistently said that they simply don’t have access to that kind of information, directing Montblanc instead to the U.S. mothership.

From the court docs:

Montblanc has attempted to determine the identity of the Advertisers through numerous alternative means, with no success. Because the identity of the Advertisers is in the exclusive possession of Google, and Montblanc has no other source from which to obtain the requested information, Montblanc has no choice but to file this Complaint in Equity for a Bill of Discovery in order to enforce its trademark rights.

Once Montblanc has identified the Advertisers through this Bill of Discovery against Google, it intends to file a lawsuit to enforce its trademark rights against the identified Advertisers. Without the requested information, however, Montblanc does not know who the Advertisers are and therefore does not know whom it needs to sue to enforce its trademark rights.

As Montblanc points out in its complaint, it has been using the ‘montblanc’ mark for a wide range of products since its founding in 1906, making it one of the world’s well-known trademarks.

Understandably, the company asserts that the sale of counterfeit goods, bearing the ‘montblanc’ trademarks, has caused it “significant reputational and financial harm”.

For the record, Montblanc acknowledges that Google UK has been responsive to its complaints in discussions dating back to September 2011, and that the search company repeatedly told them that they “removed the offending ads and taking action against the Advertisers”.

The only problem is that they keep coming back, and Montblanc is getting desperate.

From an earlier Google blog post, describing the game of cat and mouse:

AdWords is just a conduit between advertisers and consumers and we can’t know whether any particular item out of the millions advertised is counterfeit or not.

Of course, we do more than simply respond to brand owners’ removal requests. We use their feedback to help us tune a set of sophisticated automated tools, which analyse thousands of signals along every step of the advertising process and help prevent bad ads from ever seeing the light of day. We devote significant engineering and machine resources in order to prevent violations of ads policies, including counterfeiting.

In fact, we invested over $60 million last year alone, and, in the last 6 months of 2010, more than 95% of accounts removed for counterfeits came down based on our own detection efforts. No system is perfect, but brand owner feedback has helped us improve over time – as our system gets more data about ads it has misclassified before, it gets better at counteracting new ways that bad guys try to cloak their behaviour.

While our systems get better over time, counterfeiting remains a complex challenge, and we keep investing in anti-counterfeiting measures. After all, a Google user duped by a fake is far less likely to click on another Google ad in the future. Ads for counterfeits aren’t just bad for the real brand holder – they’re bad for users who can end up unknowingly buying sub-standard products, and they’re bad for Google too.

This makes sense; Google has nothing to gain from counterfeit advertisers in the long term.

In Montblanc’s view, however, Google should be more actively helping them determine the identity of counterfeit advertisers by handing over the contact and financial details they store – due to the nature of the AdWords program – so that the company can name them as defendants in litigation.

We’ll be following this case with eagle eyes.

(Photo courtesy of Luigi Crespo Photography on Flickr)

Some people might say that there’s no way Google could be more aware of your browsing habits. Not true! There is much they don’t know. But it’s not because they don’t want to know.

Last night Google rolled out two programs aimed at increasing their awareness of how people use their browsers — what sites they visit, for how long, for what purpose, etc. They’ll pay you for the privilege, a bit like being a Nielsen family. They even give you a little box!

The “lightweight” option (first noted at Search Engine Land) is simply a Chrome browser extension that “will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them.” You’ll be given a $5 Amazon gift card when you sign up, and then another one every three months. Not exactly frontier gold but some people will no doubt find it enticing. There’s a maximum of $25 stated, but they’ll evaluate later how to compensate people in the program for more than a year.

The other option, not publicly accessible, was pointed out by a tipster to Ars Technica. Knowledge Networks, with whom Google is partnering in this endeavor, is a company that organizes surveys and such for companies that want to know about their visitors or customers. “Fill out this quick survey and you’ll be entered to win an iPad!” — that sort of thing. Some Knowledge Networks users have received offers to be part of the first 2500 households in the study, which would pay $100 up front and $20 per month.

Interestingly, the latter study involves sending out a “high-end router” from Cisco that will need to be installed. It presumably has firmware on it that records relevant data traffic from the household’s “web access,” though that term is not defined. Does it include Netflix? Torrents? Game traffic? Most likely it just means data you would normally send and receive via the browser, though for many that is still maddeningly vague. Obviously they are not likely to volunteer for this service.

All data will be recorded, including what goes on in those Incognito mode tabs, though that data “will not be tied to or associated with any personally identifiable information”. Reassuring to some, terrifying to others. And anonymized individual data will be shared with “academic institutions, advertisers, publishers, and programming networks.”

It’s fairly standard data-collection stuff, but it’s fun to see them taking the route of in-home hardware to monitor on a bit level. While many would consider this level of recording a monumental invasion of privacy, just as many (likely far more) don’t see much of a difference between this and how much they’re tracked already. The extra cash would certainly be welcome in many homes.

Naturally the habits observed among the “people who don’t care too much about privacy and are willing to sell their browsing habits for not a lot of money” group will be different from those at large, but it’s still valuable.

Right now there isn’t much more info than this on the programs, but you can sign up for updates and registration at Google’s Screenwise page.

Following yesterday’s release of the new mobile version of the Chrome browser, Google is today launching an improved version of its desktop counterpart. The updated release of Chrome (Stable version) brings several features beta users have had since January, most notably omnibox pre-rendering and increased security protections.

The omnibox, Google’s name for the all-in-one search/address bar in Chrome, will now not only autocomplete URLs of sites you’re likely to visit, it will also work in the background to pre-render the page in question. Then, when you hit “Enter,” the site will appear much quicker – even instantly in some cases. In real world terms, this is the kind of trick that makes it seem like Chrome has been sped up, when really, it’s just that sites are loading up behind the scenes. Mainstream end users won’t know the difference, however, and will just think their browser seems faster today.

The other major update involves improvements to Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology. Previously, Chrome was focused on protecting you from visiting malicious websites, but with the new verssion, it also now scans the files you download for malware. In particular, it’s on the lookout for executables like “.exe” or “.msi” files which many malicious sites push out to victims, often pretending that they’re offering free anti-virus software.

If you try to download a file containing malware using the updated version of Chrome, it will now warn you that the file appears to be malicious and you should discard it. To determine the legitimacy of the file involved, Chrome checks a whitelist of known good files and publishers. If the file isn’t found there, Chrome then checks with Google for additional information, like whether the site is known to host high numbers of malicious downloads, for example. It also uses machine learning analysis to classify the downloads in question, allowing the browser to ID files even after they’ve been “re-packed” in attempts to fool anti-virus programs.

A number of other security issues and bugs have also been addressed in the new release, and these have been detailed further on the Google Chrome Releases blog.

Although not out today, Google promises its browser-based operating system Chrome OS will soon see improvements too, including a new image editor that will allow photo viewing, editing and social sharing and an improved Verizon 3G activation portal.

If you have one of the few Android devices currently running Ice Cream Sandwich, then you’re going to love this post. The rest of you, including those of you on iOS, will have to gaze longingly for a while.

Because Chrome just landed on Android.

It’s faster. It syncs everything (provided you want it to). It has nifty transition effects and a more intuitive system for jumping between tabs. And it’s also loaded with potential.

Google’s Chrome browser, which has skyrocketed to popularity since its debut in 2008 and consistently gets top marks for being the fastest browser in town, has long been strangely absent from Android. To be clear, Android has always shipped with a browser of its own — and it actually shares much of the same codebase with Chrome, including the V8 JavaScript engine. But next to the real Chrome, it’s a clear wannabe. After using it for a day, I really have no intention of using the older browser again.

Unfortunately, as I alluded to earlier, Chrome is only available for Android 4.0 and higher — which means the vast majority of Android users won’t be able to take advantage of it yet (devices that support 4.0 at this point include the Galaxy Nexus, Transformer Prime, Xoom, and the Nexus S). Google says this was done in part because Chrome needs to take advantage of the hardware acceleration features that were introduced in the latest build of the OS. If you have a device that supports it, you can download it right here.

So what makes Chrome great? Let’s take a look at the features.

The most obvious difference between Chrome and the stock Android browser is the UI.

For one, Chrome comes with the browser’s gray color scheme, rather than the ICS ‘Holo’ styling. Browsing through the app you’ll notice plenty of subtle effects that contribute to the browser generally feeling more polished. Tabs slide in when they open, and fade out when they’re closed, which helps you stay oriented in the app. The ‘all tabs’ button, which includes a number to indicate how many tabs you currently have open, pulls up a ‘stack’ of your open tabs that you can slide around to get a better look at the tab’s content before you actually open it.

Another nice touch: if Chrome notices you’re trying to tap an area that has a dense cluster of links (in other words, you might have trouble tapping the right one), it’ll launch a neat magnifying pane so that can you tap the one you want.

But the changes run far deeper than the UI. My favorite is the support for sync.

For some time now, the desktop versions of Chrome have allowed you to connect a Google account to your browser, allowing you to sync browser history, bookmarks, apps, autofill, and other data between multiple computers (in other words, if you have a laptop and a desktop machine, you can ensure they’re configured the same way). Now you can hook your Chrome mobile app to your Google account too, and it’ll sync much of the same data (it doesn’t autofill or apps yet, though).

The syncing feature comes with a neat trick: open up Chrome on your phone, and you can see a list of all of the tabs you currently have open on your computer’s copy of Chrome, which is awesome if you’re frequently having to email yourself directions or links to various product reviews. Better yet, this works even if you’ve shut the lid on your laptop and it’s in ‘sleep mode’ — though if you exit out of the browser entirely, the list will go blank.

(As an aside, if you’re looking for these features and are on an older Android device, check out Firefox for Android, which can do many of the same things).

And then there are the speed boosts. Chrome definitely feels snappier, no doubt in large part to its hardware acceleration. It also comes with several speed-related features like pre-fetching — Chrome will automatically begin loading the page it thinks you’re visiting next (it only does this on Wifi by default, though you can change it to work over your mobile connection as well). It also includes some key features that the stock browser doesn’t, like Web Workers and WebDB. One thing it doesn’t have: Flash, because Adobe stopped development on mobile Flash. Can’t say I miss it.

But while Chrome is definitely a major upgrade, its Beta tag is well deserved, because it’s actually missing some subtle features found on the stock Android browser. The most noticeable omission is the lack of a ‘Request Desktop Site’ feature, which made its debut in the browser that ships with Android 4.0. If you’ve ever browsed to a site from your phone, only to find that it detected your mobile browser and served up an inferior, “mobile-friendly” version of what you were looking for, then you’ll appreciate that tiny checkbox. It’s missing on Chrome for now, but it seems obvious that it’ll be added at some point.

As for the long-term outlook, Chrome is looking great. Extensions aren’t part of this launch, but they are inevitable. And while Android 4.0 will continue to ship with its stock browser for now — which means it will live side-by-side with Chrome — down the line Chrome will be replacing that stock browser (it’s a little unclear how exactly this will fit into the Android Open Source Project, but for starters much of the code from the mobile client will be upstreamed to the Chromium project).

Oh, and as for you iOS users? I asked Google’s VP of Chrome Sundar Pichai whether Google had considered building on top of iOS’s WebKit-based browser (they wouldn’t be able to introduce Chrome’s rendering engine, but they could potentially offer the syncing features). Pichai didn’t rule this possibility out, but it sounds like an iOS version won’t be coming any time soon — for now, the team is watching how the Android version is received.

Remember that Bouncer Google put in the Android Market to act as a goalie for all potential malware attacks?

It would seem that Google’s Bouncer doesn’t catch everything as Professor Xuxian Jiang, the same guy who discovered dozens of other Android malware attacks, has found yet another exploit called RootSmart.

RootSmart works very similarly to a proof-of-concept app built by Jon Oberheide, by “dynamically fetching the GingerBreak root exploit from a remote server and then executing it to escalate its privilege.” This basically means that a malicious RootSmart app installs itself on the device with virtually no malicious code whatsoever, and the code is then fed to the app/device from remote servers.

Since Bouncer works by scanning for known bits of malicious code, it makes RootSmart a very difficult bit of malware to find. However, RootSmart has not been found within the official Android Market thus far. Still, double check your permissions when downloading an app and make sure to read customer reviews.

We’ve reached out to Google for a comment on RootSmart and will get back to you as soon as we hear something.

Update: It would seem as though Google has actually patched the GingerBreak exploit (for devices running ICS, Honeycomb, and devices updated to Gingerbread after May 2011), the same one employed by RootSmart to gain access to devices. Since it’s already been patched, and there’s no evidence of RootSmart hitting the Android Market, it’s unfair to say that Bouncer has been (or can be) bypassed at this time.

There have been whispers in the past of augmented reality goggles or glasses, but generally we have been able to dismiss them as exaggerations or concepts. The technology, while it isn’t unrealistic, simply isn’t quite there yet.

Apparently that hasn’t stopped Google: a new report is appearing corroborating earlier ones that they are working on a pair of augmented reality glasses. They’d piggyback on your phone’s connection and overlay information like directions, news, and so on.

Whether you think it’s a good idea or not, this kind of thing is going to come eventually, so it’s natural that Google would want to start girding itself for the approaching augmented glasses wars of 20XX.

The 9 to 5 Google report says they look something like a pair of athletic glasses, with a forward-facing camera and flash. The augmented reality bit is actually not a transparent display over one or both eyes, but a single opaque display on the side of one eyepiece (which eyepiece, and which side, were not specified). You operate it with voice or by moving your head around to navigate or select menu options.

Yes, not exactly the future we were expecting. I guarantee these things don’t look cool, either. But like I said, the technology isn’t there yet: cameras and processors aren’t small or fast enough, batteries can’t provide enough power, displays aren’t built for them, and computer vision isn’t good enough. Some of these things Google can work on, some they can’t. But the best way to have a product ready when the tech is there is to try to build one when the tech isn’t.

The glasses are apparently nowhere near done, unsurprisingly, and Google isn’t sure how to make anything out of them. A pilot program could be in the works, or it could continue to be an underground project, metamorphosing again and again until the market is ready. As it is, these things would be weird, expensive, and not particularly useful. In a couple years, though, who knows?

Google today launched a somewhat mysterious website called “Solve for X,” which will now be the official homepage for a conference by the same name. Solve for X, according to the description provided, seems similar in format to the series of conferences from TED, but with more of a scientific focus.

The invite-only gathering is designed to attract global innovators who present short, technology-focused presentations on topics like low-energy desalination, e-waste mining, crowd-sourced protein folding, stretchable silicon biosensers, climate change, and more.

The website describes Solve for X as:

“A place where the curious can go to hear and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Radical in the sense that the solutions could help billions of people. Radical in the sense that the audaciousness of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction. And radical in the sense that there is some real technology breakthrough on the horizon to give us all hope that these ideas could really be brought to life.”

Although the site is still locked down as of this morning (there’s an email input form so you can be notified when it opens up), there have been hints to its nature posted by Richard W. DeVaul, a researcher for Google who describes his occupation as “Rapid Evaluator (mad scientist).”

In addition, some people have dug around in the CSS code to try and learn more information about the event.

In the code, you’ll find details on how the Solve for X presentations work. For example, presentations can only last 12 minutes, and must answer three questions:

1. What is the huge problem you’re focused on fixing?
2. What is the product or service that sounds like science fiction but that, if made, would radically improve the problem you just described?
3. What specifically is the science or technology breakthrough that can give us all hope that such a product or service can be made and released to the world within a decade?

Presenters are asked to go easy on the slideshows, and to consider using props and other visual aids instead.

Videos from the conference, which took place this month in San Jose, California, are expected to go live on the site later today. In the meantime, this Solve for X introductory video is online now:

‘eat my e-waste!’ designing productsso that the ‘waste’ can b fertilizer or …lunch.#solveforx

— lisagansky (@instigating) February 2, 2012

Crowdsolving: reshape edu, value of work, innovation & the economy. Each of us learn abt r true talents in a changing world. #solveforx

— lisagansky (@instigating) February 2, 2012

there is more gold in a ton of electronic waste than a ton of ore from a gold mine.#solveforx

— jackhidary (@jackhidary) February 2, 2012

Hmm. Stretchable silicon structures for on- or in-body applications. Very cool. #solveforx

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

Is nutrition a production or a distribution problem? #solveforx

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

Active electronics (sensors, display elements, rf comms) embedded in contact lenses.Wow. #solveforx

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

Hmm. Reconstructing mental images from FMRI – at high resolution. Freaky. #solveforx

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

Stretchable silicon sensor on skin. #solveforx twitter.com/headcrash/stat…

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

Huh.Completely reengineering the public university as a “moonshot factory” – in AZ. #solveforx

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012

@neha #solveforx is a ted-like conference focusing on “moon shot” technologies with giant impact potential. Talks are great and online soon.

— Aaron Zinman (@azinman) February 3, 2012

In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA.

But this isn’t the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It’s actually quite in keeping with Google’s position of aggressive neutrality.

Google says that it’s there because it’s a great place to promote their election-tracking site, push Google+ as a platform for sharing and collaborating, and because the conference is fairly young and tech-savvy. Hard to accuse them of pandering, or of partisan pandering anyway.

And that’s sort of the point. Google will no doubt be sponsoring similar events on the left side of the political spectrum as well (they say as much, but haven’t announced anything specific). The message is: hey, we just provide a service. No agenda here.

Not that Google is totally apolitical, but their fierce opposition to SOPA was more like a mother bear defending its cubs than a deliberate political decision. On the other hand, they did go out of their way to take an official stance against Proposition 8. By and large, though, they have avoided taking a stance on hot-button issues.

Can Google actually remain neutral? SOPA was the product of bipartisan ignorance and greed, not just left or right, but what if the next bill threatening a Google territory were to be led by one party or the other? Or what if Google refuses to support, say, a communications embargo with a terrorist-harboring country, or such like? The dance they’re doing will become increasingly difficult if they insist on putting their neutrality on a pedestal for much longer.

On the other hand, this may be overthinking it. Why can’t a company spend a little cash to have a ring in the political circus, and not choose sides overtly? No reason. But, as has been observed in other contexts, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

Android malware has been an issue over the past year. Granted, most of the numbers we see out of security software companies are inflated — including malicious apps from third-party sources and ignoring small download figures — but that’s not to say that we can just brush that dirt off our shoulders.

Google knows this, and has for a while. Despite the fact that downloads of malicious apps are down 40 percent between the first and second half of 2011, seeing that 14,000, 30,000, or even 260,000 devices have been affected by this or that malicious app requires action. That said, Google is adding a new security layer to the Android Market: codenamed Bouncer.

Originally, the Android market implemented three different methods for ridding the market of malware: sandboxing, permissions, and malware removal. Sandboxing keeps one app from infiltrating another, with one very important exception: permissions. Google sees its permissions system as a layer of security in and of itself, but permissions can actually be seen as a vulnerability. In some cases, the reasons behind the permissions a developer asks for aren’t immediately obvious to the user, and it can be tough to check everything, especially to the novice user.

Past that, Google’s always been good about removing malware from the market as soon as the company becomes aware of it, and in some cases, has even remotely wiped affected devices of malicious apps. The tool is a useful one to say the least, but it’s not enough.

Bouncer adds another level of security to the platform, automatically scanning new and existing apps for known bits of malicious code. Google has actually been scanning apps whenever new malicious code is discovered, but Bouncer will automate the process, scanning for known spyware and trojans, too. Bouncer runs every new application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulates how it’ll run on a device. That way, Google can see straight away whether an app is misbehaving and flag it accordingly.

Another smart feature is that Bouncer isn’t 100 percent automated. Once something is flagged, there’s a manual process for confirming the app is indeed malicious, reducing the risk of false positives.

To be quite honest, the Android platform is way more secure than most people think. I spoke with Android VP of engineering Hiroshi Lockheimer, and he seems to feel the same way. “There’s this impression that Android is a huge target for malware, and I really don’t think that’s the case,” said Lockheimer. Google polices the Market, scans for known malicious code (though most instances of flagging in the past have been from users notifying Google), and is quick to act when an issue pops up. But where the platform has fallen short (in one respect), is the developer registration process.

Becoming an Android developer is as easy as pie. I actually did it myself just to see how easy it is, and it literally takes five minutes and $25. After clicking accept a few times, you’re good to go. In fact, developers can register under pseudonyms if they’d like.

From a certain perspective, this is amazing. It allows young entrepreneurs to offer a product to millions of users for a very low cost, lowering the bar for developers who can’t afford to jump through Apple’s hoops. At the same time, it makes it easy for malware writers to get the ball rolling.

Sophos blogger Vanja Svajcer said it best:

The requirements for becoming an Android developer that can publish apps to the Android Market are far too relaxed. The cost of becoming a developer and being banned by Google is much lower than the money that can be earned by publishing malicious apps. The attacks on the Android Market will continue as long as the developer requirements stay too relaxed.

With Bouncer, Google is recognizing this issue without making things difficult on developers. Devs will still be able to submit an app and see it in search results within minutes — Bouncer’s scanning process only takes seconds — and they’ll still be able to register for $25 and a few clicks on “Accept.”

But… now that Bouncer is in place, previous offenders will have a much more difficult time sneaking back on to the platform by registering under a new name. According to Google’s blog post, the search giant will be “analyzing new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.”

This is what I believe will make the biggest difference when it comes to the threat of Android malware, and I’m more than thrilled that the company is making it a priority moving forward.

According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, Google spent approximately $390,000 (out of $3,760,000.00 total) on SOPA and PIPA lobbying including efforts to educate lawmakers on SOPA and the DMCA. The question, then, is whether the massive search and advertising giant was for or against the bill – and why so much money was spent to argue the case.

The document, available online in PDF here, is fairly succinct and covers a number of topics, thereby explaining the massive cash outlay. Here’s the specific mention of SOPA:

The document also mentions a number of other lobbying topics including “Regulation of online advertising; privacy and competition issues in online advertising” and “Renewable energy policies” so it’s not all SOPA all the time over at Google’s New York offices. However, there is a key word missing in the filing – whether Google was for or against the bill and what, if any, opinion they injected into the lobbying effort.

Google was unavailable for comment for this piece but it’s clear that most organizations with a dog in the fight spent some money on lobbying. Wikimedia spent a mere $10K on their efforts, at least according to documents we found. The MPAA made its interests clear in the media but less clear in FEC filings, pouring in $850,000.00 in lobbying money while mentioning nothing of its stance.

According to one reader who performed a bit of data mining on the documents, top spenders are, in order:

These numbers are clearly elusive. There’s no value in admitting your position in these documents and clearly there’s no requirement. All we have is a trail of cash going from company to lobbyist to politician. What is said during these glad-handing sessions is unclear, but given the predilections of some of the filers, assumptions can be made.

More interesting are these numbers on the aggregate. While we don’t know what was said, the $1,799,066 represented above talks and it’s clear big business has more resources to pass favorable legislation than any nerd army massing online at SOPA’s gates.

As more and more consumers user their smartphones for search, Google’s mobile search and display ads are growing like crazy. As we reported a few weeks ago, Google’s mobile ad revenues are expected to more than double from an estimated $2.5 billion last year to $5.8 billion in 2012. And today, Google is revealing a number of new data on the growth of mobile search ads and formats.

Google’s lead product manager for mobile search ads, Surojit Chatterjee, tells us that in December 2011 mobile search ad request volume was more than twice as high as it was in December 2010. Mobile search in general has grown five-fold worldwide in just the past two years, which is a rate comparable to the early days of desktop Google Search, he adds.

Chatterjee says that quality of search ads is increasing thanks to some of the new factors being considered in mobile search ad rankings. For example, mobile web-optimized sites are now ranked higher. Since August 2011, Google has seen more than a 50 percent increase in the number of AdWords advertisers with a mobile optimized sites.

And proximity is also a factor in mobile search ads ranking. Basically, the distance between a user and an advertiser’s business location affects how an ad performs in AdWords on mobile devices.

As he explains, the company is looking to give advertisers better ways to connect with users on mobile search, and serve more relevant ads. Besides search, another mobile ad format that has been performing well for advertisers on mobile search is click-to-call, which allows users to click on phone number to call and connect with advertisers directly. Chatterjee says that more than half a million active advertisers are using click-to-call as a format in mobile advertising. And Google is seeing over 10 million calls per month on average from click-to-call ads on search and Google Display Network.

As for the future, Chatterjee explains that Google will be using mobile signals even more to serve more relevant ads. It’s also about understanding the mobile user better, and creating formats and user experiences that speak to the consumer when building ad relevance and ranking models. There will also be more innovation coming out of tablet ad formats, he adds.

Editor’s Note: Bindu Reddy is the CEO of MyLikes and was formerly Group Product Manager at Google. She was the first product manager for the project that evolved to become Google+. Her Google+ profile can be found here.

Larry Page recently announced that he is quite thrilled with Google+’s explosive growth — with 90 million registered accounts and 80% of the people engaging on a weekly basis across all Google properties. The problem, of course, is that very few of these 90M users are actively publishing on Google+. The Google+ strategy of fine-grained sharing of personal content using Circles has not been very effective. It takes a lot of effort to create and maintain circles, and Facebook has proven that most users seem to be comfortable sharing personal content such as family albums and baby pictures with their complete social graph.

It is indeed a tall order for Google+ to win against Facebook in this area of communicating and sharing with your friends and family as it needs a significant exodus of a your social graph from Facebook.

One area where Google+ seems have gained traction is public sharing and broadcasting – a la Twitter. It has been impressive to see Google execute nimbly by adding multiple features to emerge as the iPhone of publishing platforms.

However, in order to take considerable user attention away from Facebook, Google+ needs to solve the biggest issue with public sharing — it is far less universal compared to communicating with friends and family.

There were 60 million active content creators on Twitter. Compare this to the 2 billion-plus Internet users and 800 million active Facebook users. Even if you include the few million users who are active in other public places like MySpace and Tumblr, only around 5 percent of the world’s Internet population is currently sharing on public profiles.

In order to make public sharing universal, user behaviour needs to change dramatically. The good news is that Google touches pretty much every Internet user and is in a great position to make this happen. Here are some ideas on how they can do this:

1. Help people build a meaningful audience

Most new users who start Google+ or Twitter accounts discover that it is really hard to get a following. Even importing Facebook or email contacts doesn’t help, because one-way follow semantics result in only a few of those contacts following you back.

The suggested-user list approach only serves to make things worse. New users end up following a bunch of famous personalities, with whom they do not have any meaningful interactions. Some brave souls end up posting a few times, but after seeing little or no engagement on their posts, give up pretty soon.

Behavior in online communities is very-peer driven and when people see similar, like minded people posting and interacting with others, they tend to follow suit. Google has the technology chops to suggest following these types of people instead of celebrities.

If we could get people to post about topics that they care about and get them to connect with people who both care about the same topics and are at the same audience level, we will see a lot more high-fidelity content and engagement as opposed to simply re-sharing the most popular image/video on the web.

For example, I am into technology, politics, fashion and food. As part of their onboarding process, Google+ could prompt me to post on these topics (even surfacing existing conversations as inspiration) and based on these posts suggest I circle other people who have the same interests and are likely to interact with me.

Over time, suggesting more of these kinds of relevant, actively engaged people, not only ensures that new users connect with people they want to meet, but also rewards activity with a larger audience.

This new “interest graph” is inherently a lot more valuable to the user than the “social graph” which simply moves your offline friends online.

The serotonin kick that you get from having strangers taking the time to read your post and make intelligent comments will soon get addictive, and kick-start a virtuous cycle of publishing and consumption.

2. Make public sharing safe and clean

One of the biggest issues with sharing publicly is having to deal with trolls, stalkers and unwanted spam comments/messages. I can tell from personal experience, that this issue is exacerbated if you are a woman. This is one of the main reasons you don’t see that many women sharing on Google+.

Google+ needs to identify and actively deactivate spam accounts who post irrelevant links on posts. While everyone should be allowed to like and re-share your posts, by default Google+ should only allow for comments with no-moderation from people you circle. All other comments should only be posted once the commenter has been reviewed by the publisher. Again technology could help with automatic flagging of comments for review.

Of course, users like Robert Scoble, can and will choose to turn off moderation but my bet is a large number of people would rather review comments in some way before having them show up on their profiles. In contrast, Twitter avoids this problem by simply not having any commenting features.

3. Get people to share on Google+ when they are already sharing elsewhere

Email is still one of the primary ways people share information with each other. Every day, millions of videos, links to articles and documents are shared via email.

Just like Google calender integration, Gmail could detect when you are sharing a public link/video and automatically cc that message to post on your public profile. This feature would immediately give Google millions of new active publishers.

Similarly, users on Blogger and YouTube should be able to share blog posts and comments by checking a box that gives them the option to share the content on Google+.

Allowing the user to choose and customize the post that is published on Google+ will ensure that Google+ posts continue to have high fidelity and user profiles don’t turn into noisy “dead-feeds” of information.

—

Twitter has already shown the world how much of an impact public sharing can have even with a small percentage of people doing it. One can only imagine how much bigger the impact will be if this number becomes 5 times what it is now.

Revolutions, large scale social change, shaking up entrenched “old boys networks” all become more possible, when everyone has a voice and an audience.

We are in the middle of a huge shift in how information is created and curated on the Internet. Making publishing more universal plays very well to Google’s strength as an information company. In line with Google’s mission, its algorithms can work their magic to organize this information and make it universally accessible.

Yesterday, Google filed its 10-K with the SEC, revealing the number of acquisitions and money spent on these purchases in the year. As of Q3, Google had spent over $1.4 billion on 55 acquisitions for the year. Google ended 2011 spending $1.9 billion (including cash and stock) on completing 79 acquisitions during the entirety of the year.

Some of the bigger purchases included ITA Software, which was purchased for $676 million in cash. As we know Google is spending $12.5 billion on Motorola (which isn’t included in 2011′s calculations), with a termination fee of $2.5 billion if the deal fails to get regulatory approval. The transaction is currently expected to close in early 2012.

Some of the acquisitions Google made in Q4 2011 include Clever Sense, Katango, and Apture.

In contrast, Google spent just over $1 billion on 48 acquisitions in 2010. And don’t expect Google to be slowing down the acquisition pace anytime soon. In the filing the company says: Acquisitions will also remain an important component of our strategy and use of capital, and we expect our current pace of acquisitions to continue.

In addition, the search giant’s full-time employee headcount grew 33 percent from 24,400 at December 31, 2010 to 32,467 at December 31, 2011.

7 of the world’s most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy to suppress the compensation of their employees by entering into “no poach” agreements. Today, a San Jose judge heard a motion to dismiss a class action civil lawsuit in which former employees seek damages from defendants Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.

The damning evidence against the defendants from a 2010 Department of Justice investigation that I first uncovered last week, as well as the plaintiffs’ opposition statement indicate there is more than sufficient evidence for the dismissal to be denied and the case to proceed towards trial. If the defendants lose to or settle, tens of thousands of full-time employees with the companies between 2006 and 2009 could be compensated.

[Update 4:30pm PST 1/26/2011: Judge Lucy Koh says "This case is moving forward...this case is going to survive the motion to dismiss." That means the defendants' motion to dismiss the case will almost surely be denied when the judge files her official ruling soon. Koh said she may dismiss some specific claims but the plaintiffs will be allowed to amend their complaint. She mentioned "It's hard to make the inference that there was no conspiracy". Read on to find out why and what that means for the companies. More details from the hearing at the end.]

Specifically, the senior executives of the defendants, including Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt, are accused of entering into a network of identical, interconnected illegal agreements not to recruit each other’s employees. Each agreement by itself may be a violation of antitrust laws including the Sherman Act, the Cartwright Act, and other California laws.

The plaintiffs also claim the agreements constitute an overarching antitrust conspiracy because each was made with knowledge of the other agreements, and relied on the other agreements to achieve a common goal of reducing compensation and mobility for highly sought-after skilled tech employees.

According to the plaintiffs’ statement (PDF), the chronology of some of the  agreements is as follows:

• January 2005 – Pixar senior executives (which include Steve Jobs) draft written terms for a no-poach agreement and send them to Lucasfilm
• May 2005 – Apple and Adobe make agreements
• 2006 – Apple and Google make agreements shortly after Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s board of directors
• April 2007 – Apple and Pixar make agreements
• June and September 2007 – Google enters into agreements with Intuit and Intel that are identical to the agreements between Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe, and Apple and Pixar

Additionally, Steve Jobs personally contacted Palm’s CEO Edward T. Colligan to propose an unlawful agreement, writing “We must do whatever we can” to stop competitive recruiting efforts between the companies.” Colligan declined Jobs’ offer, writing “Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.”

The plaintiffs request “The Court should deny the motion, lift the stay of discovery, and permit Plaintiffs ‘to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination’ of this action.”

The defendants claim that the agreements were isolated and not interconnected. They claim the agreements were pro-competitive parts of legitimate collaborations between the companies, many of which had executives on each other’s boards or started as the same company as with Pixar and Lucasfilm.

The defendants also claim “The alleged bilateral arrangement provide no support for the overall conspiracy that plaintiffs have alleged in order to name the defendants in a class action”. They motion for continuation of the partial stay of discovery and for the case to be dismissed.

However, my research and sources indicate the defendants’ claims are false, the plaintiffs case is plausible, and so there are no grounds for dismissal. Furthermore, the only reason more evidence about the interconnection between the agreements isn’t available is because they were made so secretively.

The case should be allowed to proceed because the plaintiffs have produced “smoking guns” indicating a deep conspiracy. Specifically, “Do Not Cold Call” lists which defendants used to implement the agreements, and the written terms of Pixar’s agreement with Lucasfilm. These signal that today’s joint motion to dismiss the case should be denied because if discovery is permitted to continue, there’s a reasonable expectation that evidence of illegal activity will be revealed.

Finally, the precedent is that motions to dismiss are “viewed with disfavor and are properly granted only in exceptional cases…A complaint satisfies Twombly [is only eligible for dismissal] if the allegations, taken as a whole, are not ‘facially implausible’” according to the plaintiffs’ statement. Therefore, it would take a very strong presentation by the defense for Judge Lucy Koh to dismiss the case.

If the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case is denied, the case will move towards a trial by jury in June 2013. Rather than leave an assessment of damages to the judge and jury, the defendants may try to settle the case, similar to how they settled with the Department of Justice’s federal case in 2010. In the defendants lose or settle, full-time employees of the defendants could be compensated for the 10-15% of lost wages estimated by the plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser.

Update 4:30pm PST 1/26/2012: The judge has lifted the stay of discovery, saying “This case is moving forward…this case is going to survive the motion to dismiss.” Though her official statement hasn’t been filed, she’s likely to deny the defendants motion to dismiss the case. She also ordered Google to produce draft emails in addition to sent emails, and designate which are drafts and which were sent.

During the hearing, the defense argued against the conspiracy accusation and joint liability. It stated that plaintiffs don’t deserve compensation from companies they never worked for and that their employers didn’t have agreements with just because they were part of the so-called conspiracy.

The judge seemed somewhat sympathetic to this, and asked if the plaintiffs would consider breaking up the case to focus on each unlawful agreement separately. The plaintiffs maintained that the agreements were all interconnected.

Afterwards, The head attorney representing the plaintiffs, Joseph R. Saveri of Lieff Cabraser, told me the plaintiffs were comfortable moving forward with their single, joint antitrust conspiracy complaint. The plaintiffs will file an amended complaint that removes any claims dismissed by the forthcoming judge’s statement.

Next, another Case Management Conference is set for April 18th, where that amended complaint from the plaintiff will be reviewed. On June 28th, the court will convene to hear class certification to define what employees are eligible to be represented by the class action lawsuit. The plaintiffs plan to assess evidence surfaced during discovery and determine if only software engineers, software engineers and scientists, or all of the defendants’ employees will be represented by the class action lawsuit.

Following the hearing, Saveri gave reporters a conservative calculation of the possible damages that employees could be compensated for. He said software engineers make $100,000 a year (they make more), their compensation was “suppressed between 5 and 10%” and “tens of thousands of employees were affected”. That means for each year an entry-level full-time software engineer worked at one of these companies, they might be entitled to damages of $5,000 to $10,000. Higher paid veteran engineers could be entitled to much more. The total damages could therefore be at least $150 million if just 10,000 entry-level engineers were affected.

Google is opening up its social networking service Google+ to teens as of today, according to a post from Google’s VP, Product Management, Bradley Horowitz. The move puts the network in closer competition with Facebook, which also requires that individuals be at least 13 year old before creating an account.

Says Horowitz, everyone who’s old enough for a Google account (13+ in most countries), can now create a Google+ account too.

The announcement was made alongside news of a few new safety enhancements to the service specifically for teens, including those that focus on sharing content, hangouts (video chat) and notifications.

One of these is a message that appears when a teen tries to share outside of their circle of friends. The message reads: “When you share publicly, people you haven’t added to your circles will be able to view your post and may be able to comment.”

This seems a little obvious, but given Facebook’s ever-shifting levels of post visibility, it can’t hurt to bang people over the head with the definition of “public.”

Google will also place limits on its video chatting feature called Google+ Hangouts when used by teens. If a stranger (someone outside the teens’ circle) joins a hangout, Google will temporarily remove the teen from the hangout by muting the mic and video feed. It’s interesting that it wouldn’t just remove the stranger, or perhaps remove strangers ability to even join hangouts in progress, when posted by teens. But I suppose this move is targeted towards those teens who inadvertently (or naively) make their hangout public instead of private, which could invite in an unwanted element.

Notifications are also being restricted, so that only those in teens’ circles can contact them via IM, and blocking is easily accessible. This feature is not all that different than how chat operates by default for adults, to be fair. Any Google+ user can configure which circles are chat-enabled, for example.

It should be noted that not all countries have the same age restrictions. In Spain and South Korea, the age limit is 14 and up, while in the Netherlands, it’s 16 and up.

Google recently announced that it has now reached 90 million users worldwide. By opening up to teens, it clearly hopes to quickly grow once more. However, we have to point out that, unlike Facebook’s growth back in the day, Google+’s growth is more manufactured than organic. The company has carefully timed its feature releases and integrations with other Google services to provide ongoing boosts to user count numbers which it can then, in turn, proclaim to be “growth.” But in some cases, Google is forcing Google+ upon users – e.g., when a user creates a Google account, they’re given a Plus account, too. No doubt a few weeks after the teen surge, we’ll hear more about how much Google has “grown” yet again.

In case you’re wondering, Twitter used to require its users to be 13 and up, too. The current Terms of Service make no mention of an age requirement. 

During this morning’s keynote at the annual Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) conference in Orlando, Florida, Google’s Product Manager for Chromebooks, Rajen Sheth, shared an update on Chromebooks‘ headway in educational institutions. According to Sheth, today there are now “hundreds” of schools using Chomebooks in 41 states across the U.S.

There are, of course, some caveats to those figures. For starters, no exact number of Chromebook devices was given. In addition, among those “hundreds” of schools being counted, some may be only using a single set of Chromebooks in their institution, from the sounds of it. And what constitues a “set?” That, too, is unknown. According to Sheth, of the “hundreds of schools” using Chromebooks, Google is counting those that have “outfitted at least one classroom with Chromebooks.”

A more interesting figure is the one that was not shared – how many individual Chromebooks have actually made their way into the U.S. school system?

Sheth also announced three new major deployments of Chromebooks in school districts, which, while clearly individual “wins” worth bragging about, aren’t necessarily indicative of the Chromebook’s overall momentum.

Combined, the three deployments will see 27,000 students provided with Chromebooks – a 1 student per 1 Chromebook ratio. These newly signed up districts include the Council Bluffs Community School District in Iowa which is deploying 2,800 Chromebooks in its high school and 1,500 in two middle schools, the Leyden Community High School District in Illinois which is giving the devices to 3,500 students in their two high schools, and the Richland School District Two in South Carolina which will deploy 19,000 computers.

But given the very introductory nature of this morning’s keynote – a keynote which focused on Chromebook’s advantage over traditional PC’s (Chromebooks automatically update!, less headaches for I.T.!, it’s all web!, etc.),  it’s clear that Google’s Chromebook push is in very early stages yet.

There’s a nice little insider quarrel going on over Google’s just-announced privacy policy changes. A number of sites and commentators have let their fingers jump up mechanically in accusatory fashion. Google, caught red-handed being evil!

Here, I think, is a time when the word “bias” is actually warranted. Everyone wants so badly for Google to do something truly evil (instead of just questionable or inconvenient) that their perceptions of Google actions are actually being affected. Casting events systematically in a non-objective light is the exhibition of bias, and the continual presentation of policies one disagrees with as evidence of “evil” seems to fall under that category.

Google going evil has become the Godwin’s Law of tech commentary.

What specifically is evil about this particular action? What is happening is a consolidation of privacy policies across most of the services Google offers. Other companies and services do this already rather than maintain separate documents, agreements, and records across several related sites. This way there is a single privacy policy that applies across Google products. That is a good thing: it’s simpler for users to understand, they don’t have to sign multiple documents, they know that certain things are and aren’t private across multiple services, and now something like removing demographic data from yourself applies universally, not just on one service. Why shouldn’t it be that way?

To be fair, compartmentalizing services is something that some users prefer. Just last week I lamented the loss of compartmentability when Google changed its account signup process to require new Gmail and G+ accounts. Forcing someone to use a service is bad. But creating policy consistency and cross-talk between related services doesn’t strike me as such. You already had Google-wide preferences. Now you have more.

What about the ad targeting? Now, it is whispered, you could search for basketball tickets and then find that the ads on Gmail or YouTube reflect that history! Your ad profile is now tied to your Google account, not specific site accounts, in other words. Again, it is just assumed people agree this is evil. Why should they? Where is the harm? If anything, it simplifies things and again makes it more intelligible to the average user what Google is tracking. Hint: everything, just like before.

More evil is prophesied by a wild-sounding privacy advocate quoted in the Washington Post: “There is no way anyone expected this. There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns.” You can almost see the froth on his lips.

What about not being able to opt out? What is it people want to opt out of exactly? The new, simplified privacy policy? What would you opt into instead — the older policy? Being tracked per-site instead of by account? Perhaps you would you like to opt into pre-Timeline Facebook as well? Maybe you’d like to opt out of Apple’s restrictions on selling your iBooks? How, specifically, are people being harmed by the new policy, and in what way can they be demonstrated to have less privacy than under the old system, under which the exact same data and behaviors were recorded, analyzed, and packaged? Google is not collecting more information, they are not selling new information, they are not changing anything but the level at which the data is collated before you are anonymized into an ad group (baseball, travel, Boston, gadgets) and exposed to ads targeted to your general type of consumer.

And of course, you can opt out of the part worth opting out of:

The worst one can say about this change is that it causes yet more overlap between Google services that people may not have requested. If you call that evil, you’ve forgotten what evil looks like.

Google has more than 70 different privacy documents over its range of products, which overwhelming for any user to comb through (and that’s after Google pared down its policies in 2010). Today, the search giant is rolling out a new, comprehensive privacy policy which the company says will consolidate more than 60 of the separate privacy notices into one simple policy. The company says the changes will take effect on March 1, and will be starting to notify users today via email and a notice on its homepage.

The main change, say Google, is that if you are signed into your Google account, Google will combine user info across its products to better serve account holders. As Google says: In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.

This is exemplified, says Google, in its more personalized search product that debuted recently, and received major criticism. You’ll see Google+ posts and data in your search results, and allows for the seamless transfer of data in between other services, including Docs, Calender, Gmail and more, says Google.

Google wants to make the entire web experience more personal, including advertising, location-based reminders, spelling suggestions of friends names and more. “People still have to do way too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them out,” according to the blog post.

The company also says it has rewritten its privacy policies so they’re easier to read and understand. And Google reiterates that it “remains committed to data liberation,” won’t sell personal information, or share it externally without permission and will continue to try to be transparent about the information collected from users.