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| Chris Richardson > |
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Spyware Causes Adjustment Of Surfing Habits While the majority of the hardcore computer users have been aware of the danger posed by malicious files found during normal web surfing exercises for some time now, the everyday Joe user may still be unaware of the concept of spyware and malware and the dangers they pose; that is, until they get infected.
Microsoft Releases Security Fix For Windows 2000 In today's issue of SecurityProNews, David Utter details the latest Microsoft security update, this time, it's aimed at Windows 2000. David also provides information about the state of Massachusetts and their battle against a number of spammers located in Boston.
World Cup Email Offer Contains Sober Worm How many of you are troubled by spyware? According to a Webroot study, 88 percent of home computers are infected with different types of spyware. This percentage, which is undoubtedly higher than computers infected with viruses, indicates that spyware remains one of, if not the biggest threat to home computer users.
Mobile Viruses Continue To Increase Welcome SecurityProNews Readers. In today's issue, Jason Miller takes a look at the continuing increase of viruses targeting mobile devices. These malicious programs, which are designed to focus solely on technology powering the mobile generation, continue to increase.
Microsoft Issues Eight Security Updates In today's SecurityProNews, we take a look at a number of subjects concerning Microsoft updates, P2P lawsuits, and Microsoft lawsuits. The first subject deals with eight security-related updates issued by the Redmond company early today.
People Learning To Live With Spam Mailings As spam mailings continue to permeate email inboxes throughout the Internet, the majority of those who receive spam accept the unsolicited emails in stride, almost as if it's an expected occurrence when using the Internet.
Aggressive Trojan Spreads Through Mobile Phones Messages A variant of the Cabir mobile virus, called Mabir, has been targeting mobile phones using the Symbian Series 60 operating system. Mabir is capable of spreading via Bluetooth or by a phone's messaging service.
Corporations Slow To Install SP2 A study conducted by AssetMetrix determined a large number of corporate PCs have been slow to install Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Fingerprint Sharing Alliance Targets Hackers Arbor Networks, a company committed to curbing Internet-based security attacks, has started a coalition called the Fingerprint Sharing Alliance. The goal of the association is to present a unified front against the various malicious computer attacks circulating the web.
Is The Windows Server Environment More Secure Than Linux? Which server environment is more secure? Windows or Linux? This question has been debated to the nth degree at the various computer forums, blogs, and numerous other places.
Phishing Attacks Up 366 Percent A recent security threat report issued by Symantec.com detailed a number of the threats facing computer and Internet users in their travels.
Using Malicious Programs To Rob Banks An attempted bank robbery in Britain has raised a number of questions concerning the possibility of using keystroke-capturing software, like a Trojan virus, to help carry out such a scheme.
Mobile Phone Virus Spreading Through Text Messages In the past, the few mobile phone viruses to have success have done so through propagation via Bluetooth technology.
Microsoft’s New Interest: Security With the New Year comes a fresh approach, a time to turn over a new leaf. With this in mind, Microsoft has turned over a number of new leaves in their approach to securing their software products.
Internet Explorer 7 To Address Security Issues Microsoft announced the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 7 yesterday, which will be available in beta format sometime during this summer.
RSA Security Conference Kicks Off The RSA Security Conference, billed as the most the most prestigious information security event of the year starts today, featuring a who's who in the security industry.
Harry Potter Used As Mailing Exploit The spam community never seems to miss an opportunity to trick unsuspecting users into opening and clicking what most would deem as unwanted mail. One of the more popular ways to trick unsuspecting recipients is by using misleading subject lines.
Was Blaster Variant Sentence Too Light? Last week, the state of Minnesota sentenced Jeffrey Lee Parson, author of the Blaster worm variant responsible for thousands of infections. However, there is a section of the public who feel his sentence was too light. Considering the denial-of-service attacks initiated by Parson's version of the Blaster worm, they may have a legitimate argument.
Congress Bill Focuses On Spyware The US government is in the news with a bill against the makers and distributors of spyware, something long overdue, in my opinion. Hopefully, the bill can make its way through the approval process, provided it actually protects...
Another Internet Explorer Hole Found? Security experts from Symantec and Finjan have posted information about a new vulnerability that affects Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, even versions that have the Service Pack 2 update.
Phishers, Email Viruses Exploit Tsunami Disaster Adding insult to injury, virus writers and online phishing scammers have started exploiting efforts for the Tsunami aid for malicious means.
McAfee Launches SiteDigger 2.0 Using Google's search index has a tool, McAfee has launched SiteDigger 2.0, a utility designed to locate human error information vulnerabilities that can show up in search engines.
New Cell Phone Virus Discovered F-Secure, a Finnish Internet security company, has discovered a new cell phone virus called Lasco.A. The virus spreads via Bluetooth technology and by attaching itself to files contained on mobile phones.
New Security Hole Found In Internet Explorer A new flaw has been discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that allows malicious users to create fake sites that could lead to new email phishing scams.
Google’s Picasa Defaced Apparently, even Google-owned product sites aren't above being hacked. Picasa, the image management software that was purchased by Google was defaced this past weekend.
Lycos Attacked By Their Own Screensaver In a move that surprises no one, the screensaver that Lycos created to target spammers has been used to target Lycos. The screensaver was designed to launch a DOS attack against sites that are known for their spamming techniques.
Google Corrects Gmail Exploit Search engine Google has fixed a security flaw that was occurring in their email service, Gmail. The company did not reveal the nature of flaw, only that they had corrected it.
Bagle Variant, Google-bashing Worm Making The Rounds There are two new malicious email worms traveling around the internet this Halloween weekend, so be careful. One is designed to attack the infected computer, while the other is designed to execute a denial of service attack.
Spam Campaigns Now Using Google, Olympics In Subject Lines Spammer groups have begun using new methods in order to dupe unsuspecting people. Keeping with what's on the surface of popularity, spammers have resorted to including Google and The Olympics within email subject lines in an effort to trick recipients into opening these mailings.
Does Paid Search Engine Placement Affect Site Traffic Atlas DMT performed a study that researched whether or not paid search placement has an affect on the amount of traffic sites with paid listings receive. This study does not focus solely on paid inclusion. It also takes into account the exploding trend of companies employing SEM.
Ezilon.com Offers Highly Targeted Search Capabilities Touting itself as the European Union International Search Engine and Directory, Ezilon.com has launched its search presence. Ezilon promises to offer targeted search services, based on geographic location.
Travelzoo Introduces SuperSearch CPC Search Engine Online travel portal Travelzoo has unveiled a new search feature on their site called SuperSearch. This tool allows consumers to search multiple travel Web sites, including low-cost carriers.
The Miami Herald Drops Identity Demand Against Yahoo A demand issued to Yahoo by the Miami Herald has been dropped. The Herald made the demand after receiving insulting emails originating from Yahoo's email service. The emails were sent to Herald employees and made disparaging remarks about their bosses.
Yahoo Receives Buy Rating From Wall Street While Yahoo's stock had a bumpy ride on the market last week, this week, they received a boost of confidence Banc of America Securities analyst John Janedis. Yahoo was awarded a buy rating as well a price target for brokerage forecasts.
100.com Joins The LookSmart Family A recently launched search engine called 100.com has joined the ranks of LookSmart. The partnership calls for LookSmart to provide directory listings and bid-for-placement distribution network in its search results.
Yahoo Partners With Rogers Cable To Offer Broadband Service One of the most popular portals on the Internet, Yahoo, announced a partnership with Rogers Cable and subsequent launch of Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service. The companies offer a combination of Yahoo's portal services with Rogers Cable's broadband Internet service.
Google Prepared To Offer Audio And Video Search It appears as if Google's search engine is going to be offering a couple of other options for users to employ when they conduct queries. The new features will allow people to search for audio and video clips. However, the Google management team has given no confirmation of these features.
Google Expects IPO To Be Completed Soon Google, the most widely used search engine today, is hoping to complete the final testing phase in order to go forward with its highly anticipated IPO. Google announced its intentions to go public on April 29th. The offering is expected to raise $2.7 billion.
Walla Launches Free 1 Gig Email Service Following up to a story that appeared on WPN in April, Walla! Communications has launched their new free email service, Walla!Mail, featuring 1 gigabyte of storage. This makes WallaMail the second fully operational email service that offers such a capacity, with Spymac being the first.
Nigritude Ultramarine Stayer Winner Announced With the first part of DarkBlue's SEO challenge already decided, the optimization company announced the winner of the second stage of the challenge. The two-month competition had two stages in which winners could be declared.
Gmail4Troops Donation Site Launches A website called Gmail4Troops.com has launched with the intention of collecting Gmail invites by means of donation and rewarding them to military members who sign up. The accounts, while available to all service members, will be prioritized for those serving in combat zones.
Google In Legal Trouble Over Name Again First, the family of Professor Edward Kasner sued Google. The family claimed that the name Google was infringing on Kasner's mathematic term, Googol. Now, another group has filed suit against the search engine, claiming Google infringed on their company name. The company filing this suit is called Googles, with an "s".
Telstra Prepared To Launch Sensis Search Engine The Australian-based Telstra Corporation is expected to launch a search engine built around their Sensis property, a Yellow and White pages-based service. This move is seen as defensive strategy against Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft Releases Another Patch For Internet Explorer During the Fourth of July weekend, Microsoft released a patch for Internet Explorer, MS's web browser. The patch was designed to thwart a security hole that would allow malicious code to be spread from IE to the user's computer.
Microsoft Gives Facelift To MSN Search MSN has rolled out a new look for their search engine. MSN Search is now featuring a newly designed home page, as well as redesigned search results pages. Not only equipped with a new look, Microsoft has also altered the method in which they deliver information to the user.
Google Sued Over Orkut Code Affinity Engines, a social networking service provider, filed a lawsuit against Google on May 25. The suit claims that Google's social network, Orkut, is using a source code that was stolen by an engineer that was previously employed by Affinity.
Google Updates Gmail Policies In what seems to be a response to Gmail invitation auctions, Google has updated their Gmail policy page to reflect these activities. The changes now make it a violation to "sell, trade, resell or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account."
Macintosh Prepared To Introduce Desktop Search Steve Jobs, CEO of Macintosh, revealed a new file search technology for the upcoming update of Mac's operating system. The search feature, called Spotlight, will allow Mac users to search for files, words, concepts and documents they have stored on their hard drive. Spotlight is based on the search technology used by iTunes.
Google Improves Ad Relevancy For AdWords Service Search engine Google sent customers an email yesterday that outlined changes to their ad relevancy algorithms. These changes are being made in order to improve the targeting of ads and members' ROI.
Google IPO Has Wall Street Working Overtime The dynamics of Google's $2.7 billion IPO is causing a great deal of work for the Wall Street brokerage houses involved. In preparation for the offering, these houses, while working diligently, may not receive the type of return normally associated with an offering of this size.
Overture To Expand Local Advertising Services Yahoo-owned advertising service, Overture, is expected to announce a set of new local advertisers options. Overture is offering these services in an attempt increase local advertising revenue while increasing the usability of their ad campaigns.
Man Arrested For Threatening Google Charged With Extortion Michael Bradley of Oak View, California has been charged with extortion and wiretap fraud after making threats to Google about their Adwords service. The charges stem from a software program that Bradley claimed would create fraudulent clicks on Google's CPC ads.
Ask Jeeves Upgrades Email Storage Too Not to be left out of all the email storage upgrade fun, Ask.com has announced that they too would be increasing the amount of email storage its customer's receive.
Google Launches Chinese Search Services As search engines battle each other for China's market share of Internet users, which is moving towards the second highest in the world, Google has announced the launch of Chinese search services designed to capture a portion of China's web audience.
Google Loses Gmail’s UK Domain Google may be defensive of its brand, but, it appears that Google is not has driven to protect its Gmail brand. Recently, the search engine went on a buying binge for domains that resembled the Google brand name. However, it appears that they forgot, or didn't care, to do the same for Gmail.
Google Makes Amendments To IPO Filing Google has made some amendments to its initial filing that was done for the SEC with the intention, it seems, of quelling fears that have risen about Google since it first filed in April 29, 2004.
Is Google Going Open Source? Not quite, but, the number one search engine is planning on releasing SOME of its code to the public, according to The Age, an Australian news site. News of this came as Google reps are visiting Melbourne, with the idea of opening a research and development center.
Yahoo Unveils Chinese Search Engine Yisou Coming on the heels of Google's investment in Chinese search presence, Baidu.com, Yahoo has announced the release of their search website Yisou.com. The name of the search engine translates to "No1 Search" and unlike Yahoo's Chinese portal, Yisou will concentrate only on web based searches.
Gmail Releases Ad Standards For Mailings Gmail's email scanning practice has had privacy advocates fuming and caused US officials to write bills limiting the use of scanned mailings.
Google WebSearch Combines AdSense And Search Google announced today a new addition to their search engine tool set for websites and webmasters.
Search Engine College Gains Overture As A Partner The recently established Search Engine College has gained something almost as valuable as accreditation. Yahoo-owned Overture has announced they will be partnering with the school to provide search engine marketing experience.
Google Claims FreeBooble Infringes On Their Trademark Rights FreeBooble, a search engine devoted to free adult content, received a demand from Google that they cease operations. Google claims FreeBooble infringes on the search engine's trademark rights, something Google is very familiar with.
Yahoo Announces Email Storage Upgrades Yahoo has announced they will be increasing the storage capacity of its email service. The changes are to be implemented today, June 15, 2004.
Google Invests In Chinese Search Engine Baidu Google is heading a group of investors that are committing nearly $100 million to China's largest search engine, Baidu.com.
FTC Denies Do Not Email List The Federal Trade Commission has turned down a "Do Not Email" list that is similar to the recently enacted "Do Not Call" list. The FTC cited numerous reasons for the denial of the list.
Google To Develop Mobile Phone Format Although mobile users have the capability to employ Google search, the Mountain Valley company is preparing technology that will be easier to use with mobile phone. Google's aim is to make search and subsequent results easier to view and use on cell phone monitors.
Froogle Ads For Father’s Day Showing Up In Google AdWords Recently, WebProNews featured an article discussing how Google was allowing Froogle ads to appear in the first paid position of their search result page. Google acknowledged, to Andy Beal, that they were indeed promoting Froogle by placing it within the paid listing area.
Upcoming MSN Search Engine To Filter Out Web Spam Microsoft has unveiled their new web spam filtering project at Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View. The goal is to have their new filtering technology incorporated within their new search engine when it launches later this year.
Ask Jeeves Acquires Desktop Search Technology Company Tukaroo Yesterday, June 9, 2004, Ask Jeeves filed a Form S-3 with the SEC in order to sell an additional $400 million worth of stock and securities. Today Jeeves announced the purchase of Tukaroo Inc., a company that researches and develops desktop search technology.
Google Considering RSS Support Because there are two formats for web feeds, RSS and Atom, there is a battle to see which becomes the industry standard. On the whole, RSS seems to be the preferred format, and therefore the perceived industry standard. However, in April of 2004, Google dropped RSS support in favor of Atom.
Teoma Search Apparently Allows Mirroring With thanks once again going to Andy Beal, WebProNews has discovered a bad case of spam on Teoma's search engine results. A search for the keywords "company names" finds that one site has several mirrored listings in the resources section.
Overstock.com Issues PPC Guidelines For Affiliates In what may be a response to Google allowing bidding on trademarked keywords, or merely for the purposes of preserving their trademark, Overstock.com has sent an email to their affiliates demanding that they stop bidding on Overstock's trademarked keywords.
Froogle Ad Placement Follow Up On Friday, June 4, 2004, WebProNews featured an article that pointed out Google was giving a link to Froogle for the first AdWords position in the SERP for the keywords "Fathers Day Gifts". The Froogle ad was appearing ahead of paying AdWords clients.
Aventure Launches 2 GB Email Service In an effort to capitalize on the buzz that Google started with its 1 GB email service, Aventure, a Northern Ireland based hosting company, has launched its own version of a web-based email service. This service does Gmail one better, however.
Nigritude Ultramarine Search Engine Optimization Winner Announced As previously reported by WebProNews, affiliate network DarkBlue held a contest that measured SEO skills of anyone willing to enter. The goal of the contest was to gain the top Google search engine result for the search of the keywords "nigritude ultramarine." The contest ended today, June 7, 2004, and the winner has been announced.
Gmail Adds Safari Compatibility Following up to a recent WebProNews article about Gmail compatibility issues, news reports by MacMinute and SearchEngineJournal indicate that Gmail has added Mac's Safari web browser to its list of browsers that are supported.
Macromedia Shockwave Update Features Bundled Yahoo Toolbar Recently, while perusing the Internet during a break, I discovered that my Macromedia Shockwave player needed to be updated. When prompted, I approved the download and waited for it to complete. After the download was finished, Shockwave informed me that it was going to proceed with installing the update upon my approval.
Google Search Results Promoting Froogle Receiving First Keyword Ad Position An anonymous WebProNews reader pointed out an interesting issue going on with Google's search results. A search of the keywords "Fathers Day Gifts" finds that Google is giving a link for Froogle the first AdWords position (highlighted by a blue rectangle) in the SERP over a company that bid for the very same ranking.
New Yahoo Toolbar Does Not Default Scan For Adware Yahoo's new beta stage toolbar contains a feature called Anti-Spy. This marks the first search engine toolbar to have a spyware remover integrated into it. As reported in a previous WebProNews article, Yahoo's Anti-Spy beta is powered by PestPatrol, a third party software designed to combat spyware and other malicious programs.
MoreGoogle Ads Features To Google Search Results Andreas Pizsa has created an impressive, although unofficial, Google add-on that changes the way Google result pages appear to users who install it. The utility, called MoreGoogle, adds new features to Google SERPs in an effort to improve user experience.
Tolkien Geeks Launch Shiremail Email Service With 1GB Storage Gmail has another competitor, this one coming from Middle Earth. The Hobbits over at Planet-Tolkien.com have launched Shiremail, an email service that offers a 1 gigabyte storage amount for its members. Because they were not blessed with Google's resources, Shiremail costs members 3.50 (pound sterling) a month.
Lushe Allows Google Search Of Favorite Websites A new Google hack appearing at Lushe.net allows users to designate a favorites list and have Google search only the sites within the list. Glen Murphy, a web developer who has completed a number of successful web experiments, created the hack.
Total Sports Online Launches Megasoccer Search Engine As part of its Megasearch Project, a project that makes use of the Fast Search & Transfer search technology, Total Sports Online ASA has launched MegaSoccer.com, a "topic-specific" search engine devoted to the world of soccer.
Vividence Study Reveals Google Has Most Traffic, Least Ad Clicks A study conducted by Vividence, a market research firm, examined how people interact with search engines. The study, which Vividence released the findings of yesterday, May 25, 2004, found that search engine use and search engine ad click through rates do not necessarily correlate.
Kanoodle Partners With 24/7 Real Media To Provide Behaviorally Targeted Links Kanoodle Inc., a provider of sponsored links for SERPs and content pages has announced a partnership with 24/7 Real Media to provide behaviorally targeted sponsored links. The partnership will make use of Kanoodle's BehaviorTarget network and is expected to launch by the end of the 2nd quarter, 2004.
Amazon CEO Stands To Benefit From Google IPO Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, was one of the first five outside investors into what was a fledgling start-up search engine named Google. Bezos made his investment in 1998, and the result of his support was that Google entitled him to an undisclosed amount of stock at 6 cents a share.
Google Denies AdWords To Deck Of Bush Creators A group that created a satirical deck of cards with reasons not to re-elect President Bush has been denied an AdWords campaign by Google. This isn't the first time that a company that has been critical of the current President has been denied use of AdWords.
Polish Search Engine NetSprint Launches Search In Lithuania Following the search engine trend set by Google and perpetuated by competition sweeping the industry, Polish search engine NetSprint has decided on Lithuania as the next area for its operations. The company has launched a search engine for the country with an index of 2.7 million pages or 90% of Lithuanian sites.
Google Prepares Desktop Search Rumors coming from Mountain View, California suggest that search engine leader Google may be prepared to launch new software that would enable users to search for information on their computers.
Is Google Now Offering 1 Terabyte For Gmail Storage? Yesterday, May 18, 2004, saw the announcement of Lycos Europe offering its paid members 1 gigabyte worth of email storage, while Yahoo announced similar updates last week.
Google Releases Spyware Prevention Guidelines Acknowledging the soon-to-be-released Google Deskbar, Google has released a set of guidelines to assist in the prevention of spyware. The targets for this page are the makers of Internet software and advertisers.
Gmail Terabyte Storage Fixed Although some believe it to be a test by Google, the terabyte worth of storage that was showing up on Gmail accounts is now gone. As reported earlier today, some Gmail members were seeing email storage amounts that equaled close to a terabyte of space. Gmail's actual storage capabilities are 1 gigabyte. A terabyte is roughly equivalent to 1000 gigs.
Lycos Offering 1 Gig Storage For Paid Email Members Incorrectly claiming to be the first to offer this service, Lycos has announced that it will be offering 1 Gigabyte worth of storage to members of its email service. The service will cost around 3.49 Pounds a month, or $6.31 USD.
19 Year Old Runs Successful Search Engine FyberSearch Nathan Enns developed FyberSearch, a non-Google and non-Yahoo related search engine, when he was 18 years old. According to his about page, Enns "is now 19 as of March 21st and continues to be the sole owner of the web and image search engine." He created his engine out of frustration with current non-relevant search results.
Over 100 Million Americans Use Search Engines Nielsen//NetRatings recently reported that 1 in 3 Americans use search engines in their daily lives. This means that over 76% of the online population uses one of many available search engines in their day-to-day browsing. |