Jonathan Blundell's Page

So this is why Google wants to combat climate change! :-) (HT to Ma.tt)

Google (GOOG) has begun operating a data center in Belgium that has no chillers to support its cooling systems, a strategy that will improve its energy efficiency while making local weather forecasting a larger factor in its data center management.

Chiller… Continue

Excerpts from Mashable.com

It’s not about how Google makes money, it’s about where

Google generated about $21 billion in revenue last year. The vast majority of that revenue, well over 95%, comes from advertising via its search engine and its AdSense program, which places ads on millions of websites, including Mashable (Mashable).

The Google Revenue Equation


Thus, while Google has a lot of complex al… Continue

http://www.slate.com/id/2217232/

Last week, the company gave self-Googlers more power to control their online image. Now, in addition to everything else that Google turns up on a vanity search, it will also display a link to your Google Profile—a page that Google is encouraging everyone to create. Type in "farhad manjoo," and at the bottom of the first page you'll see a link to my profile, which leaves out the nasty bits—I tell the world about my j… Continue

Google's introduced new targeted ads based on the web history of users. Using cookies to track users, Google will offer up targeted ads for individuals.

Great for advertisers, bad for privacy folks.

But Google has offered an opt-out option for users (not by default)....

http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/

From CNET:

Google has apologized for a promotion in Japan that violated the company's own search guidelines.

"Google Japan is running several promotional activities to let people know more about our products. It turns out that using blogs on the part of the promotional activities violates Google's search guidelines, so we have ended the promotion. We would like to apologize to the peopl… Continue