Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 6/11 – 6/15

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A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Google ranked the worst in privacy policy practices by watchdog group, Privacy International, YouTube tests new video id system on Time Warner and Walt Disney video products, Google Analytics graduates from beta with new features, eBay halts their Google AdWords campaign after controversial move to directly compete against the auction giant, and finally, Vanessa Fox leaves Google for Zillow.

Monday

• Privacy International Rates Google Worst on Privacy Issues – Watchdog group, Privacy International has released a privacy ranking report of Internet service companies and in doing so, gave Google the worst rating in privacy practices. Soon afterward they then published an open letter demanding apology from Google after alleging that Google representatives claimed that they have a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft. It’s a mess. Matt Cutts chimes in with his disagreement on the report. Danny Sullivan also provides a lengthy point-by-point analysis of whether Google’s rating was deserved.

Tuesday

• YouTube To Test Video Identification System - Time Warner and Walt Disney Co. will be the first guinea pigs for a new video identification technology YouTube is using to protect the copyright’s of video producers. This new technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google, will help content owners such as movie and TV studios identify videos uploaded to the site without the copyright owner’s permission. Once proven, the technology could be used to block the uploading of copyrighted clips. Their goal is to make the tools widely available to any copyright owner later this year.

Wednesday

• Google Analytics Comes Out of Beta With New Features - They have finally removed the “beta” tag and added new features to Google Analytics. Improvement/features include hourly reporting, clickable URLs to all external pages referenced in reports, cross segmentation by network location, increased number of data rows per page, and easier AdWords integration. Jordan McCollum has put together a couple of screen shots at Marketing Pilgrim. The full details can be read at The Official Google Analytics Blog.

Thursday

• eBay Halts Their Google Advertising After Controversial Move By Google - Now what would Google do to make eBay so upset that they would make the decision to halt their U.S. advertising with Google AdWords? It was the Let Freedom Ring party Google had planned during the eBay Live event in currently being held in Boston. The party was an attempt to expose eBay sellers to its Checkout product, which I might ad directly competes against eBay owned PayPal. Google’s strategy for holding the party during an eBay event was due to the fact that the auction giant refuses to discuss providing Google Checkout as a payment option for sellers and buyers on eBay.Soon after eBay put a hold on their advertising campaign, Google canceled the party. However, despite the canceled party, eBay has still not turned the switch back on for their AdWords campaign. Frankly, I’m glad the ads are offline as it was typical to see an eBay ad for just about every imaginable search combination, relevant or not. Maybe Google will re-think future strategy through a little better when they decide to compete directly with one of their largest advertisers. Seems the old adage, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” fits well here.

Friday

• Google Says Goodbye to Vanessa Fox - Vanessa has quickly become the second most known Googler that is accessible to webmasters next to Matt Cutts. She is the one of the key people responsible for Webmaster Central which has become a very resourceful tool to webmasters marketing their sites on Google. Yesterday she announced her departure as she will be taking on a new role at Zillow. Although many bloggers wrote about the news, I’d like to call attention to Rand Fishkin’s tribute to her where he pays her homage for all the work she has done to bring Google and webmasters together. We will certainly miss her role at Google but wish her the very best success in her new venture.