Entrepreneur Watch

Google data stolen, China implicated, execs really pissed. What exactly was taken?

NOTE: FOR ONGOING COVERAGE OF THIS AND OTHER GOOGLE TOPICS, PLEASE VISIT MY WEB SITE.

RichardLBrandt.com

Big news from Google today. It has been detecting cyber attacks from China and a theft of "intellectual property." Google executives are so pissed off that they have decided to stop their self-censorship and to do as they promised several years ago and re-evaluate whether it will remain there at all. It is highly likely it will not, because China will never accept an uncensored search engine.

There are several things to say about this.

How much data was stolen?

First, exactly how big were the attacks, and what data may have been compromised either at Google or at the other companies where Google detected attacks? 

The announcement of the attacks in the Google blog says there was "theft of intellectual property from Google." The only thing it mentions is that a little info about the creation of Gmail accounts, such as the dates they were created and subject line, was compromised. Did the attackers get any other intellectual property from Google besides this info?

A Google spokesperson tells me, "So far we don't have any evidence of anything else" being taken. But phrase "so far" means they could still find more later. Also, the spokesperson says Google does not know what, if anything, may have been taken from or compromised at any of the other companies where it detected the attacks.

Should Google get rid of data sooner to protect privacy?

This shows that data is vulnerable, even when protected with Google's sophisticated safeguards. Google keeps data for nine months, but privacy and human rights advocates say it should be less and will certainly point to this example as a reason to cut the retention time.

But there's a dilemma here. On one hand, reducing the time information is kept would reduce the amount of vulnerable info. 

But on the other, Google's retained data may have helped it discover the attack. 

In an interview for my book on Google, I discussed both China and privacy issues with Google lawyer Nicole Wong. We discussed why Google keeps personal information for nine months. She spoke primarily of "denial of service" attacks, but it should apply to others. According to Wong:

"The fact of the matter is that the person successfully attacking us today has probably been trying for two years. So when we go back into the logs for a substantial amount of time, we're able to detect the pattern we have today."

Wong said that's one of the reasons they do not want to get rid of data any sooner -- that nine months is already a compromise. 18 months would be better.

Analyzing whatever data Google and the other companies have retained will now better equip them to better prevent similar attacks in the future. This debate will only intensify.

Were Microsoft and Yahoo also attacked? Who else?

Who were the other companies attacked? Google says it detected at least 20 other companies were similarly attacked, and the New York Times hears from experts that the number may be 34. Google, of course, would never reveal the names of the other companies it informed of the attacks, but it says: 

      "a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted."      

It would make sense that they were companies doing business in China. Companies with similar services at Google -- search engines and email systems -- seem obvious choices. Microsoft, Yahoo, Baidu? (But those are just guesses.) How safe is the info at any company doing business in China? 

Will any of the other companies that were attacked admit it? Google's stock dropped 1.77% today. Because of this news? Will other companies risk taking the hit? Is anyone else willing to leave China as a result.

I'll give you a hint on that one: No.

Did the Chinese government do it?

This was a sophisticated, well-funded attack. The New York Times says that servers in Taiwan and Texas appear to have been involved. Google's description of some of the attacks -- "highly sophisticated", "at least twenty other companies" targeted, the "primary goal" being trying to get info about "Chinese human rights activists" -- certainly suggests this was an attack by the Chinese government. Somebody had a lot of technology, time and money to do this.  The New York Times thinks so:

"Google did not publicly link the Chinese government to the cyber attack, but people with knowledge of Google’s investigation said they had enough evidence to justify its actions."

The U.S. government has to be investigating this as well. Another guess.

Google is pissed!

One thing is for sure. Google management -- and particularly Sergey Brin, who has always had misgivings about the decision to enter China -- are really pissed. The attacks tipped the debate in favor of withdrawing. Now I wonder if other companies will follow suit.

I'll give you a hint on that one also: See above.

Google insults, injures Nexus One customers

                            

Google News just took me to this article at WSJ about Nexus One users having trouble connecting to T-Mobile's 3G network. 

Says Google then adds insult to injury by ... Oops! You've got to subscribe to WSJ to get the full article. Let's see, type a couple keywords into my Chrome browser ...

Ah, yes, here's the full article that the WSJ ran, on a NASDAQ site instead -- for free. 

Says Google adds insult to injury by telling customers to submit email complaints but says not to expect an answer.

The NASDAQ site also has some nice ads...

Prediction: Journalism in 2021: Real reporters, Google, Salon.com and the death of Rupert Murdoch

Beginning of the decade predictions are wonderfully fun. For the columnists making them. 

But they're generally about as accurate as George W. Bush talking about ... well, pretty much anything. Except for those predictions as obvious as a Sunday morning hangover.

And the obvious is boring.

But why shouldn't I have fun at your expense? I'm a journalist. What else have I got to do?

So here's my expert prediction:

The fate of journalism over the next decade!

Ready? Here it comes:

More layoffs and less profit.

          

Oh, shit. 

Why will will this be? Because media "moguls" like Rupert Murdoch think they can fight the Google News ripoff machine and bypass the Google by hiding content behind Google-proof walls guarded by toll bridges. Take that, Larry and Sergey! Hahaha! You can't make money off me!

                    

Loser.

I meant the idea, not Mr. Rupert. No, really.

The problem is that everyone in the journalism biz seems to agree with the divine Mr. M., at least to the extent that they believe we should pay subscriptions for online news.

Hogwarts, I say. 

Won't work. You'll never keep your story exclusive for more than 27.43 seconds. I've timed it. Why pay to go to a site for a news story that I can find on a bazillion, two hundred thousand and six blogs who've repeated the story? You can't sue 'em all.

Mr. Rupert, Have you ever heard of Salon.com? Tried it. Didn't work. Dropped it.

                               

But wait! There's more! I have another prediction, one of a more enlightened time! The next, next big decade!

Journalism in 2021:

OK, this one is really good:

Real online news, written and reported by real journalists, who get paid real wages, supported by ...

advertising!

Huh? Wait. What? Everybody knows that nobody makes enough money off advertising to buy enough Preparation H for a year. Am I crazy?

I often ask myself that question.

                                                  

That's as may be. But I'm telling you, the future of journalism is online, and the future of online journalism is advertising. 

The problem is not that advertising-supported news is a bad idea for the 21st Century. It worked for most of the 20th Century. 

The problem is that Internet advertising sucks!

Let's go to Salon's home page. Any ads there for >Me<? OK, here we go. Click. 

Uh, a pop-up for a free audio book? Miss. (Books are meant to be read, not heard.) 

Acid reduction? Miss. (I haven't dropped any in years.) 

Berkeley MBAs? Miss. (Ick.) 

(I mean, who wants an MBA these days? Who wants an MBA grad to run their company any more? Or their state?

But I digress...)

Technology, yeah, that's the clicker...

I know! Let's go to the 'Tech and Biz' section of Salon in search of ads more interesting to tech readers! 

Berkeley MBAs again. Miss again. (Ick again.) 

TurboTax. Miss. (Nice try, but I use an accountant. The IRS would never believe my deductions otherwise.)

But wait! What's that over to the right? Ads by Pulse 36C:

Teeth whitener discovered by a mom. Miss. How a mom lost 57 pounds. Miss.

OK, and I'm insulted by the implications. I'm not a mom.

And how'd they get the name 36C?

                                             

But wait, there's one more more...

Aha! Something else, at the bottom. Ads by Google: 

Get Nexus One. Hit! (Once Verizon Wireless has it, I'm there.) 

I flip around looking for other Google ads. Natural skin care. Miss. (The Google must've seen me looking up skin rash medications. No, no, really, it's not that kind of a rash.) War on the Dollar Exposed! Miss. (The Google has probably been reading my emails complaining about government bailouts for everyone except >Me<.)

Of course, your results may vary.

Here's the score:

          Salon sales reps: Zero.

          Pulse 36C: Zero.

          The Google AdSense: One. And some scary insights.

          

OK the Google probably isn't feeding me ads based on my emails. Yet. Google ads still have a long way to go. But as imperfect as they are, Google ads collected $9 BILLION from advertisers in the third quarter of 2009.

Think how much better it will get as the Google learns more about me. But online pubs and most other web sites ain't even in the game, 'cept for a few AdSense ads stuck in the corner. 

So here's...

What we NEED for 2021:

Google should team up with some pubs, analyze where their readers go within that publication, use that data to figure out each reader's interests, add its other creepy magic tricks, and feed the readers great ads that actually interest them. 

The technology is there. Why aren't we? We just need some smart journalist to make it happen.

Know any?

Who says there's no future in advertising for online journalism? 

Oh yeah. Rupert Murdoch.

Well, he can't live forever.

                    (Special Advertising Section:)

"chockfull of new insights about one of the world’s most thoroughly scrutinized companies!"

-- Elise Ackerman, Silicon Beat.

Buy it now at bookstores everywhere!

Or at Amazon.com.

Verizon Wireless ain't all bad.

   I have often criticized Verizon Wireless on my blog. The main reason has been that it (like all other wireless carriers in U.S.) acts like an old-line company refusing to get with the times. It bribes us with locked-in phones so we can't change service for two years. So I swore that when my contract was up, I would buy an unlocked phone. 

   But the worst thing is that it has had huge fights with Google. It has been the most reluctant company to open up to outside apps. And I hate the Verizon apps. I couldn't even get gmail or Google Maps on the handset I (mistakenly) bought two years ago. Google took the fight to the FCC's 700 MHz auction in order to open up this spectrum. It lost to Verizon. (Nice summary by Susan Crawford of U Michigan Law School here.)

   Now Verizon is opening up. It has already started offering more outside apps. After turning down the opportunity to become the first carrier to offer the Google Android phones (it apparently turned down the opportunity to be the first to carry the iPhone, according to one of my sources) it is now embracing the new Nexus One coming out next spring.

   And here's a personal note on Verizon's customer service. A while back (I can't remember exactly when) I went to the Verizon Wireless online site and cancelled every service except basic calling, since the other services were useless to me. Since I get paperless bills via email, I didn't check the details as often as I should. And there they were: charges for VCast, email and IM that I thought were gone. An extra $35 a month or so.

   I sent an email to customer service to complain even though I was past the dispute period. To my surprise, I got a very satisfactory response. A Verizon Wireless rep named Sylvia examined the detail, could not find what went wrong, but decided to credit me $103 anyway.

   That is customer service I never would have expected from a phone company. Verizon Wireless seems to be getting with the program and the realities of doing business in the 21st Century.

   I may actually decide to stay with Verizon Wireless and get a new Nexus One next Spring. Maybe it wil even do some good things with the 700 MHz spectrum. Or is that hoping for too much?

Vote: Is Google Evil?

I'm running a survey/poll. Do you think Google has become evil? Please vote and give your opinion at my site, http://RichardLBrandt.com. 

First 10 people to offer their comments get a free copy of Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain.

Best comment gets a free copy of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.

Check out the summary explanation on my blog here.

Read my full commentary, vote in the free poll, comment on the article here. 

Thought-provoking Web sites

I just started following @tomhalle on twitter, an executive I've known for some years. He came up with a few great, thought-provoking web sites. I thought I'd repeat them here in additino to my retweets on twitter.

Daily Beast: 25 Ways to Get Smarter in 2010 http://bit.ly/5LQFkt

PHOTOS: The Most Innovative Web Site Designs Of All Time http://bit.ly/5DGpzC

Scientists discovery antibody that kills prostate cancerhttp://bit.ly/5Wh6vy (RT @RawStory)

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia http://bit.ly/2ktaib

Thought for 2010: How to succeed in business? Don't be evil

Greed is bad. Fear is bad. Google is good. 

(Wait. Hear me out.)

    As we enter a new year and, full of hope, crawl toward a better year than the one that brought many of us to our knees, I thought it would be good to stop and think for a moment about what it means to be an entrepreneur.

    I take my example, of course, from the two most successful entrepreneurs in the world Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Despite the cynics (and I'm usually among the most cynical), and despite an arrogance born of oversized brains and an almost religious belief that they are doing the right thing, they really do their best to build an ethical business. Their model is the one that will prove to be the most successful in the coming decade. Get used to it.

    Greed is no longer good. With all due respect to Andy Grove, a man I have always and still do admire, is a life built around greed and fear really worth living? The most fascinating thing to me is the irony that, in what has become the most hyper-competitive business climate the world has ever seen, greed and fear are no longer the best motivators for success.

    Consider that when they were still at Stanford, Larry and Sergey wanted a search engine to be a non-profit. Scoff it you like (the folks at CNBC did when I mentioned this on-air) but it is absolutely true. They did go commercial, but when they did it, they did it on their own terms.

    Neither men came from families with capitalist roots. Academia, not entrepreneurship, was the families' prominent aspiration. Certainly, when Larry and Sergey went to Stanford, they had a strong entrepreneurial leaning.

    So how did two nerds with no business experience create such a successful company? Quite simple, really. They decided to ignore Wall Street. 

    In today's world, almost any CEO of a public company will tell you that his or her primary constituency is the shareholder. Larry and Sergey had a radical idea: What if your company was actually dedicated to making a great product, something that makes the world a little better? And what if you considered your customer to be your boss?

    Every time they faced a business decision that would either benefit the users or increase revenues, they chose the users (and consider the fact that these were not even "customers," since Google's revenues come from advertisers, not users.) They even favored the customers over advertisers when it seemed as though the decision would reduce revenues and profits. If that makes you nervous, do not buy Google stock.

    That is what being an entrepreneur should be all about. Larry, Sergey - and Craig Newmark, for that matter - show that the right approach to business can do more than bring wealth, it can bring contentment, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of self-worth. Now compare that to greed and fear.

    That is not to say that wealth is bad. I wish I had some. But as it happens, these ideals turn out to be the surest path to success. This is the most hyper-competitive business environment the world has ever seen, thanks to the Internet. It's reducing old industries to rubble and rebuilding new versions from the wreckage -- sometimes way too slowly (I know; I'm a journalist.)

    The only way to compete in that environment is to return to basics: Products built with the most intense passion, designed and sold with the highest regard for the customers, created for the sake of the product itself, not for the wealth it brings. 

    The new opportunities the Internet brings make this approach essential. Why does Google get into so many new businesses -- a smart phone called Nexus One, or a new tablet PC with free software, for example? Because the computer industry and the wireless industry are being destroyed by their own greed! Two-year lock-ins, extra charges for text messages that cost the wireless carriers zero, software that costs hundreds of dollars; these industries are full of inefficiencies and over-pricing that the Internet renders obsolete. And that means (as it always does) new opportunities for smart, savvy entrepreneurs with a new approach.

    In a world of near-frictionless capitalism, where every company, product and service is at the tip of those fingers tapping on a keyboard, why would customers choose anything less?

Is Google no longer the 'Don't be evil' company? You decide. Win free books. Seriously.

                                                               

(SEE ALSO MY POSTING ON NON-EVIL LESSONS FROM GOOGLE.)

    On its march to world domination, has Google come to a fork in the road and taken the corporate path more traveled? The one that leads a giant corporation to arrogance, monopolistic practices, disregard for competitors (and the welfare of whole industries), and just plain evilness?

    To many, Google's power and size have turned it into the old Microsoft, while the new Microsoft has become the poor underdog fighting the good fight against the Google monopoly. Google is abusing its power, poking its Snidely Whiplash nose into our personal Internet transgressions, monitoring our phone calls, stealing copyrighted books for its own gain, destroying the journalism business, censoring search results in China, and even dodging taxes in the UK.

    But I've got a problem with all that. Now, here's my confession. Please don't judge me too harshly. So far, I'm not worried about any of this. 

    And it bugs me. Everyone thinks I'm too soft on Google. It has absolutely ruined my reputation as a hard-hitting, skeptical, curmudgeonly, Snidely Whiplash-ish journalist. Those were the days.

    So I need your help. Please help me regain my bad reputation.

    I'm looking for feedback. Is Google evil?  I'm holding a contest at RichardLBrandt.com for the best examples of kindness or evil deeds by Google and the best opinions on why Google is/isn't the meanest thing to come along since Dick Cheney. 

    I'm really giving out prizes for this one. Good stuff! Books! The first 10 people to post comments -- whether you think Google is good or evil -- will get a free, autographed (with effusive praise of your wit and wisdom) copy of the extraordinary new book, "Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain" (a book about the founders of Google). Although it does not say "Google" anywhere on the cover, it is indeed about the Google founders. You know, Larry and Sergey. Page and Brin. Some people don't know that. Talk to the publisher about it.

    But wait! There's one more incentive: The person with the most interesting response -- whether it's 'Good Google' or 'Evil Google' -- will get free autographed copies of both "Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain," (a book about the founders of Google) AND Ken Auletta's book, "Googled: The End of the World as We Know it." It takes much longer to read and doesn't have the snazzy writing of "Inside Larry & Sergey's Brain," (a book about the founders of Google) but you get more pages for the money. 

    Go to RichardLBrandt.com to enter and to vote on the winner. Please! You'll get more background on this issue, including perspective on google, evil, don't be evil, microsoft, snidely whiplash, henry blodget, search, search advertising, server advertising, adwords, adsense, admob, censorship, android, nexus one, verizon, t-mobile, netbook, google netbook, british taxes, open source software, china, opinion, inside larry & sergey's brain, googled: the end of the world as we know it, ken auletta, google contest, don't be evil contest, dick cheney, and chopped liver.

     You won't be sorry. But I might.