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David A. Utter


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August 2007: And earlier this week, my colleague, David Utter, dropped a new term on us: Search Neutrality. An interesting point was that Google argues (rightly, I might add) that the telecommunications industry cannot be trusted with the Internet without government oversight. Yet, Google maintains it most certainly can be trusted with our information because, well, 'the company says so.'

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/08/09/scholars-push-for-search-engine-regulation

March 2006: Journalist.

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) WebProNews Source Jun 20, 2008

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jun 20, 2008 Paid Link Reporting Spurs Furious Debate

QUOTE: Gray wants to see Google pursue the so-called A-List of bloggers, determine whether or not they picked up some kind of benefit in exchange for favorable blogging, and penalize them the same way Google penalizes link sellers. "Why does Google aggressively go after the SEOs and ignore the PR people? Why do people continue to tolerate Google’s double standards and two-tiered justice?" Gray asked.

 WebProNews
Jun 20, 2008 Fees Proposed To Embitter Domain Tasting: Network Solutions backs ICANN provision on mass domain deletions

QUOTE: Network Solutions suggested to ICANN the adoption of a per-transaction fee to try and rein in the practices of domain kiting and front running domain names in volume...If adopted, not only should the measure curtail a lot of the kiting and tasting taking place, but it should hamper the front running efforts of registrars. Network Solutions took heat in January over its front running of domains, a practice they claim was in place to stop domain tasters.

 WebProNews
Jun 18, 2008 Google Debunks Link Sabotage Theories: Poor quality rather than bad links causes site ranking woes, they claim

QUOTE: In a mildly direct way, Mueller suggested the site's low quality, not the inbound links, needs work. As far as evil linking and site rankings go, Mueller said in a follow-up that in theory the linking cited could cause a problem in some "borderline situations," but still suggested the webmaster in question needs to study Google's quality guidelines.

 WebProNews
May 27, 2008 Google Says You Can't Buy The Top Ad Spot: The ad clicker should benefit the most

QUOTE: Wealthy businesses and smaller operations all compete fairly when it comes to testing ad quality... Google plans to subject advertisers to landing page load time assessments.

 WebProNews
Apr 11, 2008 Microsoft Proposes Privacy Framework To FTC

QUOTE: Microsoft called for a five-tiered framework that imposes increasing obligations depending on the type of advertising involved...

 WebProNews
Feb 18, 2008 Google News Slow To Reinstate UN Critic: Inner City Press accused Google of UN complicity

QUOTE: a whistleblower in UNDP's legal department had his office computer impounded and was told, you have visited InnerCityPress.com multiple times. While the interrogation reflected contempt for the freedom to read and freedom of the press, the issue goes far beyond the corporate culture at UNDP, to that of Google. The Government Accountability Project also criticized Google for delisting Inner City Press.

 WebProNews
Jan 11, 2008 Google Hacking Not Fun For You

QUOTE: Securing one's server is a waste of time if someone leaves a spreadsheet full of usernames and passwords where it can be found with a public search...They call it Google Hacking, and it means being able to find secret stuff with the help of a well-crafted query fed to Google...

 WebProNews
Nov 01, 2007 Mozilla's Devilish Deal With Google

QUOTE: Two aspects of Mozilla's close ties with Google over development of the Firefox browser have Chris Soghoian concerned about a conflict of interest in play.

 WebProNews
Aug 09, 2007 Scholars Push For Search Engine Regulation: Here's an idea sure to start some fires: Is it necessary to consider government regulation of search engines? Please hold your throwing-stones until the end

QUOTE: a natural oligarchy has developed whereby a few entities control what information is viewable to the public. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the gatekeepers can be trusted. But there is an inherent possibility (and thus, temptation and motivation) that information can be manipulated to the benefit of the provider, or to the detriment of the competition.

 WebProNews
May 02, 2007 Digg Embroiled In HD DVD Controversy: The posting of a code that decrypts HD DVD format DRM caused plenty of uproar at the social news site when Digg administrators took down posts and banned accounts

QUOTE: The final word on the HD DVD encryption key on Digg comes from its most well-known Digger, co-founder Kevin Rose: But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

 WebProNews
Feb 01, 2007 Where's The Fire? It's On Technorati

QUOTE: As Sifry noted, anyone (logged in as a Technorati user) can write a WTF about the competition. What if Company A chooses to write that Company B "regularly tests its products on fluffy bunnies while the CEO giggles in the corner" and Company B doesn't see that right away?

 WebProNews
Oct 24, 2006 Imagining Google As Government: In the latest edition of speculation and hyperbole over the search advertising company and its impact on society, we consider the prospect of one nation, under a big G

QUOTE: Rescuecom believes that as advertising on the Internet is a two-way communication, typically initiated by the consumer who types a search term into their computer, it is reasonable for the consumer to expect that if they type in a specific trademark, they find that trademark....Instead of paying off settlements to end lawsuits, Google fights those suits, with each victory bringing one more bit of case law, one more scrap of precedent, to their favor.

 WebProNews
Oct 20, 2006 Google, Microsoft Surrender To Belgians: Microsoft and Google have agreed to remove content managed by Copiepresse of Belgium from their indexes, with Google further being requested to pay nearly $43m

QUOTE: News of the case against Google came to light in September, when a report from Chilling Effects exposed the Belgian court decision in favor of Copiepresse. Google had been ordered to remove "the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press...from all their sites."

 WebProNews
Jul 27, 2006 Verizon Hits Unlimited Users With Limits

QUOTE: The EVDO offering from Verizon Wireless has been touted by the company as an "unlimited" service; instead, the service is very much limited...using Verizon's EVDO broadband service like a broadband account violated a little-known clause in the terms of service.

 WebProNews
Jul 21, 2006 How Google Can Find Your Secret Page

QUOTE: Amazingly enough, some webmasters haven't learned about Google yet, and how easy it is to retrieve pages that have been poorly protected from being viewed.

 WebProNews
Jul 14, 2006 Ranking Suit Against Google Dismissed: KinderStart will amend its complaint against Google for effectively dropping the KinderStart website from its index when Google assigned the company a zero

QUOTE: A most serious concern for Google now is defamation. The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a whole class of Websites sacked with a '0' PageRank. If Plaintiffs show that Google manually tampered with even a single Website's PageRank, Google's entire claim to the world of "objectivity" of its search results and rankings could collapse.

 WebProNews
Apr 06, 2006 Yahoo Implicated In Spyware Click Fraud

QUOTE: Advertisers who expect their Overture ad campaigns to run with certain Yahoo Searches may be surprised to find their ads running in syndicated spyware applications that render each impression as an ad click the advertiser must pay.

 WebProNews
Mar 09, 2006 AdWords Addresses Click Fraud Questions

QUOTE: Google also sees a problem with all invalid clicks being called fraudulent. Many clicks happen due to other causes, like someone double-clicking on an ad.

 WebProNews