BEST OF THE WEB: What happens when Google says your business has closed – but it hasn’t

We all trust Google to tell the truth. When we search for a well-known website, we trust that it will be provide the optimal search results. When we type in an address, we trust the search giant will give us the right place on its Maps feature, complete with photos at street level.

But what happens when Google says that a business is closed, when it actually isn’t?

This is exactly what has happened to some businesses in the United States, as pointed out by this New York Times article.

Entrepreneur Jason Rule got a fright when he noticed his business, Coffee Rules Lounge, was listed as “permanently closed” on Google Maps. As it turns out, it’s quite easy for Google to show that your business is closed, when it may in fact be thriving.

“When Google created Places it had an eminently sensible type of crowd-sourcing in mind. The site contains millions of listings, and when owners close without updating their profile, the job falls to customers to keep information current.”

“But like any open system, this one can be abused. Search engine consultants say that ‘closing’ a business on Google has become an increasingly common tactic among unscrupulous competitors.”

It’s a frustrating tactic, and one that search marketers have been warning about for years. This article is a great example of what can happen when search profiles go bad.

The Amazon tablet is coming to kill the iPad

The Amazon tablet has been a rumoured product for quite awhile… until now. Over at TechCrunch, MG Seigler has written that not only has he seen the infamous gadget, but he’s actually had a play with it. And he believes it could be the first real competitor to the iPad.

The device itself is said to be quite solid and usable. But the real attraction here is the ecosystem. Amazon has an ecosystem of apps and eBooks that can be brought onto the tablet fairly seamlessly, and as Seigler points out, could be a great selling point along with a new feature – Amazon Prime.

“Amazon is going to promote the hell out of this thing on Amazon.com. Second, the plan right now is to give buyers a free subscription to Amazon Prime.”

“The service, which Amazon currently sells for $79 a year, gives users access to things like free unlimited two-day shipping, and no minimum purchases for free shipping. More importantly for this product, Prime users get access to Amazon’s Instant Video service. There will be more Kindle-related perks, I imagine.”

The tech world has been waiting for an iPad competitor. This may finally be it.

The hacking threat from the east

The nature of hacking has grown far beyond teenagers in their bedrooms breaking into corporate databases. Now even countries are launching full scale hacking attacks against other nations, and analysts suspect that shortly in the future, hacking and cybercrimes could be a major part of modern warfare.

This new piece on Vanity Fair investigates some of the hacking threats that have recently come out of China, and are suspected by some of being state sponsored.

With a massive hacking attack that targeted software companies occurring last year, and another that attacked Iran, security experts fear hacking could become the next big tool in a country’s defence arsenal.

“China’s aggressive campaign of cyber-espionage began about a decade ago, with attacks on US government agencies (the details have still not been divulged). Then China broadened the scope of its efforts, infiltrating the civilian sector in order to steal intellectual property and gain competitive advantage over Western companies.”

“Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, who gave Aurora and Night Dragon their names and has written definitive studies of A.P.T. attacks, says that “today we see pretty much any company that has valuable intellectual property or trade secrets of any kind being pilfered continually, all day long, every day, relentlessly.”

It’s a big wake up call not only for corporates, but SMEs as well – intellectual property needs to be protected.

AT&T’s dominance in the 20^th century

AT&T has been back in the spotlight recently after the US Department of Justice moved to block its acquisition of T-Mobile, saying it would reduce competition.

With the company now in focus again, it’s a good opportunity to look back on the company and see how it got to where it is, as the leading telecommunications group in the United States.

This new piece on Ars Technica looks back on the company’s history during the 20^th century and highlights some notable moments, including when in the 1980s it divested seven of its Bell carriers and won the right to go into the computer market.

“For the first time in six decades, residential, business, and long distance telephone service became a competitive industry. Was this a good thing? As the breakup went into effect, not everybody was sure.”

The piece draws parallels between AT&T’s position in the 1980s when it wanted to enter the computer industry, and its latest acquisition target. Only time will tell whether AT&T can move into another market for a more modern era.

“But should it go through despite regulators’ opposition, historians will need to decide whether the 1984 breakup of AT&T represented the end to the monopoly era, or just another hiatus.”