Google to enhance tools to fight click fraud

Google Inc. will provide more data and tools to help its advertisers assess and combat click fraud, a controversial practice that is the biggest enemy of the otherwise highly popular and profitable online advertising model known as pay per click.With most of its escalating revenue coming from pay per click ads, Google has a vested interest in addressing click fraud, which happens when someone clicks on these ads with malicious purposes.Because in this format advertisers pay every time someone clicks on their ads, companies sometimes click on competitors' ads to drive up their ad spending. Another common click-fraud practice is for Web publishers to click on their sites' ads to increase their commissions."We're trying to provide advertisers as much transparency, understanding and control around this issue as we can," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's business product manager for trust and safety.Thus, starting in March, Google plans to allow its advertisers to "blacklist" certain IP addresses for whatever reason, such as suspicion of click fraud or simply because their clicks never lead to a sale, he said."IP filtering is going to allow advertisers to say: 'If I believe a given IP address isn't producing productive traffic for me, then I don't want to ever show my ads to that IP address,'" Ghosemajumder said.Also this month, Google intends to launch a Web site "resource center" devoted to click fraud, where the company will post information and tutorials to educate its advertisers about this issue, which Google prefers to call invalid clicks.Since July, Google has reported to advertisers the number of invalid clicks to their campaigns, as well as what percentage they comprise of all clicks. Later this month, Google plans to beef up these reports with another figure: the amount of money Google didn't bill the advertiser by detecting and discarding invalid clicks, he said.Finally, in the second quarter, Google will provide advertisers with a standardized interface for reporting click fraud complaints that lead to an investigation, he said.Estimates about the incidence of click fraud vary widely, with some people saying it affects a negligible amount of ads and others suggesting that upwards of 40 percent of all clicks are malicious.Less than 10 percent of clicks on Google ads are deemed invalid, Ghosemajumder said, declining to be more specific. Most of those are proactively detected by Google, and only 0.02 percent are declared invalid as a result of advertisers' complaints, he said.Google prefers to use the term invalid clicks because it maintains that not all incidents of click fraud are malicious in nature, but can also come about from innocent user behavior, such as some people's tendency to always click twice on a link.ClickForensics LLC, which provides technology and services to combat click fraud, estimates that in last year's fourth quarter 14.2 percent of clicks were fraudulent.Advertisers have taken Google, Yahoo Inc. and other providers of pay per click ads to court over the issue of click fraud, alleging that these companies haven't done enough to curb the practice.Google reached a landmark settlement of a click-fraud class action lawsuit last year which many described as a big victory for the company. A loss could have likely cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, but instead Google managed to settle the case for US$90 million.As part of the deal, all but several hundred Google advertisers forfeited their right to sue the company over click-fraud instances dating back to 2002.The settlement also allowed Google, which admitted to no wrongdoing or liability, to only pay a third of the settlement in cash -- all for plaintiffs' attorney fees -- with the rest taking the form of credits for advertisers. Of the $60 million allotted for ad credits, many estimate that only a fraction, possibly no more than $12 million, will be claimed.

Lenovo recalls 208,000 notebook batteries

Months after joining other PC vendors in a massive recall of faulty notebook batteries, Lenovo Group Ltd. has found a different problem with some models, and will recall 208,000 notebook batteries worldwide, the company said Thursday.Lenovo made the move after five customers complained their batteries overheated after they had dropped or hit the notebooks. The defect caused minor eye irritation for one user, and damaged the property and computers of the others, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.The recall affects the nine-cell, extended-life version of a battery pack manufactured by Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., of Japan. Lenovo sold the packs between November 2005 and February 2007 as an option in certain versions of ThinkPad notebook PCs in the R series, T series and Z series model lines, the commission said. The faulty packs have the part number FRU P/N 92P1131.Buyers of those PCs had the choice to purchase either a standard six-cell lithium ion battery pack or longer-endurance nine-cell packs, said Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman.The problem occurred with the pack, a box designed in tandem by Lenovo and Sanyo that holds the battery cells. That is a different fault than the metal shards that contaminated battery cells made by Sony Corp., causing some batteries to overheat or catch fire and leading to the recall in 2006 of millions of notebook batteries used by nearly every PC vendor."We have isolated the cause of failure, and have redesigned and strengthened the battery pack that caused it," Gorman said.In a statement, Sanyo said the pack had met all its specifications and internal testing standards, and that the failures occurred only after "a strong external impact to the battery pack of a specific notebook PC model from a certain angle."Sanyo will help pay for the recall, but the terms are confidential, Gorman said. The financial impact on both companies is not yet clear, although the recall covers less than two percent of the particular models sold by Lenovo during the period, including 100,000 notebooks in the U.S., he said.Lenovo will manage the recall, collecting customers' faulty packs and replacing them with free new ones from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic) or Sanyo. Lenovo builds ThinkPad PCs with batteries from Panasonic, Sanyo or Sony. Only Sanyo battery packs have this defect, and Lenovo plans to retain the company as a supplier, Gorman said.Lenovo advised customers who own one of the eight affected ThinkPad models to immediately remove the battery, and continue using their PCs only by plugging in the AC adapter and power cord. The models include the R60 and R60e series, T60 and T60p series, and Z60m, Z61e, Z61m and Z61p series.The company is providing details on exchanging the faulty battery packs on its Web site.

Toshiba says 51GB HD DVD still under development

A three-layer HD DVD disc with enough room for about 7 hours of high-definition video is still under development and hasn't been submitted for approval to the DVD Forum, the standard's governing body, despite reports to the contrary, Toshiba Corp. said Thursday.The disc, which has a capacity of 51G bytes, was first unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January this year. It attracted much attention not just because it substantially raises the maximum capacity of an HD DVD disc but also because it beats that of the rival Blu-ray Disc format, albeit by just 1G byte.In the last few days a number of Web sites and blogs have reported the format has been submitted for approval to the DVD Forum and some have said that approval has been received, but Toshiba says nothing of the sort has happened."We're puzzled ourself by where these reports came from," said Junko Furuta, a spokeswoman for the company in Tokyo. She said Toshiba hasn't made any further announcements about the disc since CES, and it wasn't submitted to any steering committees during this week's DVD Forum meetings in Tokyo.When Toshiba first announced the disc in January, it said it hoped to get approval for the disc some time in 2007.HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc are competing to become the de facto replacement for DVD for storing high-definition movies and other content. HD DVD is primarily backed by Toshiba, while Sony Corp. is the main backer of Blu-ray Disc. HD DVD can hold 15G bytes on a single disc, or 30G bytes on a dual layer disc, while Blu-ray Disc manages 25G bytes or 50G bytes on single or dual-layer discs respectively.To fit 51G bytes on its prototype disc Toshiba added a third recording layer and increased the maximum storage capacity of each layer to 17G bytes.

Nokia venture pushes phone payments

Nokia Corp., one of the first handset makers outside Japan to turn a phone into a wallet, now wants to sell services that will make these kinds of devices useful.But the Finnish mobile equipment giant isn't doing so directly. Instead, it has formed what it calls an independent third party, a joint venture with Germany's Giesecke & Devrient, which makes smart cards. The venture, Venyon Oy, based in Helsinki, was launched in December and is about to open a Singapore office to complement locations in Munich and Dallas, according to Chief Executive Officer Lauri Pesonen.The mobile phone payments Venyon wants to facilitate are based on NFC (near-field communication), which uses an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip and antenna to exchange information with a payment station from a range of a few centimeters. Typically it would involve tapping the phone against a subway turnstile, a vending machine, a payment device at a checkout stand, or another phone, Pesonen said.Phones are perfect for payment because people carry them almost everywhere, Pesonen told journalists at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. NFC is already available on some credit and debit cards, and NFC phones will get cheaper when they no longer need a separate smart card for the feature. Such phones should hit the market next year, he said.Like 3G (third-generation) mobile data services, NFC first got off the ground in Japan with slightly different technology, in this case Sony Corp.'s FeliCa system. Now big names including Sony, Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Visa International Service Association and MasterCard International Inc. are backing the technology through the NFC Forum and there are trials taking place in several places around the world. But outside Japan and South Korea, there are few phones equipped to use it.Venyon isn't aiming at the hardware end of the problem but at the need for an infrastructure through which retailers and financial services companies can work with carriers and handset makers. Although standards bodies are working on specifications for this, Venyon is worried that the market will be in full swing by the time those standards are finished. If each set of partners develops its own technology, fragmentation would slow down adoption, Pesonen said.Venyon is offering services to support mobile NFC applications that can be downloaded and managed over the air. For example, a service that lets the user prepay for subway rides would involve the transit operator, the mobile carrier, a financial institution and software that needs to be downloaded to the phone. Venyon would provide that service behind the scenes, Pesonen said.Ovum Ltd. analyst Roger Entner thinks many people eventually will embrace payment by phone for its convenience. The practice might be even more popular in countries where consumers don't yet have credit cards, he added. But Entner is less worried than Venyon about fragmentation. The company wants to jump out ahead and grab market share, but more competitors means better ideas, he said."I have great trust in the market forces," Entner said.NFC could well succeed but faces an uphill battle in the U.S., in the view of analyst Clay Ryder at Sageza Group Inc. Fewer U.S. consumers make small, daily payments on transit systems. Phone payments initially would appeal most to people in their early 20s, he said.

WIRELESS DOOR BELL

For those of you who spend lots of time away from home, there's now a device to answer the doorbell from nearly anywhere in the world with your mobile phone.After testing the technology in its home Dutch market, wireless startup Waleli now plans to sell its GSM Doorbell internationally, beginning in northern Europe, the company said Tuesday.

The wireless doorbell allows apartment dwellers, home owners and small businesses to answer their doorbell, talk to visitors and even open the door remotely with their GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phones.

The GSM Doorbell consists of four parts: an intercom, an electronic lock, a GSM-enabled doorbell and a SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) for the GSM device.

When someone presses the doorbell device, it rings your handset, allowing you to communicate with visitors and, by entering a "pincode," to grant them access to your home, all without having to leave your location.

The technology can be useful when dealing with delivery people, door-to-door solicitors and many others who need or want to stop by. And you don't have to worry about locking yourself out of the house or apartment again because the machine will recognize your mobile's number and unlock the door for you.

Pricing information was not immediately available.

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YAHOO DOMAIN

Domain YahooYahoo domain descriptionWhat is a Yahoo domain ?A Domain Yahoo Name is very similar to an address forwarding service.The Domain is the address people type in their web browser to get to your web site.The Domain Yahoo Name then points to the "real" address that contains your web site.Yahoo Domain ReviewsAccording to PC Magazine "domain registration through Yahoo! Small Business is the easiest."How do I choose a domain name?Your Yahoo domain name is your address on the Web. It's the vehicle that helps friends, associates or customers find you or your business online. When you pick your Yahoo domain name, keep the following tips in mind:Yahoo Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and hyphens ("-"). Spaces and other symbols, like underscores, are not allowed, and domains cannot begin or end with a hyphen. Yahoo Domain names are not case sensitive. They can be between 2 and 63 total characters, not including the domain extension. Find a Yahoo domain?Below, you can find keyword to find Yahoo domain* yahoo domain name* yahoo domain register* yahoo domain search* yahoo domain name registration* register domain name with yahoo* yahoo web domain* yahoo buy domain* yahoo domain control panel* domain yahoo web business email* domain free name yahoo* domain name transfer yahoo* domain name with yahoo web hostingYahoo! Domains Key Features*24-Hour Toll-Free Customer Service* Domain Name Basics* Private Domain Registration* Use an Existing DomainGet answers anytime you need them from extensive online help sources and our 24-hour toll-free customer support.*Domain ManagementSet up and manage your domain with our easy-to-use control panel.*Private Domain RegistrationHelp protect yourself from spammers and telemarketers with private registration. For an extra $9 per year, you can keep your domain contact information private. Learn more...[Domains Starter web page]*Starter Web PagePublish basic information on a placeholder web page — until you're ready to upgrade to a full web site.View a sample.*Domain LockingSafeguard your domain from hijacking and unauthorized transfers with domain locking. Yahoo! Domains secures your domain for you — and only you.*Domain ForwardingPoint your new domain name to a web site you already have with domain forwarding. This is a useful feature if you own multiple domain names.*Complete Domain (DNS) ControlAdvanced users: You can easily edit your name servers and MX, A, and CNAME records for complete control over your domain.*Email ForwardingUnlimited forwarding of messages sent to your new domain name into your free Yahoo! email account.*Room to GrowIt's easy to add more services as you need them, such as email that matches your domain, a full web site, or an online store

DEMAND IN 2007

From: FastCompany.com January 2007 By: Kathryn Tuggle Fast Company's Top Jobs list for 2007 takes a look at 10 of the most sought-after positions in some of the fastest growing U.S. industries. Related ContentLook Back at the 2006 list of Top JobsExamine the 2005 listTalent & Careers Resource CenterArticles on CareerSponsored SectionsAdvertisementNewslettersFast Take: FC's weekly newsletterFirst Impression: daily insightsFC Now: staff blogTransit Authority: business travel tipsFeatured ServicesBusiness Directory Research Companies Find Biz Software This year, we followed in the footsteps of the creative and indomitable Fast Company reader. Our readers don't wait for the Department of Labor to tell them what fields are hot -- they start their own trends, and develop their own businesses and jobs.In the spirit of blazing one's own trail, we spoke with trend forecasters to determine which careers will be the most popular in the coming year. Gerald Celente, Publisher of the Trends Journal, along with the team at TrendsResearch.com provided us with details on which industries are growing the fastest. Armed with statistics on industry competitiveness and job availability supplied by Monster.com, this year's list has been compiled with the forward-thinking attitude of the Fast Company reader and the professions listed.Each job listing contains and explanation of the position, why it's hot for 2007, and suggestions for further topical reading from Fast Company articles from the past year. Some positions have a tech focus, some are design based, but they all share common ground: It takes a creative soul with an endless amount of determination and innovation to thrive in these fields. This year, Fast Company salutes its readers who brave the challenge of the "what if" with the list of top professions destined for success in 2007.Experience Designer: These talented individuals work in the retail industry, creating the essence and aura of a store. Experience designers go beyond the look of a place, creating a unique experience in which shoppers can immerse themselves. From cellular boutiques to the American Girl doll store on New York's Fifth Avenue, the shops created by an experience designer are often considered works of art; mini universes unto themselves. Experience designers are involved in every aspect of creation -- from choosing accent colors on walls to slanting the windows in the right direction. The next time you go into a boutique and you feel as if you've just had an "experience" -- you have, and someone went to a lot of trouble to make you feel at home.Further reading: "American Girl," Keith Hammonds, September 2006.Medical Researcher: It's no news that what's on the forefront of medicine is on the forefront of America's collective mind. Researchers of cancer, Alzheimers, and the developers of prosthetics are the most coveted titles in the healthcare industry. With the aging baby boomer population, the need for cures and treatment plans is both paramount and profitable. Major developments aren’t only taking place in medicine, but also in the way doctors file medical records. Individuals with the know-how and creative juice to mix tech with medicine can expect seven figure salaries in the year ahead.Further Reading: "Top Scalpel," Michael Prospero, April 2006 and "Record Time," Charles Fishman, April 2006.Web Designer: What's new about web designers? We already know they have cool jobs, working as the creative arm behind highly trafficked websites. But Trendsresearch.com reports that the profession is still in its adolescent phase, and for 2007 it's going to be a new era of web design. Monster.com charts a 26 percent growth rate in this field for the past year, which will continue to blossom for the coming year.Further Reading: "Technology: Boom, Bust, and Beyond," Adam Penenberg, March 2006 and "The Jobs of Web 2.0," Angus Loten, September 2006.Security Systems Engineer: Monster.com reports that individuals in the protective services industry can expect a rise in demand and salary for 2007. Advances in Vegas-Casino like security systems and satellite maps are helping to wire the world for defense. Individuals with a head for engineering and computers can easily expect a six-figure salary in this industry. From sonar imaging to keystroke identification, keeping our country and our world safer has never been easier or more profitable.Further Reading: We Got the Beat," Joseph Manez, September 2006.Urban Planners: From the Hong Kong International Airport Residential Tower to suburban "McMansion" sprawl, individuals in residential planning and development can expect a lot of work in the coming year. Urban Planners must meet the demand for real estate that's both decadent and practical. Prefab one-level homes engineered for the aging baby boomer population are changing the face of suburban America, and boosting the demand for urban planners.Further Reading: "Rise of the Aerotropolis," Greg Lindsay, July/August 2006 and "House in a Box," John Rosenthal, November 2006.Viral Marketers and Media Promoters: Not to be confused with someone in advertising or public relations, a viral marketer knows how to build an audience from nothing with little more than rumor and excitement. Known for such coups as MySpace's Lonelygirl15 and the Blair Witch Project, Viral Marketers begin "contagious" campaigns that spread largely through word of mouth. They now have a foothold in American advertising due largely to the Internet.Further Reading: "Down the Rabbit Hole," Danielle Sacks, November 2006.Talent Agents: As Clint Eastwood would say, "These days, everyone is famous." And as fame and fortune grows for performers and athletes, a new arena opens for their managers, promoters, and general go-to guys. Although these titles may speak for themselves, duties for those fortunate enough to get close to the stars often include things like latte retrieval and limo reservations. Yet, next to the celebrities themselves, these positions are some of the most competitive in the entertainment industry.Further Reading: "Nothing But Net," Noah Shachtman, June 2006.Buyers and purchasing agents: Trend forecasters predict that 2007 could be a make-or-break year for the retail industry, specifically the department store. Much of the department store's fate, says Gerald Celente, publisher of the Trends Journal, lies in the hands of the buyers and purchasing agents. These individuals are in charge of store inventory and make decisions on item color, size, quantity, and country of origin. With the recent vicissitudes of the retail industry, these jobs are often hard to come by and can be very lucrative if store profitability increases.Further Reading: "The Gucci Killer," Linda Tischler, January/February 2006.Art Directors: From Broadway to movie sets, any job that involves paint, lights, cameras, and action is in demand, especially within the 20-30 demographic. Now perceived as the ultimate career for inspired artists with an affinity for pop culture, art directors, set directors, and stage production directors clamor for the top positions that call for hands-on creative genius with a couture designer's eye.Further Reading: "Telly Visionary," Linda Tischler, November 2006.News Analysts, Reporters, and Bloggers: The Internet has created a new realm for reporters and writers, who previously only saw their names and ideas in print. Now, publications with an online division often hire three levels of correspondents: Print news writers, online news writers, and bloggers. Although most personal blogs aren't profitable enough to stand alone as businesses, writers can use their increasing popularity as another gateway for their voices to be heard.Further Reading: "How to Launch a Career With Your Blog," Leslie Taylor, October 2006.Back to Top Print this Send to a friend Skip to the content of this page 10 Hot Jobs for 2007What are the hottest jobs for 2007? Fast Company spoke with trend experts to compile a list of the top 10 professions that will be in high demand in 2007.

IBM HISTORY

IBM

IBM RESEARCH

Innovation sprouts from the fertile ground of inquiry. In IBM Research, our foundation is our wide array of scientific disciplines, award-winning researchers and global labs. And, over the years, we've expanded our ground to include challenging ideas from our colleagues in academic and government research centers as well as from our clients. Come learn who we are and what we do to create innovation that matters for our company and for the world.