JanRain, creator of some of the most popular OpenID software libraries and a forum-like communications tool called Pibb, has released a new SaaS offering for websites that want to become relying parties for OpenID.

We’re told that the service, simply called RPX, makes it possible to start accepting users with OpenID accounts within one day. This is actually the second SaaS solution provided by JanRain, the first being the similarly named OPX, which lets websites do the opposite: provide OpenID accounts to users, who can then sign into any other websites that accept them. JanRain also provides OpenID accounts to users directly through its myOpenID service.Source:TechCrunch
Google Trends, which shows you the hot search queries on Google at any given time, is more than two years old now (this year they added website/domain tracking as well). PR professionals and brand managers use it regularly to track how hot their assets are, and there are countless other uses for the service.

One use though, which is becoming increasingly popular we hear, is for blogs, mainstream media sites and others to monitor Google Trends regularly and write stories based on hot terms. Google displays a daily summary for easier data gathering.

The goal isn’t to tap into what Internet users think is interesting and write about that. Instead, it’s all about getting more hits from Google.

Here’s how it works:

According to cyber security company Webroot, the evil variety of hackers have started using Google Trends to lure unsuspecting people into a malware trap.

It’s not really rocket science. Malwaremongers are simply checking out top news stories from Google Trends Labs, then creating fake blogs with a bunch of keyword-heavy texts related to those terms. When an unsuspecting victim stumbles onto such a site, he/she will be greeted with a malware cake instead of the info they’ve sought. Usually, it’s a link to a video; but alas, the site prompts you to first download a codec to see the video. The codec is, of course, malware/spyware or worse.

An example of this trend is the recent wave of phishing emails which aren’t masking as PayPal or eBay, but as media sites such as CNN. Phishers just want your data, and if no one is gullible enough to give out their credit card number any more, they’ll at least try to lure you into installing trojans by posing as blogs or news sites, which will ultimately result in the same thing.

All of this is not new practice, says Webroot’s senior vice president Paul Lipman. “However, the fact that these hackers are now manipulating Google’s methods for relevance to increase the ranking of these sites is new and greatly increases the number of people exposed to this threat.”

Unfortunately I don’t see what can really be done about this; Google’s tools are out there for anyone to use, even for evil. We can only hope that Google will eventually get better at ditching fake blogs out of their index.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google Checkout Trends Knows Your Shopping HabitsGoogle Trends Now Updates DailyGoogle Trends Thinks I’m HotGoogle Trends Adds Another Way to Inaccurately Track Website TrafficBlogger Visitors Under Attack by MalwareGoogle Mobile Apps Reverse Summer Slump TrendsGoogle to Introduce New Ad Buying Software for Demographic Targeting

Mayer showed how Google Trends accurately predicted George W. Bush’s dominance over John Kerry in 2004 and Nicolas Sarkozy’s win in […]