Over the last year or so, I’ve been following the horrible inconsistencies in the enforcement of Google’s various TOS policies. The Inquisitr touched on one earlier today when they reported on Google’s collusion with Indian authorities on the creation of their Orkut censorship policy. Everyone who’s ever put together a weekend project that turned into something with a community or a userbase knows that the terms of service is probably the most ridiculously boring part of the work, and is always going to end up being the source of a headache down the line.

When you’re a multi-billion dollar company like Google, though, it’s incumbant upon you to put a bit of thought as to what your general moral and ethical stance is going to be, and how you’re going to handle the tangled web of international regulation.

Why should Google be held to a higher standard than the rest of the sea of startups? Because as goes Google, so go we all. I touched on this in what is the epitome of what I’m talking about in an article did earlier this month. The article chronicled the bookend to what has been Google and YouTube’s support of middle eastern terrorists‘ right to broadcast on YouTube in response to pressure applied by US Senator Joe Lieberman. 

Essentially, the move was a right one because it deftly avoided the creation of highly restrictive legislation in the United States that would have undoubtedly lead to undesirable unintended consequences. As I pointed out then, though, Google has a history of playing chicken with the law as an alternative to coming up with a coherent moral code:

Generally, the only thing that seems to influence Google to do the right thing in the past has been a combination of media and government pressure. The most prime example of this which springs to mind is the case of Orkut and the literal infiltration of pedophiles onto the system. The story stayed on our radar for quite some time, starting with reports in January of 2007 as noted by Pete, the problem continuing to grow on into September when Google decided to do something about policing their community.

Google continued to protect the identities of pedophiles from Brazilian authorities for months, as noted by Sean in October and myself in April of this year. Finally, in late April, Google finally caved to widespread media criticism and governmental authority and began cooperating with police in turning over the identities of those trafficking in pictures and video of under-aged sex acts.

Similarly, the moral and ethical inconsistencies Google’s exhibited with YouTube have been well documented here at this blog. Aside from the terrorists (who up to a few weeks ago remained uncensored while their detractors were routinely silenced):

Handsome Hong Kong Guy Censored for showing videos of clothed local females with derogatory towards women music in the background.

This Pornography Advertisement Uncensored. It doesn’t show actual full nudity or sex acts, but you definitely get the idea.

A Breast-Feeding Mother Censored over obscenity claims.

This Strip Tease Censored. A small area over the genitals remains covered for the duration of the minute and a half long strip tease. This video was removed the day after our editorial went live on the site. There are still hundreds more like it on the site, however.

An Egyptian Fellow Censored (then uncensored) for showing video evidence of local police brutality.

This GTA IV Ad Uncensored, despite depicting a police officer firing a gun into a crowd of civilians.

What’s going on now is that instead of working to come up with a cohesive company-wide policy or ethos, they’re playing to the law, which is certain to lead to only more pitfalls and unintended consequences down the line. Duncan documents the program they’ve created to keep their Googley butts out of Indian courts:

Google’s activities in India previously drew international headlines when Google provided local police information leading to the arrest of Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid for posting to an Orkut group named “I hate Sonia Ghandi.”

The new initiative sees Google training “cyber police” in most “tier 1 and 2″ cities in India, and offering police a “priority reporting tool” that sees any objectionable content flagged by police being reviewed faster than standard objection flags.

The elephant in the room is the fact that all of this comes from a company who’s motto is supposedly “Don’t Be Evil.” It seems to have metamorphosed into “Let’s Not Get Fined, Raided or Shut Down.” I’m all for protecting your business interests, but Google is operating from an unprecedented position of power, and like that child deity from Classic Star Trek, they don’t know how to properly weild that power yet.

We’re watching, though, Google. We all want to love you whole-heartedly, but when you do stuff like this, you make us worry that you’re traveling down a dark path. You’ve built up an incredible trust with your users over the years. We implore you: don’t destroy that trust.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:AT&T Changing its Questionable ToSGoogle Denies Ownership of Your Docs & Spreadsheets ContentGoogle Trends Now Updates DailydeliGoo: Custom Google Search for del.icio.usGoogle Blog Search Semi-Launched in ChinaGoogle Answers to Make Triumphant Return?Google To Launch Google Wiki

Buddy Media has for some time been acting as a multi-faceted guide to businesses in an online setting that increasingly calls for investment in social integration and social marketing. The company has done everything from managing fairly common-seeming advertising campaigns to developing social applications. Today it unveiled a service called BuddyBrain for “app-vertisers” to more closely observe and manage intel emerging from campaigns conducted in the social realm.

BuddyBrain is segmented into four main quadrants: project center, intelligence center, reference tools, and social wire. A dashboard offering a view of information culled from each sector acts as a sort of welcome screen to one’s account. Naturally, active projects are shown with especial prominence on the page. And beneath the surface, data provided by most every component held within the application is elegantly presented. Details have been well attended to.

The company is issuing this command center as a kind of organizational utility. Better to grasp the workings of the social application space, observe media chatter, maintain focus on the ABCs of project development and execution. And also to, in the words of CEO Michael Lazerow, “entice more brands to make the leap into social advertising and to better service our existing clientele” by keeping to an order of accountability and results. Of course, any reasonable intimation of the marketing space will regard such attentions as crucial. The purpose of BuddyBrain is really to wrap several pieces into one streamlined setup.

In addition to its case-by-case, client-by-client analysis, Buddy Media says the utility’s analysis also makes evident some broad, industry-wide findings. The company provides as an example an aggregate reading of its own most popular “app-vertisement” campaigns:

140,000 installs within 30 days of the start of a campaign;

Those users interacting with said applications spend roughly 2 and 1/2 minutes with each, a time span clearly assessed to be far greater than banner ads and television spots;

85% of users returned for more time spent, and over half returned semi-regularly within 30 days of installation.

We spoke yesterday about media and business and its growing role in the social sphere online - and how various specialists are catering services to the branded world to better connect to citizens of the cloud. Buddy Media is no doubt striving to bring more parties to the table and for those parties present to engage at higher levels still. Its resume includes brands such as Anheuser Busch, Fox, HBO, Microsoft, and Facebook, and ad agencies OmnicomGroup, Universal McCann, JWT and WPP. And it seems safe to presume BuddyBrain, having availed users this palette of applications, will only catalyze growth further.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Buddy Media Acquires Five Popular Facebook AppsFacebook Application “Crushes” Acquired by Buddy MediaMaking Facebook Apps Continues to Pay Off for Buddy MediaBuddy University: Attack of the Facebook Clone30Boxes Launches Flash Buddy CardsBadongo Offers Buddy Upload Tool for MacSprout Raises $5 Million For Web-Based Flash Creation Tools

Source:Mashable!

YCombinator, an early stage investment firm that has provided seed funding for the likes of Reddit, Scribd, and Justin.tv (among many others) has been widely praised in the US for helping get new Internet ventures off-the-ground on the cheap, with typical investments ranging from $15,000-$20,000.

The concept has inspired numerous similar investment funds, and is now spreading around the globe, with a firm called Morpheus Venture Partners providing seed capital and mentoring to startups in India.

Today, MVP is announcing the 11 recipients of its first round of investments. Similar to YCombinator, the investments range from $15,000-$25,000. Unlike YCombinator, who has a geographic focus on Boston and San Francisco, MVP’s investments are all over India. Additionally, for the moment investments come directly from MVP’s partners as opposed to the fund, which is currently in the process of raising $5M from investors.

Nandini Hirianniah, the founding partner of MVP – which is based in Bangalore - explains the differences: “In case of the MVP portfolio companies so far, most of them have existed for about 6-9 months with team sizes of 5-7. Therefore, relocation is not the best operating model. We work closely, yet remotely with these companies and spend a minimum of 5 working days in a month face-to-face with companies located outside Bangalore.”

However, Hirianniah says the firm may require its second batch of startups to re-locate to Bangalore. Of the firms previously announced investments, 2 of the 4 (Instablogs and Commonfloor) have raised a Series A, while one is already profitable (Foodathome.in). The other, Moblf, was recently reviewed here on Mashable. Meanwhile, here are the 7 new companies that complete MVPs first round of investments, with descriptions provided by MVP:

Call Graph is a service to record, track, monitor, share and transcribe your calls. It is designed for distributed teams who use services such as Skype for their meetings, conference calls etc and for individuals who use such VoIP services for interviews, taking lessons etc. Currently, Call Graph provides a recording client for Skype for free along with 1 GB of storage space and 1 sample transcript.

Crederity is a new service that applies sophisticated technologies and programs to helping people and businesses easily establish trust on the Internet. As the Web’s first guaranteed trust builder, Crederity enables people and businesses to certify their own integrity and that of others. Crederity has developed proprietary fact verification technologies enabling people to verify identity and credentials including background, education, and employment history.

DeskAway “simplifies teamwork.” DeskAway is a subscription-based online team and project collaboration service that enables small businesses & teams to organize, manage & track their work online. With the growing number of small businesses/ distributed teams, increased broadband penetration, and 24×7 mobile work culture, DeskAway is rightly poised to give teams an accurate view of how their projects are doing and help eliminate common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating: email spam, multiple file versions, lost files, task accountability issues, lack of clarity & work transparency.

dhanaX is an online/offline person-to-person lending platform that lets Indians to lend and borrow money from fellow Indians. Both borrowers, who get quicker and cheaper loans, and lenders, who will receive competitive returns on their investments will benefit. dhanaX is inspired by the idea of an online community’s ability to come together and help each other. dhanaX works within the ambit of Social Business or Social Enterprise. Successful experiments worldwide in micro-credit have shown how low income people can also aspire for financial and social advancement.

Fachak is a concept that will redefine Social Content Sharing. A platform where you can share any form of content from a document to a video. Fachak is in its pre-release stage right now.

LifeMojo’s focus is on creating a platform for delivery of preventive health care services and partner with renowned health experts for their consultation. For health care service providers, LifeMojo has a hosted CRM (Software as a Service or SaaS). The company already has Dr. Shikha Sharma, renowned weight management and health expert, as a customer for this offering and is in talks with several other individual health care experts and organizations. For people looking to live a fitter / healthier life, LifeMojo is a one-stop shop for expert consultation and fitness products. LifeMojo (www.lifemojo.com) will be available for public use in early October.

Sutra HR is a full service People Consulting firm which has a unique partnering model with Digital, Mobile and Internet startups and entrepreneurial companies in India, to find retain assess and train talent to take them to the next level and beyond. Based on the Success of its offline services, Sutra HR is launching SutraJobs.com an endeavor designed specifically for startups and Emerging companies in the new age media space who are venture funded or are too cash-strapped to afford the services of a consultant to find the right talent.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:YouTube to Launch Video Site for IndiaDow Report Shows 166% Increase In India Venture FundingMySpace India: Original TV Content and Open PlatformAOL Goes Local In IndiaYahoo India Lays Off 40 R&D WorkersGoogle and Yahoo Looking to Acquire India-Based RediffHovr Goes to India with Free Mobile Gaming Network

While Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch platform(s) are being taken further and further into the gaming sphere, the Nintendo fanbase is playing with developments - much of them “homebrew” - to extend the powers of the DS past its core gameplay design. And one such item comes by way of an individual known as Jorge S. In short, Jorge has put Twitter in the hands of DS owners everywhere.

Well, not everywhere. Lots of places, though. Over what appears to be term of just a few months, Jorge has put to the public a design he calls DSTwitter. It has gone through iterations 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2, before arriving this week at 1.3, which the creator has released under the GPLv3 designation. The invention has only been noticed by a select few news outlets. Shiny Media’s Tech Digest being one of them. But the limited review is understandable. Why? Installation takes some effort.

For starters, DSTwitter is an inherently a Spanish launch. Lest you be fluent in the language, it can be a little tough to determine what it is you need to do in order to start microblogging from your DS. Fortunately, Google Translate can rough it out per your convenience. Here’s the 1-2-3:

Prepare a memory card (R4DS) and the DS’s WiFi connection.

Register to the Scene Beta website. Username and email required.

Download the DSTwitter 1.3 .RAR file. Extract the contents “in the root of the memory card.”

Input Twitter login. Run the program.

A bit more convoluted than some might wish. But if it’s your DS that you keep on your person most often, this little experiment won’t cost a nickel. That is if you already hold a DS-friendly memory box, anyway. It bears noting that in addition to DSTwitter’s Spanish support, the download also complies with English, German, French and Italian.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Twitter Mobile InterfaceQuick Fix For Twitter TroublesDon’t Send Bac’n: Use TwitterSearchMosio Uses Twitter For Mobile Q&ATwitter Adds GMail Contacts ImportHow Messed Up Is Twitter For You Right Now? [Poll]30Boxes Brings Us Power Twitter

Source:Mashable!

The concept of social shopping on the Web has been tailored in various ways by many outfits already. Sites launched for that very purpose have been coming on steady for several seasons now, some to greater effect than others. But more are on their way. Or, alternately, those playing the community-based commerce game are expanding. Such is the case for Storrz.

Based in the city of Bangalore, India, Storrz has built itself from a root focus of shopping into something it feels comfortably in calling a “social shopping mall.” This label is quite new, however. It first established itself as a general commerce destination. (It is self-titled as “India’s only marketplace to offer groceries online.”)

Featured in a number of Indian Internet publications - it was given momentary mention by various sites with an eye toward the Proto.in conference this year, a startup event held in Delhi last month - Storrz might have a shot going into the final quarter of 2008 and beyond with a good name. The size of its audience makes for a tough road, though. It is anything but extraordinary. Budding is more like it. The company’s director, Chandan Maruthi, touts a team of 6 individuals comprising technology, sales, and operations responsibilities, and he notes Storrz’s connections with “65+ merchants selling 6500+ products across 130 categories.”

Yes, Storrz is small name. It will need to bring more of everything across its servers - sellers, goods, and buyers - to boost its financial health. A user-friendly design, no matter how simple, has little value if it isn’t matched with a generous supply of content or product. Seeing as how India’s e-commerce engine is fast-expanding along with the rest of the world’s, Storrz would definitely do well to grow itself fast at this time. But its design, which seems to have a fairly good balance of social interaction and product search, makes it seem like it may just be a worthwhile place to go. At the foundation it is something to keep an eye on, I think.

Curious to know how Storrz intends to make itself sustainable? It operates on a two-part business model of commissions as well as targeted advertising based on user activity and profile data. Basic enough, and in line with general trends in the industry. But it may be a bit too eager on the commission front. 10-25% of the sale price, is its claim for success.

Rediff, one of the top online portals in India and one currently listed on the NASDAQ stock market, has evidently followed the past year progress of third-party developments within Facebook closely. Now it wants to stir a similar amount of interest in its own set of properties as well. Announced at Delhi’s Proto.in startup event, Rediff officially took the covers off its own developer program, called, plainly enough, The Rediff Platform.

The reason for the Facebook reference is simple. The company states that its properties are “being made…to support FBML,” Facebook’s markup language.

Indeed, Rediff is pushing an idea eminently synonymous with Facebook’s own. The phrase “apps economy” is writ large on the Rediff Developers page. But it’s also an effort that the company hopes will align with multiple pieces of the Rediff puzzle. To kick off the developer program, Rediff is first opening iShare, its music, video, and photo sharing service.

The company is promising grants to some students and entrepreneur developers through a basic submission program it is calling “Sociali.” The sum being touted by the company to fuel ideas thought promising ideas is 250,000 rupees, or US$5,800. A relatively small figure, it seems, especially if juxtaposed against Rediff’s expected revenue report for Q2 2008 (roughly $17 million). All may depend on the supply of developers Rediff finds enticing enough to fund in the weeks and months ahead.

The company states that developers ready to begin fabricating can now do so with data provided through its new website.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google and Yahoo Looking to Acquire India-Based RediffiShare, The Indian YouTubeYahoo Takes Large Stake in India’s Tyroo MediaThe Daily Poll: Would You Build Apps for the MySpace Developer Platform?LinkedIn Outlines Strategy for Upcoming PlatformClearspring Opens Community Platform for DevelopersThe Daily Poll: Which Platform is the Best Opportunity for Developers?

DeskAway is a new project management service that sits between the very basic and the very advanced project management tools. There’s certainly a sweet market for tools like DeskAway - the keys are marketing and user adoption. Right now 37Signals appears to dominate the small business semi-geeky project management space with Basecamp. CN sponsor Zoho also offers a popular project management service called Zoho Projects.

The tool itself is your pretty standard Web project management tool. Nothing really stood out as an "omg" type feature - except apparently there is some chatter across the Web that DeskAway’s reporting features are stronger than those provided by 37Signals.

I like their "10 reasons" page — they need to add more comparisons to other players in the market. To win at this game in the U.S., DeskAway has to get more aggressive. Or start outside, perhaps in their home India and then move here once user adoption grows. Pricing starts at ad-supported free through their top plan at $99/month.

Another time tracking service we reviewed (actually it was one of our first reviews!) is Toggl. They launched a new version back in February and so far I hear very positive things.

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Yahoo has launched their local search into India this week into four major cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. The local search in India works very much like the local search in the U.S.  To be honest, I don’t use Yahoo Local - I’ve been more of a Yelp’er or lately also searching via address using Google Maps. Though playing with Yahoo Local this morning, it’s pretty robust. I like how it aggregates reviews from across the Web in addition to those from Yahoo Local, offers an interactive map and a variety of alternative suggestions for other topics in the location I am in. I don’t see anything very innovative, the information is just presented in a very usable format.

On a more serious note, It appears that Yahoo Local India is easily hackable by injecting script code into a review and you can do basically anything from that point. Sridhar was able to create an iframe with Google in the body (see the screenshot below). He also notes that anything way more malicious could also be injected.

I tested this hack on the U.S. version of Yahoo Local and was unable to reproduce the security issue. When I entered any script code and clicked submit, the system removed the code within the script tags and prompted me to add more content.

I have submitted a ticket to Yahoo to get them to fix this.

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– NY Tech Directory
– CenterNetworks LinkedIn Business Group
– CenterNetworks Facebook Fan Page
– Purchase an Apple iPhone

Jordan Golson and I are blogging live, but briefly, from the Macworld 2008 expo at Moscone West in San Francisco.

Read on for the full report:

Source:Valleywag

Today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will announce a MacBook with a little somethin’ somethin’ wirelesss. We think. We guess. We have no idea. It’ll change the world or something. Meanwhile, Microsoft has already announced its own game-changer: the ad-supported grocery cart.

The cart-mounted console will help customers find products in the grocery store and pay from them without waiting in a checkout line. Also, the cart console will serve video ads, brought to you be the technology Microsoft acquired when it bought aQuantive last year. Microsoft will test the device in ShopRite supermarkets this fall.

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, fanboys. Jobs is going to introduce Air 2.0 (slogan: “Breathe Easier”? ) today. But last we checked, you don’t spend spend 32 cents out of every dollar you earn on your broadband connection. No, that would be for groceries, pals.

Source:Valleywag

Remember the man Google and an Indian ISP helped Indian cops arrest for the crime of posting an allegedly defamatory picture on Orkut? He now says that during the 50 days he spent in jail, Indian police beat him and made him eat from the same bowl he used as a toilet.

The accused, Lakshmana Kailas K, has sued the ISP, Airtel, for more than $4 million, according to Techgoss.

But thanks to the vagaries of Indian law, if Lakshmana has a case, it’s not because he was arrested for an act the right to free speech should protect. It’s because he was wrongly accused of that crime.

The story goes like this. After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu god Shiva to Google’s social network, Orkut, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. Then, Indian cops took that information to the ISP, Airtel. Airtel handed over a physical address that it claimed corresponded with Google’s data. But it was the wrong physical address, leading to Lakshmana Kailas K’s subsequent arrest, harassment and beatings.

Here’s the scary part. If Airtel had been more competent in its record-keeping, Indian authorities would have likely arrested and beaten the actual poster, and you’d never have heard about any of this.

(Photo by phauly)