Ben Charny

There’s new reading material for those interested in how the National Security Agency has been supposedly secretly monitoring phone calls, e-mails and Internet sessions since 2003 without a warrant or court supervision. Earlier this week, an electronic privacy supporting group made available this 8-page declaration (here in PDF) by Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician. […]

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt thinks everybody’s getting it wrong about the recently announced blockbuster ad deal between Yahoo and online marketplace eBay. Schmidt argues it isn’t a blow to Google, as many others believe it is. Rather, it’s good for everybody on the Internet, he said May 25 during a public appearance. What he’s commenting […]

An Internet search engine once known as Chmoogle was recently forced to change its name after aggressive action by Google’s trademark protecting posse. Earlier this week, Google formally objected to the company’s name on the grounds that “Chmoogle” sounded too much like Google. From Google’s perspective, the fact that Chmoogle is also a search engine […]

Google’s expects to soon get a new list of Orkut communities that Brazilian authorities believe violate local law and should be shut down, a Google representative said May 24. The list was drafted following a meeting Tuesday that Google representatives had in Brazil, with the same officials. The topic concerned how some Orkut communities are […]

Dare it be said that rivals Google and Microsoft need each other, at least a little bit? The answer is yes, of course, and in a very fundamental way. Microsoft’s software is at the heart of the computers, cell phones or tablets required to use Google’s Internet services. And a lot of people wouldn’t buy […]

YouTube continues to dominate the Internet video search market, according to a new report. Hitwise, the traffic intelligence firm, recently reported that as of May 20, nearly 43 percent of all video searching was done through YouTube. MySpace Videos is second with 24.2 percent of the video search traffic, Yahoo Video Search third with 9.58 […]

There are about a dozen Web sites where, with some assurance, you’ll for now and the next day or so be able to see Google’s big experiment with video advertising. There’ll be a lot more later this week, when Google fully rolls out its new option for businesses using Google to place advertisements on Web […]

Starting May 24, Microsofts Live Local mapping feature lets users share maps and other location information directly from Live Messenger, a new version of Microsofts popular MSN Messenger. Live Local is also available directly from Microsofts Outlook Calendar, an office computer desktop staple. Users must first download and install free software. The “Live” moniker refers […]

Newly released software offers a glimpse of the inevitable day when Google integrates its new Google Calendar datebook into Google Earth, Google’s mapping facet. Shnitzl now has a way for Google Earth-generated images to detail events going on in the area being shown on the map. The firm has absolutely no connection to Google, Google […]

Starting May 24, Microsoft’s Live Local online mapping feature will let users share maps and other location information directly from Live Messenger, the new version of Microsoft’s popular MSN Messenger. Live Local is also available directly from Microsoft’s Outlook Calendar, an office computer desktop staple. Users must first download and install some freely available software. […]