Steve Bryant

The would-be AdSense customer who filed suit against Google for fraud and misrepresentation says the search company also entered her Gmail account and removed all communications regarding the dispute, Google Watch has learned. In an amended complaint, Theresa Bradley accuses Google of invasion of privacy and intentional destruction of evidence. The amended complaint has not […]

Google said it will divulge a “small and narrow” amount of data to Brazilian authorities after the government issued a 15-day ultimatum. Brazil is seeking date and timestamp information relating to a small number of users who posted pornographic, racist and homophobic information on Orkut. Unlike the U.S. Justice Department’s request for broad data, which […]

Now I’m not very good at the ol’ arithmetic. But today, Brazil gave Google 15 days to turn over Orkut user data or risk being fined $61 million for damaging the country’s “collective moral value.” So if I’m reading this abacus correctly, that means the morality of each of their 186 million citizens is worth […]

Today we’re running the third in a continuing series of conversations concerning the Web’s very own Hatfields and McCoys, Google and Microsoft. Every Friday, I pit my meager wits and florid prose against veteran Microsoft journalist Mary Jo Foley as we discuss competition between the two companies. The friendly fights begin Friday mornings, when one […]

A would-be AdSense customer is suing Google for $250,000 because it took her 100 hours to place and review AdSense advertisements on her Web site, which Google subsequently removed, Google Watch has learned. In a 25-page complaint filed earlier this week in San Francisco federal district court, Theresa B. Bradley, a management consultant and resident […]

All the heavy news about Google isn’t getting Ask.com down in the mouth. Their CEO may not be joining a big company board, and they may not be releasing online services to compete with Microsoft Live. Still, they’re all smiles. Starting today, Ask.com will return a definition when you enter an emoticon in the search […]

As of this morning, Google now offers free PDF downloads on Google Book Search of books in the public domain. You can download such titles as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Essays,” Dante’s “Inferno” and “Samuel Johnson” by Thomas Carlyle. Downloaded books carry a watermark identifying the PDF’s origin with Google Book Search. Downloaded books carry a […]

Yesterday Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s board of directors. As several folks have pointed out, the appointment is ostensibly bad news for Microsoft, which faces the prospect of two of its biggest competitors collaborating on the direction of both desktop and online media. I think this is true, but I would add that Google’s […]

A tongue-in-cheek press release from Intermedia spoofs real-world concerns over Google’s Apps on Your Domain service. I realize I have just fallen into a PR trap by posting the press release below, but it was too funny to pass up. (And yes, I realize Intermedia is a Microsoft shop.) FWIW, Intermedia’s tongue-in-cheek press release spoofs […]

Anyone who wears a suit to work knows that business relationships go beyond the Fight Club mentality of the geek press. We (the press) are interested in good stories, anything that follows the simple five conflicts paradigm. (Man against man, man against nature, etc.) We like to apply those conflicts to companies. Google vs. Microsoft. […]