Mediaboss Marketing

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday urged Congress to enact Internet privacy laws that would force data brokers to reveal what information they buy and sell about consumers.

In a wide-ranging report that also supports self-regulatory efforts by businesses, the FTC stopped short of supporting laws that would mandate anti-tracking buttons on Web sites a proposal that Internet advertisers have lobbied hard to keep out of legislation.

The report largely mirrors similar proposals made last month by the White House and highlights a growing consensus among federal officials that consumers need stronger protection for their online privacy.

Over the past year, the FTC has cracked down on Google and Facebook for allegedly exposing user data when launching new products. The agency said that cellphone applications present new privacy challenges: Legal statements are unclear and too hard to read on small screens and companies such as Apple and Google do not force developers to post notices in app stores.

After two years of intense debate between powerful companies and privacy advocates, the FTCs recommendations were a relief to businesses that hope to use consumer data to customize advertising based on a users likes and dislikes without strict government rules.

We wanted not to erect a stop light for businesses but to take a closer look at traffic patterns, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said during a news conference.

Much of the 73-page report focused on the need for companies to clearly explain how they collect data about users and for what purposes they use that information.

The FTC called for legislation on data brokers the Web's information middlemen, such as Lexis Nexis and Choicepoint who take data that has been collected online and merge the information with documents offline to create detailed portraits of consumers.

The brokers sell a wealth of highly personal information about consumers but never interact directly with them, according to the report. Consumers are often unaware of the existence of these entities, as well as the purposes for which they collect and use data.

The FTC said a law should allow consumers to see what those portraits would look like . And the agency said that data brokers should be forced to reveal their data-collection practices.

Original post:
FTC urges transparency law for Internet data brokers

Published: March. 26, 2012 at 5:24 PM

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, March 26 (UPI) -- Researchers say young people in Sweden, although heavy users of the Internet, are not abandoning traditional media such as TV, radio and recorded music.

Olle Findahl of the University of Gothenburg, who conducted a study of 9-to-24-year-olds' media habits, said although the age group watches TV and listens to radio and recorded music less today than 30 years ago, they still use traditional media more than the Internet.

Children between the ages of 9 and 14 spend 75 percent of their media time on traditional media, while those between the ages of 15 and 24 spend about 60 percent of their time on traditional media, a university release reported Sunday.

Findahl said the change in media use is similar to what happened when television was introduced in the 1950s and it appears people are using the Internet to complement, not replace, older media.

The rise of Internet use does not appear to have a negative correlation with the use of traditional media. In fact, the most intense Internet users are also heavy consumers of traditional media, the researchers said.

Read this article:
Internet not replacing traditional media

26 March 2012 Last updated at 19:53 ET By Prof Alan Woodward Department of Computing, University of Surrey

A recent threat, purportedly from the hacker group Anonymous, stated boldly that its members would stop the internet on 31 March.

The term "Operation Blackout" was coined and it caused much discussion in all the usual forums.

Those issuing the threat even stated how they would do it. They claimed they could disable the Domain Name Service (known by engineers as the DNS) and that would stop the internet. How so?

The Domain Name Service is what converts the web addresses you type into your browser (such as http://www.bbc.co.uk) into what the internet actually uses: IP addresses (something like 212.58.244.66).

It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless.

The theory behind the proposed attack is based on the fact that the Domain Name Service is a tree structure: it starts with 13 servers at the top level and each of those talks to the next level down, which then pass it on to a further level down, and so on.

When a change is made at the top level it is copied out across the net so that when you look up what is effectively your local copy of the phone book, it takes you to the correct place.

If somehow one could prevent some or all of the 13 top level members of the DNS from working, specifically from communicating with others, then this would disrupt the remainder of the tree, and very quickly no-one would be able to use the addresses that we all typically know.

When the threat was made, it did cause some concern as the would-be hackers correctly identified the locations of the top level systems.

Go here to see the original:
Decapitating the internet

While the industry is maturing, SEO still remains a largely misunderstood discipline. There are three main reasons for this:

As a consequence of this landscape, it takes real working experience to develop strong SEO skills you cant get them without it. Making changes and seeing what works and what doesnt is simply a must.Even if your SEO team (or SEO agency) has that experience, there are a number of things that you can do to make life difficult for your SEO team.

Let me count the ways

Too many enterprises get focused on goals that are artificial. For example, they focus on building 100 links per month. Seriously now. I can get you 100 links per month for $400 or less and they probably wont do anything at all for you.

Other bad goals are specific rankings or PageRank increases. Your top level goals should nearly always be: increased relevant, non-branded search engine, traffic (NBSET), and increased conversions from NBSET. Align the SEO team goals with your company goals.

SEO impacts a lot of different disciplines. The SEO team needs to be in close coordination with many parts of the enterprise, and those parts of the organization need to be aligned with the goals and what is required to meet them.

One common problem is the lack of a strong communication channel, and strong trust between the dev team and the SEO team. One classic example is the 301 redirect. Most tools it seems default to 302 redirects, and the developers need to really be on board with why a 301 is preferred and understand that they need to check and verify it themselves.

Love those pesky marketing folks, really, I do. But sometimes they can make decisions not realizing that what they are doing is blowing up the SEO efforts. I have seen situations where the marketing team insisted on titling pages of their site with their fancy product brand names that dont have the slightest relationship to a phrase that users ever search on.

This is one of the easiest way to throw a wrench in your SEO efforts. One enterprise I know decided to design their site for the C-suite. As a result, they promptly ripped most of the text off of their pages and slimmed down the site into a corporate brochure. Great way to make it very difficult for search engines to figure out what is special about your site!

It turns out that communication is not enough. The execs need to know enough about SEO to understand what they dont know, and how and when it matters. Once they understand that, they will be far more likely to get SEO advice about the impact of a decision when they need it.

Read more from the original source:
24 Ways To Make Life Hard For Your SEO Team

CARLSBAD, Calif., March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --SEO Inc., an industry leading Internet marketing agency for the past 15 years, has launched an all new website complete with new services and a "Solutions" section that helps companies more easily identify the best internet marketing services for their business type and revenue model.

SEO Inc. is well known as a leader in search engine optimization but has been delivering results from a wide variety of internet marketing services including SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, Reputation Management and web development.

The new website emphasizes integration of search and social media marketing services and is optimized for speed featuring a cleaner layout and improved navigability and usability. "Our goal for the new website is to make it easier for companies to quickly identify the services that will benefit their business the most," said Brad Lipschultz, COO of SEO Inc. "The new small business internet marketing solutions section is a great example that lays out exactly what SEO Inc. can do to help drive new customers to small and local businesses."

SEO Inc. has been performing a wide variety of new social media marketing services for select clients over the past several years and the new website officially makes these new services available to all companies. The new services include social media management, social media optimization, and viral social media engagement campaigns designed to help companies of all sizes take advantage of the opportunities that social media provides.

"Most businesses want to be a part of social media, however many still don't know where to focus their efforts or how to make it an effective marketing channel for their business," said John Lincoln, Director of Social Media at SEO Inc. "We have developed social media marketing services that can help companies of all sizes in all industries."

To celebrate the launch of their new website, SEO Inc. is offering a free SEO audit of business websites for the entire month of April. Find out how your website can improve rankings and traffic and increase ROI with a free SEO analysis today. SEO Inc. is also giving away a free Pinterest whitepaper download. As one of the newest and fastest growing social media networks on the Internet right now, this whitepaper is a must-have for any company with a social media strategy.

To view the all new SEO Inc. website visit http://www.SEOinc.com, or to download the free Pinterest whitepaper, visit http://www.seoinc.com/seo-blog/free-pinterest-whitepaper-download/.

For more information on how SEO Inc. can help you build your brand and improve search traffic, call 877-736-0006 for a free consultation.

To read more on this topic, visit: http://www.seoinc.com/press-releases/seo-inc-celebrates-new-website-services-solutions

About Search Engine Optimization Inc.:

See the rest here:
SEO Inc. Launches All New Website Complete with New Services and Internet Marketing Solutions