Singapore Web Hosting Blog

just found that BMW site is banned by Google ! this is why i love google !

do a search for “bmw.de” in google at this moment, you get nothing returned. according to Matt, a software engineer in google who shares extreamely valuable information on his blog, it’s removed from google index because of fishy javascript redirects on bmw.de web site which is a violation of google’s quality guidelines, specifically the principle of “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”

it’s good to know that BMW is caught by google, and google does not hesitate to remove such a big brand name from their index. it’s BMW! although there might be stories under the table that we never know, at least it shows that google is willing to make it a fair game for everybody.

it reminds me another recent case that US government demanding last year that Google and other search engines turn over search information to help revive a child protection law. yahoo and msn has handed over the info. however google said no.

what the government wanted was one million random web addresses and records of all Google searches over one week time.

it’s not that the one million random URL involves privacy issues. anybody can get 1 million ramdom urls simply by browsing. what i appreciate is that google treats everyone the same way.

at least, they try to. surely there’re background stories that everage joe like myself would never know. however, how many big guys even try to cast an image that they care about us, small businesses, individuals? very few.

i like the way google said to bmw and government, hey we don’t like dirty tricks like cloaking, your using it? fine, but your gone from my index. you want my information? no, it’s not my resposibility to provide these to you. they are firm on what they should do and what not to do. as a small fish, i see hope here. the playground is leveled.

update: after i finished this post, bmw.de has been back to google index after the redirects are removed and reinclusion is filed. this is fast, for both bmw and google.

luckily i screen captured yesterday when i started writing this post:

downloaded Google Earth and have been playing with it today. the word to describe my feeling is, WOW!

it’s simply fantastic.

have heard of google earth for a while. google launched quite a lot products, some are closely related to search, some are not, at least in the surface. some are very interesting like google earth and gmail. 1GB email box, what an hard-to-imagine idea when all others were offering several MB! again, google made it. now competitors are following. google basically sets the standard again.

some products are not very useful for me. google desktop for instance, tried it, cool, fun, then removed. maybe because my desktop is not that messy yet, i know where to find what.

google talk does not even work on my computer. no intention to troubleshoot thou, not many people are using it yet.

but this google earth is really cool, fun, and useful. you see, everyone love travel, me too. but don’t have the time and money to travel around. but i want to see how the rest of the world look like. with google earth, i can see every building at orchard road, statue of liberty, tian’anmen square… right on my desktop.

not all images are hi res though. i cannot see the block im living in yet i believe it will improve.

now think beyond the cool images. there is a huge advertising business there. i read that google earth can be installed on a car with GPS. what if the driver wants to know and search for “resturant nearby”? which one will be shown in google earth in the future? the one that pays to be listed! just like google adwords advertisers.

otherwise why did they develop this in the first place? for fun, showcase? i don’t think so.

think about it. currently most of adwords advertisers are online businesses, or shops with online marketing mindset at least. not much, compared with all businesses. with google earth, google opened a door to main stream advertising market. that’s a much bigger market.

maybe i’m wrong, they have other plans, much better plans. what i believe is, people in google are smart. they must have something in mind.

last friday i went to the Bill Gates Live in Singapore event organized by IDA at suntec.

although im afraid we still prefer Unix as server platform (for good reason, otherwise Unix wouldn’t occupy 85%+ market share), however it’s great to see Bill Gates in person. he is smartest businessman. and he is one of the smartest programmers in the world i guess. is he still doing any actual programming work?

many do not like microsoft products. i use firefox, seldom use IE now. but it’s neat to see the richest man in the world, isn’t? well, the nearest i saw him was at least 50m away, i was looking at the projector most of the time during his speech.

his speech was rather short, 20 or 30 minutes. not that interesting at all. invention of next 10 years will be more than all inventions in past 30 years, many equipments TV, microwave etc. will be connected, hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper, the core is software and we are working hard, blah blah.

no secrets, no sensitive stuff. CEO of any software company can give the same, or better, speech.

6000 people gathered at suntec, 8000 questions submitted. i, for one, want to know things like, what is microsoft doing to stop spams, spyware? not their resposibility i know. why Windows server is always the target of hackers, compared to Unix server? when can IE become bug free? when can users feel secure using IE? is there any backdoor in Windows that sends personal information back to microsoft?

of course, i never expect Mr. Bill Gates answer these questions straight.

human beings are funny. i knew i wouldn’t learn much at the event in the first place. how can he reveal anything really valuable in such public event? but i rushed to microsoft web site to register once i got the news. it’s not that i wanted to hear some secrets, it’s the idea that i was going to see the richest man in the world that excited me.

Mr. Sim Wong Hoo gave a very interesting closing speech, the made in singapore story, in which he shared strategies to compete in IT market.