'Sniper' - New search engine to target anti-Semitism.

'Sniper' - New search engine to target anti-Semitism. (Ynet).

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) is expected to launch its Sniper app, which it says is a search engine for anti-Semitic content.

 The Sniper system is set up to scan the internet using an algorithm that will identify certain keywords in different languages. A crew of WZO members will scan the results, confirm the cases that actually show real anti-Semitism, and respond with direct replies or contact authorities in the offending party's country.

WZO emphasizes the fact that the app will be monitored and supervised, so that its use will be proper, and not aimed at shaming individuals or groups without proper evidence.

 It will initially operate on a trial basis in countries in Latin America, which has seen a recent rise in anti-Semitism that has not been as well-publicized as European anti-Semitism. Read the full story here.

"I do think at a certain point you've made enough money" -Google To Start Charging Companies For Listings."

                                              Beware of 'Google' bearing gifts?




"I do think at a certain point you've made enough money" - Google To Start Charging Companies For Listings.(Matzav).Google is to start charging companies for listing their products in a core part of its search service, the first time it has converted a free section of its giant online index into a purely commercial venture. The change to Google Product Search will mean that many merchants that have relied on the search engine to lure potential customers online will face higher costs, according to analysts. The move also raises the prospect that Google will eventually replace other parts of its free listings with adverts, said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land. “It represents an attitude that they’re no longer going to go out and gather stuff up for free,” he said. Google said it was making the switch to enable it to show users higher quality results when they are looking for products online. It also said the service would be relabelled as a “sponsored” venture to show it was now based on advertising. The change in direction brings an end to a 10-year-old experiment in which Google tried to filter information about products from the Web and make it available through a separate panel on its results pages. When it launched the service, first known as Froogle, the company said that not charging merchants to list items would give internet users “confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased”. 
On Thursday, however, Google said that after a transitional period, only merchants who pay will be able to have their products appear in the service, now called Google Shopping. Its algorithms will sort through commercial listings and select which to show using a formula based on relevance and the amount of money the advertisers are prepared to pay. 
Google sought to depict product search as separate from typical web search and as an area that could be improved by making it commercial. Information about many products is not available on the web and is often supplied directly by merchants, requiring “deeper relationships” with them, Sameer Samat, product manager for Google Shopping, wrote in a blog post announcing the news. “We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date,” he added. Similar arguments could be made about other areas of information that Google presently indexes free of charge, raising the possibility that more parts of its service will eventually be replaced by advertising, Mr Sullivan said. These include Google Places, the company’s local listings service, which relies partly on information supplied by restaurants, stores and other providers of local services. Google refused to comment on its future plans.Hmmm......."Now you see me......now you don't"Read the full story here.

"The Gloves are off" - Copyright Industry Calls for Broad Search Engine Censorship.

Copyright Industry Calls for Broad Search Engine Censorship.(TF).At a behind-closed-doors meeting facilitated by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, copyright holders have handed out a list of demands to Google, Bing and Yahoo. To curb the growing piracy problem, Hollywood and the major music labels want the search engines to de-list popular filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, and give higher ranking to authorized sites.It’s no secret that the entertainment industries believe search engines are not delivering enough when it comes to protecting copyright works. Just last month, the RIAA and IFPI accused Google of massively profiting from piracy, while putting up barriers to make life difficult for rightsholders.
If the copyright industry had their way, Google and other search engines would no longer link to sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. In a detailed proposal handed out during a meeting with Google, Yahoo and Bing, various copyright holders made their demands clear.
The document, which describes a government-overlooked “Voluntary Code of Practice” for search engines, was not intended for public consumption but the Open Rights Group obtained it through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
In short, the rightsholders want the search engines to make substantial changes so that pirated content becomes harder to find, or is de-listed entirely. In addition, they want to boost the rankings of licensed content. Below are the three new measures they propose.

• Assign lower rankings to sites that repeatedly make available unlicensed content in breach of copyright
• Stop indexing websites that are subject to court orders while establishing suitable procedures to de-index substantially infringing sites
• In the document rightsholders explain that they find it inexcusable that some websites – Pirate Bay and Isohunt in particular – are still indexed by all major search engines even though courts have ruled they facilitate copyright infringementPrioritize websites that obtain certification as a licensed site under a recognised scheme.

Hmmmm.......“We would propose that prioritisation be enabled for searches that contain any of the following key search terms: “mp3″, “flac”, “wma”, “aac”, “torrent”, “download”, “rip”, “stream” or “listen”, “free”, when combined with an artist name, song or album title contained on a list to be regularly updated and provided to a search engine by a recognised and properly mandated agency representing rights holders for a particular sector, such as BPI.”Read the full story here.