Startpage launches anonymous Web search service
February 2, 2010
Source: REUTERS

LONDON: Search-engine company Startpage launched a service allowing users concerned about privacy to carry out Web searches and click on linked pages without being identified, tracked or recorded. 

Unlike mainstream search engines that gather commercially valuable information about user behaviour, privately held Startpage has focused on privacy since 2005. 

Startpage -- also known as Ixquick outside the United States and Britain -- had already offered private searching, but users would leave the company's protection when they clicked on a search result and entered a third-party website. 

The new service offers use of a Startpage proxy that means the user is invisible to all websites, though pages load more slowly since Startpage must first retrieve the contents and then redisplay them. 

"My wake-up call came last year," says Katherine Albrecht, who runs U.S. media relations and marketing for Startpage and who says she noticed Google Inc had installed a programme monitoring users who typed in terms indicating they had influenza -- and was sharing the information with the U.S. Center for Disease Control. 

"I had been a privacy advocate for 10 years, but even so I was using Google just like everybody else," she said. 

The chief executive of Google, which dominates the global Web search market, outraged critics last month with comments in a TV interview. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Eric Schmidt said in a interview on news channel. 

"The reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time," he said. "We are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." 

In 2006, however, Google was the only major search engine to reject a U.S. Justice Department subpoena to hand over data, saying the demand violated the privacy of users' searches and its own trade secrets. 

Rivals Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc complied. Startpage does not keep information about its users on file, so it could not be forced to hand anything over. 

Startpage says it has been profitable for the last five years. It is funded by advertising including sponsored links that are matched to the content of Websites and searches, but not to user profiles. 

Startpage, which was founded in New York and is owned by private Dutch company Surfboard Holding BV, does not publish user numbers but says it had served over 1.2 billion searches as of December 2009. 

It also competes with Infospace's Dogpile, WebCrawler and MetaCrawler in metasearch, or returning results from multiple search engines. It is also exploring ways to offer private email. 

France to quiz China on Google dispute: Report
February 2, 2010
Source: ET AGENCIES

PARIS: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday said he would ask for an explanation from his Chinese counterpart on Beijing's dispute with US Internet giant Google during talks this week. 

He is to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Paris on Wednesday. 

Referring to the dispute, Kouchner was quoted as saying: "This is a very important event, it is a way of showing the extent to which information travelling around the world is under surveillance, which is quite troubling." 

His comments were reported by TV5Monde television, RFI radio and Le Monde newspaper. 

Google this month threatened to abandon its Chinese search engine, and perhaps end all operations in the country, over some recent cyber attacks. It has also said it is no longer willing to bow to Chinese government censors. 

The Chinese government has denied any responsibility for the cyber attacks. 

Cost cutting phase over, time to transform biz: HCL Technologies
February 2, 2010
SOURCE: PTI

DAVOS: Indian IT major HCL Technologies today said the cost cutting phase necessitated by the global economic downturn is over and it will work  with its global customers to help redesign their business. 

During the recession, HCL helped its customers in the US and Europe reduce their "run-the-business" cost, company Chief Executive Officer Vineet Nayar told PTI. 

Nayar, who is a regular at the World Economic Forum meeting, said the phase of cost reduction is over and the name of the game is to change and transform the business. 

"Now we are going to have customers wanting to change businesses and transform them," he said. 

The $5-billion technology company, which is among India's original IT garage start-ups, has grown into a 55,000 employee company and is geared to change business focus, Nayar said. 

He said among the five sets of its expertise, it would now focus on the areas like enterprise application and engineering services. Simply put, HCL would help the enterprises help redesign their business, say taking them to the use of digital technology, with the help of engineering tools. 

Commenting on the company's road map ahead, Nayar said HCL would continue to grow both by its natural expansion as also by new acquisitions. 

He, however, did not give details saying the company did not believe in acquiring companies just because the assets are less expensive during slowdown. It would go for the acquisitions if it finds value in them. It acquired four firms, including the big ticket Axon, in 2009. 

While he was not willing to give the company outlook, Nayar said the industry consensus is that the IT budget globally would be either flat or marginally grow in 2010.