Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Is knowing “how to change the world” priceless? NO, it can actually be had at a bargain basement, junk rate of a mere $4 CPM!

Want to “ask the VC”? Ditto. Same for A VC, and even Feld’s thoughts can be bought for $4 per 1000. How about Paul Kedrosy? He’s NOT that greedy after all: $4 CPM to learn how NOT to business plan. Redeye VC? Josh Kopelman may be proud as a peacock that his First Round Capital portfolio company Mint.com pocketed an extra $50,000 thanks to Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis, Ron Conway and TechCrunch40 friends, but that doesn’t mean HE is not also pushing for every $4 per thousand his “redeye” can garner.

Even the officilal words of Union Square Ventures itself can be bought at an affordable $4 CPM.

How can advertisers buy in to such smart money on the cheap? Brad Feld is happy to clue you in. He declares himself to be a “proud member of VENTURE CAPITAL FeedBurner Network:

A select group of publishers who have combined their properties to offer advertisers reach with a single ad buy.

How kind of them! What is so “select” about Guy Kawasaki, Jason Mendelson, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, Paul Kedrosky, Josh Koppleman, Brad Burnham?

FeedBurner assures:

Venture Capital bloggers have a uniquely targeted audience of entrepreneurs interested in what they have to say. These Venture Capitalists write about technology, entrepreneurship, investing, the computer industry… and their random exploits.

If what Guy, Jason, Brad, Fred, Paul, Josh and Brad “have to say” on the open Web is so “select,” than why is it available for free to readers and to advertisers at non-premium rates?

Is FeedBurner Venture Capital really sharing smart money?

PLUS: Why Twitter is Risky Business

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Do YOU know where your Google Analytics data is? More importantly, do you REALLY want Google to know all about YOUR Website data?

Who needs Google Analytics! Now more than ever: All is not well in the data cloud for the number one search engine that aspires to rule “Search, Ads and Apps.”

How So? Google is NOT serving up Google Analytics in a timely fashion.

Google nevertheless touts: “Web analytics has moved from being a niche function to becoming a mainstream aspect of the business for companies of all sizes.”

YES: In other words, Web analytics is a mission critical function. It should be handled accordingly then, in-house or with a neutral third-party, BUT NOT THROUGH GOOGLE!

WHY NOT? Google owned Analytics is not an arms length, neutral third party. Google has a vested interest in knowing and understanding Google Analytics third-party Webmaster data resulting from both AdWords campaigns and advertising campaigns placed with competitors.

What does Google do with all the Website activity information it tracks and manipulates about what is going on the Web properties of others?

Who really knows? As is typical Google fashion, the Google Analytics Terms of Service, coupled with the Google Privacy Policy, are not clear cut and provide Google with ample discretionary room for exclusions, disclaimers and general “outs” to suit its purposes, whatever they may be.

Google Analytics offers marketing speak assurances about the sanctity of the business data it extracts from Websites:

Google takes the trust people place in us very seriously, and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. We understand that web analytics data is sensitive information, so we accord it the ironclad protection it deserves.

In its legal speak, however, Google is not so iron clad about the “sanctity” of the information it gleans from the Web operations of third-parties.

Below are excerpts of the Google Analytics documentation: How Google defines “Customer Data” that it collects on the customers of the Websites that use Google Analytics and what it says it has the right to do with the data it collects from the Google Analytics tracked Websites.

“Customer Data” means the data concerning the characteristics and activities of visitors to your website that is collected through use of the UTM and then forwarded to the Servers and analyzed by the Processing Software. “Servers” means the servers controlled by Google (or its wholly owned subsidiaries) upon which the Processing Software and Customer Data are stored.

Information Rights. Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its Privacy Policy, information collected in Your use of the Service.

The referenced Google umbrella privacy policy which governs all Google actions leaves the Google door wide open for Google Analytics collected data “auditing, research and analysis,” by Google.

Google wants to “organize” all the world’s information for “safekeeping” on its servers throughout the world. Companies’ customer data, however, ought to indeed be treated as mission critical, and therefore as proprietary.

The best place for proprietary safekeeping is in-house, the second best is a secure, disinterested, neutral service provider.

The number one search engine and search advertising engine and contextual advertising engine and feed manager and soon display advertising engine…is not a neutral third-party service vendor. What’s more, Google competes directly against all of the “search engines and referral sources” that it tracks in Google Analytics.

Moral of the Google Analytics story? Declare Webmaster independence: Ditch it, now!

ALSO BEWARE: How Google Owns YOUR FeedBurner History and How Commtouch Wins in Google Postini Enterprise Battle and Google GrandCentral: Who Needs Wiretaps?

PLUS: FCC to Google: You’re NOT the Boss of Me!

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The “conversation” ensuing between “good guys” Dave Winer and Fred Wilson re: “FeedBurner, friend or foe,” misses the boat, the Google corporate privacy boat that is.

In Free FeedBurner? The HIGH Price You Pay I underscore how there is NO such thing as a “free” Google service.

Any analysis of FeedBurner’s motivations must by definition be an analysis of the Googleplex’s ambitions.

Google does nothing without a quid pro quo. With FeedBurner, Google follows its good Google Anlaytics tradition of knowing, for perpetuity, the ins and outs of every single move made at Websites, and now their off-site interactions as well.

Google announced upon its acquisition of Feedburner: 

If you take no action by June 15, 2007, the rights to your data will transfer from FeedBurner to Google.

So, In acquiring FeedBurner, then, Google not only acquired the business assets of one company, it acquired ownership of the proprietary data of hundreds of thousands of Websites as well.

As readers of Insider Chatter know, what goes in Google server farms, stays in Google server farms, regardless of any eventual service “switching.”

Google’s Positini acquisiton is headed down a similar your corporate data will be Google’s data, forever, track as well, as I have been documenting and analyzing.

SEE: How Commtouch Wins in Google Postini Enterprise Battle and Google Buys Postini PLUS 500 million Email Secrets

Beware Feedburner, and all Google acquisitions.

ALSO: Africa NOT Online: Will ‘Open’ Google ‘Put Up or Shut Up’? and Google, Yahoo Click Fraud Audit Minefield Looms: Look to the IAB?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google has done it again! Just in time for July 4th Independence Day celebrations, too: Google’s FeedBurner is now “more for free”!

Is there any better way to celebrate our nation’s democratic beginnings than to fete Google for its never ending democratization of the Web? PERHAPS, by gaining true independence, from Google.

After all, is there really such a thing as a “free” Google service? NO. Google does nothing without a quid pro quo. With FeedBurner, Google follows its good Google Anlaytics tradition of knowing, for perpetuity, the ins and outs of every single move made at Websites, and now their off-site interactions as well.

How spectacular is the first Google FeedBurner “innovation”?

Two of FeedBurner’s previously for-pay services, TotalStats and MyBrand, will be free.

YAY! The low-fee services are now no-fee to promote FeedBurner lock-in AND to garner more Web site activity stats for Google to mine.

What DOES Google have in store for the feed data it gleans from others’ properties? The outlook is not good, as suggested by paidContent’s report on the Google FeedBurner your data is our data position indicated by Google upon the acquisition:

If you take no action by June 15, 2007, the rights to your data will transfer from FeedBurner to Google. Opting out will terminate your user agreement with FeedBurner, permanently delete your FeedBurner account, feeds, and all related statistical data and history, and prevent the transfer of your data rights to Google.

In acquiring FeedBurner, then, Google not only acquired the business assets of one company, it acquired ownership of the proprietary data of hundreds of thousands of Websites as well.

Who is really getting “more for free”? The Web, or Google.

ALSO: Facebook, Twitter Rule? Get a REAL (social networking) Life! and Google Sicko Timeline: Attack, Retract, Pander

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN