It’s hard to imagine the death of search as we know it, but search is changing as we speak, and unless Google finds some flexibility, the company will be at the forefront of innovation no longer. The dent in Google’s armor comes from rather surprising directions, not from Microsoft or Ya...

I wasn’t as objective as I could have been in this piece, which is an editorial, not, technically, an article. I’ve decided Wikipedia editors probably were too aggressive in blocking edits regarding Barack Obama controversies, but I still hold my other opinions firm. And as always, my vi...

As always, consider the source. In this case, consider the source considering another source. (If you want to be a stickler, you can include me in that consideration, a source considering a source considering another source. Ah, academics.) World Net Daily reports changes made to Wikipedia’s e...

Google’s seemingly automatic trust of popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia make all of them—and by default, you, the end game—a target of spammers, scammers, and hackers. Combine that trust with Twittter’s foray into realtime search, and you’...

An Illinois sheriff wants Craigslist to stop making it so easy to catch prostitutes. Apparently it just gives him a lot more work than he can handle. Sheriff Tom Dart, of Cook County, Ill., filed suit against Craigslist and asked a federal judge to ban the online classified advertising site from off...

The United States Marines, the Mormon Church, and the Korean Department of Tourism are all paying Australian-based uSocial to game Digg.com for them, according to a blog post at the Los Angeles Times. We covered uSocial last month, a company that charges about $200 to promote up stories on Digg.com,...

This consumer review thing may need to be rethought. Like just about everything else that came out of the Web 2.0 movement, customer reviews of businesses are huge targets for abuse. The most recent example comes from Yelp.com, a site popular in San Francisco for reviewing area restaurants. The East...

The last two times the Utah legislature attempted to regulate keyword advertising didn’t turn out very well. It’s probably a surprise to many then (maybe not though) that the governmental body is giving it a third try, this time with a version as watered down as it is vague. Eric Goldman...

A year later, a Microsoft and Yahoo assault on Google still can’t be ruled out. Steve Ballmer says he’s still interested, and even though Yahoo’s new chief won’t kiss and tell, her apparent lack of confidence in her company is telling enough. And what does Google CEO Eric Sch...

Facebook won a restraining order against notorious spam king Samford “Spamford” Wallace in US District Court, a victory that, if history is any indication, is mostly symbolic. Facebook sued Wallace and two other cybercriminals—Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw—last week, allegi...