In an interview with NPR Marketplace recently, Google Executives and others had a few rather interesting statements about the famous ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button on their website.

Perhaps best known for the George W. Bush ‘miserable failure’ and Tony Blair ‘liar’ gags, the button has been a staple of Google since the beginning. But what purpose does it serve at this point in Google’s evolution?

Tom Chavez, head of Rapt, an agency that determines how much space on web sites is worth to advertisers, said, “Basically you have $110 million of revenue loss per year associated with that button.”
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Late Thursday night, under-fire Facebook changed the method of consent users are presented with for their Beacon campaign. Instead of a pop-up either hard to see or that disappeared too quickly asking if the user wanted to opt-out of sending their info to friends, Facebook will now ask for the explicit consent of its users, so when a purchase is made, they will have the option to opt-in to Beacon.

Beacon’s system of peer recommendations, which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls the “holy grail” of advertising, now has lost a good deal of its luster. Adam Green of Moveon.org said of the changes, ”It also says a lot about the ability of Internet user to band together to make a difference.”

A groundswell of opposition to Facebook’s Beacon program, which sends online product purchase and activity information to Facebook users’ friends, may lead to an alteration to the system by the social network. An announcement appears to be imminent.

A petition by MoveOn.org has already received over 45,000 signatures from people concerned about the ad vehicle. The belief is that this program should be an opt-in program instead of an opt-out program. Many users are complaining that the popup that asks if users want their information shared isn’t obvious enough, thus leading to information being given to friends that the user didn’t want to release.
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Google Maps for Mobile can now identify your location, even if your phone does not have GPS support.

If you do have GPS support, you can simply click the “My Location” button and Google will tell you where you’re at. Without GPS support, Google will triangulate your location based on the unique numbers of the cell towers in your area. Google claims an accuracy of within 500-2000 feet.

This service by Google works with most smartphone devices, such as BlackBerry, Java, and Windows Mobile (many iPhone users were complaining they could not get it to work, though). However, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for your phone. Verizon, for example, will disable the GPS device in your phone so you have to pay $10 a month for the service.
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Cyber Monday turned sour for many users of Yahoo’s Merchant Solutions. The service was slowed and eventually ground to a halt on the biggest online shopping day of the year. Many smaller to mid-range e-merchants were left helpless at precisely the wrong moment.

In an e-mailed statement to its users, Yahoo said, “Yahoo’s relationship with our merchants is extremely important to us and we value their loyalty. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and we are continuing to put processes in place to prevent further disruptions.”

The system did not become fully stable until around 1PM PST here on Tuesday, although late last night orders began going through at a slower rate.
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comScore estimates that American consumers spent $531 million in online retail shopping on Black Friday, which is up 22% from the previous year.

Online spending was also up 29% on Thanksgiving day and 17% for the entire month of November.

comScore estimates that today’s so-called “Cyber Monday” will result in online sales near $700 million, which would make it the biggest online retail day in history.

“The Friday after Thanksgiving is known for heavy spending in retail stores, but it’s clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.
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Facebook users in Syria are reporting that their Facebook accounts have been blocked by government authorities in a systematic crackdown on potential political activism via the internet.

The government has yet to comment, though it is reported they are claiming that Facebook could lead to “Israeli penetration of youth,” but their latest action fits in with a pattern where Syrian leadership has taken on bloggers, opinion forums, and independent media sites as of late.
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A petition signed by 13,000 Facebook members that protests its new advertising strategy is raising eyebrows in the European Union and is leading to speculation that the body make take action to shut down targeted advertising.

“This is a very hot topic that can be expected to be part of our work programme next year,” said Gabriele Loewnau, a legal adviser for the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection.

Loewnau also heads the so-called Article 29 Working Party, an E.U. body that oversees data protection issues. They were responsible for getting Google to limit the amount of time it stored searches to 18 months.
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The Government of France has passed a law that will deny internet access to users that illegally download music or films.

This is the result of a three-way agreement between the government, French ISP’s, and film and music providers. The ISP’s will warn users that are found to be downloading illegal content before they are banned. Ignoring those messages will result in the suspension of their internet priviliges.

“We run the risk of witnessing a genuine destruction of culture,” said French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
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According to Comscore, Google is further distancing itself from their competition in the search engine arena in the United States, and they are having even more success abroad.

Total search engine searches in October were up 26% from last year.

Google held on to 58.5% of the total share, up from 49% last year.
Yahoo’s share was 22.9%, down from 28.7% last year.
Microsoft Live Search was 9.7%, down from 11% last year.
AOL was at 4.2%, down from 6.3% last year.
Ask.com, in spite of their ubiquitous ads, was at 4.7%, down from 5.2% last year.

Worldwide, Google’s advantage is even higher, with 69.4% of the total share. After Yahoo at 14.4%, the third biggest search engine in the world is China’s Baidu at 8.8% of the total worldwide share

Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at netresults.com!