E-business News Briefs
Rivals play defense with keywords
Vibrant Media's Intellitxt is helping marketers, such as Chrysler, defend their brand's turf by acquiring keywords that apply directly to their models and those of their rivals. Some find the tactic controversial, but Vibrant CEO Doug Stevenson believes it "shows the power of the user being in control of the advertising." Advertising Age (free registration).
Column: Privacy threatened by ad-driven health sites
Consumer privacy is at risk by ad-supported sites like WebMD, which is offering to store and maintain at no charge personal health records, according to this opinion piece by Joseph Turow, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, privacy and information policy consultant Robert Gellman and Judith Turow, an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "Personal health records should be just that: Personal," they write. "Not a platform for marketers." San Francisco Chronicle
Microsoft takes aim at Google over copyright
Microsoft associate general counsel Thomas C. Rubin reportedly planned to launch a broadside at Google's rival book-scanning project, in a speech scheduled to be delivered today at a meeting of a publishers' group, arguing that Google "systematically violates copyright." Rubin writes, "Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue." USA TODAY/Associated Press
