Google on Monday announced that the company would combine individual privacy policies from a variety of its products into one main policy. Critics of the change were worried that Google was now collecting more data than before, and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded answers. The Mountain View-based company has now responded to Congress and defended its decision to change the policy. Read on for more. (more…)

Earlier this week, Google announced that the company would combine individual privacy policies from a variety of its products into one main policy. The idea behind it was to provide users with a “more intuitive Google experience.” Critics of the change are worried that Google is now collecting more data than ever, however, leading members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee to demand answers. Read on for more. (more…)

Beating out popular own-brand apps like Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube, Facebook holds the title as the most actively used Android app. Market research firm Nielsen on Monday published the findings of a month-long study to determine the most-used Android apps currently available for the platform. The study made use of Nielsen’s proprietary on-device monitoring software, which has been voluntarily installed by thousands of panelists across the country. Beyond the Android Market itself, F...

Google’s Gmail application for iOS is again available in the iTunes App Store. The application originally launched on November 2nd but was pulled hours later after Google discovered that notifications weren’t working properly. Google says it has fixed the bug and that notifications now work as originally intended. Image HTML emails will also display properly now. In addition, Google said it is already working on future updates that will add support for customizations, improved notifications, mobil...

Microsoft’s senior director of online services Tom Rizzo recently published a blog post titled “Google Graveyard” that tore into Google’s practice of launching products and then killing them off shortly after. “Google customers are not finding tools they have been using over the years,” he explained. “Google releases experimental products and tracks adoption to determine whether to continue providing them. Its products are like spaghetti, Google throws them up against...

Google released an official Gmail application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on Wednesday. According to Google, the application supports the following features:Get alerted to new messages with push notifications and soundsFind an email in seconds with search across your entire inboxAutocomplete email addresses from your Gmail contacts or select from your device’s address bookUpload photos with a click using the new attachment button in compose viewOn iPad, navigate your inbox and read your mail simulta...

This past summer, Google began rolling out a sample of its revamped Gmail user interface and on Tuesday it discussed many of the brand new changes that will be deploying over the next few days. Gmail’s conversation view has been streamlined and now includes photos of each contact. Additionally, it will automatically resize itself to look best depending on your screen size thanks to a new “elastic density feature.” Themes now support HD images and there is a new “smarter navigation̶...

Gartner released a report on Friday that suggested Google’s Gmail solution is ready to take on Microsoft in the enterprise email arena despite having just a tiny fraction of the market. “While Gmail’s enterprise email market share currently hovers around 1 percent, it has close to half of the market for enterprise cloud email,” Gartner research vice president Matthew Cain said. “While cloud email is still in its infancy, at 3 percent to 4 percent of the overall enterprise email m...

Market research firm Nielsen on Tuesday revealed the 20 most popular Android applications in the United States. Using data obtained from metered device usage as opposed to observations from surveys as most similar data is collected, Nielsen studied Android owners’ app usage over the past month. The result is a ranking of the platform’s top-20 applications by active reach, or the percentage of Android device owners who used each app within the past 30 days. Google’s Android Market topped the ...

Hacker groups like Anonymous and LulzSec capture the bulk of mainstream media’s attention when it comes to hackers these days, but it looks like the Iranian government may have recently pulled off an attack that trumps both hacker groups and then some. According to reports, Iranian hackers with ties to the government have managed to executive an MITM attack that compromises Google’s SSL security. An MITM attack, or Man-In-The-Middle attack, is a cyberattack that allows an attacker to covertly int...

Google has started to build its open-source WebRTC software into its Chrome web browser, according to CNET. WebRTC was introduced in May as a new open tech that allows developers to create quick HTML and Javascript APIs for building voice and video chat applications on the web. With WebRTC built into Chrome, users would presumably be able to initiate video chats over Gmail’s Google Talk chat application without the need for installing Google’s plug-in first. “Our goal is to enable Chrome wit...

Sprint announced on Thursday that the HTC EVO 4G will receive an over-the-air update to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) on June 6th. Android 2.3 will reactivate the ability to sync multiple Gmail accounts on the EVO 4G, and will also improve download management and streaming media applications, among other changes. Want the update sooner? Here’s a little secret: you can download the update and install it manually beginning on June 3rd. Simply navigate to your phone’s settings menu, choose “system ...

On Wednesday hackers based in China broke into hundreds of Gmail accounts, including those of journalists, Chinese political activists, U.S. government officials, and government employees from South Korea. Given the aforementioned targets and recent revelations that China has a branch of its military focused on cyber activities, it may seem like China’s government had a role in the attack. On Thursday, however, China denied any involvement in the the breach, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hong Le...

Google on Wednesday confirmed that a hacker from China was able to break into hundreds of Gmail accounts. The company detected the breach and notified victims of the attack, as well as relevant government authorities. Several high-profile accounts were hacked according to the Associated Press, including senior U.S. government personnel, Chinese political activists and government officials from South Korea. The actual hack was a phishing scheme that prompted users to enter their user names and passwords on a w...