35m Google Profiles snatched

Proving that information posted online is indelible and trivial to mine, a researcher has dumped names, e-mail addresses and biographical information made available in 35 million Google Profiles into a massive database that took just one month to assemble, notes The Register.

University of Amsterdam PhD student Matthijs R Koot said he compiled the database as an experiment to see how easy it would be for private detectives, spear phishers and others to mine the vast amount of personal information stored in Google Profiles.

The verdict: It wasn't hard at all. Unlike Facebook policies that strictly forbid the practice, the permissions file for the Google Profiles URL makes no prohibitions against indexing the list.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz found herself in a familiar position yesterday - assuring stock market analysts she will clean up a mess damaging the long-slumping Internet company's market value, reports the Associated Press.

The latest challenge to confront Bartz in her nearly two-and-half-year tenure emerged two weeks ago. That's when Yahoo jarred investors by informing them of an abrupt change affecting the value of its 43% stake in Alibaba Group, one of the leaders in China's rapidly growing Internet market.

Alibaba had spun off a potential jewel - its online payment service Alipay - into a separate company controlled by its CEO, Jack Ma, without giving Yahoo anything in return.

YouTube celebrated its sixth birthday this month by revealing it has surpassed over 48 hours of video uploaded to the video-sharing Web site every minute, states eWeek.

That's a 37% bump from last November, when it averaged 35 hours of video uploaded per minute. That's a 100% hike from 2009, when YouTube said it exceeded 24 hours of video uploaded each minute of the day.

YouTube also said it has passed three billion daily video views, up 50% from a year ago, when the site said it was raking in more than two billion views a day.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt have warned governments worldwide not to over-regulate the Internet, reports the BBC.

Zuckerberg said governments cannot cherry-pick which aspects of the Web to control and which not to.

The two are leading a group of Internet pioneers to the G8 summit in France. The delegation will deliver recommendations thrashed out at the first e-G8 gathering in Paris this week. Schmidt said: “Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences.”