Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » AdMob

Google Korea Office Raided Over Suspicion That AdMob Illegally Collected Location Data

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:38:06 +0000

The Korean offices of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) have been raided as part of an accusation that AdMob illegally collected location data without consent. Last month Apple had to defend the way that the iPhone collected location data.

“Every technology has a flip side. Location-based services benefit customers by helping them find nearby restaurants, gas stations and other places with their smartphones,” stated Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology professor Kim Kwang-jo. “But it could potentially violate consumer privacy. There are loopholes in location-based services, and companies should get consent from customers to collect location data.”

Google acquired AdMob last year for $750 million. Google has been complying with the police investigation.

[Reuters]

Why Google Wouldn’t Build Their Own Groupon Internally

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 19:42:30 +0000

Susan Wojcicki, the SVP of product development at Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) explained why Google wouldn’t build similar services to companies they could just buy. “It’s hard to assemble a team and organize as quickly as you want in these situations,” said Wojcicki in an interview at the Dive Into Mobile conference. “Finding the right people, interviewing them and hiring them takes time. Companies are willing to pay a premium to be in the market right now.” Wojcicki refused to talk about Groupon directly, but she did talk about Google’s competitive bid for AdMob. “You’re buying people with expertise and learning about new markets.” she added. [NYT]

AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui Steps Down From Google

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:19:34 +0000

AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui has stepped down from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) after working there for five months. Google acquired AdMob last November for $750 million. Hamoui is leaving for personal reasons. Between November 2009 and May 2010, Google’s acquisition of AdMob was held up because of federal investigation. AdMob employees’ incentives began to vest when the deal was completed around November 2009. Supposedly AdMob’s integration into Google has not been going swimmingly. Many executives are leaving Google as a result. Anytime an AdMob employee has an idea, it has to go through many layers and departments at Google. [TechCrunch]

AdMob Served Over 300 Billion Ads So Far

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:17:39 +0000

According to a tweet sent out by Google Mobile Ads, AdMob has served over 300 billion ads since they launched in 2007. Apple was close to buying out AdMob, but Google made a deal happen much quicker. Based on the number of ads served, I think Google got their money’s worth after spending $850 million in stock to buy them out in November 2009.

AdMob: New Apple Terms Of Service Is “Great News”

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 14:37:31 +0000

Google’s mobile advertising company AdMob announced that the changes in Apple’s terms of service is “great news.” Google VP of Product Management Omar Hamoui said that that the new terms allows Apple’s developers to choose from a variety of advertising solutions including Google’s AdMob.

“The new terms provide immediate clarification about the status of mobile advertising on the iPhone and will benefit users, developers, and advertisers. Users will benefit from more free, or low cost, apps that can now more readily be supported by advertising. Developers will be able to choose from a variety of competitive advertising options and pick the solution that works best for them, to boost their revenues. Advertisers will have access to simple and effective advertising solutions that can reach users across a wide range of devices,” said Hamoui.

[Google Mobile Blog]

AdMob CEO: New Apple Ad Rules Not In Best Interest Of Users

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:01:48 +0000

AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui said that Apple’s new advertising rules “prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on the iPhone.”

According to iOS advertising rule 3.3.9:

3.3.9 You and Your Applications may not collect, use, or disclose to any third party, user or device data without prior user consent, and then only under the following conditions:

- The collection, use or disclosure is necessary in order to provide a service or function that is directly relevant to the use of the Application. For example, without Apple’s prior written consent, You may not use third party analytics software in Your Application to collect and send device data to a third party for aggregation, processing, or analysis.

- The collection, use or disclosure is for the purpose of serving advertising to Your Application; is provided to an independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads (for example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent); and the disclosure is limited to UDID, user location data, and other data specifically designated by Apple as available for advertising purposes.

Greystripe has been given permission to run their ad network on the iPhone and iPad platforms explicitly. No word yet on AdMob yet.

[Engadget]

FTC Approves Google’s Acquisition of AdMob

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 21 May 2010 19:33:46 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been given the greenlight by the FTC to acquire AdMob, the company founded by Omar Hamoui. AdMob is a mobile advertising company that provides a platform and advertising inventory for iPhone and Android applications. “Throughout the FTC’s review process, it’s been clear that mobile advertising is growing rapidly. As mobile phone usage increases, growth in mobile advertising is only going to accelerate. This benefits mobile developers and publishers who will get better advertising solutions, marketers who will find new ways to reach consumers, and users who will get better ads and more free content,” stated Google VP of Product Management Susan Wojcicki. Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless most likely helped Google’s case. [Google Blog]

Eric Schmidt: iAd Helps Google-AdMob Deal, Google Tablet On The Way

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:30:52 +0000

Eric Schmidt was recently gave a speech at the American Society of News Editors. After his speech, the Google CEO said that Apple’s announcement about iAd helps Google’s argument with the FTC about the acquisition of AdMob.

Apple’s announcement about iAd was “evidence of a highly competitive market.” “It just seems obvious to me,” stated Schmidt. “I hope it (Google’s purchase of AdMob) gets approved.” iAd is Apple’s way of making it easier for Apple App Store developers to place advertisements on to their applications. Apple and the developer would share revenue generated by the ads. Apple paid $270 million for mobile ad company Quattro Wireless. Apple attempted to buy AdMob themselves, but Google beat them to the punch. [Reuters]

Eric Schmidt also mentioned that Google is working on a new tablet that is based on the Android operating system. Google is working with several manufacturing companies and plans to create an app marketplace around tablet devices. [NYT]

The Breakdown Of Everything Apple Announced This Week

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:06:11 +0000

This past week Apple has made some exciting announcements. Here is a breakdown of everything they announced.

iPad:
-On the first day, 300,000 were sold. Thus far over 450,000 iPads have been sold.
-Best Buy sold out so Apple is trying to get them additional stock as soon as possible.
-Over 600,000 downloads occurred on iBooks.
-As of yesterday, over 3.5 million iPad apps have been downloaded.

Apple App Store:
-Over 4 billion apps have been downloaded
-Over 185,000 applications available for download now
-Over 3,500 iPad apps in the App Store

Apple iPhone:
-Apple iPhone won the JD Power award 3 years in a row
-iPhone has 64% mobile browser market share
-50 million iPhones sold to date. About 85 million iPhones and iPod Touches on the market sold.

Apple iPhone OS 4
-Shipping this summer
-Developer preview available today
-10 billion push notifications sent
-100 New User features such as create playlists, 5x digital zoom, gift apps, geotagging, Bluetooth keyboards, spell checker, and tap to focus on video.
-Multitasking will be available on iPhone OS 4
-Folders for app icons (folder icon will have multi-icon icon)
-Unified inbox (all of your mail in one inbox) with inbox switching abilities
-iBooks arriving on the iPhone OS 4
-Enterprise: better data protection, wireless app distribution, and mobile device management. There is also support for multiple Exchange accounts and new VPN options
-Game Center being added. Game Center is a social gaming network for multiplayers. There are achievements, match making, and leaderboards on Game Center. Apple has 50,700 gaming titles.
-Background audio, VoIP, background location, local notifications, task completion, and fast app switching
-iAd Mobile Advertising: There are a lot of free apps out there, but developers are having a hard time making money from them. However most of the “advertising sucks” according to Jobs. When you click on a banner ad on an app, it throws you out of your app and into the advertisers website. This is why people don’t engage with the ads. Apple has figured out a way to deliver ad content without ever taking you out of the app. Apple will give developers 60% of ad revenue and keep 40% as part of iAd.
-The iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd generation will have access to these features this summer. But the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2nd generation will run many of these features, but not multitasking.
-iPhone OS 4 will be hitting the iPad in the fall.

New Apple iPhone SDK
-Over 1,500 new APIs available in OS 4. Developers can now access the calendar, photo library, and quicklook.
-A new framework called Accelerate is being launched for hardware accelerated math functions.

Interesting Tidbit:
“We tried to buy a company called AdMob… but Google snatched it away,” stated Jobs during a Q&A session. [Engadget]

FTC Attempting To Block Google AdMob Acquisition

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 23:31:25 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly putting a team together to try to stop Google’s acquisition of AdMob. While it is unknown who is behind reporting Google to the FTC, it is rumored that Verizon, Microsoft, and AT&T are behind it. [BusinessInsider]