VOICES FROM THE INTERNET Pharma takeover Since being in the United States it is reinforced to me how much health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are controlling and influencing how medicine is now being practiced – in the United States. Usually multiple times in each hour commercials will air on television which are from insurance companies and various coverage and health management or pharmaceutical companies not only promoting new medications but offering free samples or first prescription free (with doctor authorization). Of course such commercials can and do influence patients and particularly patients with serious diseases who are eager for new methods which can give them relief if not a cure. I see benefits in having such information provided but at the same time disturbed as these kind of commercials indicate a significant shift in health care and can question who is in control of health care these days – the physicians or the pharmaceutical companies and hospitals? – americanbedu.com Google on China Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident – albeit a significant one – was something quite different. First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses – including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors – have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant US authorities. Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves. Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers. We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered – combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web – have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. – googleblog.blogspot.com Donate for Haiti Like many of you, we watched in horror as news emerged from Haiti about yesterday's disastrous earthquake. For those of you who publish your blog with Blogger, we built a couple of widgets that make it easy to invite your readers to contribute money to the Red Cross's international disaster relief effort. Not on Blogger? Be sure to visit the Red Cross's Haiti banners page with banners that you can add manually, or visit Google's page containing information about relief organizations, news and contact info relating to the earthquake. – buzz.blogger.com Quick decisions WE often talk about speed when describing certain kinds of businesses. Some companies are bureaucratic, slow, dysfunctional... others are fast... fast to market, fast to ship you something. Just like a car, though, there's an alternative to raw speed. Call it maneuverability. You might still take a long time to get up to perfect cruising speed, but you can initiate a turn on a dime. I'd put Ford in this category. Obviously, it's going to be a long time before a car company is fast. It can take a year or more to get a factory up and running... there are just too many resources to manage. But how fast can a leveraged person in the organization get a decision made? How much data needs to be collected, how much proof needs to be produced, how many meetings need to be held? In my experience, the size of the company isn't always the driving factor in this metric. It's usually the guts of senior management that matters. Brandon Smith took two hours to get this Haiti T-shirt to market. Obviously, t-shirts are very different than SUVs, but the concept is the same. You can choose to organize to make decisions quickly. Or you can have the market ignore you.
