Challenge to Google, by Italian Professor

An Italian computer science professor whose research helped inspire Google launched a new search engine and social media network on Monday that he hopes will challenge the US technology giant.

The new site entitled "Volunia" allows users to view the components of particular websites to find the subject of interest more quickly and to interact with registered users who might be looking at the same web pages.

"The web is a living place," said Massimo Marchiori, who came up with the algorithm for the Internet page ranking service "HyperSearch" in the 1990s and used to teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "There is information but there are also people. The social dimension is already present, it just has to emerge," he said in an online demonstration.

Marchiori said he believed the functions available on Volunia would soon become normal on all the major search engines including Google and Yahoo!

He has been working on the project for four years and has been praised by Italian commentators for giving up a more high-profile career in the United States to return to Italy, where his salary is 2,000 euros ($2,600) a month.

Marchiori teaches at the University of Padua in northeast Italy. He has been quoted as saying that future Google founder Larry Page approached him after a conference in which he presented HyperSearch.

Page "was fascinated by it and asked if he could use it. Since it was not patented, he used it in the best possible way," Marchiori said.

Volunia, which has a US copyright, was only launched to selected users on Monday and will be rolled out more widely and in 12 languages including Arabic, English, Japanese and Russian over the coming days.

Organisers said they hoped to fund it by selling advertising space.

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Have you ever think about your online privacy?

In the recent news, we heard that Facebook crossed the heart-breaking record of more than 500 million active members worldwide. Based on research and online collected data, Facebook earns more than 4 billion by targeting the advertising with the help of online active users. With that kind of profit, the world’s largest social-networking site becomes the target of law where the demand arises to make a law on electronic privacy.

Now, let’s discuss something about the electronic privacy. When we sign up in our Facebook account, we automatically supply our information to other and with two or three mouse clicks, you can share your information with other, find new friends, and access the contact details of another peoples also. However, do you know that before creating your profile, you have provided a great deal of information to the Facebook, and that particular information is uses to target you with the help of customized advertisements? Every time when you update your status or like any web page, the website learns to create advertisement. No matter how tight your profile, Facebook still displays your name, address and other details to everyone. If your privacy settings are not up to the mark, then you need to think about it.

Facebook application Development Company allows the third party to access your profile information, and their applications are another threat. Very rare people know that Facebook recently decided to allow the third party application developer to access the personal data which include phone number and address also. Now, after considering this fact you need to ensure about the privacy level:

• Take precautions when using third party applications.
• Before liking and page or sharing everything checks that you are not supplying the personal information.
• Think before clicking on any advertisement