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There was a new service launched at the beginning of the month that follows all uses of your brand, domain, special keywords and more - Search Monitor. And before you jump at me for the plug I am not associated with it at all.

I was sent the press release and information about the product and from what I have seen so far this could be a great tool for reputation management, keeping an eye on competitors using your name etc. or even to track affiliates.

The press release states:

The Search Monitor (“TSM”), an online monitoring service that tracks competitive advertiser activity on paid search, blogs, news, and web sites, announces the product release of three new automated monitoring utilities: Competitor Monitor, Trademark Monitor, and Affiliate Monitor.

With this launch, interactive agencies, marketers, affiliate managers, and compliance teams gain critical insight into search marketing strategies, affiliate activities, trademark abuse, and brand buzz. The Search Monitor offers important information that can only be gained by careful 24×7 automated monitoring, and surfaces the information in 3 easy to use reporting sections:

1. Competitor Monitor gives insights into competitive bidding strategies, competitor market share and visibility, ranking on sponsored search, ad copy strategies, and promotions like free shipping, trials, or sales.

2. Trademark Monitor eases the tasks associated with reputation management by auto-detecting advertisers sponsoring branded keywords, use of trademarks and slogans in ad copy and display urls, and brand buzz on blogs, news, and web sites.

3. Affiliate Monitor simplifies oversight of affiliate programs by auto-identification of affiliates using sponsored search to detect violations of rank requirements, keyword restrictions, ad copy
requirements or restrictions, and landing page copy requirements or restrictions.

Search engine marketing has become a critical component for advertisers. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), North American advertisers spent $12.2 billion on SEM in 2007 and that figure is estimated to more than double to reach $25.2 billion by 2011. The Search Monitor was developed to provide the tools necessary to optimize the sizable investments being made in this medium and to protect brands from competitive threats.

“There is a big problem in the industry known as ‘Piggybacking’ which is when smaller advertisers use the trademarks or slogans of bigger advertisers in ad copy or display urls to lure consumers into clicking on their ads”, says Shaun Martinec, a TSM founder. “For our larger brand clients, we have discovered as many as 1 in 10 competitors engaging in this practice. We were quite alarmed to learn that some violators are parked domains, phishing, and spyware sites. With The Search Monitor, our clients are able to catch these activities and react quickly.”

Another advantage of having a monitoring tool such as The Search Monitor is that marketers and agencies can glean insights into competitive online advertising campaigns including ad copy, promotional offers and ad placement strategies.

There are some products out there that cover some of the elements, but the interface is easy to navigate and provides some valuable monitors that many of us can use.

Google FriendConnect friended Facebook. It looked as if Facebook (stocked with former Google executives) might become BFFs (best friends forever).

Then Facebook blocked Google FriendConnect.

The message is clear:

Dear Google,
Facebook is just not that into you.

Facebook says Google has forced them to break off their FriendConnect relationship. Apparently, Google has invaded the privacy of Facebook users without their permission.

Facebook hasn’t turned a cold shoulder or abandoned the search giant. The social network has “reached out” to Google to find a way to make it work.

We view this trial separation leading to divorce, not an open marriage.

Here’s what Facebook had to say in their developers’ blog, under “Thoughts on Privacy.” Read, “I want to be alone.”

Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology.

We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.

Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance.

We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

What this means to you: the search engines are becoming more like car dealerships where certain models can be sold under the same roof. Facebook and Google will form their alliances and consumers will lose out.

The full text of the Facebook “Dear Google” blog post is after the jump.

Click to read the rest of this post…

The standards debate may be in full swing in our industry - but the decisions may be soon taken out of our hands if the FTC continues to define allowable advertising practices.

MediPost has a good overview of the developments of behavioral targeting and how they can be used. “Ad industry players are urging the FTC not to impose any new regulations — and also argue that the proposed voluntary guidelines are too restrictive,” they reported.

Where this gets close to our industry comes from the people seeking greater regulations. “Privacy advocates, on the other hand, want to see rules that will require companies to honor Web users’ preferences about whether they wish to be tracked online and to receive targeted ads,” MediaPost notes.

If this occurs then search is on the horizon of these groups. And we better be aware of them if consumer advocacy groups are claiming they “want to see new rules, rather than rely on voluntary compliance with trade groups”.

MediaPost quotes both Google and Microsoft at the end of the article and they have opposing views.

“Google, meanwhile, is especially concerned that the standards could affect search ads. In comments to the FTC, Google said it’s testing personalized search results, and argued that search ads shouldn’t be considered “behavioral” even when the ads displayed to users are based on their search history.

“We are currently experimenting in our Search service with providing ads based on both the current query and the immediately previous search,” Google wrote. “For example, a user who types ‘Italy vacation’ into the Google search box might see ads about Tuscany or affordable flights to Rome. If the user were to subsequently search for ‘weather,’ we might assume that there is a link between ‘Italy vacation’ and ‘weather’ and deliver ads regarding local weather conditions in Italy.”

Google rival Microsoft, on the other hand, said it supports the FTC’s goals and that the proposed guidelines should be extended “to include the full array of online advertising activities.”

Funny about the Microsoft position given I have been in a pitch for increasing our budget where they used competitors advertising information to suggest other terms and ads….. anonymous of course but not hard to reverse engineer.

Internal and external oversight is essential for quality control of large Web sites, but can make things complicated for SEO plans. In today’s Enterprise Search Marketing column, “Don’t Get Stung By Compliance Issues,” Aaron Shear provides some ground rules to consider before you step into the complex world of compliance and SEO.

Compared to most of the past month, today was a pretty uneventful day for Google’s stock (it gained $7.57).  As such, now seems as good a time as any to take a deep breath, sit back, and consider where it might go in the future.

Many people aren’t willing to bet against the search giant; [...]

Around 200 European airline Web sites are misleading the public, according to a study by the European Commission.

The study found airline Web sites were not displaying taxes and charges and were not advertising the most economical fares in an area that could be easily viewed along with not providing the correct cancellation information.
The report [...]

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:

Microsoft Invests $240 Million In FacebookMicrosoft purchased a 1.6 percent stake in the company, and will handle banner advertising for Facebook outside [...]

New IAB/DMA standards will change the way interactive agencies, SEMcos, and solo search practitioners do business. In today’s Searching for Meaning column, “Raising Search Standards and the Compliance Bar,” Kevin Ryan explains why you need to know what a SEMco is and how your business will change.

More: continued here
sew experts raising search standards [...]

Google has faced a lengthy stream of complaints and a lawsuit from Viacom over the continued uploading of copyrighted videos by YouTube users. The debut of their long-awaited content ID tool could help its relationship with Hollywood.The beta version of YouTube Video Identification has been in the works at Google for some time. They announced [...]

As enamored as the tech world can be with the business to consumer relationships of Web 2.0 applications, Google understands what companies like Microsoft and IBM do - the real money is in business to business relationships.Google plans to push Postini, the email security firm they purchased, with business customers. They have offered existing Postini [...]