Today\'s Scuttlebot: Steve Jobs\'s Spirit, and Cyberattacks

The technology reporters and editors of The New York Times scour the Web for important and peculiar items. Tuesday's selection includes Uber ending its taxi service in New York and new information on a damaging type of cyberattack.

IBM Takes a Big Data Approach to Security

Companies will spend an estimated $50 billion on computer security this year, but they are not feeling particularly secure these days.

Blame innovation, if you like. Every big digital advance opens the door to both opportunity and mischief. Smartphones, cloud computing and the data explosion promise a revolution in communications, cost-savings and knowledge discovery. But those three trends in technology also create security headaches.

John Meakin, the global head of security for Deutsche Bank, speaks of the rising tempo and sophistication of security threats, and how applications delivered over the Internet and mobile devices take sensitive data beyond the traditional security stronghold - the “fortress firewall,” he calls it.

What is needed, according to Mr. Meakin, is a smart “always-on, listening widely” tool to detect emerging security threats - typically software bots intent on pilfering information and committing fraud.

I.B.M. is mov ing to provide the kind of digital security sentinel the Deutsche Bank security chief has in mind.

The company is making a bundle of product announcements on Thursday that address the security challenges of mobile, cloud and Big Data computing, and I.B.M. is applying its own data analysis expertise to attack the data-security problem.

The key, said Steven A. Mills, senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.'s software business, is technology that constantly monitors all kinds of data flowing into and out of a company and looks for unusual activity, or “threat patterns.”

“Security today is a real-time Big Data challenge,” Mr. Mills said.

The I.B.M. offerings are mainly monitoring software for data flows to and from mobile devices, remote data centers and programs built with Hadoop, the underlying software for many Big Data applications.

The products are the result of years of I.B.M. investment and several recent acquisitions, notably Q1 La bs, a private company based in Waltham, Mass., that I.B.M. bought last year. With the Q1 deal, I.B.M. set up a separate security division, and Q1's chief executive, Brendan Hannigan, became general manager of the security business.

Equifax, a large credit reporting agency, started working with Q1 shortly before it was bought by I.B.M. With 572 million consumer records in its data centers, Equifax must stay at the leading edge of security technology, said Tony Spinelli, its chief security officer. He said security was a never-ending race to stay ahead of modern hackers, whom he called “artful and creative guys.”

The appeal of I.B.M.'s strategy, Mr. Spinelli said, is that it focuses on “security intelligence.” The traditional approach to security, he explained, has focused on “detection and reaction.” But today, he added, the need is for automated tools that mine data flows to spot threats and issue alerts to security professionals.

I.B.M.'s moves reflect how the computer security business is evolving, said Jon Oltsik, an analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group, a research firm. The industry, he said, has long been dominated by niche companies that focused on specific products, like virus software or firewalls. But the rising complexity of computing, and of security threats, is prompting a consolidation - and a need for products and services that span the spectrum of security threats companies face.

I.B.M., Mr. Oltsik said, is one of the few companies that has both the technology expertise and broad reach to be a winner. Other candidates, he said, include Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, Symantec and perhaps Cisco.

“This massive series of announcements shows that I.B.M. is executing on its security vision,” Mr. Oltsik said.

Seeking Alternatives to the Expense of Pay-Per-Click

Small Players Seek an Alternative to the Expense of Pay-Per-Click

When Tom Telford helped found a vacation rental management company, Blue Creek Cabins, in 2001, he wanted a quick and easy way to connect with people looking to rent the 20 cabins he and his partner managed in and around the mountains of picturesque Helen, Ga.

Tom Telford built his cabin rental business using Google AdWords, but later changed his online ad strategy.

That is when he heard about a program called AdWords being offered by a new company, Google. Finding the system relatively easy to use, Mr. Telford selected a few keywords, like “Helen GA cabin rentals,” and agreed to pay Google 60 cents every time someone performed a search and clicked on his ad.

Before long, the calls and e-mails started pouring in. “The results were phenomenal,” said Mr. Telford, whose company is used by property owners to market their cabins. Encouraged, he invested more in his pay-per-click advertising efforts, which in time included similar programs offered by Bing and Yahoo.

By 2010, Mr. Telford had started a new management company, Cedar Creek Cabin Rentals, and was spending $140,000 a year on pay-per-click advertising to promote the 45 cabins in his charge. The programs had become increasingly popular and competitive, which meant that in order to retain his ranking in search results, he had to pay about $1.25 a click, double what he had paid initially. “The cost per keyword climbed dramatically over the years,” he said. “And it's still going.”

And that is a problem. While Mr. Telford agreed to pay more for his keywords, he said he did not see a commensurate increase in sales. “For a while, I was spending more than I was getting,” he said. “It finally hit me to ask, ‘Can I sustain this?' ”

This concern has become increasingly common as online advertising has become a standard channel for large companies. Attracting those additional advertisers has been great for Google, which reported a 42 percent increase in paid clicks, year over year, for the second quarter of 2012. But the heightened competition has driven up the prices for keywords and made it harder for small companies like Mr. Telford's.

While about 96 percent of pay-per-click advertisers spend less than $10,000 a month, according to AdGooroo, a research firm that studies the pay-per-click market, big-budget advertisers spend hundreds of times more. In the first half of 2012, Amazon reportedly spent $54 million, and the University of Phoenix $37.9 million. “AdWords can bleed many a small business dry,” said Sharon Geltner, an analyst at the Small Business Development Center at Palm Beach State College in Boca Raton, Fla.

“The only way for smaller advertisers to get an edge is to spend a lot of time improving the quality and relevance of their ads,” said Richard Stokes, author of “Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising” and the founder of AdGooroo. “The problem is that everyone else is doing that as well.”

Until recently, Byron Udell, founder and chief executive of AccuQuote, a life insurance agency based in Wheeling, Ill., was spending several million dollars a year on pay-per-click campaigns. But after watching the price of keywords like “life insurance” rise to more than $20 from about $1 over the last 10 years, he decided to scale back greatly.

“The cost to get someone just to visit your Web site has, in some cases, become prohibitive,” Mr. Udell said. “Something that cost $3 might be a no-brainer, but at $20 it becomes absurd. It's basic math, and if it doesn't add up, we won't do it.” He said he planned to redirect some of his advertising dollars to print, television and radio.

Google does not dispute the accounts of owners like Mr. Udell. A Google spokesman released a statement saying that small businesses can compete by making their ads more relevant to consumers and that they should use multiple strategies to pursue customers: “search, social media, earned media and more.”

Many analysts agree. “AdWords is still doable and reasonably profitable for local businesses or those that have narrow niches and high barriers to entry,” said Perry Marshall, the author of “Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords.” “But you cannot put all your eggs in one basket. The ultimate goal for any business should be to drive as much unpaid traffic to their site as possible.”

The increased demand for unpaid, or organic, search results has given rise to an entire industry specializing in search engine optimization, or S.E.O., with countless professed experts who promise to improve a Web site's search ranking.

Mr. Telford said he was approached by dozens of such experts. “My competitors were inching up in organic traffic because I wasn't doing anything,” he said. “But I also wasn't comfortable hiring a S.E.O. expert, because none of them could explain exactly why what they were doing would work. It felt like they were selling me black magic.”

As he looked for alternatives, Mr. Telford came across a number of companies like RhinoSEO, Marketo, Eloqua and Pardot, which sell online services that promise to automate a company's marketing efforts and improve organic search results. The basic idea, Mr. Telford concluded, was that investing in social media content like blogs and Facebook pages could attract unpaid traffic.

“It hit me like a brick, because I finally understood how you get better search results by creating content around the keywords people are searching for,” he said. “As we become more relevant to Google, our quality score improves in our AdWords campaigns. This enables us to bid lower, yet because we're more relevant, we pay less per click.”

As a small-business owner without a full-time marketing staff, Mr. Telford wanted a tool that could help him manage both his social media content and his pay-per-click expenditures, which he planned to continue on a much-reduced basis. After conducting his research, he chose to sign up for the services offered by a company called HubSpot, which is based in Boston.

Available online as software-as-a-service, HubSpot helps business owners set up a blog and optimize it to be recognized by search engines. The site, which has more than 8,000 customers, most of whom pay $200 to $1,000 a month, helps users populate and manage their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, along with any pay-per-click campaigns. It also tracks visitors and helps subscribers calculate the return on investment for their marketing initiatives.

Even though Google is one of its investors, HubSpot cut back on its own pay-per-click expenditures after realizing that organic searches were accounting for 60 percent more traffic than paid searches. “Most of our paid efforts shifted to platforms like LinkedIn, where we could target for the right kinds of job titles in line with our target customer profiles,” said Dan Slagen, who is in charge of advertising at HubSpot.

In March 2011, Mr. Telford started blogging through HubSpot about topics like where to find the best fishing holes, and despite fears of a devastating loss of traffic, he reduced his pay-per-click budget to $100,000. By the beginning of 2012, some six months after he began blogging roughly five times a week, his organic traffic was up 91 percent over the previous year. And the number of conversions, or visitors who took an action on the site, had increased 37 percent.

Mr. Telford was so encouraged that he cut his pay-per-click budget again, to $33,000. “I still love Google because they got me there,” he said. “But that ride can't last forever.”

A version of this article appeared in print on October 18, 2012, on page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Small Players Seek an Alternative To the Expense Of Pay-Per-Click.

EBay's Focus on Mobile Apps Helps Lift Revenue 15%

SAN FRANCISCO - Quarter by quarter, eBay defies the conventional wisdom that troubled Internet companies can never return to their former glory. The once troubled online retailer has continued a successful turnaround and cultivated double-digit growth in PayPal, its online payments system.

Just three years ago, eBay's core auction business had stalled and its stock price was down to $10, a far cry from its peak of $58 in 2004. At today's closing price of $48.20, the company's stock is up 54 percent for the year, more than the 37 percent gain of its rival Amazon.

“That's a significant run,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst with the brokerage firm BCG Partners. “The core story behind eBay is that they are doing all the right things.”

Results were strong again in the third quarter. On Wednesday, eBay reported that net income rose $597 million or 45 cents a share, a 22 percent jump from the quarter a year earlier. Revenue climbed 15 percent to $3.4 billion.

John J. Donahoe, eBay's chief executive, attributed the company's performance in part to an early bet that mobile phones would become a platform for commerce, with PayPal providing a lead in mobile payments.

“We're the largest mobile commerce and payments provider in the world,” Mr. Donahoe said in an interview on Wednesday. “And we are continuing to innovate. We have a series of innovative apps that people are using. People love shopping on their smartphones and iPad, and PayPal is still the safest way to pay on a mobile phone.”

EBay's mobile apps have been downloaded more than 100 million times worldwide. EBay sellers are now posting two million items a week from their smartphones and, last quarter, over 800,000 new users made their first eBay purchase from a smartphone.

Marketplaces, eBay's biggest business, brought in $1.8 billion in revenue last quarter, up 9 percent from a year ago. PayPal - which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion 10 years ago - brought in $1.37 billion in revenue last quarter, a 23 percent jump from the same quarter a year ago, and it is expected to surpass Marketplaces in revenue.

“If you do the math, that will be three to five years out if current trends continue,” Mr. Donahoe said.

The company, based in San Jose, Calif., expects each business to achieve $10 billion in volume in 2012, more than double the volume in 2011. The operating profit margin increased to 19.6 percent from 18.1 percent in the same period last year.

EBay is now experimenting with a new mobile app called eBay Now. The app, which is being tested by consumers in San Francisco, allows eBay customers to buy products - from their phones - from Macy's, Target and Walgreens, and have them delivered the same day.

“What our research says is that consumers like choice,” Mr. Donahoe said. “People may want an item to come to their office that day, their house the following day and get other items in a couple days. We're giving them that choice.”

If its experiment is successful, eBay Now could mount a challenge to Amazon's shipping service, Amazon Prime, a program that offers customers unlimited free two-day shipping on millions of items for $79 a year. Increasingly, fast delivery is shaping up as the new battleground for online merchants.

But strong performance also breeds high expectations. Last quarter, analysts scrambled to raise their estimates after the company reported a 144 percent jump in profit from a year earlier. The third quarter's 15 percent revenue increase, while impressive, was just below the $3.41 billion that Wall Street analysts had expected.

The company's stock dipped slightly in after-hours trading after eBay guided analysts to trim their estimates for the fourth quarter. EBay said it expects to earn 66 cents to 69 cents a share during the holiday season; the consensus of analysts had been 68 cents.

Asked whether the company would have a hard time meeting analysts expectations in quarters to come, Mr. Donahoe said: “Our momentum continues, even in the face of reasonable economic uncertainty.”

A version of this article appeared in print on October 18, 2012, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: EBay's Focus on Mobile Apps Helps Lift Revenue 15%.

Sprint Gains Control of Clearwire

6:48 a.m. | Updated

Sprint Nextel has secured control of Clearwire, the wireless network operator that holds valuable spectrum, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The filing shows that Sprint agreed on Wednesday to acquire the interests in Clearwire held by Craig O. McCaw's Eagle River Holdings. The transfer of Class A shares and Class B interests gives Sprint a majority stake of 50.8 percent of Clearwire.

The agreement simplifies a relationship with Clearwire that has complicated Sprint's attempts to overhaul its network. It comes as Sprint is preparing to sell a 70 percent stake in itself to the big Japanese cellphone provider and Internet company SoftBank, for $20.1 billion.

Taking control of Clearwire was not a necessity for the completion of the SoftBank transaction, which is expected to close by the middle of next year, pending regulatory approval. And it may not consist of buying out other investors' stakes in the company altogether: one person briefed on the matter suggested that Sprint could buy the voting rights of some of its partners.

But Sprint and SoftBank have also not ruled out pursuing a full acquisition after their own deal closes.

Shares in Clearwire rose 1.7 percent, to $3, in premarket trading on Thursday.

Clearwire, founded in 2003 by Mr. McCaw, a pioneer in the wireless services industry, already handles some data traffic for Sprint customers. But it has long faced financial difficulty, requiring several cash infusions from outside investors.

While the company focused on a wireless data standard that has been supplanted by Long Term Evolution, or LTE, it holds valuable spectrum that Sprint and its prospective new owner covet.

That wireless resource could be used to develop Sprint's LTE data network, which would support newer devices like the Apple iPhone 5 and various Android-based products.

Building out that network is among the most important goals SoftBank has for Sprint. SoftBank's chief executive, Masayoshi Son, has devised a strategy revolving in large part around building the same sort of high-speed data infrastructure he is creating in the Japanese market.

Mr. Son believes having a reliable and fast network would allow Sprint to better take on the two major wireless service providers in the United States, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

“U.S. citizens don't have this experience of high speed,” Mr. Son said on a conference call with analysts on Monday. “We're going to bring that to the States.”

Through a number of investments, Sprint previously had about 48 percent of Clearwire, and the right to fill seven seats on the company's 13-member board. But without greater control over the wireless broadband provider, Sprint ran the risk of losing control of one of its most important partners.

A version of this article appeared in print on 10/18/2012, on p age B5 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Sprint Is Said to Be Seeking More Control of Clearwire.

Daily Report: Yelp Fights Fake Reviews With Shaming

Businesses caught soliciting favorable reviews are increasingly running the risk of getting slapped with a badge of shame, particularly on Yelp, David Streitfeld reports in Thursday's New York Times.

Like every Web site that depends on consumer critiques, Yelp has a problem with companies trying to manipulate that feedback. So it set up a sting operation to catch them. The first eight businesses - including a moving company, two repair shops and a concern that organizes treasure hunts - will find themselves exposed on Thursday.

For the next three months, their Yelp profile pages will feature a consumer alert that says: “We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business.”

Potential customers will see the incriminating e-mails trying to hire a reviewer.

With online and offline commerce increasingly driven by reviews, businesses can be irresistibly tempted to make themselves look better than they are. They commission favorable d escriptions of themselves and may even bribe customers to say how terrific things were. The most unscrupulous write unflattering comments about competitors.

TripAdvisor has put up similar warning notices, but declined to say how extensive its effort was.

In general, however, review hubs have tended to deal with fakery quietly, even as the problem has grown.

“The bigger Yelp gets, the more incentive there is to game the system,” said Eric Singley, its vice president for consumer products and mobile. “These notices are the next step in protecting consumers.”

AOL\'s Got Mail, Again, With Alto

AOL's got mail, again. On Thursday, the company is beginning its rollout of Alto, a new e-mail program that it hopes will re-establish the company as the e-mailing juggernaut it was in the 1990s.

“Yes, we're still in business,” stage-whispered David Temkin, a senior vice president of mail and mobile at AOL. “We're still around.”

The service will be available free to anyone who wants to use it, not just current AOL mail users. Mr. Temkin said the company still had 20 million active e-mail users and was not looking to disrupt their service.

Rather, AOL is trying to introduce a new product that will appeal to its current user base as well as Gmail, Yahoo and Mac mail users, among others.

“The nature of e-mail has changed but the applications have not,” Mr. Temkin said. “But the last thing people want is another e-mail address. They want a better way to manage the e-mail they have.”

One of Alto's key features is automatic sortin g. As mail comes in, it is filtered into stacks, which are similar to folders. The program will automatically look for e-mail from social networks, daily deal sites and retailers, sorting messages into stacks for later perusal. Users can also create their own stacks for e-mail from a particular person, like a partner or a boss, as well as keywords.

E-mail with attachments and photographs is also sorted into stacks. The messages can be browsed quickly and by year. Users can easily mark messages as favorites and “snooze” them, prompting the service to make them reappear after a designated period of time. Alto also allows people to gain access to their Google calendars and Google Drive, a document storage service.

The first version of Alto, a beta test version, will be available only on the Web to start. Eventually it will roll out in versions for tablet computers and mobile phones, Mr. Temkin said. Future features could include a chat function and the ability t o read and respond to LinkedIn messages, Facebook mail and direct messages sent through Twitter. In addition, Mr. Temkin said he would like to include alerts on mobile devices concerning e-mail from specific people or companies.

Mr. Temkin said AOL was still figuring out its plan to make money from the service. Although the company plans to steer clear of advertisements, it may try to market special offers and deals to users, he said.

He Was Cambodia\'s King, Yes, but What He Really Wanted to Do Was Direct

Video recorded in Phnom Penh on Wednesday as the body of Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian king, was returned to the city.

As my colleague Thomas Fuller reports from Phnom Penh, the body of Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian king, was returned to his homeland in style on Wednesday:

The king's elaborate coffin, draped in a blue royal flag and festooned with flowers, was placed on a gilded carriage shaped to represent a mythical birdlike creature. Mourners clutched incense sticks and lotus flowers. They remained quiet and reverential, many kneeling, as the carriage wheeled past.

Several mourners managed to record video of the gilded ceremony, which was also broadcast on Cambodian television. Given that King Sihanouk loved cinema and devo ted much of his time to directing his own films, it seems quite likely that the man Spalding Gray memorably described as “that happy, sexy, sax-playing prince” would have enjoyed the gaudy pageant.

Clips from his films, and of the king directing and acting in them, can be seen in the documentary “Norodom Sihanouk, King and Filmmaker,” directed by Frédéric Mitterrand, France's former culture minister.

TimesCast Media & Tech: Taking On the Golden Globes

A closer look at the Golden Globes pairing of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. Our post-PC future. Ari Goldberg, StyleCaster C.E.O.

Why Does Samsung Get Android Updates So Fast?

Samsung's Android smartphones have been attractive to tech-savvy phone buyers not just because of their big screens but also because they often run a fresher version of Android than many competing phones. In the coming months, Samsung's flagship Galaxy phone will be one of the first to get the latest software update from Google, the company said on Wednesday.

Having a phone with a newer operating system is helpful because it ensures that the latest apps and Android features will work. And not even Google has been completely up to speed on getting phones running the newest Android software: Motorola, which the search giant recently acquired, is shipping its Razr HD smartphone with Ice Cream Sandwich, the older version of Android. Only later will it get an update to Jelly Bean, the newer software.

Samsung's flagship phone, the Galaxy S III, on the other hand, will get Jelly Bean in a few months, the company said. Months may seem like eons in the tech business, but that's a feat when you consider that only 1.8 percent of Android phones are running Jelly Bean so far, according to estimates by Google.

Why does Samsung get the goods in a hurry, and why is it so tough to keep Android phones up to date in general?

The general explanation is that there are a lot of moving parts: Google releases the Android source code to manufacturers, which then customize it for their devices, said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Ovum. Carriers, too, have to work with the manufacturers to create versions that are compatible with their networks. And then there's testing that both parties have to do. Because companies have limited resources, they have to give some phones priority in getting newer Android software over others.

Samsung has a few things going for it: The company has strong support from carriers because its phones are selling well and bringing many people to their stores. It also has a lot of resources: Executives at the company have described its engineering team in Korea as enormous. Also, Samsung has a head start with Jelly Bean, because the Galaxy Nexus, which it developed with Google, was the first phone to include the new software.

With all that said, it's unlikely that the average consumer knows which phones have the latest Android software and which ones don't, Mr. Dawson said. They do notice, however, when their favorite apps stop working because they're no longer supported in outdated Android software, or when their friends have flashier features on their newer Android phones, he said.

Some Advice From Authors on Avoiding Online Distractions

I was going to start writing this post a couple of hours ago, but I got distracted. At first I checked Twitter - lots of chatter about the debate there. Then I did a side-shuffle to Facebook, where I saw a friend just purchased a lovely new plant! Then Tumblr, to look at some funny animated gifs of Fearless Felix. Then Instagram. Then Twitter again. (And don't get me started on the distractions luring my editor, who was supposed to post this hours ago!)

Although all of these distractions are wonderful for our creativity and sanity, they can also be incredibly unproductive when it's time to get some real work done. Even for someone like me, who relies on Twitter and Facebook for reporting and sharing articles, it is important to turn it all off. (After all, Steven Spielberg probably doesn't watch a movie while he's directing one.)

Lately I've been experimenting with new ways to keep my distractions to a minimum, especially when I have a looming deadline. In the morning I now use an hourglass to ward off distractions. Once it's flipped, my phone goes into Airplane Mode and I completely turn off the Internet in my home. I don't allow myself to enter the Web's vortex until every last grain of sand has drained into the base of the hourglass.

I reached out to a few authors to find out what they do to fight their urges to “Like” an animated gif or become lost in the labyrinth of Twitter. This is their advice:

Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Body.”

First I am an inveterate note-taker. I copy scraps of blog posts, tweets, street signs, things on lampposts - I magpie all of that. That's the raw material. That all ends up in SimpleNote, this super-simple notes database. My day is basically this: I start in the morning (I'm not one of those people that has their two or three hours of writing). I stop writing as soon I feel friction, or slow down. I start to notice that friction and I take a walk. I take a lot of walks. The way I solve a problem, figure out how something is going to go down on the page, is, I walk.

David Carr, author of “The Night of the Gun” and New York Times columnist.

For months, I worked on my book late at night after work, but that will only get you so far. Eve ntually, I went to a cabin in the woods, yes, that had no Internet. It did have dial-up access, which is like having no Internet at all. Things moved very quickly after that. I sat in a room full of books, read some of them, stared at others, but mostly tried to work on my own. I slept, wrote and ate in the same room. That way, when I woke up, there was only the book; when I went to sleep, there was only the book. I put my notes up in sequence around the room, and when I finished with this action, I would take them off the wall. Eventually, the walls were empty, and the book was done.

Larry Page Defends Google\'s Privacy Policy

Even though European regulators want it changed, Google's current privacy policy is necessary for the company to be able to create new products that know more about Google users, Larry Page, the company's chief executive, said Tuesday.

“Virtually everything that we want to do, I think, is somewhat at odds with locking down all of your information for uses you haven't contemplated yet,” Mr. Page said. “That's something I worry about.”

Mr. Page spoke at Google's annual Zeitgeist sales conference in Paradise Valley, Ariz., the same day that European privacy regulators sent him a letter requesting that Google make significant changes to its privacy policy or risk fines or other penalties.

He said he was “sad” that regulators have tried to restrict certain types of online data collection, when nobody knows how the Internet will function in a decade.

The policy under consideration, which was announced in January and took effect in March, say s that for people logged in to a Google account, Google can use information shared on one service in other Google services. For example, Google could show people an ad on YouTube based on what they have searched for in the search engine, or correct the spelling of a friend's name in a Google search based on information gleaned from Gmail.

Mr. Page said that recent Google products would not be possible without the policy. His example was a new product for Android called Google Now, which can do things like alert you that you need to leave to avoid being late for a meeting based on information from your calendar, your phone's current location and traffic conditions.

Google plans to introduce similar products using information made accessible by the new privacy policy, he said, like one that could instruct your phone that it is not a good time to interrupt you if you are in an important meeting.

“That's almost a trivial thing to know, but for us, solving tha t problem requires changing our privacy policy, which we've now done,” he said. “And now you'll see those kinds of things roll out.”

European regulators asked Google to more clearly explain which data it collects and how it uses it, and to more easily allow people to opt out, among other requests.

In a statement, Google said, “We are confident that our privacy notices respect European law.” A person familiar with Google's perspective said that the company breathed a sigh of relief when the European decision arrived, because it had expected a much harsher penalty, like a fine and charges that Google broke the law.

In the United States, consumer privacy groups loudly protested Google's new privacy policy when it was announced, and one, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed suit to try to make the Federal Trade Commission block it. A judge dismissed that complaint and the F.T.C. has not said it is investigating Google's policy.

In th e meantime, Google has faced other privacy penalties in the United States, including a $22.5 million fine in August over showing ads to Safari users.

Marc Rotenberg, president of E.P.I.C., said that for all the privacy uproars that accompany new features introduced by Google and other Web companies, the new privacy policy was most controversial.

“This is the Google issue of 2012,” Mr. Rotenberg said.

The European decision was minimal, but left the door open for future enforcement, Mr. Rotenberg said.

“Google bought some time,” he said. The message from European authorities, he said, was, “We've been through this before, with companies like Facebook, and they responded. If you choose not to respond, you do so at your own risk.”

Google has shown new found caution when it releases new products and seems acutely aware that moving too quickly might raise red flags among privacy advocates and users. For example, in August, it introduced a feature to show personal Gmail messages in search results, but only for the first million people who signed up. On Monday, it opened the feature to anyone, but still limited it to people who sign up.