Google CEO Page and Facebook's Zuckerberg deny giving access to NSA program

  Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Google's Larry Page say their companies don't give the government sweeping access to their servers,

Two of the biggest names in the tech world responded publicly Friday to reports that the government has been given direct access to their companies' servers as part of a sweeping surveillance program.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Larry Page penned strikingly similar blog posts in response to reports from The Guardian and The Washington Post that a secret National Security Agency program known as PRISM allows the government to monitor emails, photos, search histories and other data from some of America's biggest Internet companies.

According to the newspapers, a top-secret government document describing the program says it uses "collection directly from the servers" of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Facebook (FB), PalTalk, AOL (AOL), Skype, YouTube and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500).

Zuckerberg called the reports "outrageous," saying Facebook "is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers."

Writing along with Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond in a blog post titled "What the ...?", Page said reports "that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users' data are false, period."

The other tech companies named in the reports have also denied having knowledge of PRISM or giving the government direct access to their servers.

The reports come on the heels of the revelation earlier this week by the Guardian of a top-secret court order requiring Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) to hand over "metadata" from phone conversations to the government on a daily basis.

Zuckerberg said Facebook has "never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received." Both he and the Google executives said their companies review every data request they get from the government to ensure legality.

Analysts are puzzling over the apparent conflict between the newspaper reports and the tech companies' denials. The Post altered its article on Friday, removing a line saying that the tech companies "participate knowingly in PRISM operations."

Who knew what about the PRISM spying program: 3 theories

President Obama acknowledged the existence of the surveillance programs on Friday but didn't go into detail about their mechanics.

"I think on balance, we have established a process and procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about," Obama said. "These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate."

For their part, both Page and Zuckerberg called for greater transparency generally on surveillance issues.

"It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term," Zuckerberg wrote. To top of page

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Some shrug at NSA snooping: Privacy's already dead

News of a secret U.S. government surveillance program has outraged digital-privacy advocates, but some users are unfazed

A series of revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs sparked outrage among many this week, including the expected privacy activists and civil libertarians.

But there seems to be a gap between the roiling anger online and the attitudes of other people, especially younger ones, who think it's just not that big a deal.

It's the rare issue that crosses party lines in terms of outrage, apathy and even ignorance. When interviewing people about the topic in downtown San Francisco, we found a number of people of all ages who had not heard the news, and more than one who asked what the NSA was.

The rest had various reasons for not being terribly concerned.

Privacy is already dead

When the news broke on Wednesday, a number of people responded online by saying an extensive government surveillance program wasn't surprising and just confirmed what they already knew.

The lack of shock wasn't limited to savvy technologists who have been following reports from organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, that cover possible monitoring going back to 2007. Many people already assumed that information online was easily accessible by corporations and the government.

A survey conducted by the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor just days before the NSA news broke found that 85% of Americans already believed their phone calls, e-mails and online activity were being monitored.

Allen Trember from San Luis Obispo, California, said he knew when he started using the Internet that his information wasn't going to be private, but still lamented that privacy no longer exists.

"I don't like it, but what can I do about it?" he said. "I'm just glad that we have as much freedom as we do."

Internet laughs about being spied on

OK sacrificing privacy for security

A national joint survey conducted in April by CNN, Time and ORC International found that 40% of respondents were willing to give up some of their civil liberties for increased security.

That survey was conducted after the Boston Marathon bombing and before news of the NSA programs was public.

"Out of sight, out of mind," is how Will, 28, responded to the news. The Nevada resident said he would rather not know about the program, and thought its being public would make it easier for criminals to circumvent the government's security programs.

A Twitter account @_nothingtohide quickly sprung up and started retweeting one of the more common reactions: People aren't worried about the NSA monitoring their calls or online activity because they believe they have no crimes or information to hide from the government.

"If the government wants to look at my phone records to keep me safe ... so be it. I don't have anything to hide," tweeted Cayla Marie.

"Terror war only fought by intelligence gathering. We criticize those entrusted to keep us safe & scream when they fail to do so," reads a tweet from Lucy Rose.

Nearly half of Americans say the government would never abuse such an extensive trove of data. The Heartland Monitor poll found that 48% of Americans trust the government "some" or a "great deal" with their private data.

Leslie Harris, president of the civil liberties group Center for Democracy and Technology, thinks the all or nothing view is flawed.

"In a constitutional democracy like the United States, the goal is to find the balance between security and liberty, not to sacrifice liberty for security," she said. "I think that simply giving up on our privacy throws off the balance in a democracy between a government and its citizens."

Nothing I can do

Recent surveys have shown that Americans in their teens and twenties share more of their lives online and are less concerned about digital privacy than older Web users.

For people who are not worried about the government seeing their personal communications, the revelations lack an immediate impact on their lives and there's no urgent push to take action.

"I think that at the moment, people may not feel the impact, but the fact that we have a secret agency that can access most of our digital lives -- I think that the loss will be felt over time," Harris said.

Even people who disagree with the program might not think they can do anything about it. Users still don't know how the government is getting the information and what role the major Internet companies played in the snooping.

There have been vehement, similar denials from the CEOs of Facebook and Google. These companies rightfully fear the accusations could damage their businesses, as people move to other Web services that might be more secure.

Harris recommended people who are concerned start by contacting their representatives in Congress.

"We are citizens in a democracy," she said. "We can demand from our elected officials greater transparency."

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Guides For Self Publishing Your eBooks

You have a product like an Ebook that you want to self publish on Kindle, as you know, nothing will sell without traffic. Websites and products need to be seen and being seen is often the hardest part of any on line venture. So how can you drive traffic to your website or product?

Here we shall cover a few great methods of getting those all important 'eyes' on your products.

Press Release

Consider having a Press Release, this is a powerful trick often used by big companies but can be costly. You write a descriptive article about your product then pay a company like PRWeb who will blast your article out to the four corners of the internet. Your article can be picked up and put onto other peoples websites like article marketing but on steroids creating backlinks and potentially a lot of traffic.

Facebook Pages

One of the best ways of using Facebook is to set up a dedicated Fan Page for the book and invite your friends and family to it asking them to share your page, this could start to increase the page likes. This is good as it could have a viral affect with people suggesting their friends to like the page too. You could put on there in the form of notes along with an image a couple of chapters or extracts. Make the page inviting by adding a landing page and maybe get someone from Fiverr.com to do some graphics for your book to use as images on the page. The books introduction or first chapter should be pre-loaded for people to read when they come to the page then maybe over a couple of weeks add another chapter, then reduce it down a little by adding extracts of a chapter with a call to action like 'To read the rest of this exciting book please go to...' and direct them to your Kindle store. You could do this on your website and just use a Facebook page to create a buzz about your book then direct them to read extracts or chapters on your website before sending them onto Kindle.

Facebook Shop

There is also a great free ecommerce app where you can sell your downloadable and physical book directly inside your Facebook page. It is called Ecwid. We have it on our page for you to take a look at. You could also use Facebook ads to direct people to your blog site or Facebook page. Sending people outside of Facebook is more expensive than sending them to a Facebook page so the advice is to send them to a Facebook page then send them to a website/ blog site later.

Twitter

Twitter is the same, you build up a large collection of followers who love to read books covering your style of writing then post Tweets with a short message saying a chapter/extract has been posted on your Facebook page/blog site. Many companies now use these two Social Networks to create a buzz about their products which then goes viral and creates an increase in traffic.

Videos

Turning chapters or extracts into video and placing them onto YouTube is also another great way of getting people to see your book, again they can be directed to your site, Facebook page or directly to your book on Kindle. There are other video sites to share to and not just YouTube. Create short PowerPoint slides with some wording and imagery on them then read extracts of your book into a microphone creating a short audio book. For videos over 5 minutes you will need to invest in some screen capture software like Camtasia by Techsmith or for a series of short videos you could use Techsmith's free version called Jing, there is also a great free online video service by the Twitter people called Screenr.

Podcasts Audio Books

Once you have recorded your videos they can be used again by turning the audio into a Podcast or audio book which can be sold in many places such as iTunes and Amazon or shared on sites like Podbean.com. If you have professional screen capture software you will no doubt be able to separate the visual from the audio and convert straight to MP.3 ready to upload to your Podcast sites. If you haven't got access to that kind of software then not to worry, all is not lost. There are Websites where you can place the URL of your YouTube video into their search bar and it will search for the video, rip the audio from it then allow you to down load it for free as an MP.3 straight to your computer ready to upload to your chosen sites. Just like the other methods here, you can then verbally direct people to where you want them to go to get the rest of the book or audio book. ListenToYouTube.com is a great place to start.

PDF Sharing

There are many free Ebook and PDF share sites where you can upload your books for everyone to read and share, you could write a revised short version or simply convert a couple of chapters and excerpts into a small PDF and upload for free again with a 'To read the rest of this book please go to...' They can be sent to either Kindle or your website. Scribd.com is one such site. A Google search will give you a great list of places to start.

Article Marketing

Writing short articles around 500 to 800 words long based on the topic then shared with article directories is also a well-used traffic and branding method. The articles could get shared around the web giving your site much needed backlinks (helps with getting your site higher up the search rankings) and points potential traffic to your site and gets yours and your books name known. EzineArticles.com is the best known article directory. Again a Google search will give you a list of great article directories.

Satellite Sites

Another traffic method is to create satellite sites, these are free webpages that have similar content to that which is on your site and directs the readers back to where you want to send them. Satellite sites are pages in places like Squidoo, Hubzpages and Google's Blogger. Make sure that you do not just duplicate the content from your site, change it up a bit otherwise some of these sites will not allow it to be published and it could also harm your Google ranking.

Authors Blog

A little trick that a successful self-publisher once did which got him a ton of traffic was he wrote an article about a sportsman from his favourite team, he used a specific keyword which put his article into the top search results in Google. The article had nothing to do directly with the book but resulted in a lot of traffic from people searching on that keyword and topic; they visited the site, read his article then looked around his site to see what else he had written. So your books dedicated site could have an 'Authors thoughts of the week' style blog designed for the sole purpose of traffic generation. This could cover anything and everything, as long as you plan your article making sure it has good long tail keywords written into it and is based on very hot topics of the moment. Your rants alone could get you a great following!

Paid Advertising

Finally the main and final tip is if you can afford to spend some money and have advertising done such as Google Adwords and banner ads made to direct your target market to your site. This is a science in itself and can be costly if done bad. Facebook does have a better advertising system that allows you to target people who might like your product as opposed to Google's which is based on what people search for. If you set an ad in Google on the keyword 'science fiction' and a lot of people did a search for 'science fiction' they would see your add and possibly click on it, but science fiction covers a lot of sub genres and a huge amount of people who clicked on your ad (you will pay for that click or per thousand impressions) might find that you are not offering what they are looking for, this would cost you a lot of wasted money. It can be an expensive learning curve. However, be warned, the normal cost of a Kindle Ebook could easily be the same price you pay for a couple of 'clicks' and if they do not buy it is wasted money.

Social Media

Social Media is one of the most used ways today to generate traffic to a website; all the top blogging sites use Twitter and Facebook. There are many great ways to use these two sites to create a buzz for your product. And the great thing with these is that they are interactive, so you can talk to your potential customers.

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