By Gilbert Falso :: 10:03 AM
Groupon yesterday filed its long-awaited paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, giving formal notice that the daily deal company plans to launch as a publicly traded company in the near future.
Groupon has not yet managed to turn a profit in its three years of operation. The company had a net loss of nearly $387 million last year.
The company said however, that “operating expenses will increase substantially in the foreseeable future as we continue to invest to increase our subscriber base, increase the number and variety of deals we offer each day, expand our marketing channels, expand our operations, hire additional employees and develop our technology platform.â€
Like the recent LinkedIn IPO, Groupon also plans to go public with two classes of stock, concentrating power in the hands of the founders and early investors. Founders Eric Lefkofsky, Bradley Keywell and Andrew Mason will control the company, the filing said.
Groupon is certainly aware that they are not the only player in the online deals game. In fact, their filing came just a day after Google announced the launch of Google Offers, the search giant’s answer to a daily deal website. In the filing, Groupon notes that they will “increasingly compete against other large internet and technology-based businesses, such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft, each of which has launched initiatives which are directly competitive to our business.â€
By Gilbert Falso :: 1:45 PM
The governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam, has just signed legislation that makes theft of subscription entertainment services like Netflix a crime in that state.
The new law equates theft with something as innocuous as sharing an account password too broadly. The law was backed strongly by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which says that this is the first legislation of its kind in the United States.
The bill, H.B. 1783, was introduced in February and signed by Haslam on Monday. It goes into effect on July 1st. Violators that steal services valued under $500 will be charged with a misdemeanor and involve a fine of up to $2,500 fine and as much as one year in jail. If the value is between $500 and $1,000, or if it’s a person’s second offense, the crime would be charged as a felony.
The Associated Press notes that the bill was originally targeted toward computer hackers who steal and sell passwords in bulk, and not necessarily casual users who may share their password with a friend, relative or room mate.
By Gilbert Falso :: 5:25 PM
Google announced today that hundreds of Gmail accounts have been hacked, including those belonging to senior U.S. government officials.
It appears to be the work of a hacker in China. In addition to the U.S. government personnel accounts, those belonging to military personnel, Chinese political activists and journalists were breached as well.
Google recognized the security breach, and described it as an effort that acquired users’ passwords and monitored their emails, as well as changing users settings for mail forwarding and delegating.
Once forwarding settings are changed, incoming emails can be routed anywhere, without the user being able to notice right away.
Google has notified victims of the attack, as well as relevant government authorities. In addition to U.S. government officials, government employees from South Korea have been affected as well.
The company released a blog post on the hack, which reads, in part:
“Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.
The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings. (Gmail enables you to forward your emails automatically, as well as grant others access to your account.)
Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.
It’s important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected—these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself. But we believe that being open about these security issues helps users better protect their information online.”
By Gilbert Falso :: 4:53 PM
Today at the D9 Conference, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Vice President of Commerce, Stephanie Tilenius announced the beta launch of Google Offers, a Groupon-style deal site.
Google Offers is a subscription-based offering that provides limited deals and discounts for specific businesses and services. Subscribers who purchase a Google Offers deal can print out a voucher to redeem at the merchant, or use Google’s new Google Wallet service and bring their phone directly to the business.
The inaugural offer for Portland, Oregon, is $10 worth of coffee and/or pastries at Floyd’s Coffee Shop, a two-store chain of husband-and-wife-owned cafes. It seems to be the perfect offer for tech-savvy early adopters of the service, as the coffee shops boast “free Wi-Fi and electrical outlets at every table.” 2000 offers are available for $3 each. As of 4:30 eastern time on the launch date, only 775 offers remained.
Other Portland businesses slated to see Google Offers in this beta are Le Bistro Montage, Powell’s Books and Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade. After the Portland launch, Google Offers plans to expand to New York City and the San Francisco Bay area. Portland was selected as the ideal city for a beta launch because, according to Google, “Portlanders know how to mix the urban (killer coffee, music and art) and the small-town (easy walking, biking and socializing). There’s no end to the city’s great restaurants, coffee shops, hot spots and places to explore.”
Video: How Google Offers Works
By Gilbert Falso :: 2:40 PM
Twitter has just confirmed that they have acquired the advertising platform AdGrok.
AdGrok’s platform was designed to manage Google Adwords accounts, and the company developed a way to make the process easier for businesses, enabling them to easily ascertain keyword performance, clicks, conversion ratios, etc. AdGrok’s GrokBar tool offered a single point of management for businesses using AdWords.
About the acquisition, AdGrok said, “When Twitter approached us and asked if we’d be interested in working on their monetization platform, we realized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up. The fact that the Twitter team is both smart and user-focused only made our decision easier.”
The company is no longer accepting new customers, and will effectively be shutting down their current business as of June 30, 2011. Servers will be shut down, and all customer data will be deleted, and not forwarded to Twitter.
According to TechCrunch, the terms of the deal were less than $10 million.