Turkey, which previously banned YouTube from its country, has blocked a string of Google IPs in the country, crippling access from Turkey to Google services like Google Translatation, Google Docs, and Google Books. Some of these services failed to load totally, some because extremely slow.

Google says that it’s not an intentional move and that it’s the side effect of having YouTube blocked in Turkey and that they are currently working with Turkey to resolve the issue. Whether by accident or not, to not be able to access so many of Google services, the party that suffers the most is of course web users in the country.

According to Turkey, they are willing to lift the ban on YouTube too, provided the company pays taxes to the country. Google, which says that it does not operate servers in the country, sees no reason why it should.

So apparently, the ban on YouTube is not longer about viral video attacks on Turkish President, Kemal Atatür? LOL

After years of trying to teach my mother to use the computer and get online, she is finally getting the hang of it. I know that I also contributed to her fear for always reminding her not to simply click on links or install unwanted programs from pop-up windows. Anyway, lately, she has a thirst for knowledge, especially on medical issues and nobody has the time to keep looking for information for her.

Last evening, I was surprised that instead of surfing one medical website or another, she was reading a gold investors forum. She said that she would like to buy gold coins. I know she has some savings but at her age, I wonder if she should. To me, gold is a long term investment.

But then again, maybe my mother is thinking that it’s better to pass us something tangible and of value when she passes on. Cash is not as memorable compared to gold.

31st May, 2010 is Quit Facebook Day, an idea that came to two Canadians who have decided to create an awareness among Facebook users that they should quit Facebook because the social network site can no longer be trusted.

I am a Facebook user and spend a lot of time playing games on Facebook. That’s because I have a blog on social gaming so I do need to play the games to understand them. However, I do realize that the owners of Facebook are trying to make the most use of their goldmine of user data base for advertising purposes.

I am not saying it is wrong. After all, we use Facebook for free. However, they make changes so frequently users are thrown off balance by the changes to security settings. Many do not know how to opt out of things, heck, many don’t even know that their information and preferences have been recorded or that their email addresses have been shared.

Whether the 29,000 people who are registered with the Quit Facebook Day website will really delete their Facebook account on 31st May, 2010 remains to be seen. It only makes up a fraction of the hundreds of millions of daily Facebook users. But I know that what will really drive users away is not privacy concerns but it will be when Facebook starts imposing a fee to use its services. Or when a better social network portal comes up.

Google, using its recently acquired Double Click, has crowned Facebook as the king of websites garnering approximately 570 billion page views per month, more than eight times as many pages viewed at Yahoo.com, coming in second place with 490 million visitors per month.

Facebook receives criticism about is privacy settings though they are continuously making changes according to user feedback received. Facebook has stressed that users are not abandoning the social networking services despite this and from these figures, it looks like that’s the case.

Though critics have continued to press Facebook to make all information private by default, Facebook says that the essence of a social networking site is to share. It’s true, you know. Why would anyone want to put up all the information online only to keep them private?