SEO for Developers by Detlef Johnson

Headlines

2020-04-08

Security
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer
A new Zoom update hides meeting ID numbers in videoconference call title bars by default, preventing accidental dissemination of meeting IDs with screenshots  —  A new update to the Zoom client has been released that removes the meeting ID from the title bar when conducting meetings …

Privacy
Andy Greenberg / Wired
Researchers outline three privacy-conscious approaches to COVID-19 app contact tracing: Bluetooth, redacted location tracing, and hashing servers and mix nets  —  Researchers are racing to achieve the benefits of location-tracking without the surveillance.  —  Before the Covid-19 pandemic …

Twitter
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge
Twitter removes a tool that let mobile users prevent some data from being shared with advertisers; EU users are exempt and need to opt in to sharing  —  Users in Europe are the exception  —  Twitter has removed a privacy feature that allowed all users to stop sharing some private information with advertisers.

Security
Talos Blog
Cisco's Talos security group finds fingerprint scanners from Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and others can be bypassed by fake fingerprints made with 3D printing  —  Phone, computer fingerprint scanners can be defeated with 3-D printing — By Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura.

Google
Michael McWhertor / Polygon
Google makes Stadia free to use for anyone with a Gmail address and will give new users two months of Stadia Pro for free  —  Stadia Pro is also free for two months  —  Google's video game streaming platform, Stadia, is now free to anyone with a Gmail address, the company announced on Wednesday.

Privacy
Charles Levinson / Protocol
CEO of gay dating app Scruff talks about avoiding partnerships with location data brokers due to privacy concerns and building an in-house analytics operation  —  A few years ago, a particular type of email began showing up in the inbox of Eric Silverberg, whose gay dating app, Scruff …

Privacy
Luke O'Brien / HuffPost
Investigation details facial recognition company Clearview AI's ties to the alt-right, including hiring employees with deep links to far-right extremists  —  Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found.

Google
Tatiana Schlossberg / New York Times
How scientists are using AI and machine learning to analyze vast data on oceans, including tracking migrations and Google helping to identify whale song  —  Machine-learning applications are proving to be especially useful to the scientific community studying the planet's largest bodies of water.

Google
Ina Fried / Axios
Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, and Google are scrambling to create digital internships for this summer, as offices remain shuttered during the pandemic  —  Go deeper  —  By Sara Fischer, Stef W. Kight  —  Campaigns turn to texting as coronavirus spreads

Javascript Indexing Details

Good extra information on SEO for JavaScript Indexing, including feedback on Angular, React, and Vue from Google's Martin Splitt. What's especially interesting is the ongoing discussion where Martin talks about indexing whereby he used to author a site which used a custom 404 page for the app page. The SEO consultant pointed this out to him and the rest is history.

SEO for JavaScript

The SEO for Developers column at Search Engine Land started in January. Tools on the back end for powering up interesting front end pieces like that are underway. It's an effort to build a proper Search Engine Land companion in Search Return. React and such is forthcoming but not until a need arises for content that begins largely static, however.

0day WordPress Security Woes

A security researcher dropping some 0days may have an axe to grind considering how bad the plugin ecosystem is. It has a "dizzying number of buggy, poorly-audited plugins in the WordPress repository."