Imagine having your performance monitored through the measurement of your heart rate, body temperature, brain signals, movement, facial expression and blood pressure through the use of a Big Brother style monitoring system, employed by your employer to detect signs of stress, productivity and overall well being. Sounds like something out of Sci-Fi movie doesn’t it?

Microsoft is currently developing an advanced employee monitoring solution, capable of delivering alerts to your manager if signs of stress, frustration or incompetence are detected. The software will function through the use of wireless sensors, designed to measure an employees metabolism, and has understandably forced civil liberty groups and privacy lawyers to unleash the hounds on Microsoft’s latest attempt at getting something right.

“Imposing this level of intrusion on employees could only be justified in exceptional circumstances,” Britain’s Information Commissioners Office said.

The US Patent office have confirmed the patent was filed eighteen months ago, and was finally published last month, with patent lawyers warning it could be granted within the following year.

Microsoft, which has taken an annoying unofficial stance on refusing to comment on projects under development, has issued a surprising statement defending the creation of the technology, and indicating that the heart beat data is only an example of what could potentially be used in the application.

“This particular patent application, in general, describes an innovation aimed at improving activity-monitoring systems and uses the monitoring of user heart rate as an example of the kind of physical state that could be monitored to detect when users need assistance with their activities, and to offer assistance by putting them in touch with other users who may be able to help,” said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing.

“It is important to keep in mind that with most organizations in the business of innovation, some of our patent applications reflect inventions that are currently present in our products, and other applications represent innovations being developed for potential future use.”

Far be it from Google’s moral capability to randomly slap websites around when the office pie supply has reached a critical shortage, consequently halting the war and allowing employees to resume normal duties, rather than tactically and wastefully disposing of food by engaging each other through the use of indoor guerrilla fighting tactics. When the sound of pies flying, volleyballs being whacked, and massage chairs vibrating cease, Google employees are more than likely dishing out barrages of slaps, in what seems be some sort of twisted revenge it seems to insist on handing to its loyal users.

First came the unbelievably stupid Adsense referral restrictions - reducing payouts, and cutting a sizable number of dedicated websites from a loop that was already spiraling down hill. Now comes Google’s PageRank surprise, in what must be among the largest volume of websites I’ve seen take a beating after an update. Needless to say, this blog received a PageRank downgrade (which was reasonable to expect when I went ahead and erased the posts made last year in a bid to regather focus by erasing the past), which really couldn’t bother me less as long as the PageRank number remains completely and utterly useless.

I couldn’t help wondering why Google’s mood has been incredibly intolerant and rather snappy lately, and why on earth Yahoo or any other half sane competitor doesn’t step up their game and take advantage of the situation here. Let’s be realistic for a moment. I can’t see Yahoo ever returning to what it once was (popularity wise), and the thought of MSN being the leading search engine is as realistic as George Bush growing himself a brain - however the opportunity to seize a portion of the Adsense market is a possibility that cannot be ignored.

The Yahoo Publisher Network started off with a massive hype campaign being carried by it’s very own users, which is obviously a good sign, however as the service matured they have managed to drive themselves downhill, with a decline in their rate of pay, and have yet to allow international users access to the network. I mean come on guys, why would those of us you’d actually accept into the network, switch to something even crappier than Adsense?

I must admit that the MSN network is becoming an alternative I may just consider looking into, as there seems to be a lot of industry talk regarding their effectiveness. I still believe MSN can up its game, and get a little more aggressive with Google, by somehow throwing money at the problem to fix it (hopefully our much beloved Microsoft will have some left after they foot the bill for Vista ).

Call me arrogant (please don’t, I’m sensitive ), but Google appears to be stepping on a lot of toes (judging from what other blogs are posting), and while some sort of backlash is inevitable, it’d be ridiculously hilarious to believe it’d effect the search giant in the slightest. In the end Google is a business, and it has to protect its interests, however when you have such a dominance over a market, and a slogan proudly denouncing evil (like my evilness) I think it’d be fair to expect some sort of moral obligation. It has always been my opinion that one company shouldn’t hold so much power over the internet, and would welcome some sort of government intervention to cap its capabilities and growth. I mean Google can’t possibly continue as a super power forever, and it’d be interesting as to what leads to it’s demise, whether it be ten or ten thousand years from now.

What do you think? Is Google going a little too far with Adsense, and the latest PageRank update? Are we growing to expect too much of the company, or am I being unreasonable here? I understand that the number of people trying to game the search engine must be astronomical however with the amount of money power and dollars the company has, there has to be a way to counter the problem without affecting the genuine users.

I’d love to hear your opinion.

As many of you would already know, the Adsense referral payment system was today changed and brought back to the old module. According to the Adsense Blog, this is how things will be from now on.

About a year ago, as an experiment, we changed the pricing structure for AdSense referrals so that when a user you referred to the program earned $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you would also earn $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days and removed all payment holds, you’d receive $250. We have decided to conclude this experiment and return to the original pricing structure. As a result, we’ll soon no longer be offering the $5 bonus or $2000 bonus, and the payout for referring a user who generates $100 with AdSense in the first 180 days will return to $100.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Google has decided that foreign webmasters are useless and have therefore discontinued the service for anyone living outside North America, Latin America, and Japan . This is the most outrageous thing I think Adsense has ever done, and I cannot for a moment understand the logic behind it. This is an absolute joke and I cannot see why they’d apply such drastic measure to their service.

- If you’re outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we’ll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We’ve found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. Again, please keep in mind that you can still generate referrals for the other products listed under the ‘Referrals’ section of your AdSense Setup tab.

This means I’ll be forced to drop Adsense, since I’m currently residing in Australia. I can to some extent understand the reasoning behind the changes in payment structure, but I’m shocked at how far they’ve gone with this. Other Australian bloggers have been affected by these changes including Darren Rowse.

As a publisher who blogs from Australia but who has a blog on a niche topic that relates perfectly to AdSense and which has the vast majority of it’s traffic from the USA (and which has consistently referred publishers to AdSense that have converted at the $100 in 180 range) I cannot understand the reasoning for this change.

I’m just one example (I’m the example I know best) and a quick look at my stats shows me that I’ve displayed AdSense referral ads close to 20 million times. I’ve sent them tens of thousands of visitors and have been responsible for thousands of sign ups. I cannot even begin to imaging how much money those signups have made AdSense - yet today they’re telling me that they don’t feel that that kind of evangelism for them is worthwhile paying for?

Google - you’re a bunch of absolute idiots who cannot obviously be bothered to look after your existing publisher base by employing simple filtering methods instead of going as far as banning entire countries from your service. The only thing this can possibly do is drive seas of publishers to Google’s competitors - who are the only ones who will benefit in my opinion. Good riddance Adsense - thanks for the ride.

Just something I stumbled upon a few minutes ago. A tad too dramatic in my opinion, but still pretty interesting.