Natasha Stokes reminds us that fake listings still make their ways into search results. She points to a New York Times article published in January about lead-generation sites, and encourages consumers to check and recheck references. It makes marketers with reputable businesses to work doubly hard to build up SEO support through recommendations and quality leads.

Google’s Maps app running on Apple iOS phones now support scheduling multiple stops along a trip. It allows users to schedule stops in a route such as a gas station or a restaurant ahead of your final destination. The feature arrived on Android in October.

Canada's Citizen Lab, which analyzed the data browsers collect, found that Baidu browser for the Windows and Android platforms leaks about as much personal information as it collects. The report states Baidu servers collect well beyond what should be collected, and does so either without encryption, or with easily decryptable encryption. "Data collected and transmitted in the Android version without any encryption includes a user’s GPS coordinates, search terms, and URLs visited," according to the assessment. "The Windows version sends search terms, hard drive serial number, network MAC address, title of all webpages visited and GPU model number."

What does it tell marketers when traffic rises to the Web site without seeing the conversion rate that should come along?  When this happens, marketers begin testing button colors and placement, but they really should reevaluate key elements on the page such as headline and value proposition. Margot da Cunha offers up some suggestions such as consistent messaging, short forms, and tell a story with related visuals. She explains.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December's San Bernardino terror attack. Gates said in an interview published Tuesday in the Financial Times that a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was "a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case."

Searchmetrics said Monday it will reorganize its business to focus on regions, and has created a position to oversee strategic and operational development in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). As the new VP EMEA, Patric Liebold will take responsibility for all strategic and operational issues in EMEA with an emphasis on Germany, Britain and France, the agency's core markets. All sales/customer service management teams and Professional Services will report directly to Liebold, who has been with the company since 2013 and was previously director of sales and customer service, supporting new and existing customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and Belgium, …

The amount of data available to marketers has created a gap between the information and the actionable insights needed to drive campaigns. The question now becomes what can be done to bridge the great divide? Sherice Jacob takes a closer look.

Morgan Freeman in March will begin giving gives directions to U.S. users of GPS driving app Waze. Venture Beat reports Freeman joins other big-name stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Hart, who have added their voices to the navigation app in the past.

Google released a program called Gmailify that offers users of other email platforms the best of Gmail, without an @gmail address. THe platform gives access to Gmail's automatic inbox sorting system, which splits emails with regard to social media, promotions and updates into separate inboxes, explains Michael Rundle.

Advertisers say Google is in the process of either reducing or eliminating the search ads down the right rail of the query results page, and other serving ads in the center of the page, above and below the organic links. Early data from Merkle advertisers confirms that ads appear to be showing less often on the right-hand rail, including for this major online retailer.