
Google and related services were inaccessible to some users this morning, prompting confusion and consternation across the Web.
Reports of outages began about 9:30 a.m. ET and quickly spread on Twitter, with users asking if the problem was affecting others as well.
Among the services affected were Gmail, Google Plus, Google Drive and YouTube. According to anecdotal reports, the outages appeared to be most prevalent among users in the Southeastern United States.
Google did not immediately comment on the problem. Ref. CNN
That last article sounds like a huge gimmick. It's quite hard to code a program to recognise syntax and, worse, colloqualisms. But google has wasted the effor on linking already easily accessible services to their search. It's completely unnecessary.
Worse, it reinforces the trend of only accessing a few services online, being oblivious to everything else.
Here we go again with yet another Google algorithm:
How we know the NSA had access to internal Google and Yahoo cloud data:
The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency has been tapping into the private links that connect Google and Yahoo data centers around the world. Today we offer new evidence from the source documents and interviews with confidential sources, demonstrating that the NSA accessed data traveling between those centers. Ref. Source 6
Google's Schmidt says spying 'outrageous'
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said widespread US government spying on its data centres would be outrageous and potentially illegal if true, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ref. Source 5