by Head of Search
Andrew Girdwood
With neither fanfare nor announcement Google Account pages all around the internet are being updated with an innocuous-looking new link, "Change authorized websites". The link appears in the 'Personal Info' panel in the search engine's account home page for web users with Gmail, Google Alerts or other Google service accounts.Andrew Girdwood
Unlike many other account home pages, Google's offering is not the centre-piece to a portal strategy, as the search engine prefers users to customise their 'home' version of the search home page. Many regular Google and Gmail users may never even see their account page, let alone notice the cryptic new link.
There is a further clue as to what the "authorized websites" may be about: the new page simply informs the Google user that are no authorised third party sites who could access your account.
The rest is speculation. Could this be a part of a rumoured expansion to "Google Wallet"? Perhaps third party sites could add or even remove funds automatically as users buy and sell goods and services. The concept of pay per sale has been hovering for a little while now. Alternatively, the third party sites may be the likes of Joga the football community created by Nike and Google. Joga uses the Google Account as a log in.
Many analysts are certain that Google's long term future rests in the search engine giant's ability to diversify and extend their services and reach further than organic search engine results and paid search placements.
