Disconnect: Ex-Googlers Raise Funding To Stop Google, Facebook & More From Tracking Your Data

Screen shot 2012-03-22 at 7.11.41 PMIn the age of endless sharing, super cookies, social search results, and that ever-present social graph, it’s comforting to know that there are some who are still prioritizing privacy. (And a few of them are former Googlers no less!) In October 2010, Google engineer Brian Kennish created Facebook Disconnect, a Chrome extension that disables all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook servers but still allows you to access Facebook itself. The extension was an immediate hit, racking up 50K active users in two weeks (it now has 200K+), prompting Kennish to leave his job at Google to focus full-time on helping the average web user take back control of their data.

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Scoople Turns Reading The News Into A Game

scoople screenshotIf you’re a news junkie who wants to make the experience a little more active, Scoople may be the iPhone app for you.

The app was created by a startup called Dygest. When you’re using it, you get a stream of news stories, and each story has an associated poll. For example, you can read a story about the iPad’s new Retina display, and then fill out a poll about whether you’ve preordered the iPad already, earning points in the process. You can also vote on what you think the majority of Scoople users will say. There’s even a leaderboard of those who do the best job of predicting the the larger response.

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And Now There’s An Ad Network For HR Bloggers

starr conspiracy logoTo some TechCrunch readers, a blog post about human resources may sound like a bit of a snooze (well, unless “talent war” is in the headline). But for others, it’s the heart of their business, and of course there’s a big industry built around HR services and products.

That’s why there’s a community of blogs devoted to the topic, and it’s also why marketing agency The Starr Conspiracy and ad company Retargeter.com have teamed up to create an ad network aimed specifically at HR bloggers — called, predictably, The HR Blogger Network. There are 50 sites in the network at launch, including The Women of HR, Jennifer McClure, Charlie Judy, Lance Haun, Steve Boese, and Laurie Ruettimann.

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