One Argument for Google to Retain Chrome
May 5, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
“Don’t Make Google Sell Chrome” argues that Google’s browser is important for the Web. Two thoughts: [a] The browser is definitely good for Google. It is a data hoovering wonder. And [b] the idea that Google is keeping the Web afloat means that any injury to Google imperils the World Wide Web. The author argues:
We want an 800-pound gorilla in the web’s corner! Because Apple would love nothing better (despite the admirable work to keep up with Chrome by Team Safari) to see the web’s capacity as an application platform diminished. As would every other owner of a proprietary application platform. Microsoft fought the web tooth and nail back in the 90s because they knew that a free, open application platform would undermine lock-in — and it did! But the vitality of that free and open application platform depends on constant development. If the web stagnates, other platforms will gain. But with Team Chrome pushing the web forward in a million ways — be it import maps, nested CSS, web push, etc. — is therefore essential.
This series of assertions underscores argument [b] above.
The essay concludes with this call to action for legal eagles:
Google should not get away with rigging the online ad market, but forcing it to sell Chrome will do great damage to the web.
But what about argument [a] “The browser is definitely good for Google.” Let me offer several observations:
First, I am not sure “browser” captures what Google has been laboring for years to achieve. Chrome was supposed to mash Microsoft’s Windows operating system into the dirt. If Chrome becomes the de facto “web”, the Google may pull off a monopoly displacement. Windows moves to the margin, and Chrome dominates the center.
Second, someone told me there was science fiction story about a series of vending machines. The beverage machine made you want a snack. The snack from the snack machine made you want something salty. The salty product vending machine made you want a beverage. The customer is addicted. That’s what the trifecta of Web search online advertising, and Chrome does — actually, possibly has done — to users. I am using the term “user” in the sense that it is tough to break the cycle. Think drug or some other addiction and how the process works.
Third, the argument that only big technology companies can operate their products. Okay, maybe. My approach to this is, “Hey, let’s break up these interlocked cycling systems and see what happens. I can hear, “Wow, you dinobabies are crazy.” Maybe so. Maybe so.
Net net: These pro-Google arguments strike me as content marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2025
Outsourced AI Works Very Well, Thank You
May 2, 2025
Tech experts predict that AI will automate all jobs and make humanity obsolete. If that’s the case then why was so-called AI outsourced? Engadget reports how one “Tech Founder Charged With Fraud For ‘AI’ That Was Secretly Overseas Contract Workers.”
The tech founder in question is Albert Sangier and the US Department of Justice indicated him on misleading clients with Nate, his financial technology platform. Sangier founded Nate in 2018, he raised $40 million from investors, and he claimed that it could give shoppers a universal checkout application powered by AI. The transactions were actually completed by human contractors located in Romania, the Philippines, and bots.
Sangier deception was first noted in 2022:
“ ‘This case follows reporting by The Information in 2022 that cast light on Nate’s use of human labor rather than AI. Sources told the publication that during 2021, “the share of transactions Nate handled manually rather than automatically ranged between 60 percent and 100 percent.’”
Sangier isn’t the only “tech leader” who duplicitously pretends that human workers are actually an AI algorithm or chatbot. More bad actors will do this scam and they’ll get more creative hiding their steps.
Whitney Grace, May 2, 2025
Another Grousing Googler: These Wizards Need Time to Ponder Ethical Issues
May 1, 2025
No AI. This old dinobaby just plods along, delighted he is old and this craziness will soon be left behind. What about you?
My view of the Google is narrow. Sure, I got money to write about some reports about the outfit’s technology. I just did my job and moved on to more interesting things than explaining the end of relevance and how flows of shaped information destroys social structures.
This Googzilla is weeping because one of the anointed is not happy with the direction the powerful creature is headed. Googzilla asks itself, “How can we replace weak and mentally weak humans with smart software more quickly?” Thanks, OpenAI. Good enough like much of technology these days.
I still enjoy reading about the “real” Google written by a “real” Googlers and Xooglers (these are former Googlers who now work at wonderfully positive outfits like emulating the Google playbook).
The article in front of me this morning (Sunday, April20, 2025) is titled “I’ve Worked at Google for Decades. I’m Sickened by What It’s Doing.” The subtitle tells me a bit about the ethical spine of the author, but you may find it enervating. As a dinobaby, I am not in tune with the intellectual, ethical, and emotional journeys of Googlers and Xooglers. Here’s the subtitle:
For the first time, I feel driven to speak publicly, because our company is now powering state violence across the globe.
Let’s take a look at what this Googler asserts about the estimable online advertising outfit. Keep in mind that the fun-loving Googzilla has been growing for more than two decades, and the creature is quite spritely despite some legal knocks and Timnit Gebru-type pains. Please, read the full “Sacramentum Paenitentiae.” (I think this is a full cycle of paenitentia, but as a dinobaby, I don’t have the crystalline intelligence of a Googler or Xoogler.)
Here’s statement one I noted. The author contrasts the good old days of St. Paul Buchheit’s “Don’t be evil” enjoinder to the present day’s Sundar & Prabhakar’s Comedy Show this way:
But if my overwhelming feeling back then was pride, my feeling now is a very different one: heartbreak. That’s thanks to years of deeply troubling leadership decisions, from Google’s initial foray into military contracting with Project Maven, to the corporation’s more recent profit-driven partnerships like Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon’s joint $1.2 billion AI and cloud computing contract with the Israeli military that has powered Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Yeah, smart software that wants to glue cheese on pizzas running autonomous weapons strikes me as an interesting concept. At least the Ukrainian smart weapons are home grown and mostly have a human or two in the loop. The Google-type outfits are probably going to find the Ukrainian approach inefficient. The blue chip consulting firm mentality requires that these individuals be allowed to find their future elsewhere.
Here’s another snip I circled with my trusty Retro51 ball point pen:
For years, I have organized internally against Google’s full turn toward war contracting. Along with other coworkers of conscience, we have followed official internal channels to raise concerns in attempts to steer the company in a better direction. Now, for the first time in my more than 20 years of working at Google, I feel driven to speak publicly, because our company is now powering state violence across the globe, and the severity of the harm being done is rapidly escalating.
I find it interesting that it takes decades to make a decision involving morality and ethicality. These are tricky topics and must be considered. St. Augustine of Hippo took about three years (church scholars are not exactly sure and, of course, have been known to hallucinate). But this Google-certified professional required 20 years to figure out some basic concepts. Is this judicious or just an indication of how tough intellectual amorality is to analyze?
Let me wrap up with one final snippet.
To my fellow Google workers, and tech workers at large: If we don’t act now, we will be conscripted into this administration’s fascist and cruel agenda: deporting immigrants and dissidents, stripping people of reproductive rights, rewriting the rules of our government and economy to favor Big Tech billionaires, and continuing to power the genocide of Palestinians. As tech workers, we have a moral responsibility to resist complicity and the militarization of our work before it’s too late.
The evil-that-men-do argument. Now that’s one that will resonate with the “leadership” of Alphabet, Google, Waymo, and whatever weirdly named units Googzilla possesses, controls, and partners. As that much-loved American thinker Ralph Waldo-Emerson allegedly said:
“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
I am not sure I want this Googler, Xoogler, or whatever on my quick recall team. Twenty years to figure out something generally about having an ethical compass and a morality meter seems like a generous amount of time. No wonder Googzilla is rushing to replace its humanoids with smart software. When that code runs on quantum computers, imagine the capabilities of the online advertising giant. It can brush aside criminal indictments. Ignore the mewing and bleating of employees. Manifest itself into one big … self, maybe sick, but is it the Googley destiny?
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2025
The EU Bumps Heads with Tech Bros
May 1, 2025
Dinobaby, here. No smart software involved unlike some outfits. I did use Sam AI-Man’s art system to produce the illustration in the blog post.
I noticed some faint signals that the European Union has bumped heads with a couple of US tech bros. The tech bros have money, users, and a do-it-my way attitude. The EU moves less quickly and likes to discuss lunch before going to lunch. The speedy delivery approach upsets stomachs of some European professionals.
The soccer player on a team sponsored by tech bros knocks over the old player and wins the ball. The problem is that the youthful, handsome, well-paid superstar gets a red card. Thanks, OpenAI. I am looking forward to your Telegram clone.
The hints of trouble appear in “Brussels Takes Action Against Google and Apple Despite Trump Threat.” The article explains that the tech bros have violated the Digital Markets Act. Some pundits have suggested that the DMA exists because of certain tech bros and their zip-zip approach to shaping monopolistic business methods.
What are the US tech bros going to do? [a] Posture, [b] output PR, [c] litigate, [d] absolutely everything possible. The answer, based on my limited understanding of how big time thinkers with money and win-at-all-costs logic business executives thing, [d].
Let’s think about how this disagreement will unfold.
First, the use of media to communicate the unfairness of a governmental entity telling a couple of tech bros they can’t race their high performance vehicles down Avenue Louise, the Ku’damm, or the Champs-Élysées. Then the outfits will output PR, lots of PR. Third, the lawyers will take flight. If there are not enough legal eagles in Europe, convocations will be whisked to Brussels and Strasbourg. The final step will open the barn door and let the animals run free.
With the diplomatic skills of a SWAT team and piles of money, the afflicted tech bros will try to get the EU to knock off the anti-tech-bro double talk. Roll over or ….?
That’s the question, “Or what?”
The afflicted tech bros are accustomed to doing what they want, using slick talk and other inducements to do exactly what they want. The “you want to move the icons on the home screen” and “you want objective search results” attitudes are likely to be somewhat ineffective.
I am not sure what the tech bros will do. France broke the wing of Telegram’s big bird. After realizing that France could put him in a depressingly over crowded prison about 16 kilometers from a five star hotel in Paris, the Telegram tech bro complied.
Will the defendants in future legal disputes with the EU show up in court to explain to the slug-like thinkers in the EU government bureau that they must do what the US tech bros want. There’s that “or” again. It is a pesky matter.
Tech bros, as Pavel Durov learned in his seven months of intensive classes in French law, the bureaucracy moves slowly and has a variety of financial levers and knobs. These can be adjusted in numerous ways. It is indeed possible that if a tech bro gets out of line, he could experience a crash course in EU systems and procedures.
The inconceivable could happen: The companies products could be constrained in some way. With each “do it our way” output, the knobs and dials can be adjusted.
Could the tie up of Ecosia and Wolfram Alpha or Swisscows offer a viable option for search? Could the Huawei-type of mobile devices replace the iPhone?
The tech bros may want to check out how Pavel Durov’s approach to business is working out.
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2025
Maps: The Google Giveth and the Google Taketh Away
May 1, 2025
Google Maps is a premiere GPS app. It’s backed up by terabytes of information that is constantly updated by realtime data. Users use Google Maps’ Timeline as a review and reminisce about past travel, but that has suddenly changed. According to Lifehacker, “Google May Have Deleted Your Timeline Data In Maps.”
A Redditor posted on the r/GooglePixel subreddit that all of their Google Maps Timeline data from over a decade disappeared. Google did warn users in 2024 that they would delete Timeline data. If users wanted to keep their Timeline data they needed to transfer it to personal devices.
The major Timeline deletion was supposed to happen in June 2025 not March when the Redditor’s data vanished. Google did acknowledge that some users have already had their Timeline data deleted.
“Google appears to be actively reaching out to affected users, so keep an eye out for an email from the company with instructions on retrieving your data—if you can. Redditor srj737 was able to retrieve their data, once Google acknowledged the situation. They had tried restoring from their backup before to no avail, but following Google’s email, the backup worked. It’s possible Google made some changes on their end to fix the feature in general, which includes both saved data as well as backup restoring, but that can’t be confirmed at this time.”
It’s not surprising that Google will delete any ancillary data that it isn’t paid to store or could potentially be stored on a user’s device. Users shouldn’t rely on the all-powerful Google to store their data forever. Also don’t always trust the cloud to do it.
Whitney Grace, May 1, 2025
Want Traffic from Google? Buy Ads, Lots of Ads
April 30, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby himself.
When I was working, clients and prospects would ask me, “Do I need to advertise on Google to get traffic to my Web site?” I relayed the “facts” as I understood them at the time. My answer was, “You need to buy ads from Google.”
Most of the clients wrinkled their foreheads and asked, “Why?” My answer was then and still is, “Do you think Google does things for you for free?” Since I don’t do advertising, I don’t know how my information filtered from my contacts to the people who handled these organizations’ advertising budgets. I knew that with big indexes and lots of users, only a tiny fraction of the terms and Web sites get traffic. People don’t understand that their Web site is mostly invisible and was destined to stay that way unless [a] something extraordinary appeared on a Web page and drew eyeballs or [b] the organization had to spend thousands each month on Google ads.
I thought times might be changing since I retired. Nope, advertising matters. If the information in “Temu Pulls Its US Google Shopping Ads” is accurate, Google ads matter. The article reports:
Temu completely shut off Google Shopping ads in the U.S. on April 9, with its App Store ranking subsequently plummeting from a typical third or fourth position to 58th in just three days. The company’s impression share, which measures how often their ads appear compared to eligibility, dropped sharply before disappearing completely from advertiser auction data by April 12.
Buy ads, get traffic. That was true when I was running myself ragged trying to do work, and it is true today. I would suggest that this Temu example offers some insight into what happens if apps get pulled from the Google Play Store. Whatever downloads a developer had are likely to take a hit; that is, go from hero to zero in a snap.
The article wanders into political issues which are not part of my job description. I think it is important to think in terms of findability. One can pray that one’s content is so darned compelling that people flock to a magnet site or a post. Hope springs eternal just like every baby is a genius. One can pay search engine optimization wizards to gin up traffic via white hat and black hat methods. One can just buy ads, and go with the pay-to-play method.
Am I okay with Google’s control of traffic? Sure. I don’t care if I get traffic. But others do and need traffic to stay in business. Therefore, the information about Temu is germane I think. Your baby is a genius. Believe that. Just don’t assume that traffic will automatically flow to that baby’s Web site even if you bought a domain name celebrating the birth. Just buy ads.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2025
China, Self-Amusement, and AI
April 29, 2025
China pokes fun at the United States whenever it can. Why? The Middle Kingdom wants to prove its superiority over the US. China is does have many technological advances over its western neighbor and now the country made another great leap forward with AI says Business Insider: “China’s Baidu Releases Ernie X1, A New AI Reasoning Model.”
Baidu is China’s equivalent of Google and the it released two new AI models. The first is Ernie X1 that is described as a reasoning model that delivers on par with Deepseek R1 at half the price. It also released a multimodal foundation model called Ernie 4.5 that could potentially outperform GPT-4.5 and costs only a fraction of the price. Baidu is also developing the Ernie Bot, a free chatbot.
Baidu wants to offer the world cheap AI:
“Baidu’s new releases come as Silicon Valley reckons with the cost of AI models, largely spurred by the latest drops from Deepseek, a Chinese startup launched by hedge fund High Flyer.
In December, Deepseek released a large language model called V3, and in January, it unveiled a reasoning model called R1. The models are considered as good or better than equivalent models from OpenAI but priced “anywhere from 20-40x cheaper,” according to analysis from Bernstein Research.”
China is smart to develop inexpensive AI, but did the country have to make fun of Sesame Street? I mean Big Bird?
Whitney Grace, April 29, 2025
The Only-Google-Can-Do-It Information Campaign: Repeat It, and It Will Be “True.” Believe Now!
April 28, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
After more than two decades of stomping around the digital world, the Google faces some unpleasant consequences of what it hath wrought. There is the European Union’s ka-ching factor; that is, Google is a big automatic teller machine capable of spitting out oodles of cash after the lawyers run out of gas. The US legal process is looking more like the little engine that could. If it can, Google may lose control of some of its big-time components; for example, the Chrome browser. I think this was acquired by the Google from someone in Denmark years ago, but I am a bit fuzzy about this statement. But, hey, let’s roll with it. Google “owns” the browser market, and if the little engine that could gets to the top of the hill (not guaranteed by any means, of course) then another outfit might acquire it.
Among the players making noises about buying the Google browser is OpenAI. I find this interesting because [a] Sam AI-Man wants to build his version of Telegram and [b] he wants to make sure that lots of people use his firm’s / organization’s smart software. Buy Chrome and Sam has users and he can roll out a browser enabled version of the Telegram platform with his very own AI system within.
Google is not too keen on losing any of its “do good” systems. Chrome has been a useful vector for such helpful functions as data gathering, control of extensions, and having its own embedded Google search system everywhere the browser user goes. Who needs Firefox when Google has Chrome? Probably not Sam AI-Man or Yahoo or whoever eyes the browser.
“Only Google Can Run Chrome, Company’s Browser Chief Tells Judge” reveals to me how Google will argue against a decision forcing Google to sell its browser. That argument is, not surprisingly, is anchored within Google’s confidence in itself, its wizards, its money, and its infrastructure. The Los Angeles Times’ article says:
Google is the only company that can offer the level of features and functionality that its popular Chrome web browser has today, given its “interdependencies” on other parts of the Alphabet Inc. unit, the head of Chrome testified. “Chrome today represents 17 years of collaboration between the Chrome people” and the rest of Google, Parisa Tabriz, the browser’s general manager, said Friday as part of the Justice Department’s antitrust case in Washington federal court. “Trying to disentangle that is unprecedented.”
My interpretation of this comment is typical of a dinobaby. Google’s browser leader is saying, “Other companies are not Google; therefore, those companies are mentally, technically, and financially unable to do what Google does.” I understand. Googzilla is supreme in the way it is quantumly supreme in every advanced technology, including content marketing and public relations.
The write up adds:
James Mickens, a computer science expert for the Justice Department, said Google could easily transfer ownership of Chrome to another company without breaking its functionality. … “The divestiture of Chrome is feasible from a technical perspective,” said Mickens, a computer science professor at Harvard University. “It would be feasible to transfer ownership and not break too much.”
Professor Mickens has put himself in the category of non-Googley people who lack the intelligence to realize how incorrect his reasoning is. Too bad, professor, no Google consulting gig for you this year.
Plus, Google has a plan for its browser. The write up reports:
In internal documents, Google said it intends to develop Chrome into an “agentic browser,” which incorporates AI agents to automate tasks and perform actions such as filling out forms, conducting research or shopping. “We envision a future of multiple agents, where Chrome integrates deeply with Gemini as a primary agent and one we’ll prioritize and enable users to engage with multiple 3P agents on the web in both consumer and enterprise settings,” Tabriz wrote in a 2024 email.
How will this play out? I have learned that predicting the outcome of legal processes is a tough job. Stick to estimating the value of a TONcoin. That’s an easier task.
What does seem clear to me are three points:
- Google’s legal woes are not going away
- Google’s sense of its technology dominance is rising despite some signals that that perception may not align with what’s happening in AI and other technical fields
- Google’s argument that only it can do its browser may not fly in the midst of legal eagles.
I don’t think the “browser chief” will agree with this dinobaby. That’s okay. Trust me.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2025
Japan Alleges Google Is a Monopoly Doing Monopolistic Things. What?
April 28, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby himself.
The Google has been around a couple of decades or more. The company caught my attention, and I wrote three monographs for a now defunct publisher in a very damp part of England. These are now out of print, but their titles illustrate my perception of what I call affectionately Googzilla:
- The Google Legacy. I tried to explain why Google’s approach was going to define how future online companies built their technical plumbing. Yep, OpenAI in all its charm is a descendant of those smart lads, Messrs. Brin and Page.
- Google Version 2.0. I attempted to document the shift in technical focus from search relevance to a more invasive approach to using user data to generate revenue. The subtitle, I thought at the time, gave away the theme of the book: “The Calculating Predator.”
- Google: The Digital Gutenberg. I presented information about how Google’s “outputs” from search results to more sophisticated content structures like profiles of people, places, and things was preparing Google to reinvent publishing. I was correct because the new head of search (Prabhakar Version 2.0) is making little reports the big thing in search results. This will doom many small publications because Google just tells you what it wants you to know.
I wrote these monographs between 2002 and 2008. I must admit that my 300 page Enterprise Search Report sold more copies than my Google work. But I think my Google trilogy explained what Googzilla was doing. No one cared.
Now I learn “Japan orders Google to stop pushing smartphone makers to install its apps.”* Okay, a little slow on the trigger, but government officials in the land of the rising sun figured out that Google is doing what Google has been doing for decades.
Enlightenment arrives!
The article reports:
Japan has issued a cease-and-desist order telling Google to stop pressuring smartphone makers to preinstall its search services on Android phones. The Japan Fair Trade Commission said on Tuesday Google had unfairly hindered competition by asking for preferential treatment for its search and browser from smartphone makers in violation of the country’s anti-monopoly law. The antitrust watchdog said Google, as far back as July 2020, had asked at least six Android smartphone manufacturers to preinstall its apps when they signed the license for the American tech giant’s app store…
Google has been this rodeo before. At the end of a legal process, Google will apologize, write a check, and move on down the road.
The question for me is, “How many other countries will see Google as a check writing machine?”
Quite a few in my opinion. The only problem is that these actions have taken many years to move from the thrill of getting a Google mouse pad to actual governmental action. (The best Google freebie was its flashing LED pin. Mine corroded and no longer flashed. I dumped it.)
Note for the * — Links to Microsoft “news” stories often go dead. Suck it up and run a query for the title using Google, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2025
AI Crawlers Are Bullying Open Source: Stop Grousing and Go Away
April 25, 2025
AI algorithms are built on open source technology. Unfortunately generative AI is harming its mother code explains TechDirt: “AI Crawlers Are Harming Wikimedia, Bringing Open Source Sites To Their Knees, And Putting The Open Web At Risk.” To make generative AI work you need a lot of computer power, smart coding, and mounds of training data. Money can buy coding and power, but (quality) training data is incredibly difficult to obtain.
AI crawlers were unleashed on the Internet to scrap information and use it for training models. The biggest information providers for crawlers are Wikimedia projects and it’s a big problem. Wikimedia, which claims to be “the largest collection of open knowledge in the world,” says most of its traffic is from crawlers and it is eating into costs:
“Since January 2024, we have seen the bandwidth used for downloading multimedia content grow by 50%. This increase is not coming from human readers, but largely from automated programs that scrape the Wikimedia Commons image catalog of openly licensed images to feed images to AI models. Our infrastructure is built to sustain sudden traffic spikes from humans during high-interest events, but the amount of traffic generated by scraper bots is unprecedented and presents growing risks and costs.”
This is bad because it is straining the Wikimedia datacenter and budgetary resources. Wikimedia isn’t the only information source feeling the burn from AI crawlers. News sites and more are being wrung by crawlers for every decimal of information:
“It’s increasingly clear that the reckless and selfish way in which AI crawlers are being deployed by companies eager to tap into today’s AI hype is bringing many sites around the Internet to their knees. As a result, AI crawlers are beginning to threaten the open Web itself, and thus the frictionless access to knowledge that it has provided to general users for the last 30 years.”
Silicon Valley might have good intentions but dollars are more important. (Oh, I am not sure about the “good intentions.”)
Whitney Grace, April 25, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
