Google Gets into Insurance
March 3, 2021
Worrying about the relevance of search results? You probably should. The online ad giant is facing some big problems. And what do giant corporations do when their core business faces competitive, legal, employee, management, and customer pressure?
Give up.
Here’s the answer: Sell insurance.
“Google Rolls Out First of Its Kind Cyber Insurance Program for Cloud Customers” reports:
Google LLC has teamed up with two major insurers to develop a cyber security insurance offering that will provide Google Cloud customers who sign up with coverage against cyber attacks.
Ask an actuary. Is insurance a good business? Listen to the answer… carefully.
The article notes:
The Risk Manager tool is available to Google Cloud customers by request. As for the cyber insurance coverage against data breaches, it will initially be offered to organizations in the U.S.
There are several implications of this deal. But it is early days, and one cannot purchase insurance to cover a ride in a Waymo infused vehicle directly from the GOOG yet.
The thoughts which ran through my mind after reading the news story were:
- Is Google cashing in on SolarWinds’ paranoia?
- Does selling insurance for cloud services suggest that cloud services are a big fat bad actor target which cannot be adequately protected?
- Will Google insure homes, yachts, and health?
- Has Google run out of ideas for generating revenue from its home brew and me too technology?
I have no answers, just hunches.
The Google has looked backwards to bottomry contracts shaped in Babylon. When did this insight dawn? Round about 4,000 before common era (that’s AD in thumbtyper speak).
Will Google innovate with stone flaking methods and sell non fungible tokens for these artifacts?
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2021
Funding Terrorism with Information about Wretched Situations
March 2, 2021
People often try to help. I recall talking to a street person in San Francisco in the chocolate chip cookie shop near the Diva Hotel on Geary. The chocolate chip shop is, I believe, long gone. I asked the person which cookies he liked the best. He said, “I buy them every day for my family. I get a dozen or so. I eat one on the BART to Daly and then take the rest to the family.” I asked, “What do you do?” He said, “I beg. It works really well. People are very generous.”
“Funding the Needy or Funding Terror?” reminded me of this little life lesson from the 1980s. What looked like a person who was down on his luck was a hard working exploiter of people’s desire to help others. None of those Berkeley coupons for the beggar in the cookie store. Now the stakes are higher.
The article reports:
Last year, online fundraisers began to appear on behalf of al-Hol residents. Many were seeking to finance escapes, others to pay for food and supplies. (While some donations have likely gone toward terrorism, the campaigns are careful to avoid mentioning violence.) The petitions spread via social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and often involved PayPal and other payment systems as well as messaging apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram. Before long, intelligence and law enforcement agencies began to monitor them.
The idea is that money flows in and some of it goes to fund activities not included in the video, the email, or the TV commercial.
How do social media platforms police this allegedly fraudulent activity?
Well, that’s a good question.
The write up reports:
he architects of these networks tailor their messages and methods to geography, specific donors and goals, and national laws and platform regulations. Of the Facebook accounts identified by Rest of World that claim links to al-Hol, only some explicitly asked for donations. Others disseminated pictures or news from the camp in different languages, alongside Islamic scripture and memes. A few users fondly reminisced about their time in the caliphate. Facebook disables and deletes accounts that share terrorist propaganda, so ISIS was never explicitly mentioned. Instead, references to the organization were camouflaged by alternative spellings. “I miss the Dawl@,” one said, with a crying emoji, referencing the Arabic word for “state” in ISIS’s full name.
Again. What are social media platforms doing to address this issue?
Outputting words, forming study teams, and hand waving.
Is this a problem? Not if there are cookies at the meeting. No faux street people needed.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2021
Common Sense and Artificial Intelligence: Logical? Yes. Efficient? No
February 23, 2021
People easily forget that machines are only as smart as humans make them. Continuing on that that, AI and machine learning are the height of humanity’s most advanced technology but they are still stupid computer programs. AI and machine learning lack basic reasoning and logic, so these concepts must be taught to them. The Business Reporter discusses how AI needs more common sense programmed into its algorithms in “Trial And Error: The Human Flaws In Machine Learning.”
Humans are prone to cognitive biases and we need to monitor them. The best way to monitor cognitive biases are through slow, logical energy-intensive processes that point out illogical inconsistencies. Humans have two thought processes that are called different things in the varying science disciplines. However they are labeled, the thought processes are a “fast one” and a “slow one” or the reactive and active minds. Modern technology centers on the reactive/fast one, lacking active/slow one thought processes.
“But where does this fit into AI and machine learning? Those who trust technology more than humans believe that the most efficient way of eliminating the flaws in our thinking is to rely on disinterested, even-handed algorithms to make predictions and decisions, rather than inconsistent, prejudiced humans. But are the algorithms we use in artificial intelligence (AI) today really up to scratch? Or do machines have their own fallibilities when it comes to preconceptions?”
Machine learning algorithms are fantastic tools for closed systems when they are fed terabytes of data to learn and form correlations. Machine learning algorithms then apply what they know to the closed system and learn more via trial and error. One closed system machine learning algorithm cannot be transferred to another, so machine reasoning is a new technology concept.
Machine reasoning AI could eliminate cognitive biases, but no one has successfully programmed it yet. It will take tons of data, transferability of closed systems to discover common correlations, and lots of trial and error before computers have a nanobyte of common sense.
Enabling common sense in AI adds time and cost. The goal is to generate revenue with a juicy margin. That’s common sense.
Whitney Grace, February 23, 2021
Palantir Fourth Quarter Results Surprises One Financial Pundit
February 22, 2021
I read “Palantir Stock Slides As It Posts a Surprise Loss in Fourth Quarter.” The pundit noted:
Palantir stock has been very volatile this year. It is among the stocks that were been pumped by the Reddit group WallStreetBets. Palantir stock had a 52-week high of $45 amid frenzied buying. However, as has been the case with other meme stocks, it is down sharply from its recent highs. Based on yesterday’s closing prices, Palantir stock has lost almost 30% from its 52-week highs. The drawdown is much lower than what we’ve seen in stocks like GameStop and AMC Theatres. But then, the rise in Palantir stock was also not comparable to the massive gains that we saw in these companies.
Yikes. Worse than GameStop? Quite a comparison.
The pundit pointed out:
Palantir has been diversifying itself away from government business that currently accounts for the bulk of its revenues. This year, it has signed many deals that would help it diversify its revenues. Earlier this month, Palantir announced that it has extended its partnership with energy giant BP for five more years.
Who knew that a company founded in 2003 would have difficulty meeting Wall Street expectation? Maybe that IBM deal and the new US president’s administration can help Palantir Technologies meet financial experts’ expectations?
Search and content processing companies have been worn down by long sales cycles, lower cost competitors, and the friction of customization, training, and fiddling with content intake.
Palantir might be an exception. Stakeholders are discomfited by shocks.
Stephen E Arnold, February 22, 2021
Facebook Decision Sparks Colorful Language
February 19, 2021
I noted this headline:
Facebook Gives Middle finger to Australia as Google Strikes Multi-Million Dollar Deals over News
Very colorful. Google decided to write checks, not do the crazy pull out a country play bandied about. Facebook, on the other hand, seems content to kiss the kangaroos good bye. Not shrimp on the barbie when Mr. Zuck entertains, I assume.
The write up with the middle finger headline includes this quote from a Googler:
In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content,” wrote William Easton, managing director of Facebook Australia & New Zealand in a blog post. “The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.
What happened to Melanie Silva the Managing Director,, Google Australia and New Zealand. She assumed her job in November 2020 or October 2018 depending on which source one examines. She was — at least to me — the hard line Googler.
But the article with the middle finger headline focuses on William Easton. He has VP attached to his title. What’s interesting is that he was at Facebook before becoming a Googler.
What I find interesting is that both Ms. Silva and Mr. Easton are finance types.
Remember the good old days of Google when senior executives were engineers?
Who at Google is calculating the cost of paying for news to publishers worldwide? How many ad sales will it take to offset the cost of news? The Google News page has lacked ads for many years. Perhaps that will change? If not, Google will have to trim more costs and find a way to hold down costs.
The Google is entering a new phase and high school science club management tactics won’t work. Writing checks does it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2021
Google in France: Are Wine and Cheese Included in the Deal?
February 19, 2021
Google News aggregates news content from various media outlets, but it does not pay the outlets for the content. Some content on Google News requires subscriptions to specific outlets, but overall the information is free. Media outlets are upset that Google does not pay them for their content, although Google could argue that they are driving traffic to their Web site and offer free exposure. Traffic and exposure are not enough for French publishers, says the Seattle PI in, “Google, French Publishers Sign Copyright News Payment Deal.”
Google France negotiated with the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Generale for months to agree upon a framework where Google would pay licensing fees to French publishers. Google needed this deal after France was the first country to adopt the European Union’s new copyright rules.
The new rules were made, because of money and lack of quality news:
“Under the framework agreement, payments will be based on criteria such as the amount published daily and monthly internet traffic. Google did not spell out how much money would be paid to the group’s members. News companies had pushed for the EU copyright reform amid worries that quality journalism is declining as ad revenue gets siphoned off by the digital giants.”
It makes sense, especially when big tech companies created the technology that enables misinformation bad actors to spread conspiracy theories. The technology itself is not bad, but can cause harm. Google is benefiting from journalists’ hard work, but also dumbing down the medium as well as stealing its’ power. Journalists, like other professionals, should be paid for their work, especially if they focus on telling quality stories.
Whitney Grace, February 19, 2021
The Unthinkable: Will Google News and Facebook Pay Publishers for Content?
February 15, 2021
Regulators are beginning to agree with publishers that platforms like Google News should pay for the content they post. News Showcase is Google’s answer to this trend, and The Verge reveals it is operating in two new countries in, “Google Now Pays 450 Sites to Bring You Free News, Including Some Paywalled Stories.” In the UK, 120 publishers have enlisted in alongside 40 in Argentina. Those nations join Germany and Brazil, where News Showcase launched last year, and Australia, which joined in just last week. The last example is in interesting study in regulatory pressure and corporate acquiescence. Writer Jon Porter explains:
“Last week, Google News Showcase launched in Australia, a country where the company is currently locking horns with lawmakers over new rules that could force it to pay news publishers for their content. Google recently threatened to pull its search engine from the country if the News Media Bargaining Code goes into effect. Last week, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he’d held ‘constructive’ talks with Google CEO Sundar Pichai over the new rules. The situation means that although seven Australian publishers have joined the program, covering over 25 publications, The Guardian reports that one outlet, Nine, chose not to negotiate with Google until the new code is brought in. In an FAQ, Google says it believes News Showcase should be compatible with the new rules, since publishers are free to enter into arbitration if they don’t like Google’s News Showcase deal.”
Google plans to soon add France, Canada, and Japan to its News Showcase roster. Meanwhile, Facebook has a similar plan. It is phasing content for which it is actually paying publishers into its News tab, which serves up both curated and personalized content. The initiative started in the US and recently began operation in the UK. Now we know the big tech companies are not completely impervious to regulatory pressure. What is next?
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2021
Why Use an Open Source Database? Brilliant Inadvertent Explanation
February 15, 2021
I thought, “Why bother to read ‘Everything You Should Know about the Oracle Database.’” I am delighted that I did. I read the article in The Tech Block twice! The information attempts to explain some of Oracle’s licensing guidelines. The author does a workmanlike job of explaining number of users; for example:
If you create an account for five hundred individuals, and only fifty individuals use it, you still need about five hundred licenses. This means that you’ve got to pay utmost attention to who is accessing the software. In addition, you may require a separate license not only for people but also for devices that directly or indirectly access the database. It’s also essential that you constantly check who needs access and who doesn’t. This will help you not only reduce your risk of exposure but also save you money. Being found contravening Oracle licensing agreements can be very costly. In some extreme cases, organizations have been fined millions of dollars.
The point is Oracle charges for people who don’t use the database. On one hand, this makes sense. Oracle has to do “work” to configure a database to handle users. (Remember the good old days of having to allocate more memory to a table. Ho ho ho. Wait. The good old days are today’s days.)
The write up contains eight more missteps an Oracle customer can trip and break the bean counter’s financial ankles.
Net net: The explanation makes it quite clear why some organizations use open source databases. Perhaps the author did not intend to anti-market Oracle’s database? From my point of view, that is exactly what the information in “Everything You Should Know…” delivers.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2021
Amazon AWS EC2 Pricing
February 11, 2021
Amazon AWS makes many things simple: Off the shelf machine learning models, buying cables, and spending money. If you want to get a sense for the complexity of pricing at AWS, take a look at “EC2 Instances.Info: Easy Amazon ED2 Instance Comparison.” The effort required to compile the table was significant. In addition to the data structured by EC service, region, and other tags — there’s the splash page table itself. Impressive. For those with some financial and technical expertise, a new job category now exists: Figuring out AWS pricing for a project and then determining how to minimize costs over time. From the Amazon one click patent to this pricing inventory. How far has Amazon driven the Bezos bulldozer? A long way.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2021
Google and Broad Match
February 11, 2021
I read “Google Is Moving on From Broad Match Modifier.” The essay’s angle is search engine optimization; that is, spoofing Google’s now diluted relevance methods. The write up says:
Google says it has been getting better at learning the intent behind a query, and is therefore more confident it can correctly map advertisements to queries. As that ability improves, the differences between Phrase Match and Broad Match Modified diminishes. Moving forward, there will be three match types, each with specific benefits:
- Exact match: for precision
- Broad match: for reach
- Phrase match: in Google’s words, to combine the best of both.
Let’s assume that these are the reasons. Exact match delivers precision. Broad match casts a wide net. No thumbtypers wants a null set. Obviously there is zero information in a null set in the mind of the GenXers and Millennials, right? The phrase match is supposed to combine precision and recall. Oh, my goodness, precision and recall. What happened to cause the Google to reach into the deep history of STAIRS III and RECON for this notion.
Google hasn’t and won’t.
The missing factor in the write up’s analysis is answering the question, “When will each of the three approaches be used, under what conditions, and what happens if the bus drives to the wrong city?” (This bus analogy is my happy way of expressing the idea that Google search results often have little to do with either the words in the user’s query or the “intent” of the user (allegedly determined by Google’s knowledge of each user and the magic of more than 100 “factors” for determining what to present).
The key is the word “reach.” Changes to Google’s methods are, from my point of view, are designed to accomplish one thing: Burn through ad inventory.
By killing off functioning Boolean, deprecating search operators, ignoring meaningful time indexing, and tossing disambiguation into the wind blowing a Google volleyball into Shoreline traffic — the company’s core search methods have been shaped to produce money.
SEO experts don’t like this viewpoint. Google doesn’t care as long as the money keeps flowing. With Google investing less in infrastructure and facing significant pressure from government investigators and outfits like Amazon and Facebook, re-explaining search boils down to showing content which transports ads.
Where’s that leave the SEO experts? Answer: Ad sales reps for the Google. Traffic comes to advertisers. But the big bucks are the big advertisers’ campaigns which expose a message to as many eyeballs as possible. That’s why “broad reach” is the fox in the relevance hen house.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2021
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