Google: Android and the Walled Garden
March 31, 2025
Dinobaby says, “No smart software involved. That’s for “real” journalists and pundits.
In my little corner of the world, I do not see Google as “open.” One can toss around the idea 24×7, and I won’t change my mind. Despite its unusual approach to management, the company has managed to contain the damage from Xooglers’ yip yapping about the company. Xoogler.co is focused on helping people. I suppose there are versions of Sarah Wynn-Williams “Careless People” floating around. Few talk much about THE Timnit Gebru “parrot” paper. Google is, it seems, just not the buzz generator it was in 2006, the year the decline began to accelerate in my opinion.
We have another example of “circling the wagons” strategy. It is a doozy.
“Google Moves All Android Development Behind Closed Doors” reports with some “real” writing and recycling of Google generated slick talk an interesting shift in the world of the little green man icon:
Google had to merge the two branches, which lead to problems and issues, so Google decided it’s now moving all development of Android behind closed doors
How many versions of messaging apps did Google have before it decided that “let many flowers bloom” was not in line with the sleek profile the ageing Google want to flaunt on Wall Street?
The article asks a good question:
…if development happens entirely behind closed doors, with only the occasional code drop, is the software in question really open source? Technically, the answer is obviously ‘yes’ – there’s no requirement that development take place in public. However, I’m fairly sure that when most people think of open source, they think not only of occasionally throwing chunks of code over the proverbial corporate walls, but also of open development, where everybody is free to contribute, pipe in, and follow along.
News flash from the dinobaby: Open source software, when bandied about by folks who don’t worry too much about their mom missing a Social Security check means:
- We don’t want to chase and fix bugs. Make it open source and let the community do it for free.
- We probably have coded up something that violates laws. By making it open source, we are really benefiting those other developers and creating opportunities for innovation.
- We can use the buzzword “open source” and jazz the VCs with a term that is ripe with promise for untold riches
- A student thinks: I can make my project into open source and maybe it will help me get a job.
- A hacker thinks: I can get “cred” by taking my exploit and coding a version that penetration testers will find helpful and possibly not discover the backdoor.
I have not exhausted the kumbaya about open source.
It is clear that Google is moving in several directions, a luxury only Googzillas have:
First, Google says, “We will really, really, cross my fingers and hope to die, share code … just like always.
Second, Google can add one more oxen drawn wagon to its defensive circle. The company will need it when the licensing terms for Android include some very special provisions. Of course, Google may be charitable and not add additional fees to its mobile OS.
Third, it can wave the “we good managers” flag.
Fourth, as the write up correctly notes:
…Darwin, the open source base underneath macOS and iOS, is technically open source, but nobody cares because Apple made it pretty much worthless in and of itself. Anything of value is stripped out and not only developed behind closed doors, but also not released as open source, ensuring Darwin is nothing but a curiosity we sometimes remember exists. Android could be heading in the same direction.
I think the “could” is a hedge. I penciled in “will.” But I am a dinobaby. What do I know?
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2025
Google Experiment: News? Nobody Cares So Ad Impact Is Zero, Baby, Zero
March 24, 2025
Dinobaby, here. No smart software involved unlike some outfits.
I enjoy reading statistically valid wizard studies from monopolistic outfits. “Our Experiment on the Value of European News Content” reports a wonderful result: Nobody cares if Googzilla does not index “real” news. That’s it. The online ad outfit conclusively proves that “real” news is irrelevant.
The write up explains:
The results have now come in: European news content in Search has no measurable impact on ad revenue for Google. The study showed that when we removed this content, there was no change to Search ad revenue and a <1% (0.8%) drop in usage, which indicates that any lost usage was from queries that generated minimal or no revenue. Beyond this, the study found that combined ad revenue across Google properties, including our ad network, also remained flat.
What should those with a stake in real news conclude? From my point of view, Google is making crystal clear that publishers need to shut up or else. What’s the “else”? Google stops indexing “real” news sites. Where will those “real” news sites get traffic. Bear Blog, a link from YCombinator Hacker News, a Telegram Group, Twitter, or TikTok?
Sure, absolutely.
Several observations:
- Fool around with a monopoly in the good old days, and some people would not have a train stop at their town in Iowa or the local gas stations cannot get fuel. Now it is search traffic. Put that in your hybrid.
- Google sucks down data. Those who make data available to the Google are not likely to be invited to the next Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show.
- Google will continue to flip the digital bird at the EU, stopping when the lawsuits go away and publishers take their medicine and keep quiet. The crying and whining is annoying.
One has to look forward to Google’s next research study, doesn’t one?
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2025
A NewPlay for Google and Huawei: A Give and Go?
March 14, 2025
Time for Google to get smarmy in court. We learn from TorrentFreak, "Google Must Testify as LaLiga Demands Criminal Liability for ‘Piracy Profits’." Writer Andy Maxwell summarizes:
"A court in Murcia, Spain, has ordered Google to testify in a criminal case concerning IPTV app, NewPlay. Football league LaLiga, whose matches were allegedly offered illegally through the app, previously called for the directors of Google, Apple, and Huawei to face criminal charges. LaLiga criticized the companies for failing to disable copies of NewPlay already installed on users’ devices. Google and Huawei must now testify as ‘profit-making participants’ in an alleged piracy scheme."
See the write-up for the twists and turns of the case thus far. The key point: Removing NewPlay from app stores was not enough for LaLiga. The league demands they reach in and remove the player from devices it already inhabits. The court agrees. We learn:
"The court order required Google, Apple, and Huawei to disable or delete NewPlay to prevent future use on users’ mobile devices. That apparently didn’t happen. Unhappy with the lack of compliance, in 2024 LaLiga called on the investigating judge to punish the tech companies’ directors. LaLiga says that the installed NewPlay apps still haven’t been remotely disabled but given the precedent that may set, LaLiga seems unlikely to let the matter go without a fight. With support from Telefónica, Mediapro and rights group EGEDA, LaLiga wants to hold Google and Huawei responsible for pirated content reportedly made available via the NewPlay app."
So now the court is requiring reps from Google and Huawei to appear and address this partial compliance. Why not Apple, too? That is a mystery, reports Maxwell. He also wonders about the bigger picture. The Newplay website is still up, he notes, though both its internal and external links are currently disabled. Besides, at least one other app exists that appears to do the same thing. Will the court become embroiled in a long-term game of IPTV whack-a-mole? Google is a magnet for the courts it seems.
Cynthia Murrell, March 14, 2025
Sergey Says: Work Like It Was 1975 at McKinsey or Booz, Allen
March 6, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby original.
Sergey Brin, invigorated with his work at the Google on smart software, has provided some management and work life tips to today’s job hunters and aspiring Alphabet employees. “In Leaked Memo to Google’s AI Workers, Sergey Brin Says 60 hours a Week Is the Sweet Spot and Doing the Bare Minimum Can Demoralize Peers”, Mr. Brin offers his view of sage management and career advice. (I do want to point out that the write up does not reference the work ethic and other related interactions of the Google Glass marketing team. My view of this facet of Mr. Brin’s contributions suggest that it is tough to put in 60 hours a week while an employee is ensconced in the Stanford Medical psychiatric ward. But that’s water under the bridge, so let’s move on to the current wisdom.)
The write up reports:
Sergey Brin believes Google can win the race to artificial general intelligence and outlined his ideas for how to do that—including a workweek that’s 50% longer than the standard 40 hours.
Presumably working harder will allow Google to avoid cheese mishaps related to pizza and Super Bowl advertising. Harder working Googlers will allow the company to avoid the missteps which have allowed unenlightened regulators in the European Union and the US to find the company exercising behavior which is not in the best interest of the service’s “users.”
The write up says:
“A number of folks work less than 60 hours and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by,” Brin wrote on Wednesday. “This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.”
I wonder if a consistent, document method for reviewing the work of employees would allow management to offer training, counseling, or incentives to get the mavericks back in the herd.
The protests, the allegations of erratic punitive actions like firing people who use words like “stochastic”, and the fact that the 60-hour information comes from a leaked memo — each of these incidents suggests that the management of the Google may have some work to do. You know, that old nosce teipsum stuff.
The Fortune write up winds down with this statement:
Last year, he acknowledged that he “kind of came out of retirement just because the trajectory of AI is so exciting.” That also coincided with some high-profile gaffes in Gemini’s AI, including an image generator that produced racially diverse Na#is. [Editor note: Member of a German affiliation group in the 1930s and 1940s. I have to avoid the Google stop words list.]
And the cheese, the Google Glass marketing tours, and so much more.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2025
We Have to Spread More Google Cheese
March 4, 2025
A Super Bowl ad is a big deal for companies that shell out for those pricy spots. So it is a big embarrassment when one goes awry. The BBC reports, “Google Remakes Super Bowl Ad After AI Cheese Gaffe.” Google was trying to how smart Gemini is. Instead, the ad went out with a stupid mistake. Writers Graham Fraser and Tom Singleton tell us:
“The commercial – which was supposed to showcase Gemini’s abilities – was created to be broadcast during the Super Bowl. It showed the tool helping a cheesemonger in Wisconsin write a product description by informing him Gouda accounts for ’50 to 60 percent of global cheese consumption.’ However, a blogger pointed out on X that the stat was ‘unequivocally false’ as the Dutch cheese was nowhere near that popular.”
In fact, cheddar and mozzarella vie for the world’s favorite cheese. Gouda is not even a contender. Though the company did remake the ad, one top Googler at first defended Gemini with some dubious logic. We learn:
“Replying to him, Google executive Jerry Dischler insisted this was not a ‘hallucination’ – where AI systems invent untrue information – blaming the websites Gemini had scraped the information from instead. ‘Gemini is grounded in the Web – and users can always check the results and references,’ he wrote. ‘In this case, multiple sites across the web include the 50-60% stat.'”
Sure, users can double check an AI’s work. But apparently not even Google itself can be bothered. Was the company so overconfident it did not use a human copyeditor? Or do those not exist anymore? Wrong information is wrong information, whether technically a hallucination or not. Spitting out data from unreliable sources is just as bad as making stuff up. Google still has not perfected the wildly imperfect Gemini, it seems.
Cynthia Murrell, February 28, 2025
Google and Personnel Vetting: Careless?
February 20, 2025
No smart software required. This dinobaby works the old fashioned way.
The Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show pulled another gag. This one did not delight audiences the way Prabhakar’s AI presentation did, nor does it outdo Google’s recent smart software gaffe. It is, however, a bit of a hoot for an outfit with money, smart people, and smart software.
I read the decidedly non-humorous news release from the Department of Justice titled “Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology.” The write up states on February 4, 2025:
A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment today charging Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38, with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary information related to AI technology. Ding was initially indicted in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets. The superseding indictment returned today describes seven categories of trade secrets stolen by Ding and charges Ding with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.
Thanks, OpenAI, good enough.
Mr. Ding, obviously a Type A worker, appears to have quite industrious at the Google. He was not working for the online advertising giant; he was working for another entity. The DoJ news release describes his set up this way:
While Ding was employed by Google, he secretly affiliated himself with two People’s Republic of China (PRC)-based technology companies. Around June 2022, Ding was in discussions to be the Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage technology company based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had founded his own technology company focused on AI and machine learning in the PRC and was acting as the company’s CEO.
What technology caught Mr. Ding’s eye? The write up reports:
Ding intended to benefit the PRC government by stealing trade secrets from Google. Ding allegedly stole technology relating to the hardware infrastructure and software platform that allows Google’s supercomputing data center to train and serve large AI models. The trade secrets contain detailed information about the architecture and functionality of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates thousands of chips into a supercomputer capable of training and executing cutting-edge AI workloads. The trade secrets also pertain to Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC, a type of network interface card used to enhance Google’s GPU, high performance, and cloud networking products.
At least, Mr. Ding validated the importance of some of Google’s sprawling technical insights. That’s a plus I assume.
One of the more colorful items in the DoJ news release concerned “evidence.” The DoJ says:
As alleged, Ding circulated a PowerPoint presentation to employees of his technology company citing PRC national policies encouraging the development of the domestic AI industry. He also created a PowerPoint presentation containing an application to a PRC talent program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment describes how PRC-sponsored talent programs incentivize individuals engaged in research and development outside the PRC to transmit that knowledge and research to the PRC in exchange for salaries, research funds, lab space, or other incentives. Ding’s application for the talent program stated that his company’s product “will help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”
Mr. Ding did not use Google’s cloud-based presentation program. I found the explicit desire to “help China” interesting. One wonders how Google’s Googley interview process run by Googley people failed to notice any indicators of Mr. Ding’s loyalties? Googlers are very confident of their Googliness, which obviously tolerates an insider threat who conveys data to a nation state known to be adversarial in its view of the United States.
I am a dinobaby, and I find this type of employee insider threat at Google. Google bought Mandiant. Google has internal security tools. Google has a very proactive stance about its security capabilities. However, in this case, I wonder if a Googler ever noticed that Mr. Ding used PowerPoint, not the Google-approved presentation program. No true Googler would use PowerPoint, an archaic, third party program Microsoft bought eons ago and has managed to pump full of steroids for decades.
Yep, the tell — Googlers who use Microsoft products. Sundar & Prabhakar will probably integrate a short bit into their act in the near future.
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2025
A Super Track from You Know Who
February 20, 2025
Those CAPTCHA hoops we jump through are there to protect sites from bots, right? As Boing Boing reports, not so much. In fact, bots can now easily beat reCAPTCHA tests. Then why are we forced to navigate them to do anything online? So the software can track us, collect our data, and make parent company Google even richer. And data brokers. Writer Mark Frauenfelder cites a recent paper in, “reCAPTCHA: 819 Million Hours of Wasted Human Time and Billions of Dollars in Google Profits.” We learn:
“‘They essentially get access to any user interaction on that web page,’ says Dr. Andrew Searles, a former computer security researcher at UC Irvine. Searle’s paper, titled ‘Dazed & Confused: A Large-Scale Real-World User Study of reCAPTCHAv2,’ found that Google’s widely-used CAPTCHA system is primarily a mechanism for tracking user behavior and collecting data while providing little actual security against bots. The study revealed that reCAPTCHA extensively monitors users’ cookies, browsing history, and browser environment (including canvas rendering, screen resolution, mouse movements, and user-agent data) — all of which can be used for advertising and tracking purposes. Through analyzing over 3,600 users, the researchers found that solving image-based challenges takes 557% longer than checkbox challenges and concluded that reCAPTCHA has cost society an estimated 819 million hours of human time valued at $6.1 billion in wages while generating massive profits for Google through its tracking capabilities and data collection, with the value of tracking cookies alone estimated at $888 billion.”
That is quite a chunk of change. No wonder Google does not want to give up its CAPTCHA system—even if it no longer performs its original function. Why bother with matters of user inconvenience or even privacy when there are massive profits to be made?
Cynthia Murrell, February 20, 2025
Are These Googlers Flailing? (Yes, the Word Has “AI” in It Too)
February 12, 2025
Is the Byte write up on the money? I don’t know, but I enjoyed it. Navigate to “Google’s Finances Are in Chaos As the Company Flails at Unpopular AI. Is the Momentum of AI Starting to Wane?” I am not sure that AI is in its waning moment. Deepseek has ignited a fire under some outfits. But I am not going to critic the write up. I want to highlight some of its interesting information. Let’s go, as Anatoly the gym Meister says, just with an Eastern European accent.
Here’s the first statement in the article which caught my attention:
Google’s parent company Alphabet failed to hit sales targets, falling a 0.1 percent short of Wall Street’s revenue expectations — a fraction of a point that’s seen the company’s stock slide almost eight percent today, in its worst performance since October 2023. It’s also a sign of the times: as the New York Times reports, the whiff was due to slower-than-expected growth of its cloud-computing division, which delivers its AI tools to other businesses.
Okay, 0.1 percent is something, but I would have preferred the metaphor of the “flail” word to have been used in the paragraph begs for “flog,” “thrash,” and “whip.”
I used Sam AI-Man’s AI software to produce a good enough image of Googlers flailing. Frankly I don’t think Sam AI-Man’s system understands exactly what I wanted, but close enough for horseshoes in today’s world.
I noted this information and circled it. I love Gouda cheese. How can Google screw up cheese after its misstep with glue and cheese on pizza. Yo, Googlers. Check the cheese references.
Is Alphabet’s latest earnings result the canary in the coal mine? Should the AI industry brace for tougher days ahead as investors become increasingly skeptical of what the tech has to offer? Or are investors concerned over OpenAI’s ChatGPT overtaking Google’s search engine? Illustrating the drama, this week Google appears to have retroactively edited the YouTube video of a Super Bowl ad for its core AI model called Gemini, to remove an extremely obvious error the AI made about the popularity of gouda cheese.
Stalin revised history books. Google changes cheese references for its own advertising. But cheese?
The write up concludes with this, mostly from American high technology watching Guardian newspaper in the UK:
Although it’s still well insulated, Google’s advantages in search hinge on its ubiquity and entrenched consumer behavior,” Emarketer senior analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf told The Guardian. This year “could be the year those advantages meaningfully erode as antitrust enforcement and open-source AI models change the game,” she added. “And Cloud’s disappointing results suggest that AI-powered momentum might be beginning to wane just as Google’s closed model strategy is called into question by Deepseek.”
Does this constitute the use of the word “flail”? Sure, but I like “thrash” a lot. And “wane” is good.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2025
The Google: Tell Me, Please, What Is a Malicious App?
February 12, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby emission. No smart software required.
I suggest you take a quick look at an important essay about the data which flows from Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. The paper is “Everyone Knows Your Location: Tracking Myself Down Through In-App Ads” by Tim. The main point of the write up is to disclose information that has been generally closely held by a number of entities. I strongly recommend the write up, and it is possible that it could be made difficult to locate in the near future. The article says:
After more than couple dozen hours of trying, here are the main takeaways:
- I found a couple requests sent by my phone with my location + 5 requests that leak my IP address, which can be turned into geolocation using reverse DNS.
- Learned a lot about the RTB (real-time bidding) auctions and OpenRTB protocol and was shocked by the amount and types of data sent with the bids to ad exchanges.
- Gave up on the idea to buy my location data from a data broker or a tracking service, because I don’t have a big enough company to take a trial or $10-50k to buy a huge database with the data of millions of people + me.
Well maybe I do, but such expense seems a bit irrational.
Turns out that EU-based peoples` data is almost the most expensive.But still, I know my location data was collected and I know where to buy it!
Tim’s essay sets the stage for a Google Security Blog post titled “How We Kept the Google Play & Android App Ecosystems Safe in 2024.” That write up is another example of Google’s self-promotion. It lacks the snap of the quantum supremacy pitch and the endless backpatting about Google’s smart software.
The write up says:
To keep out bad actors, we have always used a combination of human security experts and the latest threat-detection technology. In 2024, we used Google’s advanced AI to improve our systems’ ability to proactively identify malware, enabling us to detect and block bad apps more effectively. It also helps us streamline review processes for developers with a proven track record of policy compliance. Today, over 92% of our human reviews for harmful apps are AI-assisted, allowing us to take quicker and more accurate action to help prevent harmful apps from becoming available on Google Play.
I want to ask one question, “Is Google’s advertising a malicious app?” The answer depends on one’s point of view. Google would assert that it is not doing anything other than making high value services available either for free or at a very low cost to the consumer.
A skeptical person might respond, “Your system sustains the digital online advertising sector. Your technology helps, to some degree, the third party advertising services firms to gather information and cross correlate it for the fine-grained intelligence described in Tim’s article?”
Google, which is it? Is your advertising system malicious or is it a benefit to users? This is a serious question, and it is one that smarmy self promotion and PR campaigns are likely to have difficulty answering.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
Innovation: Deepseek, Google, OpenAI, and the EU. Legal Eagles Aloft
February 11, 2025
We have smart software, but the dinobaby continues to do what 80 year olds do: Write the old-fashioned human way. We did give up clay tablets for a quill pen. Works okay.
I have been thinking about the allegations that the Deepseek crowd ripped off US smart software companies. Someone with whom I am not familiar expressed the point of view that the allegation will be probed. With open source goodness whizzing around, I am not sure how would make a distinction between one allegedly open source system and another allegedly open source system will work. I am confident the lawyers will figure innovation out because clever mathematical tricks and software optimization are that group of professionals’ core competency.
The basement sale approach to smart software: Professional, organized, and rewarding. Thanks OpenAI. (No, I did not generate this image with the Deepseek tools. I wouldn’t do that to you, Sam AI-Man.)
And thinking of innovation this morning, I found the write up in the Times of India titled “Google Not Happy With This $4.5 Billion Fine, Here’s What the Company Said.” [Editor’s note: The url is a wonky one indeed. If the link does not resolve, please, don’t write me and complain. Copy the article headline and use Bing or Google to locate a valid source. Failing that, just navigate to the Times of India and hunt for the source document there.] Innovation is the focus of the article, and the annoyance — even indignation bubbling beneath the surface of the Google stance — may foreshadow a legal dust up between OpenAI and Deepseek.
So what’s happening?
The Times of India reports with some delicacy:
Google is set to appeal a record €4.3 billion ($4.5 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Union seven years ago, a report claimed. Alphabet-owned company has argued that the penalty unfairly punished the company for its innovation in the Android mobile operating system. The appeal, heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, comes two years after a lower tribunal upheld the European Commission’s decision, which found Google guilty of using Android to restrict competition. However, the company claimed that its actions benefited consumers and fostered innovation in the mobile market. This new appeal comes after the lower court reduced the fine to 4.1 billion euros ($4.27 billion).
Yes, Google’s business systems and methods foster innovation in the mobile market. The issue is that Google has been viewed an anti competitive by some legal eagles in the US government as behaving in a way that is anti competitive. I recall the chatter about US high technology companies snuffing innovation. Has Google done that with its approach to Android?
The write up reports:
In this case, the Commission failed to discharge its burden and its responsibility and, relying on multiple errors of law, punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation.” Lamadrid justified Google’s agreements that require phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser, and the Google Play app store on their Android devices, while also restricting them from adopting rival Android systems. Meanwhile, EU antitrust regulators argued that these conditions restricted competition.
Innovation seems to go hand in hand with pre-installing certain Google applications. The fact that Google allegedly restricts phone companies from “adopting rival Android systems” is a boost to innovation. Is this Google argument food for thought if Google and its Gemini unit decided to sue OpenAI for its smart software innovation.
One thing is clear. Google sees itself as fostering innovation, and it should not be punished for creating opportunities, employment, and benefits for those in the European Union. On the other hand, the Deepseek innovation is possibly improper because it delivered an innovation US high technology outfits did not deliver.
Adding some Chinese five-flavor spice to the recipe is the fact that the Deepseek innovation seems to be a fungible insight about US smart software embracing Google influenced open source methods. The thought that “innovation” will be determined in legal proceedings is interesting.
Is innovation crafted to preserve a dominant market share unfair? Is innovation which undermines US smart software companies improper? The perception of Google as an innovator, from my vantage, has dwindled. On the other hand, my perception of the Deepseek approach strikes me as unique. I have pointed out that the Deepseek innovation seems to deliver reasonably good results with a lower cost method. This is the Shein-Temu approach to competition. It works. Just ask Amazon.
Maybe the US will slap a huge find on Deepseek because the company innovated? The EU has decided to ring its cash register because Google allegedly inhibited innovation.
For technologists, the process of innovation is fraught with legal peril. Who benefits? I would suggest that the lawyers are at the head of the line for the upsides of this “innovation” issue.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
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