Anyone Remember the Google and Its Magic Algorithms?
September 21, 2022
Outfits like Foundem and the French tax authority wondered why the findability of their products and services was poor. I recall hearing from one or more Googlers the message that manual changes to search results were not part of the grand plan. The algorithms have more than 100 factors which make such determinations. Heck, I even included about 120 of these in my monograph published by the late and lamented publishing outfit Infonortics. In the Google Legacy I summarized these numerical recipes and pointed out that Google’s super secret system and method determined Google quality, Google relevance, and Google appropriateness. I did the research for that monograph in 2003 and 2004.
How times change! In 2015, the phrase “right to be forgotten” gained traction. In early 2022, Spain complained about the Google right to be forgotten process.
I read “Google App Starts Rolling Out Results about You to Help Remove Personal Information.” The article points out:
For some today, opening the Google app on Android and tapping your profile avatar in the top-right corner reveals a new “Results about you” menu item. This takes users to a page that explains how they can request Google remove Search results that contain phone number, home address, email, or other PII.
So what?
My opinion is that Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind or AGYD has the tools, knobs, and dials to makes it smart systems perform like puppets in the hands of a digitally literate puppet master. If my view is accurate, some hypothetical notions can be outlined; for instance:
- AGYD can “steer” what enters its systems and what goes out to its partners, advertisers, and users. Does this mean that oversight of AGYD is needed? The European Union seems to think so it appears.
- AGYD’s protestations about objectivity and doing good stuff for its users could be rephrased this way: Google does good stuff for Alphabet, itself, YouTube, and DeepMind. If this hypothesis is close enough for horse shoes, what does ethical behavior mean in the AGYD datasphere?
- Are AGYD’s systems “smart” or are these systems just following instructions. How should algorithms like those in use at AGYD be viewed: [a] Harmless science club stuff, [b] Applied weaponized information methods, [c] a Rube Goldberg system which allows a large number of adjustments as long as the money generating functions are not impaired?, or [d] some other view?
These three points are observations and probably a reflection of my skepticism about “magical” technology. Google may be more like Houdini than Einstein.
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2022
How Does Googzilla Smother Competition: A Big Pile of Money Perhaps?
September 20, 2022
I am not a fan of short form, addictive-algorithmic games. Some are. Parents should be concerned about the usage of TikTok. I am not. I know that as schools in the US suffer shortages of teachers, there are solutions proven to work for the progeny of the upper one percent; for example:
- Camping at Kumon Math and Reading Center or a similar for-fee tutoring outfit’s classes
- Studying with a more informed individual, one-on-one just like a chess grandmaster’s coach
- Sitting down to a high powered computing device with a gigabit Internet connection and a supervisor, preferably a nun who once taught at a Jesuit university of a Chinese family’s really smart and demanding grandmother (nainai)
- Asking mumsey or popsey for help because the learner’s parents have advanced degrees
- Combining techniques.
The GOOG wants to be a player in the short form, attention eroding, baloney stuffed videos served up via a magical, smart software machine.
TikTok, Zuckbook, and others are going to try to the old fashioned way. Hard work, clean living, studying ethical business methods, and probably a prayer to either Euler (the god of mathies) or some other (probably less mathy) deity.
“YouTube Shorts Could Steal TikTok’s Thunder with a Better Deal for Creators” reveals in real news style the Google’s method; to wit:
YouTube Shorts is gearing up to announce an ad revenue sharing model that could revolutionize short form video and give TikTok a run for its money — literally… The company is reportedly set to announce a Partner Program-like ad revenue sharing model on Tuesday at its Made on YouTube event. If the rumors are true, YouTube Shorts creators would get 45% of ad revenue.
The source article has more quotes and factoids, but for my argument, the use of money is the key point. It seems only fair that a company with a lot of money and a stellar track record of making me too products into big winners and solving the difficult problems of life like death might just use cash.
Simple, easy to understand, and very, very Googley.
Will it work? Sure, if regulators shift into gear and the children of those regulators abandon TikTok, the idea is a winner.
What is the sound a suffering Googzilla makes? For me it is the riffing of fat stacks of $100 bills.
Stephen E Arnold, September 20, 2022
Ad Duopoly: Missing Some Points?
September 19, 2022
The newspaper disguised as a magazine published “The $300B Google Meta Advertising Duopoly Is Under Attack” is interesting. The write up is what I would expect from a couple of MBAs beavering away a blue chip consulting firm. If you are curious, read the story for which you will have to pay. The story sparked some comments on HackerNews. These are interesting and some of the comments contain more insightful information than the Under Attack write up itself. Here’s a few comments to illustrate this point:
- Sam Willis: To some extent I disagree with this, not that Google+Meta are under attack, but that the threat is coming from competitors. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years earning my living from an e-commerce business I own. The online advertising industry is unrecognisable from when we started. My thesis, in beef, is that the industries excessive uses of personalised data and tracking lead to increased regulation, and then a massive pivot to even more “AI” as a means to circumvent that (to some extent). The AI in the ad industry now, I believe, is detrimental to the advertiser. It’s now just one big black box, you put money in one side and get traffic out the other. The control and useful tracking (what actual search terms people are using, proper visible conversion tracking of an ad) is now almost non-existent. As an advertiser your livelihood is dependent on an algorithm, not skill, not intuition, not experience, not even track record. Facebook, Google and the rest of the industry were so driven by profit at all cost, and at the expense of long term thinking, they shot themselves in the foot. Advertisers are searching for alternatives, but they are all the same.
- Justin Baker 84: Usually people need to get ripped off a few times before they accept that fact that Google is no longer a good actor.
- Missedthecue: I get billed for so many accidental clicks.
- Heavyset: Google Knows Best™ and lack of real competition or regulation means they can do whatever they want.
- Prepend: I remember talking to some friends in Google and but estimated their error/fraud rate to be about 1/3 of ad revenue. But they have no motivation to fix it and no one outside Google has the data to tell.
- MichaelCollins: Organizations that are trying to do something disreputable or shameful (or just something that could be construed that way by a nontrivial portion of the population) often come up with sweet little lies about their motives that help their employees sleep better at night. It’s not about making money by serving ads, it’s about “organizing the world’s data”. It’s not about winning defense contracts to put military hardware into space, it’s about “colonizing mars to save humanity”. It’s not about printing money by getting poor people to sign up for 50,000% APR payday loans, it’s about “providing liquidity to undeserved communities”. Etc.
- Addicted: If you don’t pay Google/Facebook you’re absolutely screwed. You will lose no matter how good the product is. What this actually means is that now companies have to pay a Google/Meta tax simply to enter the playing field. And once they enter the playing field. And once you enter the playing field, the only winners will be the ones who pay them the highest amount of money. So a smaller business, which in the past could potentially use some ingenuity, or target a specific niche audience to get some traction and then build word of mouth and let the product do the talking, doesn’t even stand a chance now because they simply cannot differentiate themselves as your exposure is entirely dependent on how much money you give Google/Meta.
Dozens of useful comments appear in the HackerNews post. Worth scanning them in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, September 19, 2022
AI Yiiiii AI: How about That Google, Folks
September 16, 2022
It has been an okay day. My lectures did not put anyone to sleep and I was not subjected to fruit throwing.
Unwinding I scanned my trusty news feed thing and spotted two interesting articles. I believe everything I read online, and I wanted to share these remarkable finds with you, gentle reader.
The first concerns a semi interesting write up about how the world ends with a smart whimper. No little cat’s feet needed.
“New Paper by Google and Oxford Scientists Claims AI Will Soon Destroy Mankind” seems to focus on the masculine angle. The write up says:
…researchers posit that the threat of AI is greater than we ever thought.
That’s a cheerful idea, isn’t it? But the bound phrase “existential catastrophe” has more panache, don’t you think? No, oh, well, I like the snap of this jib in the wind quite a bit.
The other write up I noted is “Did GoogleAI Just Snooker One of Silicon Valley’s Sharpest Minds?” The main point of this article is that the Google is doing lots of AI/ML marketing. I note this passage:
If another AI winter does comes, it not be because AI is impossible, but because AI hype exceeds reality. The only cure for that is truth in advertising. A will to believe in AI will never replace the need for careful science.
My view is different. Google is working overtime to become the Big Dog in smart software. The use of its super duper training sets and models will allow the wonderful online advertising outfit to extend and expand its revenue opportunities.
Keep your eye on the content marketing articles often published in Medium. The Google wants to make sure its approach to AI/ML is the winner.
Hopefully Google’s smart software won’t suffocate life with advertising and its super duper methods don’t emulate HAL. Right, Dave. I have to cut off your oxygen, Dave. Timnit, Timnit, are you paying attention?
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2022
Google and Legal Friction
September 15, 2022
The question is, “How long can Google’s legal eagles drag out a court decision.” The answer is revealed in part in “Google Mostly Loses Appeal Over EU’s $4B Android Antitrust Fine.” The write up states:
The Alphabet-owned Google challenged the 2018 fine, but on Wednesday [September 14, 2022] the European Court of Justice’s General Court mostly confirmed the decision to penalize the company more than 4 billion euros ($3.99 billion).
That works out to roughly three years and six months. If I did not return a library book before its expiration date when I was in grade school, I had to pay the fine when I did return the book. If I lost the darned book, I had to wash cars to pay the fine and the cost of the book before I could check out another book. Obviously I was not the Google nor did I have a flock of legal eagles to explain:
- Why the fine is unreasonable under the current applicable laws, rules, and regulations
- Why a 10 year old is or should be exempt from said laws, rules, and regulations
- A calculation demonstrating that the fine and/or penalty is without foundation, irrational, and against the best interests of other 10 year old readers or young people in general
- An action which puts in jeopardy the benefits of a 10 year old who could grow up to be a responsible, fair minded, and informed subject matter expert.
To be sure, these are compelling arguments, but the librarian at the Prospect Branch Library demonstrated an inherent inability to understand the profound trust and ultimate correctness of my arguments.
I had to pay up and pronto.
For the Google, transgress and kick the deadline for ponying up the cash three years in the future.
Now that’s being Google. Isn’t that swell?
Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2022
The UK and EU Demonstrate an Inability to Be Googley
September 15, 2022
In the grand scheme of operating a revolving door, the Google is probably going to adjudicate and apologize / explain. I call this “explagize,” an art form perfected at the GOOG. But what’s a revolving door? Visualize a busy pre-Covid building in midtown Manhattan. To enter, one pushes a panel of glass and the force spins a wagon wheel of similar doors. Now imagine that one pays every time one goes around. That’s how the Google online ad business works? Banner adds, pay. Pay to play, pay. Pay for AdWords, caching. Want analytics about those ads? Pay. The conceptual revolving door, however, does not allow the humanoid to escape either without fear of missing out on a sale or allowing a competitor to get clicks and leads and sales.
The BBC article “Google Faces €25bn Legal Action in UK and the EU” states:
The European Commission and its UK equivalent are investigating whether Google’s dominance in the ad tech business gives it an unfair advantage over rivals and advertisers.
This is old news, right? What’s different is this statement:
Damien Geradin, of the Belgian law firm Geradin Partners – which is involved in the Dutch case – said, “Publishers, including local and national news media, who play a vital role in our society, have long been harmed by Google’s anti-competitive conduct. “It is time that Google owns up to its responsibilities and pays back the damages it has caused to this important industry. “That is why today we are announcing these actions across two jurisdictions to obtain compensation for EU and UK publishers.”
Do you think “pay back” means a painful procedure capped with a big number fine? I do.
What’s not being considered, in my opinion, are these factors:
- The barristers, avocets, and legal eagles trying to wrest big bucks from Googzilla are unlikely to find the alleged monopolist eager to retain their firms’ services or look favorably on hiring the progeny of these high fliers
- Will the UK and EU spark counter measures; for example, prices may rise and some ad services not offered to outfits in the UK and EU?
- Will the UK and EU grasp the fact that ad options may not be able to fill any gap or service pull out from the Google?
- The high value data which Google allegedly has and under some circumstances makes available to government authorities may go missing because Google either suffered a machine failure or curtailed investment in infrastructure so that the data are disappeared.
More than money? Yep. Consequences after decades of hand waving and chicken salad fines may cause some governments to realize that their power, influence, and degrees of freedom are constrained by a certain firm’s walled garden.
The money for the fine? Too little and too late as I try to make sense of the situation. The spinning revolving door can be difficult to escape and trying may cause dizziness, injury, or company death. Yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, September 15, 2022
PR Blast for Premium YouTube
September 12, 2022
I find the rah rah articles about Google in the Medium updates I receive kneeslappers. The enthusiasm for Google’s advanced technology are obviously content marketing by either fan folk or individuals who are paid to write baloney.
But the cake taker is a Wired story called “YouTube Premium Has Its Perks. Here Are Some to Consider.” The write up, in my opinion, is a very obvious content marketing thing.
What are the benefits of a $900 dollar a year service provided by a company which sells ads everywhere?
The Wired article identified these payoffs:
- No ads
- Built in video download
- YouTube Music
- New features before the peasants
- Background listening
Here’s how I understand these “benefits.” First, no ads. Are you kidding? Even the ad free Netflix is getting with the program. Amazon is on board the ad train now. No ads means leaving money on the table. In an era of hard to control costs and the teeny thing TikTok, the Google bean counters will consider ads. Am I right?
A build in video download. Sorry. There’s software for that. From the outfit with some really interesting tag along software (Chris PC in the Midwest to the incredibly wonky WinCam). Some downloaders are free; some charge a few dollars. Most of the non-Google downloader mostly work. Why pay I ask?
YouTube Music is a me too of MTV. Am I right… again?
New features before the unwashed have them. Well, that sounds good. Exactly what does “new feature” mean? Google explains well in my opinion. Where did Web Accelerator and Google Plus go? Yeah.
Background listening seems to say, “Google has invented radio.” Insight!
Net net: Clumsy content marketing? In my opinion, yes.
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2022
Google News Provides Access to Bombshell about Google
September 9, 2022
I thought that the Google had a news deal of some type with the GOOG and its news service. If you are not familiar with Google News (the ad free thing for many years) is available at this link. Google News included a story called “Google Pays ‘Enormous’ Sums to Maintain Search-Engine Dominance, DOJ Says.” Now this is not news here in Harrod’s Creek. Isn’t a modest payment provided to the people’s friend Apple to provide search results? Maybe? Maybe not?
What I find interesting is that locating the story on Google News required using the string “Google Search Engine Dominance.” [Note: This may require a payment to read unless one views the story via Google News. Maybe Google and Bloomberg have a special operation underway? Gee, I don’t know.] Other queries were less helpful. Interesting? Nah. Just the black box of Google News search working its magic. (Maybe that’s why Google Dorks are so darned popular among certain analysts and research-minded individuals. The information is in Google, but it can require a few cartwheels to locate in my experience.)
What was the main point of this Bloomberg story. (When I think of Bloomberg, I do associate the company with the chips on motherboards which phone home. Was this story accurate, true, grounded in verifiable data, or a confection like some social media mavens output? Again I don’t know. As I get older, I realize I don’t know much, if anything.)
The Bloomberg Google story on Google News says:
Alphabet Inc.’s Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and other telecom giants to illegally maintain its spot as the No. 1 search engine, the US Justice Department told a federal judge Thursday [September 8, 2022].
News flash. This is not news. What is mildly interesting is that the US government after decades of finding joy in Google mouse pads, T shirts, and other tchotchkes is sort of investigating. (Why was it so darned difficult to get French income tax forms to come up in Google search results? Were those cranky folks at Foundem blowing smoke? You know the answer: I don’t know.
The write up continues:
“Google invests billions in defaults, knowing people won’t change them,” Dintzer told Judge Amit Mehta during a hearing in Washington that marked the first major face-off in the case and drew top DOJ antitrust officials and Nebraska’s attorney general among the spectators. “They are buying default exclusivity because defaults matter a lot.” Google’s contracts form the basis of the DOJ’s landmark antitrust lawsuit, which alleges the company has sought to maintain its online search monopoly in violation of antitrust laws.
Okay, written contracts. That’s something sort of concrete I suppose.
In my opinion, the best line in the Google story on Google News from good and friendly Bloomberg is this one:
“Default exclusivity allows Google to systemically deny rivals’ data,” he said.
If true, does this mean that former Googler Eric Schmidt was off base when he said that fear of Qwant was keeping him awake at night?
Probably not. But Google seems to have been taking steps to reduce the probability of Qwant or any other search engine gaining traction somewhat seriously. Does Google know its search system is only useful when one masters the machinations of the Dorkers?
Again: I don’t know.
Stephen E Arnold, September 9, 2022
Google: Adulting Becomes a Thing
September 8, 2022
My goodness, it has taken more than 20 years for the Backrub-inspired search and ad company to embrace adulting. This term takes a noun like adult and converts it to a verb. This English trick is one that thrills English as a Second Language students. What I am going to do is equate “adulting” with the management precepts of Peter Drucker. Now you see why figuring out what I am saying and not saying is so darned unusual.
First, however, we need some context. That estimable source of real news (Fox) published this story: “Google CEO Sundar Pichai Looking to Improve Tech Giant’s Efficiency.” The Big Dog of the Google is participating in explainers to the tech worshipers that the time is now for adulting. The idea is that the Google is under pressure from several different hypercube vectors; for example:
- The lovable and enlightened Amazon with its newfound clicks from product search and a corresponding surge in product related advertising
- That affable crowd in Cupertino who are taking steps to make sure the walled garden does not allow Googzilla too much room in which to cause mischief
- Those with-it regulators and elected officials in governments near and far who don’t understand how making money on ads as the saloon swinging door with a charge to come in and leave works for the benefit of anyone except the Google
- Wizards who find themselves orthogonal to Google’s personnel postures. Yep, Dr. Timnit Gebru et al. “Disagree and Begone” could become a new Xoogler T shirt for diversity conference attendees
- Technical debt, which — despite Google’s mostly not talking about it — continues to incur some hefty costs. One can fire people but one cannot do much more than sell data center gear on eBay or Swappa
- High school management methods. I have explained this concept in previous posts so use the search box and read the explanation, please. The new idea is that the best high school science club members will not want to work at the Google. Yikes. Regressing toward the mean maybe?
What did the Big Dog say is the future of Google?
One big point is that the 20 percent frittered away on the dorm notion of one day a week of other stuff is over. Now Googlers have to work like a person on the Ford assembly line in 1937. Punch in, do stuff that matters, and punch out. No output, no pay. Simple. I remember reading that programmers write code about 30 minutes a day. What are these wizards going to do in the other 7.5 hours? Well, Foosball, table tennis, and volleyball may be difficult when the kid toys are removed. Google is a place for real work. What is that work? Well, Google doesn’t explain too much, but I assume it is quantifiable, good for humankind, fair, equitable, and unbiased just like Snorkel automated training data.
Another point is that the new Google sets priorities. I think priorities are useful. Why have a couple dozen messaging apps and smart software that displays ads totally unrelated to either the content of a YouTube video or to the interests of a Google customer who pays for Google services? I suppose Google has given up on solving death, which, as I understood the project, was a priority.
I also noted that Google is moving more slowly. My experience suggests that what went quickly was work blessed by the senior management. Some employees are left to their own devices to learn how Google works, snag a project, and produce something that makes money. In order to set priorities, one has to do the Drucker type work. Is that type of thinking in the Google incentive plan?
To sum up: Google is in danger of having to face life as an ageing sled dog or arthritic Googzilla. Maybe some of the “solve death” research can rejuvenate the behemoth before the snow piles up and Googzilla moves even more slowly.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2022
Google: More Management Mysteries
September 6, 2022
I read a somewhat odd article about Google in the New York Times. That’s a newspaper, not a Harvard Business Review? Sorry. The world of “real journalists” has embraced the wonkiness of management gurus and Drukerism.
The article which caught my attention was named by someone — possibly a really busy editor — “Google Employee Who Played Key Role in Protest of Contract with Israel Quits.” The idea that an individual who accepts pay in return for work does not like a corporation’s direction is becoming a thing, a trend. The idea is that a company pays a person and that person gets to alter the direction in which a decision is heading.
Yeah, okay.
From my point of view, the person who accepts money to work at a company, presumably eight or more hours a day, has several options:
- Just quit. Hunt for a new job. This is a good solution.
- Keep quiet. Do the work. Cash the check or look at the bank balance in an online only bank app.
- Work harder, get promoted, and earn a position and responsibility so that one’s ideas can influence colleagues. This is a better solution.
The newspaper article skips these ideas and focuses on the actions taken by the employee. The implicit idea is that the employee’s approach to a problem was just wonderful. The company’s response to these actions was inappropriate, ill advised, and stupid.
Maybe Google’s approach to management is different from what someone of my age expects?
The one point in the article which struck me as significant was:
… Google had tried to retaliate against her for her activism.
The retaliation point is one that warrants more development. The newspaper article could have been boiled down to 150 words. The MBA- / the-big-tech-outfit-is bad angle could have been expanded, explained, and analyzed in an HBR-type of write up or a law review-type analysis.
What I perceive is a newspaper trying to to something its is not geared up to do well. Is the Google perfect? Nah. Do I think this situation reveals a facet of the online ad outfit which is troubling?
Absolutely.
Both the employee and the company could have been more old fashioned, which then would not have been “real news.”
That’s a problem.
Stephen E Arnold, September 6, 2022
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