Google: Position on Its Ad Moxie
August 12, 2021
I read “US Judicial Panel Moves Texas Lawsuit against Google to New York.” The guts of the story is some legal maneuvering about where allegations about Alphabet Google will be adjudicated. As in real estate, the keys to value is location, location, location. The legal dust up will take place in the Big Apple.
In the article was a quote allegedly made by a Googley-type. My hunch is that this frank, clear, and positive statement vivifies how the mom and pop online ad outfit will position itself. Here’s the quote:
Google welcomed the panel’s decision, saying it would lead to “just and efficient litigation. “We look forward to demonstrating how our advertising business competes fiercely and fairly to the benefit of publishers, advertisers and consumers,” a Google spokeswoman said in an email statement.
I wonder if the Google used this language in its embrace of recently concluded French litigation?
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2021
Google Search: An Intriguing Observation
August 9, 2021
I read “It’s Not SEO: Something Is Fundamentally Broken in Google Search.” I spotted this comment:
Many will remember how remarkably accurate searches were at initial release c. 2017; songs could be found by reciting lyrics, humming melodies, or vaguely describing the thematic or narrative thrust of the song. The picture is very different today. It’s almost impossible to get the system to return even slightly obscure tracks, even if one opens YouTube and reads the title verbatim.
The idea is that the issue resides within Google’s implementation of search and retrieval. I want to highlight this comment offered in the YCombinator Hacker News thread:
While the old guard in Google’s leadership had a genuine interest in developing a technically superior product, the current leaders are primarily concerned with making money. A well-functioning ranking algorithm is only one small part of the whole. As long as the search engine works well enough for the (money-making) main-stream searches, no one in Google’s leadership perceives a problem.
I have a different view of Google search. Let me offer a handful of observations from my shanty in rural Kentucky.
To begin, the original method for determining precision and recall is like a page of text photocopied with that copy then photocopied. After a couple of hundred photocopies, image of the page has degraded. Photocopy for a couple of decades and the document copy is less than helpful. Degradation in search subsystems is inevitable, and it takes place in search as layers or wrappers have been added around systems and methods.
Second, Google must generate revenue; otherwise, the machine will lose velocity, maybe suffer cash depravation. The recent spectacular financial payoffs are not directed at what I call “precision and recall search.” What’s happening, in my opinion, is that accelerated relaxation of queries makes it easier to “match” an ad. More — not necessarily more relevant — matching provides quicker depletion of the ad inventory, more revenue, more opportunities for Google sales partners to pitch ads, and more users believing Google results are the cat’s pajamas. To “go back” to antiquated ideas like precision and recall, relevance, and old-school Boolean breaks the money flow, adds costs, and a forces distasteful steps for those who want big paydays, bonuses, and the cash to solve death and other childish notions.
Third, this comment from Satellite2 is on the money:
Power users as a proportion of Internet’s total user count probably followed an inverted zipf distribution over time. At the begining 100%, then 99, 90%, 9% and now less than one percent. Assuming power users formulate search in ways that are irreconcilable from those of the average user, and assuming Google adapted their models, metrics to the average user and retrained them at each step,then, we are simply no longer a target market of Google.
I interpret this as implying that Google is no longer interested in delivering on point results. I now run the same query across a number of Web search systems and hunt for results which warrant direct inspection. I use, for example, iseek.com, swisscows.ch, yandex.ru, and a handful of other systems.
Net net: The degradation of Google began around 2005 and 2006. In the last 15 years, Google has become a golden goose for some stakeholders. The company’s search systems — where is that universal search baloney, please? — are going to be increasingly difficult to refine so that a user’s query is answered in a user-useful way.
Messrs. Brin and Page bailed, leaving a consultant-like management team. Was their a link between increased legal scrutiny, friskiness in the Google legal department, antics involving hard drugs and death on a Googler’s yacht, and “effciency oriented” applied technologies which have accelerated the cancer of relevance-free content. Facebook takes bullets for its high school management approach. Google, in my view, may be the pinnacle of the ethos of high school science club activities.
What’s the fix? Maybe a challenger from left field will displace the Google? Maybe a for-fee outfit like Infinity will make it to the big time? Maybe Chinese style censorship will put content squabbles in the basement? Maybe Google will simply become more frustrating to users?
The YouTube search case in the essay in Hacker News is spot on. But Google search — both basic and advanced search — is a service which poses risks to users. Where’s a date sort? A key word search? File type search? A federated search across blogs and news? What happened to file type search? Yada yada yada.
Like the long-dead dinosaurs, Googzilla is now watching the climate change. Snow is beginning to fall because the knowledge environment is changing. Hello, Darwin!
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 2021
Another EU Suggestion for the Google
August 4, 2021
I love the Google. I enjoy the delicious usability of Google Maps. The service is brilliant. Waze has data not in the Google Map thing; for example, a restaurant in Louisville called Cocina. Helpful, right? I also like the fascinating interaction of Gmail with the mail client on my phone. Now where did that message go? Oh, right. Auto folders and mystery deletes. What could be more helpful?
But the European Commission is not as flexible as I. I read “EU Warns Google to Improve Hotel and Flight Search Results in Two Months.” Google is working really hard to improve its search system. The core is a couple of decades young and the travel function is as slick as the Gmail system in my opinion.
The write up asserts:
Google has two months to improve the way it presents internet search results for flights and hotels and explain how it ranks these or face possible sanctions, the European Commission and EU consumer authorities have said.
The EC appears to think that Google may or has the potential to mislead people who use the Google to “plan their holidays.” Hmmm. Hello, Covid restrictions.
Google just might be favoring “traders.” Is “traders” a code word for those who purchase ads, are loved by Google sales reps, or individuals with a more Googley approach than others?
I don’t know.
But with France fining the Google the equivalent of eight hours of revenue, the online ad giant is going to view the EC and just maybe the EC should emulate China and its approach to big tech dogs?
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2021
YouTube Snaps Up Simsim Video E-Commerce App
August 4, 2021
This seems like a natural extension. Gadgets 360 announces, “YouTube Acquires Indian Video Shopping App simsim, to Introduce E-Commerce Features in Future.” We are told simsim will continue to operate independently, but YouTube is working to help it reach new customers. Google-owned YouTube is sure to build on its new purchase, extending online video commerce to any market it can. Writer Tasneem Akolawala tells us:
“The simsim platform enables e-commerce through videos — creators make videos of products, and viewers can then buy those products from local businesses, through the simsim platform. Video-driven e-commerce is a growing category, which recently saw another company, Firework, launch in this space. Instagram has been a popular platform for small businesses to sell products online, and it appears that YouTube plans to build online video commerce in a similar manner with the simsim acquisition. On simsim, videos are available in three local languages: Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. YouTube has not offered details on how it plans to introduce this video shopping feature on its platform. YouTube says that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire simsim and expects to complete the transaction in the coming weeks.”
The company announced the deal in a Google India Blog post, but it did not share the financial details. We can all look forward to seeing some sort of extension of this video e-commerce approach on YouTube soon.
Cynthia Murrell, August 4, 2021
News, Misios, Rejoice: Aid Has Arrived
August 2, 2021
Misio? Strange word. It means “street person.”
Is it me, or does this feel like a PR move? CanIndia reports, “Google Launches AI Academy for Small Newsrooms.” “We from Google and we are here to help small news outfits.” Right. The brief write-up tells us about the project, dubbed JournalismAI:
“In a bid to help small media publishers reach new audiences and drive more traffic to their content, the Google News Initiative (GNI) has launched a training academy for 20 media professionals to learn how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used to support their journalism. Google is partnering with Polis, the London School of Economics and Political Science’s journalism think tank, to launch the training academy, it said in a statement on Thursday. The AI Academy for Small Newsrooms is a six-week long, free online programme taught by industry-leading journalists and researchers who work at the intersection of journalism and AI. It will start in September this year and will welcome journalists and developers from small news organisations in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.”
Wow, free to 20 professionals. Don’t be too generous, Google. We are told these lucky few will gain practical knowledge of AI technology’s challenges and opportunities like automating repetitive tasks and determining which content engages audiences. They will each emerge with an action plan for implementing AI projects. For journalists not fortunate enough to be enrolled in the course, the GNI has made its training modules available online. In fact, more than 110,000 folks have taken advantage of these materials. Then why bother with this “AI Academy?” I suspect because it reads better for PR purposes than “online learning module.” Just a hunch.
Cynthia Murrell, August 2, 2021
YouTube and News Corp: BBFs Forever? Ah, No.
August 2, 2021
I read “Murdochs’ Sky News Australia Suspended From YouTube Over COVID-19 Misinformation.” Wow. I thought the Google and Australian publishers were best friends forever. Both are refined, elegant, and estimable organizations. Okay, there are those allegations about monopolistic behavior and the deft handling of the Dr. Timnit Gebru matter. But, hey, Google is great. And there is the Mr. Murdoch empire. The phone tapping thing is a mere trifle.
The write up explains:
The video hosting site said in a statement Sunday that the suspension was dealt over videos allegedly denying the existence of COVID-19 and encouraging people to use untested experimental drugs like hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus. “We apply our policies equally for everyone and in accordance with these policies and our long-standing strikes system, removed videos from and issued a strike to Sky News Australia’s channel,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
Equality is good. Are employees at Google treated equally? The cafeteria thing is small potatoes because real employees can work from their home or vans or whatever.
Pretty exciting stuff. I thought Google and Australian publishers were in a happy place. But Covid imposes stress on BFFs obviously.
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2021
Search Atlas Demonstrates Google Search Bias by Location
July 28, 2021
An article at Wired reminds us that Google Search is not the objective source of information it appears to many users. We learn that “A New Tool Shows How Google Results Vary Around the World.” Researchers and PhD students Rodrigo Ochigame of MIT and Katherine Ye of Carnegie Mellon University created Search Atlas, an experimental Google Search interface. The tool displays three different sets of results to the same query based on location and language, illustrating both cultural differences and government preferences. “Information borders,” they call it.
The first example involves image searches for “Tiananmen Square.” Users in the UK and Singapore are shown pictures of the government’s crackdown on student protests in 1989. Those in China, or elsewhere using the Chinese language setting, see pretty photos of a popular tourist destination. Google says the difference has nothing to do with censorship—they officially stopped cooperating with the Chinese government on that in 2010, after all. It is just a matter of localized results for those deemed likely to be planning a trip. Sure. Writer Tom Simonite describes more of the tool’s results:
“The Search Atlas collaborators also built maps and visualizations showing how search results can differ around the globe. One shows how searching for images of ‘God’ yields bearded Christian imagery in Europe and the Americas, images of Buddha in some Asian countries, and Arabic script for Allah in the Persian Gulf and northeast Africa. The Google spokesperson said the results reflect how its translation service converts the English term ‘God’ into words with more specific meanings for some languages, such as Allah in Arabic. Other information borders charted by the researchers don’t map straightforwardly onto national or language boundaries. Results for ‘how to combat climate change’ tend to divide island nations and countries on continents. In European countries such as Germany, the most common words in Google’s results related to policy measures such as energy conservation and international accords; for islands such as Mauritius and the Philippines, results were more likely to cite the enormity and immediacy of the threat of a changing climate, or harms such as sea level rise.”
Search Atlas is not yet widely available, but the researchers are examining ways to make it so. They presented it at last month’s Designing Interactive Systems conference and are testing a private beta. Of course, the tool cannot reveal the inner workings of Google’s closely held algorithms. It does, however, illustrate the outsized power the company has over who can access what information. As co-creator Ye observes:
“People ask search engines things they would never ask a person, and the things they happen to see in Google’s results can change their lives. It could be ‘How do I get an abortion?’ restaurants near you, or how you vote, or get a vaccine.”
The researchers point to Safiya Noble’s 2018 book “Algorithms of Oppression” as an inspiration for their work. They hope their project will bring the biased nature of search algorithms to the attention of a broader audience.
Cynthia Murrell, July 28, 2021
Google: API Promise, Circa 2021
July 27, 2021
If you are not familiar with “Google Data APIs Client Library (1.41.1),” it is worth a look. You will notice that there is a table of contents to:
- Deprecated Interfaces
- Deprecated Classes
- Deprecated Fields
- Deprecated Methods
- Deprecated Constructors
- Deprecated Enum Constants
An industrious online search wizard can locate other APIs consigned to the Google bit bin; for example, Transformics’ contributions and the much-loved Orkut (loved at least by some innovating individuals in Brazil and a handful of lawyers).
Fresh from this walk down API Memory Lane, navigate to “How Google Cloud Plans to Kill Its ‘Killed By Google’ Reputation.” The write up reports:
Under the new Google Enterprise APIs policy, the company is making a promise that its services will remain available and stable far into the future….The announcement is clear recognition of widespread feedback from Google Cloud customers and outright derision in several corners of the internet regarding Google’s historic reputation for ending support for its APIs without sufficient notice or foresight. The canonical example was probably the company’s decision to shutter Google Reader in 2013 with just a couple of months’ notice, which led to a torrent of criticism that persists today.
Google doesn’t want to leave any customer behind. How did that type of assertion work out for “No Child Left Behind”?
The “new” Google wants to be the “real” Google. That’s going to be a hill to climb with the Bezos bulldozer reworking the cloud landscape and Microsoft (the all time champion of great security) leveraging the brilliant individuals trying to use Excel and Word.
Yasmine El Rashidi allegedly said:
When you have a dream and someone makes promises they keep breaking, it is hard to recover. You lose hope.
What’s this mean for the ad supported Google? Will you promise to give a honest answer and provide factual back up? Yikes, your proof was in disappeared photos on a deprecated Google service. Thus, whatever you wish to say is meaningless at this time. Maybe there is a copy on Google’s never forget subsystem?
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2021
YouTube: Serving Consumers or Bullying?
July 26, 2021
Ycombinator included a comment from someone. That comment was flagged. However, the information in the original comment and the observations offered by Ycombinator users are interesting. The information reveals what I characterize as an escalating battle between those who view YouTube videos and YouTube itself. (I am not going to discuss the escalating tension between “creators,” YouTube, and the service Odysee.com.)
First, the Ycombinator item contains this statement:
YouTube is still not happy. Today when I opened the app on my phone, it still showed me an add. It is infuriating at least. This won’t probably make it, but I needed to share. https://imgur.com/a/BM7XoTe
So what? The flagged poster subscribed to YouTube and YouTube still displays advertisements.
Second, the comments include the tools which one can use to block YouTube’s charming and highly relevant, on point, information packed advertisements; for example:
Adguard
Arachnoid
Cercube
Invidious
SmartTube
Sponsorblock
uBlock Origin
Vanced
Third, the fact that YouTube is becoming a cable-tv like operation is interesting as well.
Net net: Do you hear that tick tock? Maybe it is spelled TikTok?
Stephen E Arnold, July 26, 2021
More Management and PR Deftness at the Google
July 23, 2021
I read “Google Leader Quits, Alleging Corporate Racism.” As a stellar American baseball professional allegedly said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The allegedly accurate real news story stated:
Ashley Ray-Harris, a project leader for Google content creation, quit the company, saying in an email to Google that she experienced “some of the worst bureaucratic, corporate racism” that she “ever experienced.” “At a certain point I realized that even if you find a team that makes you feel welcomed, we still work within a company that views Black women as lesser than even as we sacrifice our mental health and work/life balance for this company,” Ray-Harris wrote in her resignation letter, which she posted to Twitter on Friday evening [July 16, 2021].
Several observations:
- Recruiters representing may have to some convincing in order to attract certain talented individuals.
- High school science club management principles are remarkably effective at generating publicity around high profile experts who quit on the very high school-centric service Twitter.
- SHRM might be able to do a session about the Google HR methods.
As the wise Yogi Berra allegedly said: “How can you think and hit at the same time?”
Another strike called.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2021
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