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Democracy Works is bankrolled by numerous ‘prominent left-of-center private foundations.’
That news headline about presidential candidate Kamala Harris on your Google search results? It may have been written by her campaign.
Harris' team has been launching sponsored posts on Google that link to real news content from various publishers but feature customized headlines and descriptions crafted by her campaign, a practice experts and Google called "common." One sponsored ad that links to NPR’s website features the headline “Harris will Lower Health Costs.” Another that links to the Associated Press reads “VP Harris’s Economic Vision - Lower Costs and Higher Wages.” The advertisements were first reported by Axios.
While these sponsored posts have been used by other campaigns and comply with Google’s policies, some marketing experts worry they could fuel misinformation and distrust in the media. //
Google's ad transparency center shows a number of other publishers featured in Harris ads, including Reuters, Time, CNN, AP, the Independent, the Guardian and USA TODAY.
"We were not aware the Harris campaign was using our content in this manner,” said Lark-Marie Anton, spokesperson for USA TODAY parent company Gannett. “As a news organization, we are committed to ensuring that our stories are shared appropriately, adhering to the highest standards of integrity and accuracy." //
The Harris campaign declined to comment for this story. Donald Trump's campaign did not return a request for comment, but Google's ad transparency center did not show these types of ads from the former president's campaign. //
But even with a sponsored tag, the ads present a “significant ethical concern,” according to Colin Campbell, associate professor of marketing at the University of San Diego.
He said this is especially true when consumers fail to differentiate online ads.
“Many consumers might form opinions based solely on the altered headlines, without ever reading the actual articles,” Campbell said. “Even those who click through and read the articles may feel misled when they notice the discrepancy between the headline and the content, further eroding trust in the media.”
After more than 15 years of insisting that "competition is only a click away," Google's antitrust mantra is no longer keeping the regulators at bay. //
In the past eight months, however, Google has lost two major US competition lawsuits: One brought by Epic Games over Google's grip on the Android ecosystem, the other brought by the Department of Justice over the Big G's market-dominating search advertising business. //
"What the judge made clear was that they [Google] have an overwhelming monopoly in search," said Kint. "And they've abused it." //
There's a real risk that a poorly targeted remedy would just allow some other data predator to thrive, or would degrade the overall ecosystem – as happened when wolves were removed from Yellowstone. Imagine a Meta operating Google Play, and what the privacy disclosures would look like then.
After US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google has a monopoly in two markets—general search services and general text advertising—everybody is wondering how Google might be forced to change its search business.
Specifically, the judge ruled that Google's exclusive deals with browser and device developers secured Google's monopoly. These so-called default agreements funneled the majority of online searches to Google search engine result pages (SERPs), where results could be found among text ads that have long generated the bulk of Google's revenue.
At trial, Mehta's ruling noted, it was estimated that if Google lost its most important default deal with Apple, Google "would lose around 65 percent of its revenue, even assuming that it could retain some users without the Safari default." //
But the remedies phase of litigation may have to wait until after Google's appeal, which experts said could take years to litigate before any remedies are ever proposed in court. Whether Google could be successful in appealing the ruling is currently being debated, with anti-monopoly advocates backing Mehta's ruling as "rock solid" and critics suggesting that the ruling's fresh takes on antitrust law are open to attack.
The landmark antitrust ruling against Google on Monday is shaking up one of the longest-standing partnerships in tech. //
During a weekslong trial, Apple executives showed up to explain and defend the partnership. Under a deal that first took shape in 2002, Google paid a cut of search advertising revenue to Apple to direct its users to Google Search as default, with payments reaching $20 billion for 2022, according to the court’s findings. In exchange, Google got access to Apple’s valuable user base—more than half of all search queries in the US currently flow through Apple devices.
Google's rapid rise from "scrappy search engine with doodles" to "dystopic mega-corporation" has been remarkable in many ways, especially when you consider just how much goodwill the company squandered so quickly. Along the way, though, Google has achieved one unexpected result: In a divided America, it offers just about everyone something to hate.
Now Facebook has been forced to admit that they erroneously censored one of the photos taken immediately after Trump was shot by a 20-year-old sniper at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The picture, showing a defiant Trump, depicted the former president rising to his feet and yelling, ”Fight! Fight!” as blood streamed down his face. It instantly became one of the most iconic photos of our times. //
A post on Mark Zuckerberg’s social media site by a user with the handle End Wokeness that showed the Republican presidential candidate defiantly pumping his fist in the air while blood streams down his face had initially been flagged as misinformation.
The user was threatened with being deplatformed.
However, on Monday, Dani Lever, a spokesperson for the social network’s parent company, Meta, admitted the tech giant made a “mistake.”
Google Photos has identical duplicate detection, where if you have uploaded photos to Google Photos already, it will not re-upload the same photo (each photo file has a unique "Hash" that allows us to determine this).
Hence, Google Photos avoids uploading duplicates, when different upload methods or devices are used, as long as the photos aren’t edited. There is no easy way to remove duplicates, but some of the following may help:
A faster and more efficient way of moving your photos to another account is by sharing a link to the photos between the two accounts.
- Log in to Google Photos using the account from which the photos have to be transferred.
- Select the photos you want to transfer as explained above. Alternatively, move them to a new album and share that album with your second account.
- To create an album, click the '+' sign on the top right after selecting the photos you want to share.
- From the options that appear, select 'Album' to move the photos to an album.
- You can move the photos to a new album or an existing one. For transferring photos to your second account, click the 'New Album' option.
- On the next page, you can add a name to your album, such as 'Shared'.
- Once the album is created, click the share icon on the upper right side to view the sharing options.
- Google Photos will suggest a few contacts with whom you can share the album.
- At the bottom, you will find a 'Create Link' option. Click on it to create a shareable link.
- Google Photos will notify you that people with whom the link will be shared will have access to the album. Click the 'Create Link' button to continue.
- Once the link is created, copy it manually or click the 'Copy' button to share it.
- Now, sign out of this account and log in to your second account, or log in using a different browser.
- Paste the link you copied into the address bar, and you will get access to view the album.
- Click the 'View Album' button to view the photos in the album.
- Now, select the photos you want to transfer to this account and click the '+' sign to create an album here.
- Finally, create a new album and name it something like 'Transferred' as you did with the other account. The photos will be added to the album in this account.
Note: Make sure the upload quality for your second Google account is set to 'Original' so photos are uploaded in high quality.
In the same manner, you can select and move all your photos from one account to another. ///
Google Photos is smart enough not to duplicate pictures. So transfer albums like this, then start selecting ALL the pictures in the old account. In the new account, create/add them to the same album ("!Old account" for example). These will show up in your new account.
Once they are all transferred, you can delete the "!Old Account" album; the pictures will remain.
Killed by Google is the Google graveyard; a free and open source list of discontinued Google services, products, devices, and apps. We aim to be a source of factual information about the history surrounding Google's dead projects.
(ergo: google is not a stable partner or supplier of digital equipment, apps, or services)
Commit snafu slapped an irrevocable Apache 2.0 license on confidential API Docs. //
The documents also suggest Google has whitelists that will artificially boost certain websites for certain topics. The two mentioned were "isElectionAuthority" and "isCovidLocalAuthority."
Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally — including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems — and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops.
At issue is the way that Apple collects and publicly shares information about the precise location of all Wi-Fi access points seen by its devices. Apple collects this location data to give Apple devices a crowdsourced, low-power alternative to constantly requesting global positioning system (GPS) coordinates.
Both Apple and Google operate their own Wi-Fi-based Positioning Systems (WPS) that obtain certain hardware identifiers from all wireless access points that come within range of their mobile devices. Both record the Media Access Control (MAC) address that a Wi-FI access point uses, known as a Basic Service Set Identifier or BSSID.
Every cloud service keeps full backups, which you would presume are meant for worst-case scenarios. Imagine some hacker takes over your server or the building your data is inside of collapses, or something like that. But no, the actual worst-case scenario is "Google deletes your account," which means all those backups are gone, too. Google Cloud is supposed to have safeguards that don't allow account deletion, but none of them worked apparently, and the only option was a restore from a separate cloud provider (shoutout to the hero at UniSuper who chose a multi-cloud solution). //
Google PR confirmed in multiple places it signed off on the statement, but a great breakdown from software developer Daniel Compton points out that the statement is not just vague, it's also full of terminology that doesn't align with Google Cloud products. The imprecise language makes it seem like the statement was written entirely by UniSuper. It would be nice to see a real breakdown of what happened from Google Cloud's perspective, especially when other current or potential customers are going to keep a watchful eye on how Google handles the fallout from this.
Anyway, don't put all your eggs in one cloud basket. //
JohnDeL Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
8y
6,554
Subscriptor
And this is why I don't trust the cloud. At all.
Always, always, always have a backup on a local computer. //
rcduke Ars Scholae Palatinae
4y
1,715
Subscriptor++
JohnDeL said:
This is why everytime I hear a company talk about moving all of their functions to the cloud, I think about a total failure.
How much does Google owe this company for two weeks of lost business? Probably not enough to matter. //
The master paused for one minute, then suddenly produced an axe and smashed the novice's disk drive to pieces. Calmly he said: "To believe in one's backups is one thing. To have to use them is another."
The novice looked very worried. //
murty Smack-Fu Master, in training
9m
90
Subscriptor++
If you’re not backing up your cloud data at this point, hopefully this story inspires you to reconsider. If you’ve got a boss/CFO/etc that scoffs at spending money on backing up your cloud, link them to this story. ...
Google says you can't turn off AI overviews in the main search engine. I'm still seeing the "Labs" icon in the top right, with some checkboxes for AI features, but those checkboxes are no longer respected—some queries will bring up an AI overview no matter what. What you can do is go find a new "Web" filter, which can live alongside the usual filters like "Videos," "Images," "Maps," and "Shopping." That's right, a "Web" filter for what used to be a web search engine. Google says the Web filter can appear in the main tab bar depending on the query (when would a web filter not be appropriate?), but I've only ever seen it buried deep in the "More" section.
Once you do find the Web filter, the results will look like old-school Google. You get 10 blue links, and that's it, with everything else (Google Maps, answer info boxes, etc) disabled. Sadly, unlike old-school Google, these are still the current Google web results, so they'll be dominated by SEO sites rather than page quality.
Google says AI Overviews are rolling out to "hundreds of millions of users" this week, with "over a billion people" seeing the feature by the end of the year, as Google expands AI Overview to more countries. //
The power-user way to use Google Search web now takes a lot of clicks. You'd want to click on "more" and then "Web" for actual web results, and then to get Google to actually pay attention to the words you type in, you'd want to click "Tools" and change "all results" to "verbatim." Alternatively, you could also find a more web-focused search engine instead of Google.
Just like in 2020, Google could not articulate what "policy" the Trump ad violated other than it might be effective.
Google is the internet librarian. Google leads all inquiries down the aisle that Google decides is best, and that is invariably and distinctly leftist aisles. Sure, you can eventually get to opposing opinions and relevant facts, but you have to work for it. //
When they look for information, they don’t read books; they Google. Politico, HuffPo, and Taylor Lorenz for example, are the end results. The search results tell them they live on a dying planet, that skin color trumps merit, and that gender has a spectrum. If contrary facts are presented to them, an inordinate number will scream and stick their fingers in their ears. A liberal niece of mine wrote something false online that she pulled off the internet. I corrected her, in private. Instead of correcting her mistake, she chose to “un-person” me. She hasn’t spoken to me in eight years. She went to Cal Berkley and majored in English. //
All cultures are not equal, and pretending that they are and instructing teachers to elevate all cultures to equal status makes a mockery of our own. One of the developers of Critical Race Theory does not belong in primary or secondary education. Critical thinking does.
How to stop indoctrination? I’m not sure. I hovered over the final paragraph for quite some time. I still don’t know. We might be at the point of no return. I hope not. I hope we are, instead, at a crossroads. Florida is leading the way with pedagogy designed to teach, not indoctrinate. Facts do matter. There is no gender spectrum. Math is not racist. Palestine was never a country. Let’s get back to facts, and maybe we can save the country. //
The Original John Doe
8 hours ago
"How to stop indoctrination?"
You might as well ask how to Unbrainwash someone. If you Google that you will see that nearly every site says step one is to re move the stimulus that is causing the brainwashing. This mean you would have to remove every leftists cell phone or remove every leftist news agency. This is basically impossible.
Therefore an examination of history is in order. Every country that successfully brainwashes at least 50% of its population (The United States has accomplished this) either ends up becoming a socialist/communist country or devolves into civil war. Keep in mind that the United States has already brainwashed 100% of the population into accepting an UNELECTED president in the White House for 3 years, 3 months, 9 days and counting with ZERO consequences.
After the stolen 2024 election, we shall see if conservatives will let the country become a socialist/communist regime or if something else will transpire. //
Sargon of Cincinnati
2 hours ago
The great Thomas Sowell fears we are past the tipping point. You are not alone in your questioning of if this indoctrination can be stopped.
Over the last year, we've alerted our readers to specific RedState articles that Google has demonetized, meaning that no ads can be shown on those articles and RedState doesn't receive any revenue on them, for allegedly violating its guidelines. Google claims the offending articles contain "dangerous or derogatory content" or "unreliable and harmful claims," but what they really contain is content Google and/or the government deem dangerous to groupthink and the accepted narratives – content that might make people question what they're being spoon-fed by legacy media propagandists.
Some might argue that it's not censorship because Google doesn't require that we take the "offending" post down. I'd argue that it's still a form of censorship because it's making it painful to go against the orthodoxy. If RedState can't pay its writers, RedState and the "dangerous" truths and opinions published on the site will go away. (Or so it thinks.)
Since August 2023, Google has demonetized more than 85 RedState stories, and that total is growing every day. //
Why is Google flagging all these stories?
It's doing it because each flagged article harms our domain score overall, which lowers our ad rates and leads to a lower quality of ads being shown on our site.
It's doing it because we're getting closer to the 2024 election and Google wants to make sure that outlets that practice real journalism are sent a big message: that any criticism of the integrity of the election will not be tolerated.
Google has been putting its thumb on the scale to help Democratic candidates win the presidency in the last four election cycles during which it censored Republicans, according to a right-leaning media watchdog.
The Media Research Center published a report alleging 41 instances of “election interference” by the search engine since 2008. //
A source close to Google told The Post that third parties who have looked at our results and “found no evidence to support claims of political bias.”
“There is absolutely nothing new here — just a recycled list of baseless, inaccurate complaints that have been debunked by third parties and many that failed in the courts,” a Google spokesperson told The Post.
In that ecosystem of advertisers, content consumers, ad networks, and content distributors, ad blockers aren't the disease, they're the symptom. Trying to neutralize a symptom alone leaves the disease thriving while the host just gets sicker. In this case, the disease isn't cynical freeloading by users, it's the basic dishonesty of online advertising. It promises things to advertisers that it cannot deliver, while blocking better ways of working. It promises revenue to content providers while keeping them teetering on the brink of unviability, while maximizing its own returns. Google has revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars, while publishers struggle to survive, and users have to wear a metaphorical hazmat suit to stay sane. None of this is healthy. //
Content providers have to be paid. We get that. Advertising is a valid way of doing that. We get that too. Advertisers need to reach audiences. Of course they do. But like this? YouTube needs its free, ad-supported model, or it would just force Premium on everyone, but forcing people to watch adverts will not force them to pony up for what's being advertised.
The pre-internet days saw advertising directly support publishers who knew how to attract the right audiences who would respond well to the right adverts. Buy a computer magazine and it would be full of adverts for computer stuff – much of which you'd actually want to look at. The publisher didn't demand you have to see ads for butter or cars or some dodgy crypto. That model has gone away, which is why we need ad blockers.
Unfortunately, when we wrote on Omar backtracking... sorta, Google demonetized our article, claiming that it contained "dangerous or derogatory content." They didn't bother to tell us which line or lines in the piece were problematic; they never do. //
The bottom line is, we reported on a Congresswoman spreading misinformation/propaganda and halfheartedly retracting it, and Google thought that was "dangerous or derogatory content" that ads should not be run on.
When the truth keeps getting out despite our tech overlords' best efforts, their last tool is to starve us and destroy our business by denying us advertising revenue.