Google and France: A Dust Up Escalates
March 16, 2018
The addled goose knows that most Google watchers are mesmerized by the GOOG’s about face with regard to editorial responsibility. There’s the ban on crypto currency. If you missed that news, Google is doing with other firms and some governments have failed to do — taken steps to check the rampant craziness about calculated “money” designed to work around countries’ banking systems, laws, and procedure. Then there is the linkage of the ever accurate Wikipedia to some YouTube videos. The idea is to provide some sort of knowledge based balance to what is now the Alexandria of cat videos.
Put those decisions aside, gentle reader.
Tucked into the flow of news, almost hidden beneath the editorial responsibility stories, was “France Will Sue Apple and Google over ‘Abusive’ Treatment of Developers.” A article states:
Speaking on RTL Radio on Wednesday, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that he “believes in an economy based on justice” and “will take Google and Apple before the Paris Commercial Court for abusive business practices”, Reuters reports. These allegedly-abusive business practices relate to the way that the tech giants impose tariffs on developers who sell their apps via the iTunes App Store and Google Play, respectively.
There are some flashpoint words in this report. We noted “abusive.” We also think the references to “tariffs” is interesting.
The signal from France merits attention. The consequences could be interesting.
Oh, the subtitle to the story is:
Firms could face fines in the ‘millions of Euros’ if found guilty
That might be why this signal cannot be dismissed with, « Bah laisse tomber ! »
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2018
Bigquery Equals Big Data Transfers for Google
March 16, 2018
Google provides hundreds of services for its users; these include YouTube, AdWord, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, and more. Google, however, is mainly used as a search engine and all of the content on its other services are fed into the search algorithm so they can be queried. In order for all of the content to be searchable, it needs to be dumped and mined. That requires a lot of push power, so what does Google use? According to Smart Data Collective, Google uses the, ““Big Query Service: Next Big Thing Unveiled By Google On Big Data”.“”
Google and big data have not been in the news together for a while, but the BigQuery Data Transfer Service shows how it is moving away from SaaS. How exactly does this work?
According to a Google’s blog post, the new service automates the migration of data from these apps in BigQuery in a scheduled and managed manner. So good so far, the service will support data transfers from AdWords, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick for Publishers, and YouTube Content and Channel Owner Reports and so forth. As soon as the data gets to BigQuery, users can begin querying on the immediate basis. With the help of Google Cloud Dataprep, users cannot only clean and prep the data for that analysis but also further think of analyzing other data alongside that information kept in BigQuery.
The data moves from the apps within 24 hours and BigQuery customers can schedule their own data deliveries so they occur regularly. Customers who already use BigQuery are Trivago and Zenith.
The article turns into a press release for other services Google provides related to machine learning and explains how it is the leading company in the industry. It is simply an advertisement for cloud migration and yet another Google service.
Whitney Grace, March 16, 2018
Come on Google, Stop Delivering Offensive Content
March 14, 2018
Sentiment analytics is notoriously hard to program and leads to more chuckles than accurate results. Throughout the year, Google, Facebook, and other big names have dealt with their own embarrassing sentiment analytics fiascos and they still continue. The Verge shares, “Google’s Top Search Results Promote Offensive Content, Again” in an unsurprising headline.
One recent example took an offensive meme from the swathe subreddit when “gender fluid” was queried and made it the first thing displayed. Yes, it is funny, but stuff like this keeps happening without any sign of stopping:
The slip-up comes just a month after Google briefly gave its “top stories” stamp of approval to two 4chan threads identifying the wrong suspect in the recent Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy. This latest search result problem appears to be related to the company’s snippet feature. Featured snippets are designed to answer queries instantly, and they’ve often provided bad answers in the past. Google’s Home device, for example, used a featured snippet to answer the question ‘are women evil?’ with the horrendously bad answer ‘every woman has some degree of prostitute in her.’
The ranking algorithm was developed to pull the most popular stories and deliver them regardless of their accuracy. Third parties and inaccurate sources can manipulate the ranking algorithm for their own benefit or human. Google is considered the de facto source of information. There is a responsibility of purveying the truth, but there will always be people who take advantage of the news outlets.
Whitney Grace, March 14, 2018
Google UX: Some Interfaces Are Little Bafflers
March 13, 2018
I read “What Google Is Learning about User Experience.” I am delighted that a giant company is “learning.”
I noted this statement:
Josh Lewandowski, lead UX researcher at YouTube, said he asks himself two questions each day he comes into work:
- “What are the desires, needs, and problems our users have that we should be anticipating?”
- “Once we know what those are, what’s the best way to solve for them?
Interesting. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, Google’s user interfaces have some pock marks. There are confusing functions; for example, upload a video to YouTube. There are boxes in which one can describe the video. None of the boxes provides a maximum word count. Careless or indifference? I don’t know.
On my Android phone Google Play insists that I turn on certain features. I don’t want these features. The controls for Android OS no longer allow me to turn off updates to apps I never use. I cannot disable the annoying and distracting message about Google Play having a problem. Careless, indifference, or a larger plan to remove user controls.
In Google’s Gmail, I find it fascinating that I have to click to see my email, not just the default listing. Even better is that there are no controls to make it easy to delete junk. Even the hapless BlackBerry I had years ago, make it easy to clean up an email in box. BlackBerry!
For more words and promises, be sure to read the complete article. Do it on your mobile phone for the full experience.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2018
Search History: Flipping That Digital Stone May Reveal Interesting Things
March 12, 2018
In a turn that is just about the most human thing we’ve ever heard, just as the world is on the cusp of an AI revolution, many are starting to look backward toward simpler times. We got a sideways glance at our fear of change from a PC Magazine story, “Download Your Entire Google Search History.”
The story is primarily about why on Earth anyone would want to see everything they have ever searched for. But it also touches on our desire for nostalgia in this lightning quick era:
“Users can now download their entire saved search history “to see a list of the terms you’ve searched for,” the company said. “This gives you access to your data when and where you want… For safety’s sake, don’t download past searches on a public computer—at the library, an Internet cafe, or even a friend’s house. Save the curiosity for home.”
A search history provides a useful pool of information about the user of Google search. Among the items of data which may be available are:
Time behavior signals; that is, when a person did searches and what the topics looked for in those time periods
Topic analysis; that is, what subjects did the searcher seek and how frequently were those topics queried
Link analysis; that is, what other sites were searched when a particular site was queries.
Other useful pieces of information can be extracted from a search history. When an analyst reviews the search history of the computers used by a group of people such as those individuals working on our studies of CyberOSINT, it is possible to develop a reasonable “snapshot” or “picture” of the topics we are investigating and the particular companies who products we are researching.
If you have not probed your search history, you might find that flipping over that digital rock may reveal some interesting insights.
Patrick Roland, March 12, 2018
Facebook Fails Discrimination Test
March 12, 2018
While racism and discrimination still plague society, the average person does not participate in it. The Internet exacerbates hatred to the point that people believe it is more powerful today than it was in the past. Social media Web sites do their best to prevent these topics from spreading by using sentiment analytics. Sentiment analytics are still in their infancy and, on more than one occasion, have proven to work against their intended purpose. TechCrunch shares that, “Facebook’s Ad System Shown Failing To Enforce Its Own Anti-Discriminatory Policy” is a recent example.
Facebook demands to be allowed to regulate themselves when it comes to abuse of their services, such as ads. Despite the claims that Facebook can self-regulate itself, current events have proven the contrary. The article points to Facebook’s claim that it disabled its ethnic affinity ad targeting for employment, housing, and credit. ProPublica ran a test case by creating fake rental housing ads. What did they discover? Facebook continues to discriminate:
However instead of the platform blocking the potentially discriminatory ad buys, ProPublica reports that all its ads were approved by Facebook “within minutes” — including an ad that sought to exclude potential renters “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam”. It says that ad took the longest to approve of all its buys (22 minutes) — but that all the rest were approved within three minutes.
It also successfully bought ads that it judged Facebook’s system should at least flag for self-certification because they were seeking to exclude other members of protected categories. But the platform just accepted housing ads blocked from being shown to categories including ‘soccer moms’, people interested in American sign language, gay men and people interested in wheelchair ramps.
Facebook reiterated its commitment to anti-discrimination and ProPublica responds that if an outside research team was called to regulate Facebook then these ads would never have reached the Web. Maybe Facebook should follow Google’s example and higher content curators to read every single ad to prevent the bad stuff from getting through.
Whitney Grace, March 12, 2018
Alphabet Google: The Personnel Slide Down Continues
March 9, 2018
Google is one of the top technology companies in the world and their services are employed on nearly every computer, phone, and tablet. Google is at the most innovative when it comes to developing new technology, but a former Google insider said the opposite. Steve Yegge writing for Medium explains his Google experience in his article, “Why I Left Google To Join Grab.”
Yegge loved Google and still considered it to be one of the best places in the world to work, but he left for some good reasons:
“The main reason I left Google is that they can no longer innovate. They’ve pretty much lost that ability. I believe there are several contributing factors, of which I’ll list four here. First, they’re conservative…Second, they are mired in politics, which is sort of inevitable with a large enough organization; the only real alternative is a dictatorship, which has its own downsides. Third, Google is arrogant…But fourth, last, and probably worst of all, Google has become 100% competitor-focused rather than customer focused.”
Google has reached the apex of its innovative spirit and has gone the way over all corporations and, arguably, politicians. Google has grown so big and powerful, hires the top players in the field, and controls so many products/services that it does not want to lose face, its employees have ego problems, and they serve the almighty dollar. It is a repetitious pattern that has been playing out for ages. One of the greatest examples was the British Empire. The British Empire became so big and powerful that the resources were spread too thin, the ruling parties were arrogant, the subjects suffered, and those in power never wanted it to change. It sounds like Google, does it not?
Yegge then talked about the new endeavor called Grab and stresses the importance of keeping your ear to the ground in order to make and grow a business. Google has gotten too big, but it still has a lot of powerful and it will be awhile before it falls. Another company will pick up the slack. Someone always does.
Whitney Grace, March 9, 2018
Is Google The Victim or the Aggressor in Prager Case?
March 8, 2018
Courtroom drama is reaching a high point in an interesting case that might have flown under your radar. Online university Prager U is suing YouTube for taking many of its videos off of YouTube. Seems like an odd choice, until you start to realize just how political this move is and the first amendment can of worms is spilling all over the place. We learned more in a recent FrontPage Mag story, “Prager U Video: Who Will Google Silence Next?”
According to the video shown, Google claimed that some of the company’s educational five minute videos were not appropriate for children.
“Google and YouTube dominate internet search with over 75% of the market. If you disappear on Google, your ability to voice your opinion disappears too. PragerU is an educational non-profit that has had over 40 of their videos restricted by YouTube. That’s why they have recently filed a lawsuit against the tech giant.”
Prager is claiming that this is a misunderstanding and a violation of their first amendment rights, since they say that their short videos are age appropriate across the board. Google, however, is firing back with a surprising defense: It’s actually Google’s first amendment rights that are being violated. They say: “PragerU’s motion is a radical attempt to rewrite the rules governing online services, one that would transform nearly every decision that service providers make about how content may be displayed on their platforms into a constitutional case to be arbitrated by the courts.”
Grab some popcorn, because this is going to be an interesting fight. Adam Carolla is a semi-partner with Mr. Prager. Mr. Carolla has a podcast, and he can create some traction for issues which interest him. Does anyone remember the patent troll who took on the comedian? The patent troll does, I believe.
Patrick Roland, March 8, 2018
Multi-purpose Search Tool Is Like Magic
March 2, 2018
The Internet of things has evolved from an entertaining gimmick to instantly access information to an indispensable tool for daily life. Search engines like Google and Duckduckgo make searching the Internet simple, but in closed systems like databases and storage silos, searching is still complicated. Usually, individual systems have their own out-of-the-box search engines, but its accuracy is so-so. Cloud computing complicates search even more. Instead of searching just one system, cloud computing requires search software that can handle multiple systems at once. The search technology is out there, but can it really perform as well as Google or even DuckDuckGo?
The Code Project wrote about a new, multi-faceted search tool in the post, “Multidatabase Text Search Tool.” Searching text in all files across many systems is one of the most complicated procedures for a search engine, especially if you want accuracy and curated results. That is what DBTextFinder was developed for:
DBTextFinder is a simple tool that helps you to perform a precise search in all the stored procedures, functions, triggers, packages and views code, or a selected subset of them, using regular expressions.Additionally, you can search for a given text in all the text fields of a selected set of tables, using regular expressions too.The application provides connections to MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle servers, and supports remote connections via WCF services. You can easily extend the list of available DBMS writing your own connectors without having to change the application code.
DBTextFinder appears to have it all. It is programmable, gets along well with other computer languages, and was designed to be user-friendly. What more could you ask for?
Whitney Grace, March 2, 2018
The New York Times Wants to Change Your Google Habit
March 1, 2018
Sunday is a slightly less crazy day. I took time to scan “The Case Against Google.” I had the dead tree edition of the New York Times Magazine for February 25, 2018. You may be able to access this remarkable hybridization of Harvard MBA think, DNA engineered to stick pins in Google, and good old establishment journalism toasted at Yale University.
The author is a wildly successful author. Charles Duhigg loves his family, makes time for his children, writes advice books, and immerses himself in a single project at a time. When he comes up for air, he breathes deeply of Google outputs in order to obtain information. If the Google fails, he picks up the phone. I assume those whom he calls answer the ring tone. I find that most people do not answer their phones, but that’s another habit which may require analysis.
I worked through the write up. I noted three things straight away.
First, the timeline structure of the story is logical. However, leaving it up to me to figure out which date matched which egregious Google action was annoying. Fortunately, after writing The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0, and Google: The Digital Gutenberg, I had the general timeline in mind. Other readers may not.
Second, the statement early in the write up reveals the drift of the essay’s argument. The best selling author of The Power of Habit writes:
Within computer science, this kind of algorithmic alchemy is sometimes known as vertical search, and it’s notoriously hard to master. Even Google, with its thousands of Ph.D.s, gets spooked by vertical-search problems.
I am not into arguments about horizontal and vertical search. I ran around that mulberry tree with a number of companies, including a couple of New York investment banks. Been there. Done that. There are differences in how the components of a findability solution operate, but the basic plumbing is similar. One must not confuse search with the specific technology employed to deliver a particular type of output. Want to argue? First, read The New Landscape of Search, published by Pandia before the outfit shut down. Then, send me an email with your argument.
Third, cherry picking from Google’s statements makes it possible to paint a somewhat negative picture of the great and much loved Google. With more than 60,000 employees, many blogs, many public presentations, oodles of YouTube videos, and a library full of technical papers and patents, the Google folks say a lot. The problem is that finding a quote to support almost any statement is not hard; it just takes persistence. Here’s an example:
We absolutely do not make changes 5to our search algorithm to disadvantage competitors.
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