Is Google Thinking about Turkeys?
November 27, 2019
Is Google actually fearful of an authoritarian government? Google is okay with firing people who do not go along. Google exerts considerable force. Is Google is a company driven by dollar signs? Is it possible that Google fears anything and anyone that threatens its net profit? The Register explains the cause of Google’s fear in “Google Takes Sole Stand on Privacy, Rejects New Rules For Fear Of ‘Authoritarian’ Review.”
Google, like any company from a capitalist society, is leery of any organization that wishes to restrain its power. Google recently blocked a new draft for he Privacy Interest Group (PING)’s charter. PING is a member of the W3C web standards body. Google blocked the new draft, because it creates an unchecked authoritarian review group and will create “significant unnecessary chaos in the development of the web platform.”
PING exists to enforce technical specifications that W3C issued to respect people’s Web privacy. W3C provides horizontal review, where members share suggestions with technical specifications authors to ensure they respect privacy. Ever since the middle of 2019, PING’s sixty-eight members have tried to rewrite its charter. The first draft was shared with 450 W3C members, one of which is Google, and only twenty-six members responded. Of the twenty-six members, Google was the only one that objected.
Google supports PING’s horizontal review, bit the search engine giant did not want to invest in the new charter without the group having more experience. There are not many differences between the charter drafts:
“‘The new charter is not dramatically different from the existing one, Doty said in an email. ‘It includes providing input and recommendations to other groups that set process, conduct reviews or approve the progression of standards and mentions looking at existing standards and not just new ones. I think those would all have been possible under the old charter (which I drafted originally); they’re just stated more explicitly in this draft. It includes a new co-chair from Brave, in addition to the existing co-chairs from the Internet Society and Google.’
Doty said he’s not surprised there would be discussion and disagreement about how to conduct horizontal spec reviews. ‘I am surprised that Google chose to formally object to the continued existence of this interest group as a way to communicate those differences,’ he said.”
Doty hopes that Google will invest in PING and Web privacy, but Google’s stance is more adversarial. Google and other tech companies are worried about their business models changing of cookies are blocked. Google does not want to lose the majority of its business, which comes from advertising through its search engine. Google might protect privacy, but only so far as it does not interfere with their bottom line.
Whitney Grace, November 27, 2019
Google Ads: Some Data
November 26, 2019
DarkCyber noted some information about the cost of Google ads for a pet-related business. Navigate to “How Much Does it Cost to Run Google Ads? : Tech : Nature World News”.
Here’s the passage we found interesting:
Google Ad Spend costs an average of $9,000 to $10,000 per month. Depending on your budget, you decide the maximum amount that you will spend on cost-per-click (CPC). The average CPC on the Google Search Network is $1 to $2 per click. The average CPC on the Google Display Network is $1 or less per click. The cost for professional Google Ads management per month is 12 percent to 30 percent of the cost of Ad Spend per month. PPC (pay-per-click) costs an average of $15 to $800 per month.
Stephen E Arnold, November 26, 2019
Google Cloud: Identification of an AWS Weakness
November 25, 2019
Who knows if this report is public relations or data gold? Today one can struggle to wriggle the truth in technical reports. If you are up to a challenge, navigate to “Just Eat Orders Google Cloud Platform for Its Data Needs – Ditches AWS.”
JustEat says on its Web site:
More than 12 million hungry people come to Just Eat every month. And they keep coming back because we continue to invest in marketing and improved products and services for customers and restaurants.
The write up points out that JustEat has 27 million customers. Each is “wanting food and you’ve got 112,000 restaurants. How do you start to map the two together?”
The article explains that the Google Cloud Platform is the solution. The company’s AWS system:
and every Monday morning, analysts and data scientists would cause a massive traffic jam and demand to get data, and the average query time would be 800 seconds, so people would start a query, go and get a coffee and then come back and get their results set and then may even have to query again if there’s something wrong.
How much faster is the Google solution? The answer is:
the average query time is down to 30 seconds, so not only are people getting data quicker than before, but all of that 90% of data that we weren’t ingesting is also being ingested – so the data estate is a magnitude bigger, and yet we’re still getting lower query times.
Just Eat was impressed with Google Contact Centre AI product. The write up quotes a JustEat executive as saying:
The post-order space is just as important [as ordering food], and I think there is a lot of work we can do there to improve the experience and remove anxiety. So, looking for services like Customer Contact Centre AI is a big piece.
A few observations:
- Amazon has invented a streaming data service. This article takes direct aim at AWS and its failures
- Query time improvement is interesting, but there is scant data about what’s happening within the GCP set up
- Amazon offers a range of smart software. The write up makes it clear that Google is just better at implementing.
Whom does one believe? The information flowing from Amazon via its AWS Web site or information in an article which can find little fault with the Google.
DarkCyber’s take away is that the PR battle between Google and AWS may be ticking up a notch. Despite the assertions in the write up, Amazon is likely to find a way to point out its virtues.
And the facts? Have you ever heard of road kill on the information superhighway?
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2019
Quite an Allegation: Google, Brute Force!
November 23, 2019
I have been around very bright, quite proficient technologists for more than 50 years. Out of college, I worked at Halliburton’s nuclear unit. Real wizards were running around: John Gray, Julian Steyn, Paul Goldstein, and others. I did a stint at Booz, Allen. Maybe not in the nuclear physicist quartile but pretty bright. I did some other work at places with lots of bright people too. No ewok hunts. No weapons.
I can’t recall any threatening behavior. The only intimidation I experienced was a result of my boss and his brain. Dr. Sommers could pose questions which made we vow to spend more time reading and studying.
But Dr. William P. Sommers was soft spoken. He asked good questions and nudged me forward in my career. Maybe questions are brutal? Yikes! Questions.
I cruised along fat, dumb, and happy. But now I learn that a wizard Disneyland is into brutal behavior; specifically, “Google Workers Accuse Tech Giant of Using Brute Force Intimidation Tactics to Silence Employees.”
The headline seems a bit energetic, tinged with some inner motivation to stimulate bad vibes toward everyone’s favorite online advertising vendor. Here’s what the write up says that a protest was planned for November 22, 2019. DarkCyber learned:
The protest, which will see full-time employees, temporary workers, vendors and contractors come together outside the Google building, comes following the company’s decision to fire an employee for allegedly leaking workers’ personal information to the media and place two other workers on leave over their alleged access of documents unrelated to their roles.
Now this quote:
“The company is claiming that it is for looking up calendars and documents, which is something we all do but we know that it is punishment for speaking up for themselves and others,” workers organizing at Google who requested that their names be withheld, said in a statement shared with Newsweek on Thursday.
Poor Google. Newsweek asserts:
Google has faced widespread scrutiny over its internal culture, particularly after thousands of workers around the world staged walkouts over claims of sexual harassment, racism and gender inequality within the company.
Yeah, brutality, intimidation? Okay, employees take money to do work for their employer. Employers create rules so work can be completed. Employees who run afoul of the rules can and will face some feedback.
But the headline evokes an image of a Google executive dressed like one of Darth Vader’s minions firing plasma weapons at hapless Ewoks.
As the professionals on sports programs say, “Come on, man.”
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2019
Google Discovers Radio
November 22, 2019
We noted The Hindu BusinessLine story “As News Consumption Patterns Change, Google Launches Audio Streaming of News.” Now radio is broadcast. The Google approach uses the Internet. But audio is audio. And audio evokes images of radio technology. The family may not huddle around the glowing vacuum tubes, but the experience is similar. Yes, we know that radio brought some families together in a shared auditory experience.
No gray T shirts and khakis for this family unit of radio listeners.
The Google approach surfs on the trend for isolation. Hey, islands of existence are good, right?
The write up points out:
As people take to podcasts and digital audio content, Google has launched audio news broadcasts. All a user needs to do is to ask Google Assistant to ‘Play the news’, and it begins streaming news. Google has tied up with global media houses such as BBC to provide content to users.
DarkCyber wonders if any other high tech companies have stumbled upon this innovation. Yes, yes, Amazon Alexa can do radio. I think I saw the neighbor’s kid asking his iPhone to play something, maybe Cambridge University’s Naked Scientist. Disappointed kid? I don’t know.
The write up quotes a Googler as stating:
“The audio web is like the text web of the 1990s. At Google, we saw an opportunity to help move digital audio forward by focusing on audio news.
Does anyone hear Eureka arising over the sounds of employee protests?
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2019
Google Management Method Called Interrogation by CNBC
November 21, 2019
DarkCyber, happily ensconced in rural Kentucky, does not know if the information in “Google Employees Protested the Interrogation of Two Colleagues by Company’s Investigations Team, Memo Says” is accurate.
But the headline alone is quite interesting. The news story states:
The memo said Berland’s [a Google employee objecting to certain Google projects] questioning lasted 2.5 hours and was conducted by Google’s global investigations team, which allegedly told the employees that they were “not decision-makers” but that they would relay the workers’ message “up the chain.”
The memo seems to have been written by Googlers unhappy with the interaction of some Google professionals and two employees who had voiced concerns about the company’s work for the US government.
Please, read the original CNBC story.
DarkCyber jotted down several observations while two of my team and I tried to figure out who was on first:
1. The meeting was described as an interrogation. That in itself is an interesting word. Maybe interrogation is the wrong word, but it is clear that the meeting was not the equivalent of what my mother called a “kaffeeklatsch.”
2. The meeting involved an investigations team. DarkCyber did not know that Google had such a team, but presumably CNBC is confident that the ever popular online advertising company does. Does the investigations team have a uniform or maybe a badge with the cheerful Google logo?
3. Two and a half hours. My goodness. That’s longer than many feature films. The length of time brings some images to the forefront of the DarkCyber team’s hive mind. Here’s one that one of the programmer analysts called up from his Apple iPhone. (The objectivity of the iPhone search function must be considered, if not investigated.)
A cheerful setting for an informal chat or not?
Net net: If the CNBC story is accurate, Google’s management methods are quite interesting. Not even the high school science club to which I belonged in 1958 considered interrogation of non science club members. Grilling a science club member was simply not on our club members’ radar.
How times have changed!
Stephen E Arnold, November 21, 2019
The Google Will Pursue the Pentagon
November 19, 2019
Despite last year’s Project Maven kerfuffle, Google cannot pass up the (lucrative) chance to collaborate with the US military. Roll Call reports, “Google Looks Past Project Maven to Work Anew with the Pentagon.” We’re told the renewed partnership will not involve the development of weapons or unlawful surveillance, and stays true to guidelines the company has now adopted. Writer Gopal Ratnam cites Kent Walker, senior vice president for global affairs at Google:
“‘It’s right that we decided to press the reset button until we had an opportunity to develop our own set of AI principles, our own internal standards and review processes,’ Walker said last week at an event organized by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence [NSCAI]. The decision to stop working with the Pentagon on the drone video contract was a ‘discrete’ one and not indicative of a ‘broader principle or an unwillingness’ to work with the Defense Department, he said. “The commission was created by Congress in the 2019 Pentagon policy bill to figure out how the Pentagon can harness artificial intelligence and related technologies for national security purposes. The panel is chaired by Eric Schmidt, the former chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, where he continues to be an outside adviser. “Google is working with the Pentagon on a ‘number of national mission initiatives,’ Walker said, listing cybersecurity, health care, tools to identify deep fake videos, and other AI projects with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to ensure the ‘robustness of AI.’”
Note that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt chairs the NSCAI. Perhaps that is just a coincidence. Walker paints their work with the Pentagon as motivated by their patriotism and concern for world safety. I suppose, then, that government dollars are just the icing on the AI cake.
Cynthia Murrell, November 19, 2019
The Sharp Toothed MSN Gnaws on the Google Search Carcass
November 18, 2019
Search and retrieval is fraught with challenges. In the enterprise search sector, fraud has been popular as a way to deal with difficulties. In the Web search sector, the methods have been more chimerical.
MSN, a property of Microsoft, published “How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results.” The write up appears to recycle the work of the Wall Street Journal. The authors allegedly are Kirsten Grind, Sam Schechner, Robert McMillan and John West. It is unlikely that Alphabet Google will invite these people to the firm’s holiday bash this year.
What’s in the write up? The approximately 8,500 word article does the kitchen sink approach to sins. Religious writers boil evil down to seven issues. Google, it seems, requires to words to cover the online advertising firm’s transgressions.
DarkCyber will not engage in the naming of evils. Several observations are warranted:
- Google’s waterproof coating has become permeable
- After decades, “search experts” are starting to comprehend the intellectual impact of search results which has been shaped
- The old-fashioned approach of published editorial policies, details about updating indexes, and user control of queries via Boolean logic is not what fuels the Google method.
But so what? With more than 60 percent of search queries to the Google flowing from mobile devices, old school approaches won’t work. Figuring out what works depends on defining “works”.
Finding information is a big deal. What happens when one tries to hide information? The answers may be observed in the action of Google employees who have forced the company to stop communicating in “all hands” Friday meetings.
What’s Microsoft doing? For one thing, poking Googzilla in the eye with MSN articles is one example of Microsoft’s tactical approach. The other is to ignore problematic Windows 10 updates and “ignite” people to embrace a hybrid cloud paradigm.
And what about Microsoft’s own search technologies. One pundit apologist continues to explain that Microsoft search is just getting more efficient, not better.
Net net: Google and Microsoft may have more in common than some individuals realize. Maybe envy? Maybe techno-attraction? Maybe two black holes circling? Whatever. The situation is interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2019
Amazon Product Search: A Challenge for the GOOG
November 18, 2019
Amazon is gaining ground in the search-based advertising arena. ZDNet reports, “Amazon Search Ad Business to Whittle Away at Google Market Share Through 2021, Says eMarketer.” Citing a recent eMarketer report, writer Larry Dignan tells us that, though Google will remain top dog by a wide margin for the foreseeable future, Amazon is positioned to increase its share. He writes:
“The report finds that Google will continue to dominate search advertising, but its share will fall over time. Amazon is expected to show search ad revenue growth of 29.5% in 2019, 30.7% in 2020 and 26.2% in 2021. Amazon’s advertising business has surged past Microsoft to be No. 2 behind Google, which has 73.1% of the search ad market. Amazon will end 2019 with 12.9%, followed by Microsoft at 6.5%. Verizon Media and Yelp round out the top five with market share of about 2%.In addition, Amazon’s advertising business is closely watched among Wall Street analysts. The search ad business falls into Amazon’s ‘other’ revenue category and many analysts expect it to be a break out business like Amazon Web Services. Google’s market share in the search advertising market is expected to drop to 70.5% by 2021, according to eMarketer estimates.”
Amazon, you see, has a unique advantage—many active shoppers begin their product searches there, so they are already poised to make a purchase. Dignan adds that other retail sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and eBay are also nipping at Google’s search-ad market share.
Cynthia Murrell, November 18, 2019
Google: The Emerging Cancel Culture
November 16, 2019
Google has terminated a number of products and services. My favorite is Web Accelerator, but you may have other candidates. The cancel phenomenon — whether practiced by Microsoft with its wonderful Zune product or Hewlett Packard’s fascinating Autonomy deal — means that big companies change their minds. Poof. Time, money, and maybe a customer are two are vaporized.
Cancelled. Some in government may use the phrase “with extreme prejudice” to signal this approach to an ill-advised decision, a wonky product, or a troublesome entity.
The Verge, a real news outfit, published “Google Is Scaling Back Its Weekly All-Hands Meetings after Leaks, Sundar Pichai Tells Staff.” The write up approach this cancel culture move as “scale back”, noting that the Verge stumbled upon an email from Google’s CEO to the Googlers. The Verge revealed:
In the note, Pichai begins by praising what Google has achieved through its large workforce. “But in other places — like TGIF — our scale is challenging us to evolve,” he writes. “TGIF has traditionally provided a place to come together, share progress, and ask questions, but it’s not working in its current form.” He writes that employees “come to TGIF with different expectations,” with some looking to hear about “product launches and business strategies” and others looking for “answers on other topics.” Only about 25 percent of the company watches the meeting each week, Pichai says. He also says that there has been “a coordinated effort to share our conversations outside of the company after every TGIF” and that those efforts have “affected our ability to use TGIF as a forum for candid conversations on important topics.”
“Google Will No Longer Hold Weekly All-Hands Meetings Amid Growing Workplace Tensions” explains:
Google is getting rid of one of its best-known workplace features: TGIF, its weekly all-hands meeting. The company confirmed to CNBC that it will instead hold monthly all-hands meetings that will be focused on business and strategy while holding separate town halls for “workplace issues.”
Yep, unfriended, terminated, modified, or cancelled. Mostly the same action spun in different ways.
Several observations:
- What’s the best way to avoid problematic staff? Avoid them? That’s one approach, and a path less fraught with legal hassles than firing the un-Googley.
- Google’s challenges span numerous legal hassles from US jurisdictions. Is it 50 for 50 now? Not even major leaguers can bat 1,000. Google can and is. How many strike outs await?
- The chest X-ray matter (please, see Fast Company’s story)
- The billion dollar dust up with Oracle is back in court, the Supreme Court no less. See the Silicon Angle story, please).
What’s up?
Google’s activities are increasingly interesting. My phrase for the firm’s approach to management is HSSCMM which is short hand for high school science club management method. What adds a handful of kokum to the digital stew served in the employees’ only cafeteria.
How many Googlers enjoy this rare and hard to find spice? Perhaps Googler’s analysts can quantify their data and provide some insight. A Google Trends diagram might show a curve like this one from Scientist Cindy?
Just cancel that. Unfriend!
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2019
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