Will the Real Disintermediating Entity Step Forward?
October 3, 2019
Big Microsoft day. It’s back in the mobile phone business. Sometime next year, probably coincident with a delayed Win 10 update, the Microsoft Surface Dual Screen Folding Android Phone becomes available. You can get the scoop and one view of Microsoft’s “we’re in phones again strategy” in “Microsoft’s Future Is Built on Google Code.” Do I agree? Of course not, that’s my method: Find other ways to look at an announcement.
The write up posits:
Google underpins Microsoft’s browser and mobile OS now.
I noted this statement as well:
… it could come as quite a shock that the CEO of Microsoft doesn’t care that much about operating systems. But there it is, in black and white. Microsoft obviously isn’t abandoning Windows — it announced a new version of it today — but it matters much more to Microsoft that you use its services like Office. That’s where the money is, after all.
Money. A phone that is not here?
But there’s another side to Microsoft. Amazon, the evil enemy, makes it possible run Microsoft on the AWS platform.
Now who is going to disintermediate whom?
Will Google get frisky and nuke Microsoft’s Android love?
Will Amazon just push MSFT SQLServer and other Microsoft innovations off the AWS platform and suck up the MSFT business.
Will Microsoft find that loving two enemies is more a management hassle than getting a Windows 10 server out the door?
Will Amazon and Google escalate their skirmishes and take actions that miss one enemy and plug the Redmond frenemy?
The stakes are high. Microsoft has done a pivot with an double backflip.
Perfect 10 or broken foot? Enron tried something like Microsoft’s approach. The landing was bumpy. The cloud may not cushion a lousy landing.
Stephen E Arnold, October 3, 2109
Google: A Big Play
October 1, 2019
Google’s walled garden is getting a glass roof. AMP was a good first step, but there is a world of other Internet-enabled services which are not likely to be AMP-lified. What’s the fix? DarkCyber believes that Google wants to become the Internet. Stopping Amazon is not working with the GOOG’s standard line up of services. “Why Big ISPs Aren’t Happy about Google’s Plans for Encrypted DNS.”
The write up states:
Google and Mozilla are trying to address these concerns by adding support in their browsers for sending DNS queries over the encrypted HTTPS protocol. But major Internet service providers have cried foul. In a September 19 letter to Congress, Big Cable and other telecom industry groups warned that Google’s support for DNS over HTTPS (DOH) “could interfere on a mass scale with critical Internet functions, as well as raise data-competition issues.”
Consider Google’s point of view. Google has user security in mind. Sure, there are others who see benefits in putting Google in a superordinate position with regards to DNS. What happens if Google filters certain addresses? An apology for sure.
The stakes are high. How will Amazon (an ISP of sorts) respond?
This will be interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1. 2019
Google Cemetery
September 27, 2019
Google is mercurial. I assume that others will describe Google in a different way. DarkCyber wants to note this page:
The Google Graveyard does a good job of keeping track of discontinued Google products and services. Each entry includes a brief description, a comment about how long the product lived, and a cheerful icon for the deceased service. Little digital tombstones!
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2019
Dumbing Down Search and Making More Money?
September 27, 2019
Google makes changes that benefit Google. Forbes Magazine, the capitalist tool, however, does not understand this simple fact about the world’s largest online advertising outfit.
“Google Makes It More Difficult To Find Old Images” points out that the ad giant made it more difficult for 99 percent of Google Image search users to locate “old” images. Most of Google’s advanced search features don’t get much click love.
As a result, why make the feature available? The benefit of making Google Image Search dumbed is related to several factors tangential; my thought is:
- Legal hassles related to making images findable
- Cost reduction. If content is not searched, why spend money verifying links and storing pointers
- Ads. Clicking a Web page for an image can display a current ad. Clicking an old picture like the one below is unlikely to provide an ad payout for the GOOG.
There are some options:
- Use Google search operators like those on this list
- Include a date in the image search string; for example, IBM mainframe 1964
- Use the Google advanced image search form which is at this link.
What’s Forbes’ take?
I reached out to Google for comment on this story. I have yet to hear back and will update this article if I do.
Yep, the capitalist tool.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2019
Apple, Google, and Avid: The Perils of Complexity and Arrogance
September 27, 2019
Apple wants to make Mac users safe. The technology Apple uses requires passwords. Behind the scenes, Apple’s zeros and ones are beavering away to make Mac use a breeze. The trick? Just stick with Apple.
Google wants to point fingers at Apple iPhone and get Chrome on every Mac computer. Ads, surveillance, and real estate are probably motives. The Googlers are darned confident that their code is just peaches. Imagine the pain and shame of posting an admission of sorts that Google nukes some Macs. See this post. (Bonus time?)
Then there is Avid. To prevent the ethical lads and lasses in Hollywood and other video hot spots from pirating software, dongles are the answer. That’s Avid’s policy. No dongle, no go.
The problem is that none of these confident (maybe arrogant?)outfits think about the unknown dependencies within users’ computers. There are too many users. There are too many combinations of software and dongles.
The solution is to assume that everything will work. But when it doesn’t, the arrogant outfits have to explain that:
- Their code may not be perfect
- The security procedures may cause problems
- The dongle things add complexity.
Will these types of issues become more frequent? Will smart software avoid these problems? Will pigs fly?
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2019
Google Cannot Patch Up Its Local News Service
September 27, 2019
A Xoogler had an idea for local news. Patch flopped. “Google Shutters Bulletin, Its Hyperlocal News Experiment” reports:
In a letter to users (obtained by Android Police), Google said in two weeks the Bulletin app will no longer be accessible. Users who shared content on the app will be able to download their posts until November 22nd. One reason Bulletin never took off was that it wasn’t highly publicized, so chances are few people are going to miss this.
With the erosion of daily and weekly newspapers, how does a person get information about a particular city?
Not easily and maybe not at all.
What value were those old fashioned information services? Well, those old fashioned outfits provided advertising opportunities to zippy outfits like Google.
Who cares? Probably not too many Silicon Valley types. Anyway Google tried.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2019
Google Search Index: Losing Relevance
September 25, 2019
Google’s search and indexing algorithms work twenty four hours, seven days a week. As the world’s most popular and, arguably, powerful search engine, Google does encounter hiccups. Your Story shares how Google’s index went down in April 2019 and how they addressed it in the article, “Google’s Loss of Parts Of The Search Index.”
In April, Google temporary lost parts of its search index, then the following month new content was not being indexed. More problems occurred in August, but Google repaired the issue. The glitches arose when Google was implementing updates that resulted in losing pieces of the provisioning systems. When the issue was reported, Google quickly fixed it again.
More problems are still popping up:
“While there were problems with the Search Index, Search Console was also affected. Because some data comes from the search index. As soon as Google had to return to a previous version of the Search Index, it also stopped updating the Search Console data foundation. That was the reason for the plateaus in the reports of some users. Thus, some users were initially confused; The reason was that Google had to postpone the Search Console update by a few days.
Other bugs on Google have sometimes been independent of Search Index issues. For example, problems with the indexing of new News Content. In addition, some URLs began to direct Googlebot to pages that were not directly related. But even these inconveniences could be resolved quickly.”
Does anyone else see the pattern here?
Whitney Grace, September 25, 2019
Google and Right to Be Forgotten: Selective Indexing Gets a Green Light
September 25, 2019
DarkCyber noted this BBC article: “Google Wins Landmark Right to Be Forgotten Case.” The main point seems to be that references under the “right to be forgotten” umbrella apply only in Europe. The BBC stated:
There has been a lot of interest in the case since, had the ruling gone the other way, it could have been viewed as an attempt by Europe to police a US tech giant beyond the EU’s borders.
Several observations may be warranted:
- Google can indeed filter search results; thus, objective results are unlikely
- The index pointers are blocked, which means that those in another country can view proscribed links and maybe – just maybe — a Google super user can view what’s in the Google indexes
- The “algorithms” which are allegedly working automatically may not; therefore, human adjustments to modify search results are probably available to certain search engineers.
If these observations are more than hypotheticals, will the index tuning have an impact on other legal matters in which Google is involved? Query reshaping and search results filtering are a fact of Google life.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2019
Google: Managing Staff a Challenge
September 24, 2019
DarkCyber is not sure about the accuracy of “Exclusive: Google Insider Turns Over 950 Pages Of Docs And Laptop To DOJ.” The story appeared on Saraacarter.com (the second “a” is a middle initial). Ms. Carter’s about page states:
Sara A. Carter is a national and international award-winning investigative reporter whose stories have ranged from national security, terrorism, immigration and front line coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sara A. Carter is currently an investigative reporter and Fox News Contributor. Her stories can be found at saraacarter.com. She formerly worked as a senior national security correspondent for Circa News.
The write up asserts that:
A former Google insider claiming the company created algorithms to hide its political bias within artificial intelligence platforms – in effect targeting particular words, phrases and contexts to promote, alter, reference or manipulate perceptions of Internet content – delivered roughly 950 pages of documents to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division Friday.
The story is dated August 13, 2019, and DarkCyber spotted the link on September 23, 2019. In August 2019, Project Veritas revealed that the alleged Google insider is / was Zachary Vorhies.
Project Veritas does have a Google Document Dump page. You can view the files and download them at this link. A representative document is “Algorithmic Discrimination from and Environmental Psychology Perspective: Str5ee-Inducing Differential Treatment.”
The write up is an academic review of findings which, upon reflection, are mostly common sense. Manipulation can be accomplished via stress causing and stress relieving.
What struck DarkCyber as interesting is that the cache of documents has not made much of a splash in the last few weeks.
Other observations include:
- Unlike the now long-offline Google research papers which I cited in my 2003 Google Legacy monograph, the documents in this cache are more touchy-feely.
- Google’s ability to control its confidential documents appears to have some gaps.
- The “insider” turned canary reveals that Google is not generating happy Xooglers.
Net net: The high school science club approach to management may need some upgrades.
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2019
UK Wants To Know How Powerful Facebook And Google Ads Are
September 20, 2019
The United Kingdom recently blew the whistle on Facebook and Google, so they can understand how much advertising space both tech companies control. ZDNet reports on the situation in, “UK Watchdog Single Out Google, Facebook In Advertising Probe.” The UK is concerned that Google and Facebook dominate too much advertising space, squarely kicking the competition out of the ring. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will launch a new market study about online platforms and digital advertising. The CMA wants to determine if Google and Facebook are harming UK consumers.
“The report will examine the potential risk factors and harm which could be impacting consumers today in the world of online advertising. The main areas CMA cites (.PDF) as worthy of investigation are:
- To what extent online platforms have market power in user-facing markets;
- Whether consumers are able and willing to control how data about them is used and collected by online platforms;
- Whether competition in the digital advertising market may be distorted by any market power held by platforms”
According to the article, about 50% of all UK advertising budgets are spent on digital advertising. Google and Facebook control the majority of the market, predicted to be 70% by 2020. With so many eyes focused on the two companies, both wield a lot of power. The CMA wants to ensure consumers know how Facebook and Google are using their personal information and if it poses risks to consumers.
The CMA also wants to prevent a dual monopoly, which would hamper economic growth and prevent new advertisers from entering the market. In regards to market dominance the CMA is investigating five points: ‘this includes methods to improve competition through open standards and data; means to lower the barriers to entry by competitors; ways to increase consumer data protection; and an examination of data consent rules to encourage a “fairness by design” architecture.’”
This is what government is supposed to do! The CMA is looking out for consumers and preventing monopolies that could potentially upend UK markets. The CMA wants Facebook and Google to be responsible for its actions which seems reasonable.
Whitney Grace, September 20, 2019
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
