Predicting Google and the UK in 2023
December 21, 2022
For Google, coping with legal challenges is just a routine part of doing business in Europe it seems. The Register reports on the latest lawsuit in, “130,000 UK Businesses Sue Google Over £13.6B in Lost Ad Revenues.” To no one’s surprise, the class-action suit claims the company abuses its dominant position to disadvantage the competition. Reporter Katyanna Quach writes:
“The company’s anticompetitive practices, alleged in the lawsuit, have cost smaller businesses – like publishers and online apps selling ad space – up to 40 per cent, the law firm said. The losses incurred from 1 January 2014 to date for the companies in the lawsuit are estimated up to £13.6 billion (about $16.5B). Toby Starr, a partner at Humphries Kerstetter, leading the claim, pointed to similar antitrust probes, accusing Google of abusing its dominant position in online advertising, from the EU. Google’s misconduct in this matter is well known. The French authorities have fined the firm and multiple investigations are underway across the globe. However, none of these regulatory actions will do anything to compensate the UK publishers of thousands of websites and mobile apps who have lost billions in advertising revenue because of Google’s actions. The only way to recoup these losses is through a competition class action,’ he said in a statement.”
Closer to home, we are reminded:
“The US Department of Justice also accused Google of ‘unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets’ in a lawsuit in 2021.”
Audacious as ever, Google denies any wrongdoing and dubs the UK lawsuit “speculative and opportunistic.” Those same advertising tools that are unfairly vilified, a spokesperson insists, instead benefit publishers and other businesses “of all sizes.” One wonders why the company bothers to defend itself since its tens of billions of dollars [pdf] in revenue ensure it can easily absorb any fines and damages that come its way.
Cynthia Murrell, December 21, 2022
The EU and the Tweeter Thing
December 16, 2022
Most of the folks who live in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, are not frequent tweeters. I am not certain if those in the city could name the countries wrapped in European Union goodness. The information in “Twitter Threatened with EU Sanctions over Journalists’ Ban” is of little interest. Some in the carpetland of Twitter may find the write up suggestive.
Here’s an illustrative statement from the BBC write up:
EU commissioner Vera Jourova warned that the EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom. “Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon,” she tweeted. She said: “News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. “[The] EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our Media Freedom Act.”
One quick fix would be ban EU officials from Twitter. My hunch is that might poke the hornet’s nest stuffed full of well-fed and easily awakened officials.
There are several interesting shoes waiting to fall in one of the nice hotels in Brussels; for example:
- Ringing the Twitter cash register. Fines have a delayed effect. After months of legal wrangling, the targeted offenders pay something. That’s what I call the ka-ching factor.
- Creating more work for government officials in the US. The tweeter thing may not be pivotal to the economic well being of EU member states, but grousing about US regulatory laxness creates headaches for those who have to go to meetings, write memos, and keep interactions reasonably pleasant.
- Allowing certain information to flow; for example, data about the special action in Ukraine or information useful to law enforcement and certain intelligence agencies.
Excitement will ensue. I am waiting for certain Silicon Valley real news professionals to find themselves without a free info and opinion streaming service. The cries of the recently banned are, however, unlikely to distract the EU officials from their goal: Ka-ching.
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2022
Sisyphus, The EU Has a Job For You
December 14, 2022
I read an article which may be mostly accurate. Its title is “Google Must Delete Search Results about You If They’re Fake, EU Court Rules.” The write up reports:
People in Europe can get Google to delete search results about them if they prove the information is “manifestly inaccurate,” the EU’s top court ruled Thursday [December 8, 2022].
Okay, prove that information is “manifestly inaccurate.”
The article continues:
People who want to scrub inaccurate results from search engines have to provide sufficient proof that what is said about them is false. But it doesn’t have to come from a court case against a publisher, for instance. They have “to provide only evidence that can reasonably be required of [them] to try to find,” the court said.
When legal eagles get into a discussion of what is accurate and what is not accurate, the logic will be fascinating. Then once accuracy has been addressed, the sage birds will deal with the definition of manifestly. You know: What is is?
Justice and billing will be served with word salad.
Stephen E Arnold, December 10. 2022
Does the UK Really Want to End Google and Apple Mobile Monopolies?
December 14, 2022
While there continues to be some market competition with big tech companies, each has their own monopoly in the technology industry. The United Statuses slow to address these industry monopolies, but the United Kingdom wants to end Google and Apples’ control says Mac Rumors in the article: “UK Begins Market Investigation Into Apple and Google’s Mobile Dominance.”
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will investigate how Apple and Google dominate the mobile market as well as Apple’s restrictions on cloud gaming through its App Store. Smaller technology and gaming companies stated that Google and Apple are harming their bottom lines and holding back innovation:
“The consultation found 86% of respondents support taking a closer look at Apple and Google’s market dominance. Browser vendors, web developers, and cloud gaming service providers said the tech giants’ mobile ecosystems are harming their businesses, holding back innovation, and adding unnecessary costs. The feedback effectively justifies the findings of a year-long study by the CMA into Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems, which the regulatory body called an “effective duopoly” that allows the companies to “exercise a stranglehold over these markets.” According to the CMA, 97% of all mobile web browsing in the UK in 2021 happened on browsers powered by either Apple’s or Google’s browser engine, so any restrictions can have a major impact on users’ experiences.”
The CMA will conduct an eighteen-month-long investigation and will require Apple to share information about its business products. After the investigation, the CMA could legally force Apple to make changes to its business practices. Apple, of course, denies its current practices promote innovation and competition as well as protect users’ privacy and security.
Whitney Grace, December 14, 2022
Rainbow Narcotics? Just a Coincidence? Nope, Marketing Plain and Simple
December 9, 2022
Does anyone remember how the tobacco companies had ads and mascots that appealed to kids but claimed more than once their target demographic wasn’t children? It was a bald-faced lie as big as the former claim that smoking does not negatively affect health. The Daily Caller has a whopper of a story about fentanyl: “Drug Cartel Operative Claims Rainbow Fentanyl Was Not Created To ‘Make Kids Addicts.’”
A Mexican drug cartel operative told Insider that rainbow-colored fentanyl is not meant to make kids addicts. The fentanyl pills have the same colors and shapes as popular candies such as Smarties, Sweet Tarts, and more. The cartel operative said the bright colors are meant to warn adults the pills contain fentanyl:
“‘We know that some of the dealers in the US started mixing cocaine with ‘fenta’ without letting their buyers know, and that is very dangerous,’ the operative told Insider. The colorful drug form was created ‘to make it look different than coke or white heroin,’ a Sinaloa cartel drug cook explained, according to Insider. ‘Also we mix some of the heroin with fentanyl to make it more powerful, but we mark it, to let the buyer know that this one has ‘fenta,’’ the operative added. ‘Whatever happens when it’s taken from our hands, it’s not our problem.’”
Ann Milgram, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), pushes back against the cartels by stating the opposite. She claims that rainbow fentanyl is a deliberate attempt to target American kids.
The same cartel operative says they cook clean “fenta” and clearly label it with “el arco del iris” (rainbow).
Right. And Joe Camel was as friendly as Chuck E. Cheese, McGruff the Crime Dog, Smokey the Bear, and Ronald McDonald.
Whitney Grace, December 9, 2022
A Legal Information Truth Inconvenient, Expensive, and Dangerous
December 5, 2022
The Wall Street Journal published “Justice Department Prosecutors Swamped with Data As Cases Leave Long Digital Trails.” The write up addressed a problematic reality without craziness. The basic idea is that prosecutors struggle with digital information. The consequences are higher costs and in some cases allowing potentially problematic individuals to go to Burger King or corporate practices to chug along with felicity.
The article states:
Federal prosecutors are swamped by data, as the way people communicate and engage in behavior scrutinized by investigators often leaves long and complicated digital trails that can outpace the Justice Department’s technology.
What’s the fix? This is a remarkable paragraph:
The Justice Department has been working on ways to address the problem, including by seeking additional funding for electronic-evidence technology and staffing for US attorney’s offices. It is also providing guidance in an annual training for prosecutors to at times collect less data.
Okay, more money which may or may not be spent in a way to address the big data issues, more lawyers (hopefully skilled in manipulating content processing systems functions), annual training, and gather less information germane to a legal matter. I want to mention that misinformation, reformation of data, and weaponized data are apparently not present in prosecutors’ data sets or not yet recognized as a problem by the Justice Department.
My response to this interesting article includes:
- This is news? The issue has been problematic for many years. The vendors of specialized systems to manage evidence, index and make searchable content from disparate sources, and output systems which generate a record of what lawyer accessed what and when are asserting their systems can handle this problem. Obviously either licensees discover the systems don’t work like the demos or cannot handle large flows of disparate content.
- The legal industry is not associated with groundbreaking information innovation. I may be biased, but I think of lawyers knowing more about billing for their time than making use of appropriate, reliable technology for managing evidence. Excel timesheets are one thing. Dark Web forum content, telephone intercepts, and context free email and chat messages are quite different. Annual training won’t change the situation. The problem has to be addressed by law schools and lawyer certification systems. Licensing a super duper search system won’t deal with the problem no matter what consultants, vendors, and law professors say.
- The issue of “big data” is real, particularly when there are some many content objects available to a legal team, its consultants, and the government professionals working on a case or a particular matter. It is just easier to gather and then try to make sense of the data. When the necessary information is not available, time or money runs out and everyone moves on. Big data becomes a process that derails some legal proceedings.
My view is that similar examples of “data failure” will surface. The meltdown of crypto? Yes, too much data. The downstream consequences of certain medical products? Yes, too much data and possibly the subtle challenge of data shaping by certain commercial firms? The interlocks among suppliers of electrical components? Yes, too much data and possibly information weaponization by parties to a legal matter?
When online meant keyword indexing and search, old school research skills and traditional data collection were abundant. Today, short cuts and techno magic are daily fare.
It is time to face reality. Some technology is useful, but human expertise and judgment remain essential. Perhaps that will be handled in annual training, possibly on a cruise ship with colleagues? A vendor conference offering continuing education credits might be a more workable solution than smart software with built in workflow.
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2022
Collusion? What Do You Mean Collusion?
November 30, 2022
Ah what wise and ethical firms we have at the top of the tech food chain. MacRumors reports, “Amazon and Apple ‘Colluded’ to Make iPhone and iPad More Expensive, Says Antitrust Lawsuit.” The complaint alleges the companies conspired to kick third-party vendors of Apple products from Amazon’s marketplace in order to escalate prices and keep them aloft. Did they think no one would notice? We learn:
“There were around 600 third-party sellers of Apple devices on Amazon Marketplace, which was whittled down to just seven. Amazon began eliminating third-party sellers after it signed a 2019 deal with Apple to limit the number of resellers on Amazon marketplace to 20 per country. In exchange, Apple provided Amazon with a discounted wholesale price for iPhones and iPads. By restricting third-party sellers from offering Apple products, Amazon made itself the dominant seller of Apple products on Amazon Marketplace, which Amazon and Apple both ‘stood to benefit from’ even though it ‘would harm the public.’ The lawsuit claims that prior to the agreement, third-party resellers were offering ‘prices steeply discounted’ from those Apple wanted to have for its online storefront, which resulted in lower prices for consumers.”
That does look bad. But wait, there is an important caveat:
“There is no word on specific devices that went up in price due to the agreement, and no explanation of whether sellers were offering older devices or current products, nor if these were refurbished devices.”
Those would be key distinctions. The write-up does not mention (though commenters have) that purveyors of stolen and counterfeit goods are known to operate through Amazon. Were any of them among the approximately 590 sellers axed? We may never know.
The suit requests an injunction forcing Amazon to allow third-party Apple sellers back on and to reimburse customers who it claims overpaid by as much as 20%. We are curious to see how this lawsuit plays out.
Cynthia Murrell, November 30, 2022
Photo Rights and the Next Flight of Legal Eagles
November 15, 2022
I spotted a write up called “Copyright Trolls: The Unseen Tactics Lurking In The Backdrops Of Online Photos.” I was surprised to learn that this is a “real” business, not a criminal activity. The write up defines how individuals using a copyright protected image put themselves at risk. The article identifies companies in this business and highlights one law firm which deals with the alleged law breakers. Please, read the article.
However, the write up omits what I think will be an even larger business: Threatening legal action for an individual who uses a machine generated image without permission. In fact, a machine generated image may be okay for a person to create with a service like Craiyon or DALL-E today. But tomorrow some fine outfit like Getty Images or Agence France Presse may pull these images into their organizations. Then a copyright enforcement outfit uses smart software to find an unauthorized use of the image. The alleged infringer is at the wrong end of a legal eagle’s output system.
Check out the write up. Note the firms playing this game. Think about those machine generated images and future risk.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2022
DYOR and OSINT Vigilantes
November 7, 2022
DYOR is an acronym used by some online investigators for “do your own research.” The idea is that open source intelligence tools provide information that can be used to identify bad actors. Obviously once an alleged bad actor has been identified, that individual can be tracked down. The body of information gathered can be remarkably comprehensive. For this reason, some law enforcement, criminal analysts, and intelligence professionals have embraced OSINT or open source intelligence as a replacement for the human-centric methods used for many years. Professionals understand the limitations of OSINT, the intelware tools widely available on GitHub and other open source software repositories, and from vendors. The most effective method for compiling information and doing data analysis requires subject matter experts, sophisticated software, and access to information from Web sites, third-party data providers, and proprietary information such as institutional knowledge.
If you are curious about representative OSINT resources used by some professionals, you can navigate to www.osintfix.com and click. The site will display one of my research team’s OSINT resources. The database the site pulls from contains more than 3,000 items which we update periodically. New, useful OSINT tools and services become available frequently. For example, in the work for one of our projects, we came across a useful open source tool related to Tor relays. It is called OrNetStats. I mention the significance of OSINT because I have been doing lectures about online research. Much of the content in those lectures focuses on open source and what I call OSINT blind spots, a subject few discuss.
The article “The Disturbing Rise of Amateur Predator=Hunting Stings: How the Search for Men Who Prey on Underage Victims Became a YouTube Craze” unintentionally showcases another facet of OSINT. Now anyone can use OSINT tools and resources to examine an alleged bad actor, gather data about an alleged crime, and pursue that individual. The cheerleading for OSINT has created a boom in online investigations. I want to point out that OSINT is not universally accurate. Errors can creep into data intentionally and unintentionally. Examples range from geo-spoofing, identifying the ultimate owner of an online business, and content posted by an individual to discredit a person or business. Soft fraud (that is, criminal type actions which are on the edge of legality like selling bogus fashion handbags on eBay) is often supported by open source information which has been weaponized. One example is fake reviews of restaurants, merchants, products, and services.
I urge you to work through the cited article to get a sense of what “vigilantes” can do with open source information and mostly unfiltered videos and content on social media. I want to call attention to four facets of OSINT in the context of what the cited article calls “predator-hunting stings”:
First, errors and false conclusions are easy to reach. One example is identifying the place of business for an online service facilitating alleged online crime. Some services displace the place of business for some online actors in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or on obscure islands with minimal technical infrastructure.
Second, information can be weaponized to make it appear that an individual is an alleged bad actor. Gig work sites allow anyone to spend a few dollars to have social media posts created and published. Verification checks are essentially non-existent. One doesn’t need a Russia- or China-system intelligence agency; one needs a way to hire part time workers usually at quite low rates. How does $5 sound.
Third, the buzz being generated about OSINT tools and techniques is equipping more people than ever before to become Sherlock Holmes in today’s datasphere. Some government entities are not open to vigilante inputs; others are. Nevertheless, hype makes it seems that anything found online is usable. Verification and understanding legal guidelines remain important. Even the most scrupulous vigilante may have difficulty getting the attention of some professionals, particularly government employees.
Fourth, YouTube itself has a wide range of educational and propagandistic videos about OSINT. Some of these are okay; others are less okay. Cyber investigators undergo regular, quite specific training in tools, sources, systems, and methods. The programs to which I have been exposed include references to legal requirements and policies which must be followed. Furthermore, OSINT – including vigilante-type inputs – have to be verified. In my lectures, I emphasize that OSINT information should be considered background until those data or the items of information have been corroborated.
What’s the OSINT blind spot in the cited article’s report? My answer is, “Verification and knowledge of legal guideless is less thrilling than chasing down an alleged bad actor.” The thrill of the hunt is one thing; hunting the right thing is another. And hunting in the appropriate way is yet another.
DYOR is a hot concept. It is easy to be burned.
Stephen E Arnold, November 7, 2022
Threats of a Digital Death: Legal Eagles, Pay Attention
November 1, 2022
I read “Twitter Users Plot Revenge on Elon Musk by Killing the Platform.” I don’t have a dog (real or a digital Zuck confection) in this fight. Frankly I never thought that individuals would admit that their actions harmed a commercial enterprise. Nor did I think these individuals would use their Twitter handles and the tweeter system to organize a group action to harm the Fail Whale. Plus, these people displayed their photographs and probably have profiles available online. (How difficult will it be for some to identify these actors and provide that information to a legal eagle known to chase ambulances?)
The write up states:
…tweeters are conspiring to help Twitter suffer a similar fate by sh*tposting and furry-frying Musk.
“Furry-frying?” Sounds interesting. Will there be a TikTok video?
There are illustrative tweets about what to do and how to accomplish the goal of causing the tweeter to die while trying to get aloft.
Remarkable information if accurate. I wonder if social media analytics systems can pinpoint these actors and take action; for example, emailing tweets and “personas” to a musky law firm?
My hunch is that this idea may occur to someone on the Musk team.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2022
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