5 ms·

Google has been caught doing a lot of seriously anticompetitive things, like colluding with Facebook to establish a duopoly, in exchange for things like scannin

by dannyw 6y ago

Google has been caught doing a lot of seriously anticompetitive things, like colluding with Facebook to establish a duopoly, in exchange for things like scanning WhatsApp chat backups uploaded to Google Drive. Or adding an artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads. It wouldn't surprise me if this claim is true: here's to the discovery process to figure it out.

junippor 6y ago
> scanning WhatsApp chat backups uploaded to Google Drive I've always assumed this was the case, but has this been proven?
- permo-w 6y ago
  Aren’t they heavily encrypted?
  - mathisonturing 6y ago
    AFAIK, it hasn't been yet https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319136/whatsapp-cloud-backups-icloud-google-drive-password-encryption-security https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319136/whatsapp-cloud-ba...
vergessenmir 6y ago
I believe you're referring to the lawsuit from last year filed by the Texas attorney general. It's a complaint where nothing has been proved in relation to the scanning of WhatsApp backups. Unless there's something new on this case that I haven't seen?
- hkt 6y ago
  I know nothing about the case, but surely "nothing has been proved" just means there hasn't been an outcome yet? Attorney generals tend not to file cases unless they believe something to be true, at the very least on the balance of probabilities.
  - gran_colombia 6y ago
    This is not true in Texas and other red states. The Attorney General of Texas files political cases that have no basis in law or fact. He filed the election lawsuit which was soundly rejected by SCOTUS, for instance.
    - claytongulick 6y ago
      To be fair, the merits of that case were never decided. The case was rejected on procedural grounds for lack of standing - a decision that has been hotly debated by many legal experts. Did you ever actually read the filing? [1] I recommend it, very approachable. If nothing else, the math and statistics cited should be of interest. [1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/SCOTUSFiling.pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...
      - Goronmon 6y ago
        I've perused that filing in the past. Most of the language is about how votes "could" be fraudulent, with little to no actual proof that votes were cast or counted fraudulently. I do remember it using that "1 in quadrillion" statistic that appeared pretty questionable even on the surface.
      - 542354234235 6y ago
        > If nothing else, the math and statistics cited should be of interest. This is true, but only because it is such an amazing example of bad statistics. It asserts that there is a “less than one in a quadrillion statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States”. It bases this on two things. First is that Trump had an early lead, so it is statistically impossible for Biden to have ended up winning. Obviously, it fails to account for the fact that votes are not randomly distributed and mail in votes heavily favored Biden. Second, that Biden performed better when compared to Clinton in 2016. Obviously, it fails to account for the fact that people vote differently at different times and for different people. The same differences would be seen comparing Kerry/Obama or Dole/Bush.
mathisonturing 6y ago
> Or adding an artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads A quick search came up empty. Could you share a source?
- treeman79 6y ago
  Did you happen use google to search for misdeeds by google?
  - CompuHacker 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that Google would censor Google Search search results relating to Google's censorship of Google Search search results? If so, could you provide a source? A quick search I imagined doing (I even imagined that I used a VPN) turned up 10,000,000 results, 49 of which were news articles from the last 15 years detailing what, but not how, Google Search search results were censored. When I imagined clicking "Next" to see the rest of these results, I imagined that I was presented with a No CAPTCHA, asking me to identify which colored block of visual noise most closely resembled hell itself. Edit: Oh, and then I did the search for real, and got 4.95m results of similar composition.
  - GuB-42 6y ago
    I don't think Google search censors anti-Google results. Not only it is likely to backfire but it is also hard work, there are millions of articles about the misdeeds by Google. For effective censorship, one would need to first determine that the article indeed is anti-Google and then censor it in a way that doesn't damage the results (and ad revenue) too much. Google could probably pull it off but for what? Google hate drives views, and ironically, these are commonly monetized by Google itself. Anyways, searching "artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads" is inconclusive. However, if you quote "non-AMP", you get the expected results. Google seems to have a peculiar way of handling dashes and the "non" in "non-AMP" seems to get lost.
    - inetknght 6y ago
      > For effective censorship, one would need to first determine that the article indeed is anti-Google You might call that "sentiment analysis". Google has published papers on it. They've refined it so much that they even turned it into a well-documented feature of their Natural Language API [0]. > Google could probably pull it off but for what? Google hate drives views, and ironically, these are commonly monetized by Google itself. If you could assign a monetary value to showing someone an advertisement (or several), would you? Google has. If you could assign a monetary value to someone's knowledge about government/justice actions against yourself, would you? If you could categorize sentiment into something that can generate revenue... or perhaps something that could hurt revenue... would you? There's money in censorship. > Anyways, searching "artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads" is inconclusive Let me make it much less inconclusive . The two searches [1] [2] both reveal the lawsuit by the Texas AG which has explicit allegations [3]. [0]: https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/docs/sentiment-tutorial https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/docs/sentiment-tut... [1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+laws... [3]: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/20201216%20COMPLAINT_REDACTED.pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...
lanevorockz 6y ago
Silicon Valley is an industry that always relied in anti-competitive tactics and they pay billions in legal teams / lobbying each year. Do you think they would spend it if they were on the right side of the law ?
- morei 6y ago
  Yes, they would spend it even if they were on the right side of the law. This is an interesting example of a prisoners dilemma. If N companies are competing without lobbying, their lobbying costs are zero. But if one company 'defects' and start lobbying to tilt the regulatory landscape, then every other company must also start lobbying to prevent it. The end result is that every company lobbies against each other for no net benefit[1], despite large amounts of money spent on lobbying. Good for lobbyists, bad for the companies. So a company spending money on lobbying doesn't really tell us anything. They may be a bad actor, a good actor, or anything in between. There are valid reason for every position in the spectrum to spent money on lobbying. [1]. Obv the real world is far more complex than this. The lobbying may provide industry wide benefits, or may prevent the entry of new competitors, or there may be semi-random fluctuations in the regularly landscape, etc, etc, etc.
- aeturnum 6y ago
  I agree that silicon valley companies are anti-competitive, but I think you are dead wrong about lobbying. Lobbying can be a lot of things, but one of the most common is basically marketing & PR for lawmakers. If you're going to be in the news, you pay some clever marketers to make hyper-focused versions of what happened for every single individual law maker. The company wants their view to be easily understood by the 535 voting humans who are seated in congress right now. It's the second oldest trick in the book (after bribery which also ofc happens to a degree). Lobbying can also include skullduggery and dirty tricks and also other mundane things, but it is not (and never will be) a clear sign that a company is doing something wrong.
CogitoCogito 6y ago
I agree. Regardless of the quality of the Daily Mail, the following claim of theirs from the article is damning: > It alleges Google "punishes" publishers in its rankings if they don't sell enough advertising space in its marketplace. Whether that's true or not is another thing...guess we'll have to wait and see.
- walshemj 6y ago
  So how does the Guardian rank so well for the terms the DM was complaining about? I don't see the Guardian buying many PPC adds.
Xorlev 6y ago
Source?

by dannyw 6y ago

junippor 6y ago

> scanning WhatsApp chat backups uploaded to Google Drive I've always assumed this was the case, but has this been proven?

permo-w 6y ago
Aren’t they heavily encrypted?
- mathisonturing 6y ago
  AFAIK, it hasn't been yet https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319136/whatsapp-cloud-backups-icloud-google-drive-password-encryption-security https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319136/whatsapp-cloud-ba...

vergessenmir 6y ago

I believe you're referring to the lawsuit from last year filed by the Texas attorney general. It's a complaint where nothing has been proved in relation to the scanning of WhatsApp backups. Unless there's something new on this case that I haven't seen?

hkt 6y ago
I know nothing about the case, but surely "nothing has been proved" just means there hasn't been an outcome yet? Attorney generals tend not to file cases unless they believe something to be true, at the very least on the balance of probabilities.
- gran_colombia 6y ago
  This is not true in Texas and other red states. The Attorney General of Texas files political cases that have no basis in law or fact. He filed the election lawsuit which was soundly rejected by SCOTUS, for instance.
  - claytongulick 6y ago
    To be fair, the merits of that case were never decided. The case was rejected on procedural grounds for lack of standing - a decision that has been hotly debated by many legal experts. Did you ever actually read the filing? [1] I recommend it, very approachable. If nothing else, the math and statistics cited should be of interest. [1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/SCOTUSFiling.pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...
    - Goronmon 6y ago
      I've perused that filing in the past. Most of the language is about how votes "could" be fraudulent, with little to no actual proof that votes were cast or counted fraudulently. I do remember it using that "1 in quadrillion" statistic that appeared pretty questionable even on the surface.
    - 542354234235 6y ago
      > If nothing else, the math and statistics cited should be of interest. This is true, but only because it is such an amazing example of bad statistics. It asserts that there is a “less than one in a quadrillion statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States”. It bases this on two things. First is that Trump had an early lead, so it is statistically impossible for Biden to have ended up winning. Obviously, it fails to account for the fact that votes are not randomly distributed and mail in votes heavily favored Biden. Second, that Biden performed better when compared to Clinton in 2016. Obviously, it fails to account for the fact that people vote differently at different times and for different people. The same differences would be seen comparing Kerry/Obama or Dole/Bush.

mathisonturing 6y ago

> Or adding an artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads A quick search came up empty. Could you share a source?

treeman79 6y ago
Did you happen use google to search for misdeeds by google?
- CompuHacker 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that Google would censor Google Search search results relating to Google's censorship of Google Search search results? If so, could you provide a source? A quick search I imagined doing (I even imagined that I used a VPN) turned up 10,000,000 results, 49 of which were news articles from the last 15 years detailing what, but not how, Google Search search results were censored. When I imagined clicking "Next" to see the rest of these results, I imagined that I was presented with a No CAPTCHA, asking me to identify which colored block of visual noise most closely resembled hell itself. Edit: Oh, and then I did the search for real, and got 4.95m results of similar composition.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  I don't think Google search censors anti-Google results. Not only it is likely to backfire but it is also hard work, there are millions of articles about the misdeeds by Google. For effective censorship, one would need to first determine that the article indeed is anti-Google and then censor it in a way that doesn't damage the results (and ad revenue) too much. Google could probably pull it off but for what? Google hate drives views, and ironically, these are commonly monetized by Google itself. Anyways, searching "artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads" is inconclusive. However, if you quote "non-AMP", you get the expected results. Google seems to have a peculiar way of handling dashes and the "non" in "non-AMP" seems to get lost.
  - inetknght 6y ago
    > For effective censorship, one would need to first determine that the article indeed is anti-Google You might call that "sentiment analysis". Google has published papers on it. They've refined it so much that they even turned it into a well-documented feature of their Natural Language API [0]. > Google could probably pull it off but for what? Google hate drives views, and ironically, these are commonly monetized by Google itself. If you could assign a monetary value to showing someone an advertisement (or several), would you? Google has. If you could assign a monetary value to someone's knowledge about government/justice actions against yourself, would you? If you could categorize sentiment into something that can generate revenue... or perhaps something that could hurt revenue... would you? There's money in censorship. > Anyways, searching "artificial 2 second wait to non-AMP ads" is inconclusive Let me make it much less inconclusive . The two searches [1] [2] both reveal the lawsuit by the Texas AG which has explicit allegations [3]. [0]: https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/docs/sentiment-tutorial https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/docs/sentiment-tut... [1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+lawsuit https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+AMP+second+delay+laws... [3]: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/20201216%20COMPLAINT_REDACTED.pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

lanevorockz 6y ago

Silicon Valley is an industry that always relied in anti-competitive tactics and they pay billions in legal teams / lobbying each year. Do you think they would spend it if they were on the right side of the law ?

morei 6y ago
Yes, they would spend it even if they were on the right side of the law. This is an interesting example of a prisoners dilemma. If N companies are competing without lobbying, their lobbying costs are zero. But if one company 'defects' and start lobbying to tilt the regulatory landscape, then every other company must also start lobbying to prevent it. The end result is that every company lobbies against each other for no net benefit[1], despite large amounts of money spent on lobbying. Good for lobbyists, bad for the companies. So a company spending money on lobbying doesn't really tell us anything. They may be a bad actor, a good actor, or anything in between. There are valid reason for every position in the spectrum to spent money on lobbying. [1]. Obv the real world is far more complex than this. The lobbying may provide industry wide benefits, or may prevent the entry of new competitors, or there may be semi-random fluctuations in the regularly landscape, etc, etc, etc.
aeturnum 6y ago
I agree that silicon valley companies are anti-competitive, but I think you are dead wrong about lobbying. Lobbying can be a lot of things, but one of the most common is basically marketing & PR for lawmakers. If you're going to be in the news, you pay some clever marketers to make hyper-focused versions of what happened for every single individual law maker. The company wants their view to be easily understood by the 535 voting humans who are seated in congress right now. It's the second oldest trick in the book (after bribery which also ofc happens to a degree). Lobbying can also include skullduggery and dirty tricks and also other mundane things, but it is not (and never will be) a clear sign that a company is doing something wrong.

CogitoCogito 6y ago

I agree. Regardless of the quality of the Daily Mail, the following claim of theirs from the article is damning: > It alleges Google "punishes" publishers in its rankings if they don't sell enough advertising space in its marketplace. Whether that's true or not is another thing...guess we'll have to wait and see.

walshemj 6y ago
So how does the Guardian rank so well for the terms the DM was complaining about? I don't see the Guardian buying many PPC adds.

Xorlev 6y ago

Source?