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Responsible engineers will prioritize privacy over absolute performance. Nevertheless, investigations into Google's conduct have already discovered internal adm

Responsible engineers will prioritize privacy over absolute performance. Nevertheless, investigations into Google's conduct have already discovered internal admission that AMP would actually slow down the web. "Google falsely told publishers that adopting AMP would enhance load times, but Google employees knew that AMP only improves the [redacted] and AMP pages can actually [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]. In other words, the ostensible benefits of faster load times for cached AMP version of webpages were not true for publishers that designed their web pages for speed. Some publishers did not adopt AMP because they knew their pages actually loaded faster than AMP pages." "Google also [redacted] of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one second delays in order to give Google AMP a [redacted] [redacted] slows down header bidding, which Google uses to turn around and denigrate header bidding for being too slow." And of course, the reason they did all this: "Google also designed AMP to force publishers to route rival exchange bids through Google’s ad server so that Google could continue to peek at rivals’ bids and trade on inside information. Third, Google designed AMP so that users loading AMP pages would make direct communication with Google servers, rather than publishers’ servers. This enabled Google’s access to publishers’ inside and non-public user data. AMP pages also limit the number of ads on a page, the types of ads publishers can sell, as well as enriched content that publishers can have on their pages." https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/20201216%20COMPLAINT_REDACTED.pdf https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

ec109685 5y ago
If Google's servers pre-cache the contents of the article, the experience is instant when you click on a link, so the idea that it's slower to read a Google Amp Link on a Google Search Result compared to clicking out to a separate website is false. If a publisher simply uses Google Amp on their own site to display websites, then it can be slower. They slowed the non-AMP ads because they didn't want loading them to interfere with the content the user was interested in reading.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  > They slowed the non-AMP ads because they didn't want loading them to interfere with the content the user was interested in reading. This is what Google may have told the public, and obviously would like you to believe. However, internal Google emails demonstrate very differently: AMP was designed to increase Google's ad revenue. Same source: "Google ad server employees met with AMP employees to strategize about using AMP to impede header bidding, and how much pressure publishers and advertisers would tolerate."
  - jefftk 5y ago
    Link to the internal emails? I've read a lot of the emails that came out in the lawsuit, and haven't seen any demonstrating that.
    - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
      The link I'm referencing doesn't so much as unredact all of the facts listed here, I'm not sure the public has access to the emails described in this complaint at this time. If you know of a publicly accessible cache of internal Google emails sourced from legal discovery processes, I'd love to know about it!
      - jefftk 5y ago
        The unredacted AMP lawsuit is: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56... I'm not aware of other sources of internal emails on this topic. What were you referring to when you wrote: "internal Google emails demonstrate very differently: AMP was designed to increase Google's ad revenue."?
        ocdtrekkie 5y ago
        Ah, the unredacted version is quite a bit nicer to read, thank you. I was referring to the text in the complaint: The complaint is written off the legal discovery process, presumably in the case of especially a tech company such as Google, the statement that these teams met and discussed this topic would presumably be found in the form of either a meeting invite or the notes from a meeting sent in an internal email. I think within some margin of interpretation, it's reasonable to state that if the text in the complaint is as such, it's backed by one or more internal emails I personally don't have access to. As I think it's pretty implausible that the Texas AG invented a meeting between the ad team and the AMP team and a reason for it out of thin air.
svachalek 5y ago
Wow. I always knew AMP was scammy but I didn't realize they actually forced a 1 second delay on other pages. How enraging. "Don't be evil" is so long lost I can barely remember those days.
skybrian 5y ago
We don't need to rely on internal emails, which may be out of date anyway, and we don't need to figure out anyone's intent. Brave (or someone) could do performance measurements to see what the impact is now.

ec109685 5y ago

If Google's servers pre-cache the contents of the article, the experience is instant when you click on a link, so the idea that it's slower to read a Google Amp Link on a Google Search Result compared to clicking out to a separate website is false. If a publisher simply uses Google Amp on their own site to display websites, then it can be slower. They slowed the non-AMP ads because they didn't want loading them to interfere with the content the user was interested in reading.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
> They slowed the non-AMP ads because they didn't want loading them to interfere with the content the user was interested in reading. This is what Google may have told the public, and obviously would like you to believe. However, internal Google emails demonstrate very differently: AMP was designed to increase Google's ad revenue. Same source: "Google ad server employees met with AMP employees to strategize about using AMP to impede header bidding, and how much pressure publishers and advertisers would tolerate."
- jefftk 5y ago
  Link to the internal emails? I've read a lot of the emails that came out in the lawsuit, and haven't seen any demonstrating that.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    The link I'm referencing doesn't so much as unredact all of the facts listed here, I'm not sure the public has access to the emails described in this complaint at this time. If you know of a publicly accessible cache of internal Google emails sourced from legal discovery processes, I'd love to know about it!
    - jefftk 5y ago
      The unredacted AMP lawsuit is: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56... I'm not aware of other sources of internal emails on this topic. What were you referring to when you wrote: "internal Google emails demonstrate very differently: AMP was designed to increase Google's ad revenue."?
      - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
        Ah, the unredacted version is quite a bit nicer to read, thank you. I was referring to the text in the complaint: The complaint is written off the legal discovery process, presumably in the case of especially a tech company such as Google, the statement that these teams met and discussed this topic would presumably be found in the form of either a meeting invite or the notes from a meeting sent in an internal email. I think within some margin of interpretation, it's reasonable to state that if the text in the complaint is as such, it's backed by one or more internal emails I personally don't have access to. As I think it's pretty implausible that the Texas AG invented a meeting between the ad team and the AMP team and a reason for it out of thin air.

svachalek 5y ago

Wow. I always knew AMP was scammy but I didn't realize they actually forced a 1 second delay on other pages. How enraging. "Don't be evil" is so long lost I can barely remember those days.

skybrian 5y ago

We don't need to rely on internal emails, which may be out of date anyway, and we don't need to figure out anyone's intent. Brave (or someone) could do performance measurements to see what the impact is now.