Google: Another IST FYI

From time to time I try to find helpful information that I can pass on to my readers as an FYI post.

We all use the platform of Google at least some of the time…..and we all are worried about our on-line security and who is tracking us….and one of the worse violators of our privacy is Google.

An article I recently read could help with someone’s struggle…..if you are concerned read the article closely….it may help….

Where you lead, Google will follow. The company can log your searches, watch history, and activity across various services, and while that might sound handy for looking back at your browsing history or revisiting a previous trip, it feels a little Big Brother to me. As a result, I’ve changed a few settings on my Google account to keep that monitoring in check.

Google uses this data to give you “more personalized experiences,” which can include faster searches, but also “more helpful app and content recommendations.” That’s basically code for “we use your search, app, and map data to serve you ads.”

You can head to Google’s My Activity dashboard to view your data, but I use the Data & privacy section of my Google account dashboard to make changes, since it also gives me easy access to Personalized ads settings, for some extra privacy management. Even if you don’t change much, this is a great way to see what information Google has on you, and start fighting back.

If you use Google Search or any Google-owned apps, your activity will be tracked under the Web & App Activity section. From this screen, I use the drop-down menu and choose Turn off to immediately stop Google from tracking my activity. If you select Turn off and delete activity, it will disable the feature but also wipe all previously saved information from Google’s servers.

If you’d rather get rid a bunch of data from a specific Google service, you can also select that app (like Maps, Search, News, Play, etc.) from this menu. For example, I chose Google News, which then shows a timeline of all my activity with the service. I can then go through and click the X icon to remove something. Otherwise, use the drop-down menu in the top-right to delete a specific subset (or all) activity for the app.

https://www.pcmag.com/explainers/google-is-tracking-you-settings-to-change-right-now-to-take-back-control#

I have not done this yet and please shar4e any experiences you have with this after you try.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Google: Slip Slidin’ Away

Bam!

A Landmark anti-trust court decision has dropped the hammer on Google.

Let’s look at the decision and what it could mean….

In a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies, a judge ruled Monday that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation. The highly anticipated decision issued by US District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century, the AP reports. After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft, and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.

Major setback for Google. The decision represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.

Appeal is almost certain. Google will almost certainly appeal the decision in a process that may ultimately land in the US Supreme Court. For now, the decision vindicates antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, which filed its lawsuit nearly four years ago while Donald Trump was still president, and has been escalating its efforts to rein in Big Tech’s power during President Biden’s administration.

Google depicted as bully. The case depicted Google as a technological bully that methodically has thwarted competition to protect a search engine that has become the centerpiece of a digital advertising machine that generated nearly $240 billion in revenue last year. Justice Department lawyers argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while also enjoying the luxury of having to invest more time and money into improving the quality of its search engine—a lax approach that hurt consumers.

Next steps. Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape. The potential outcome could result in a wide-ranging order requiring Google to dismantle some of the pillars of its internet empire or prevent it from shelling out more than $20 billion annually to ensure its search engine automatically answers queries on the iPhone and other internet-connected devices. It’s also possible that the judge could conclude only modest changes are required to level the playing field.

Whatcha think?

Will this change anything or not?

Will Zuck be next?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Crap In–Crap Out

Back in 2006 I started my blog on another platform it was entitled, Studies And Observations, basically it was started for me not thinking about others being interested in what I had to say about international stuff.

In all that time I have not worried about my ranking on Google or any other format…..it just was not that important for it would change nothing in the way my blog is written.

I will finally get to the point in my round-about way……

Many bloggers spend lots of time trying to find that perfect formula that will help them and their search for the perfect SEO.

SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental aspect of online success. Why? Because it drives organic traffic and enhances online visibility. In today’s digital landscape, competition is fierce. That’s why having a strong SEO strategy is crucial for small business owners, eCommerce store owners, website owners, bloggers, and webmasters alike.

Well all the hard worker those interested in improving their SEO may be a fart in the wind.

Google Search has been caught up in a massive tidal wave of generative AI garbage.

It’s starting to look like an unrecognizable heap of spam, meaningless search engine optimization (SEO) filler, and dubiously sourced news.

“It’s the worst quality results on Google I’ve seen in my 14-year career,” eminent SEO expert Lily Ray told Fortune.

Instead of filtering out scams, Google is seemingly bowing to the pressure and is instead promoting them.

“Right now, it feels like the scammers are winning,” Ray added.

Researchers recently confirmed these suspicions, finding that Google is consistently ranking ad-filled spam. In a year-long study, first reported on by 404 Media, a team of German researchers studied search results for thousands of product-review terms and found some shocking results.

The team found an “inverse relationship between affiliate marketing use and content complexity, and that all search engines fall victim to large-scale affiliate link spam campaigns.”

In other words, the “search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam,” the team concluded in their paper.

And, as you might expect at this point, generative AI is likely playing a central role in the dissemination of this low-quality content.

https://futurism.com/ai-garbage-destroying-google-results

Sorry if I peed on someone’s parade….I just want a little FYI to help save people’s mind from ODing on stats and stuff.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Is Google So Big?

I recently got a prompt for my GMail that stated that “something is wrong and my account cannot be accessed temporarily”….I thought Google cannot access one of their own sites? WTF?

This got me to thinking about Google.

Just when did they become the monopoly they are today?

The easy answer is ….the Obama era happen!

I know just what am I blaming Obama for this time?

A report has been released that explains how the FTC allowed Google to run rampant

A damning new Politico series based on 312 pages of internal memos reveals that federal antitrust regulators appointed by former President Barack Obama “misread the evidence in front of them and left much of the digital future in Google’s hands,” even though investigators concluded that the tech giant’s effort to dominate mobile internet searches was well-documented and illegal.

The reporting sheds light on the 19-month probe by the Federal Trade Commission that, in early 2013, amounted to what some described as a slap on the wrist. The series comes as Google faces three antitrust lawsuits from the Department of Justice and coalitions of state attorneys general—one of which was expanded Tuesday—and lawmakers’ calls to break up Big Tech.

As technology reporter Leah Nylen details:

Hundreds of pages of unreleased internal FTC memos, obtained by Politico, show for the first time that the agency’s commissioners dismissed substantial evidence to support the monopoly claim, including taking the rare step of rejecting a recommendation by staff investigators to sue.

The contracts at the center of the fight made Google the default search engine on almost all U.S. smartphones and locked in that exclusivity for years, giving the company a major advantage just as Americans were starting to flock to smartphones. In its antitrust suit against Google last October, DOJ revealed that the company pays as much as $12 billion a year to Apple alone to keep its search engine as the default on iPhones, iPads, and the Safari browser.

Antitrust experts and critics of Google’s practices responded by blasting decision-makers at the FTC and reiterating demands for an end to such exclusionary contracts.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/16/total-scandal-memos-expose-failure-obama-era-ftc-stop-googles-monopoly-power

There is so much darkness around the Obama years….there is so much more than “change we can believe in”.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Big Tech For Voter Suppression

Do you use Facebook?

We all use Google.

What do you think of all the voter suppression in many states?

How does all these questions relate?

In the first quarter of 2021, Facebook, Google, and several other major American companies donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Republican political group that advocates for voter suppression laws around the United States.

Facebook donated $50,000, and Google donated $20,000, according to a new report from Popular Information, alongside a $50,000 donation from AT&T and $100,000+ donations from two major pharmaceutical companies: Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca.

The organization that received those donations — the Republican State Leadership Committee — describes itself as, “the largest national organization focused on electing Republicans to state offices in every corner of the nation.”

The RSLC supports Republican candidates that have supported voter suppression laws, and itself advocates for said laws.

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-donated-tens-of-thousands-to-republicans-this-year-2021-4

So the very sites that you use to stay in touch and/or get information have spent time and money helping these voter suppression laws by Repubs get passed.

Then there is AstraZeneca…the vaccine hero for the pandemic…….helping save lives all the while working to help suppress the vote….a perfect example of the slim in corporate world.

Facebook and the others were not alone….

Since 2015, AT&T, Comcast, UnitedHealth Group, Walmart, and other big businesses have donated a combined $50 million to state Republican lawmakers who are currently supporting voter suppression bills across the United States—generous political spending at odds with recent corporate efforts to rebrand as defenders of voting rights.

A new report (pdf) released Monday morning by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that during the 2020 election cycle alone, U.S. corporations donated $22 million to Republican architects of voter suppression bills that are advancing through state legislatures nationwide.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/05/follow-money-corporations-gave-50-million-gop-lawmakers-behind-voter-suppression

Read the pdf and weep for our nation.

You still think these sites are indispensable to your life?

Maybe it is time to stop letting these corporate slugs run and ruin your life.

Thoughts?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tulsi Takes On Google

Let me say from the onset….Google is the anti-Christ. Quick story…I have Google’s GMail and at times it does not function well and I get the prompt….”something is wrong we cannot connect to Google”…I thought they were Google….my bad.

Onward…sorry for the bitch session.

My candidate (for now) for the Dem nomination is Tulsi Gabbard mainly because she forces a conversation on our many wars and is in direct opposition to said wars.

She is now making news without having to fight for news coverage……

It seems that she has decided it is time to take on Google (hope she is successful but they can buy many votes when needed)…….

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign is suing Google in a California court, charging her free speech was violated when the tech giant blocked her ad account in the hours after the first Democratic presidential debate.

Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii who has called for the breakup of big tech companies, was among the top search topics on Google during and after the debate. Gabbard’s campaign decided after the debate that “now is the time we can get our message out there by buying search ads,’’ said attorney Brian Dunne, who is representing Gabbard. But “just as her Google traffic was spiking, her Google ad account was taken offline,’’ he said.

Google told the campaign the account was suspended “for violations of billing practices” and advertising practices, Dunne said. But Dunne said there was no change of banks or financial issue with the campaign’s account. And when asked by the campaign about the validity of the suspension, the company then told the campaign there was “a violation of the terms of service.’’

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/25/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google-account-suspension-1435405

She making herself known in a nation that only recognizes celebrity….she has made the first debate and will be on the stage in the second.

Her antiwar stand is unpopular with Dems in Congress many of whom are running for the nomination…..there needs to be a debate on NOTHING but our so-called defense strategies.

Unfortunately she has little chance on the stage for she will be minimized as much as possible by CNN…they will be more concerned at trying to start some sort of mash up that will give them all the news they need for a week or so.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–26Mar19

This post illustrates just how accurate the saying is…”You Can’t Fix Stupid!”

I read a great story about how some guy milked $122 million out of Google and Facebook….that is $122 million!

Last week, Evaldas Rimasauskas of Lithuania plead guilty to US wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering charges, admitting that he had stolen $99m from Facebook and $23m from Google between 2013 and 2015.

Rimasauskas’s grift was pretty bold. He merely sent Google and Facebook invoices for items they hadn’t purchased and that he hadn’t provided, which the companies paid anyway. The invoices were accompanied by “forged invoices, contracts, and letters that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of the Victim Companies, and which bore false corporate stamps embossed with the Victim Companies’ names, to be submitted to banks in support of the large volume of funds that were fraudulently transmitted via wire transfer.” He also spoofed emails that appeared to come from corporate execs.

Apparently, no one checked first to see if these corresponded to invoices/POs that had been issued within the companies.

Rimasauskas was pretending to be the giant Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc, and had registered a company in Latvia with the same name.

He’s agreed to forfeit about $50m. It’s not clear what’s happened to the other $73m, but Rimasauskas was a prolific and baroque money-launderer who squirreled cash away in Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Latvia. Google has said that “We detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”

Rimasauskas will be sentenced on July 29. He faces up to 30 years.

Say if Google and Facebook did not vet the bills they received then I say let the guy keep his ill-gotten gains…

But they is just me.

Google Offers A Middle Finger

As usual on weekends I try to be informative or humorous or both…..yes it is a struggle since I am old and grumpy as my granddaughter describes it.

I guess we could call this post my FYI post for the weekend……

Remember a few months ago most social media sites were caught screw over their members….sites like Facebook……it appears that a popular search engine may be giving its users a middle finger…..

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to. An AP investigation found many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used privacy settings that say they’ll prevent it from doing so. Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request. For the most part, Google is upfront about asking permission to use your location information. An app like Google Maps will remind you to allow access to your location if you use it for navigating. But the company will also let you “pause” a setting called “Location History,” which it says will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

But even with “Location History” paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking. For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app; automatic daily weather updates on Android phones also pinpoint roughly where you are. The privacy issue affects some 2 billion users of devices running Google’s Android operating software and hundreds of millions of iPhone users who rely on Google for maps or search. Critics say Google’s insistence on tracking its users’ locations stems from its drive to boost advertising revenue. In a statement, a Google rep says the company is being perfectly clear and offers “robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.” Check out the AP for more on why Google’s remarks may be simplifying a more complex issue.

I do posts like this one to help emphasize the fact that people need to be constantly aware that their information is at threat even by those that promise that one is safe by using their site.

Fore warned is fore armed…..

Have a great day…..be well, be safe….chuq

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Google

Google: Another IST FYI

Google: Slip Slidin’ Away

Crap In–Crap Out

Big Tech For Voter Suppression

Tulsi Takes On Google

Closing Thought–26Mar19