Because Google knows better, even when they don't.
In early December, I brought you the news that Google has begun replacing Verge headlines, and those of our competitors, with AI clickbait nonsense in its content feed. Google appeared to be backing away from the experiment, but now tells The Verge that its AI headlines in Google Discover are a feature, one that “performs well for user satisfaction.” I once again see lots of misleading claims every time I check my phone.
It hasn't gotten better since December.
"Enshittification" is taken from the title to a by Cory Doctorow, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Dictionary.com describes it as follows:
the gradual degradation of an online platform or service's functionality, as part of a cycle in which the platform or service first offers benefits to users to attract them, then pursues more and more profits at the expense of users.
For 15+ years, Saving Country Music has been on the warpath against the completely ludicrous intellectual property regime that disallows even a small snippet of music to be featured in a podcast without draconious repercussions, including removing episodes, and deleting entire accounts, while not offering any reasonable alternative solutions to the issue.
The problem is really YouTube, and maybe other video platforms. If UMG says you have violated copyright, then you have as far as YouTube is concerned. Fair Use? What's that?
Beato’s specific beef is with Universal Music Group, who is the most notorious actor for bringing these heavy handed claims against song clip uses that clearly fall under the fair use clauses of American copyright law, let alone are being brought against a guy who operates a massive music platform that promotes artists. But since there’s rarely humans making any of these decisions and it’s automated by bots, they don’t understand these claims are against Universal Music’s best interests.
“I’m doing interviews with people and playing the music that they either wrote or recorded, or they produced,” Beato explains. “You need to play people music to talk about it. That is the definition of fair use. These are interviews with people about their careers. Why are these record labels wanting to take down content about artist that have records on their label? What sense does that make?”
Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes. (Saving Country Music)
Beato is a musician and record producer who has worked in the industry for more than 40 years, and has a YouTube channel full of great short documentaries, where he either knows the participants or was there personally.
The company [Epic Games] sued both Apple and Google for monopolistic practices over their respective app stores. Epic won its case with Google but not with Apple. However, the court did require Apple to open up to more competition by forcing a change to its App Store rules. The court said app developers should now be able to link to other purchasing mechanisms besides Apple’s own. (Unfortunately for app developers, Epic is still battling with Apple in the courts over this change, as it alleges that Apple violated the court order by allowing developers to process their own payments, but only with a small, 3% reduction in commission, which doesn’t make it worth their while.)
Click thru for the rest.
Basically they will ignore the law for as long as they can.
“This isn’t the first time Marc Elias and the Democrat slime machine have tried muzzling and removing House Freedom Action ads from TV, radio stations, and social media,” HFA’s political director, Allison Weisenberger, told Breitbart. “During this fall’s elections, HFA’s ads were so effective and vicious in exposing left-wing Democrat candidates that Elias sent threatening letters to TV stations demanding removal of our ads. His censorship wasn’t successful.”
I'm old enough to remember when the Left believed Free Speech was a good thing.
2500 internal documents relating to the Google search algorithm were leaked recently, and eventually Google admitted that they were real, before blowing even more smoke over the issue. The documents don't detail the entire algorithm, but there are 14,000 parameters mentioned in the leaks. And researchers will be going thru the documents for a while yet.
But one thing is clear Google hasn't been telling all of the truth.
Over the years, Google spokespeople have repeatedly denied that user clicks factor into ranking websites, for example — but the leaked documents make note of several types of clicks users make and indicate they feed into ranking pages in search. Testimony from the antitrust suit by the US Department of Justice previously revealed a ranking factor called Navboost that uses searchers’ clicks to elevate content in search.
“To me, the larger, meta takeaway is that even more of Google’s public statements about what they collect and how their search engine works have strong evidence against them,” Rand Fishkin, a veteran of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry.
And there is a plea for journalists to stop being PR flacks and get back to being journalists.
“Journalists and publishers of information about SEO and Google Search need to stop uncritically repeating Google’s public statements, and take a much harsher, more adversarial view of the search giant’s representatives,” Fishkin says. “When publications repeat Google’s claims as though they are fact, they’re helping Google spin a story that’s only useful to the company and not to practitioners, users, or the public.”
But it seems merely raising fair questions is in itself too much liberty. According The Daily Caller, “Google shut down our ads promoting our documentary about election fraud because they could “undermine trust in [the] democratic process.”
So blind obedience is the way to go, right? Anything else is…disinformation or worse, treason?
So take 2 minutes, and stick it to the censors, by watching the trailer.
I always thought that Google reminded me of Big Brother, but now it seems like they are actually trying to implement the Ministry of Truth.
When Front Page Magazine applied to join Google’s AdSense advertising program, we were turned down. Since Google, like other Big Tech monopolies, has censored and deplatformed us in the past, we weren’t too shocked. But this time, Google told us why we had been banned.
That's unusual. Google never telegraphs its reasons for banning someone. Not that it is hard to see what their reasons are. (They are not as devious as they believe themselves to be.)
One article that Google called out is the “Remember The San Bernardino Fourteen” by Lloyd Billingsley, about a terrorist attack that took place in December of 2015. I include the link, because Google will not produce that if you search. I also obfuscated it a bit. Not sure if that is needed or not. (Better safe...)
What’s dangerous, unreliable and harmful about “Remember The San Bernardino Fourteen”?
Published on Dec 3, 2021, around the anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attack, it contains fairly little editorial commentary and a great deal of uncomfortable facts.
Lloyd Billingsley starts by documenting how “Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik drove up to the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, and began firing automatic rifles.” He names the victims, describes the bombs and quotes Kamala Harris, then attorney general, defending Islam and excusing Islamic terrorism, as she would go on to do after the Islamic terrorist attacks of Oct 7, while promoting CAIR and other Islamist terror friendly groups.
And so an article that casts Democrats in a bad light, and also documents Islamic terrorism, must be expunged from existence if a site wants to join Google's advertising ecosystem. Of the two, by guess is that they object more strenuously to the casting of aspersions on Democrats. Google is comprised of Democrats, after all.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for your help. I'm still not completely sure what the problem was - probably something on my side together with something done at YouTube. They really hate anything that looks like privacy, and the newer versions of Firefox are all about privacy. And as I mentioned in the comments, they really hate my VPN, to the point that I have to deactivate it to comment on my own blog. Even though I can edit the posts without deactivating the VPN, I can't comment. Which I suppose explains why I am now sourcing video from Rumble and looking at Odysee. (I like Rumble except for the always on autoplay feature.)
Update to the Update: And it's broken again. Since I haven't changed anything - I spent the day dealing with car trouble - I have to assume it is on their end. Since there is virtually no way to get any support out of Google/YouTube/Blogger/Alphabet, I will just continue my drive to use Rumble and Odysee for video, and maybe I will relent and use Spotify for music.
I don't know about all of you, but I am having problems with YouTube videos. Videos that I have embedded from YouTube are not playing, but giving me an error message. I usually (always?) provide a link to watch on YouTube, or you can click on the video title in the embedded video to be sent to that site. They work on YT, just not when embedded.
Since both YouTube and Blogger/Blogspot are Google products, support is nonexistent. I have been trying some stuff. I can't figure out if it is my environment or them.
Videos embedded from Rumble are working. I haven't checked other sources. YT and Rumble being the 2 main places that I find video content, with Odysee gaining on Rumble. I'm not sure I have embedded any Odysee content, but maybe I should check that as well.
If you could let me know in the the comments what behavior you are seeing that would be great. So I've embedded the same video from two different sources below. While I can recommend the video, I'm not asking you to watch it twice; only tell me if it is working/not working on YT and/or on Rumble. Thanks.
Notebookcheck recently broke the story about the fact that Google appears to have blocked writers reviewing its new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro devices from being able to easily install popular benchmark apps like Geekbench 6 and 3D Mark.
Of course they couldn't stop the hackers from sideloading the apps, and so the benchmarks did get run.
There were reviewers with the requisite knowledge to by-pass Google’s Play Store block by simply downloading the app package for Geekbench 6 and installing it manually using a process known as side-loading.
The results Geekbench 6 produced by the Tensor G3 were unflattering.
The Tensor G3 is the chip in the Pixel 8 family.
Google has not responded to queries about why they blocked the benchmark, or the results of those benchmarks being published despite the block.
There is more if you click thru. Google's marketing the Pixel around AI, and the benchmarks for AI, and the apologists dreaming up reasons why the benchmark apps were kept off the phones, etc. (Hat tip to Pixy Misa).
And you should never install software that you find via an ad. Certainly not by clicking on the ad. Because how do you know if it is legit? If you want a piece of software, go and search for it, and install it from a recognized place.
And remember: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
The victim shaming site operated by the Snatch ransomware group is leaking data about its true online location and internal operations, as well as the Internet addresses of its visitors, KrebsOnSecurity has found. The leaked data suggest that Snatch is one of several ransomware groups using paid ads on Google.com to trick people into installing malware disguised as popular free software, such as Microsoft Teams, Adobe Reader, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Discord.
First spotted in 2018, the Snatch ransomware group has published data stolen from hundreds of organizations that refused to pay a ransom demand. Snatch publishes its stolen data at a website on the open Internet, and that content is mirrored on the Snatch team’s darknet site, which is only reachable using the global anonymity network Tor.
Be safe out there. Me? I use a couple of ad-blockers, so that this kind of thing mostly isn't an issue.
Thirteen Chromebook models have met their death date since June 1 and won't receive security updates or new features from Google anymore. But that hasn't stopped the Chromebooks from being listed for sale on sites like Amazon for the same prices as before.
Take the Asus Chromebook Flip C302. It came out in 2018, and on June 1—about five years later—it reached its automatic update expiration (AUE) date. But right now, you can buy a "new," unused Flip C302 for $550 from Amazon or $820 via Walmart's Marketplace (providing links for illustrative purposes; please don't buy these unsupported laptops).
Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's "Privacy Sandbox" team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser.
Google describes this brainstorm in glowing terms, of how it will make everyone safer and happier. Of course the only people Google is worried about is the advertisers/customers who want to track your every move - both on the web and in real life. (And yes, those customers include governments.)
The rest of us are not so happy with what Google is up to, and the comments have been "mixed."
Issue #134 calls the idea "absolutely unethical and against the open web." Issue #113 say they "can't believe this is even proposed." Issue #127 adds: "Have you ever stopped to consider that you're the bad guys?" Another user posted a screed entirely in hexadecimal that, when translated, starts with "Death to Fascists" and wishes explosive diarrhea on everyone involved. So reception so far has been... mixed.
That whole, "Don't Be Evil!" thing really was a long time ago.
If you're going to be evil, be all the way evil: Google's new Web Integrity API plans to lock you out of your own browser and track your activity everywhere with in-depth fingerprinting and unblockable DRM. (Ars Technica)
They have made changes around how they are managing images, So I can upload nothing right now. And of course Alphabet has no support mechanism, and their help is on the level of "Have you made sure that your PC is plugged in?"
I have stuff scheduled, but my tolerance for changes that serve no purpose, programmers who are incapable of documenting anything, or bothering to talk to anyone actually using their system, and the general insanity that is application development was used up a few decades back. (Being out of corporate America hasn't helped my tolerance for insanity recover.)
All that amounts to: I may or may not be posting anything.
And yes, even at a Tech Company, the bean counters are in charge. "Why can't you just..." is a bean counter question. There is no right way to answer that question. Or rather, they will ignore every answer. (Even though they know squat about tech.)
Let's build a system aimed at a specific country that has a very distinct way of doing things, that differs from the rest of the globe, and then we will launch that system globally. "What could go wrong?"
In March of this year, Google Pay launched a disastrous revamp Google shut down the perfectly good, mature service that had been around since the days of Google Wallet, and the company replaced it with a brand new codebase that was originally developed in India. The India-centric Google Pay (which was promoted to be the new, worldwide Google Pay) was modeled after WhatsApp and used your phone number as your identity. Requiring a SIM card for identity meant that the Google Pay website functionality had to be shut down, multiple accounts were no longer supported, and users had to re-build their contact lists to send money.
This is the 2nd time that Google has done this, because they didn't learn their lesson the first time. Do you think they will learn it this time, or will the bean counters refuse to admit that they had a hand in this? The new Google Pay repeats all the same mistakes of Google Allo. (That link is from March. But back to the present day...)
Google Pay is currently in an awful limbo state, and it's not clear what the service's future is. Plex [the promised digital banking feature] was supposed to be a major feature of the new Google Pay. But with it dead and the architects of this entire revamp no longer at Google, the division feels like a rudderless mess.
People who don't understand anything about tech, like executives, always ask, "Why can't you just do X?" When you tell them why you can't - or not for the amount of money they are willing to invest - they get angry and say "Do X anyway, because I said so." This is the kind of thing that results.
And while I never worked at Google, I have had that conversation (it isn't a conversation if you aren't listening to me) from any number of bosses. It is probably one of the main reasons that I left so many jobs. I have been yelled at for letting bosses do exactly what I told them not to do. They also don't like it when you have documentation of what you told them.
Personally, I think using SMS as an identifier in the face of all the problems with Signalling System 7 seems like a recipe for disaster. It isn't so much an issue of security, as the lack of security.
Tech giant Google is under fire after it revealed that it blocked some Australian news sites from search results as part of an “experiment.” Critics call it a “chilling illustration” of the company’s stranglehold on internet search.
I like DuckDuckGo.com. It doesn't always answer all my questions, but I use it for 90 percent, or more, of my searches. It doesn't track me. It doesn't hide stuff from me. It doesn't answer the question it thinks I should have asked, and it doesn't provide me with the most Woke answer first.
Well, this was certainly a long time coming. Fifteen years, over 22,000 posts, almost two million comments and God knows how many attempts to silence us. But it might finally be over…at least this version of it.
Over the weekend, we received information from a contact at Google that internal chat/e-mails led them to believe that certain precautions we had taken over the years had been breached by Google. We had gotten similar warnings from others in the past, and we dealt with or ignored them as the situation warranted. But this one was different.
SCC was saying bad things about Democrats, and pointing out how the one-party state of Chicago was heading into the crapper. That cannot be allowed.
There’s something mildly dispiriting about being asked to identify blurry fire hydrants, distorted crosswalks, virtually unidentifiable parking meters, and bent traffic lights arranged to look nothing like they do in real life. But hey, Captcha, officially known as Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, is simply doing its job.
I have most of them figured out, but some of them are just stupid. It seems that the people running Google don't know the difference between a parking meter and a rural mailbox. (Click thru and page down to example #4.) I guess that is to be expected since they never leave their apartments/condos/gated communities except to drive to their office.
But the real interesting thing - something that spread across most parts of Google/Alphabet - is that there is no way to tell them that they have their heads up their asses. They are right, even when they are wrong. Just shut up and do what we tell you.
One of the many reasons I stopped using Google as a search engine... I would see a reCaptcha. Fill it in. See the results of my search. Click on a link. Peruse the article/website in question and hit back. I would see another reCaptcha. Rinse. Repeat. To say this is annoying is not even in the ballpark. You're not even in the parking-lot outside the ballpark. Add in the fact that they answer the question they were sure you meant to ask, and what is the point of Google?
