Fraud

Google's secret algorithm discriminates in favor of The New York Times per a Politico video interview with Ken Auletta, author of the new book: "Googled, the End of the World as We Know It."

Mr. Auletta explains what he learned about Google's secret search algorithm. It favors sites/results based on "wisdom of the crowds" (i.e. most traffic or links), but it also favors authoritative sites like the New York Times, because Google grants them extra ratings points that elevate them in Google's search results.  

• Mr. Auletta goes on to defend Google for keeping the algorithm and the extra ratings points secret in order to prevent others from gaming the system. 

This information that Google proactively and specifically discriminates in favor of certain content over other content is a big deal for several reasons.

First, Google has long represented that it is a neutral algorithm where Internet users determine what ranks highest in searches, or in other words what content gets found and read and what doesn't.

1.   Why has Google been so hostile to protecting brand trademarks that companies have had to resort to suing Google to get any satisfactory brand respect?  

2.   Why is Google's Chrome browser so hostile to brand-marketing? 

• If a user types in a company brand name as a www. ... .com URL into Chrome's "Omnibox," Google's browser always takes the user to Google's copy of the website first and not to the requested company's branded website where the brand-company can benefit from the visit or click-thru information that their brand advertising has earned.
  • In other words, is Google leveraging its fast-growing, Chrome browser technology, used by 30 million people, to become a gatekeeper for harvesting branding online? 

3.   Why is Google's  AdWords "Quality Score" policy so hostile to online brand marketing? 

• Google's Adwords quality-score policy rewards fast-loading sites and punishes slow-loading landing pages, which are inherently slower because they rely on display/rich-media brand-building advertising. 
• If brand destinations become weaker online, would advertisers then have to depend on Google more to be discovered on the Internet?     

4.   Why does Google publicly deny that it works for advertisers... which generate 97% of Google's revenues? Is Google somehow not proud of advertising or their advertisers?

How could American taxpayers get stuck with a multi-trillion dollar tab that they weren’t even aware that they were running up? How could that huge tab still be allowed to run up unchecked today? For the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the sad answer is one of the biggest root causes of last fall’s devastating financial crisis and one of the biggest continuing systemic risks to the financial system and the economic recovery.  

A decade ago, in what may prove to be the most expensive bipartisan legislative mistake in U.S. history, a bipartisan policy became law that effectively ensured that no Federal regulator had oversight or enforcement jurisdiction over derivative financial instruments. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) created “legal certainty for excluded derivative transactions.” That law allowed a shadow derivative overlay system to be built literally on top of the public financial system, with none of the inherent accountability of the underlying financial system.  In other words, a deliberate bipartisan U.S. government policy change a decade ago unwittingly created an unaccountable “black hole” market that sucked enormous value out of public markets, (Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, securitized sub-prime mortgages, etc.) while laundering the risk to the U.S. taxpayer.

"One click away from competition" is Google's ever-present, antitrust defense slogan that Google does not have any market power to anti-competitively exercise. 

In today's New York Times, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt ratcheted up the centrality of that slogan to Google's antitrust defense by claiming it applied to Google's user "customers." CEO Schmidt said:

• “We are one click away from losing you as a customer, so it is very difficult for us to lock you in as a customer in a way that traditional companies have.”

The problem with Google's "one click away" slogan is that it is untrue and deceptive; it simply does not withstand close scrutiny of the facts or logic.

I. It is untrue -- a false claim.

A. The claim fails the dictionary test.

The dictionary definition of a "customer" is "one that buys goods or services."

Google's public policy blog said a new Wired article by Steven Levy is "a must-read for policymakers who want to understand online advertising." 

First, I agree; there is a lot to learn from the article.

New evidence continues to spotlight the Open Internet's growing security problem. 

• The growing catalogue of evidence from mainstream sources is getting harder and harder to ignore. See previous parts of the series:  I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII & VIII.

"Internet security threat report finds malicious activity continues to grow at a record pace -- Web based attacks evolve as hackers target end-user information; Underground economy continues to thrive." Symantec

High profile Internet security/safety/privacy problems continue to spotlight the Open Internet's growing security problem.

"Computer hacking attacks soar as gangs focus on financial data" -- FT

• "Computer hackers stole more sensitive records last year than in the previous four combined, with ATM cards and Pin information growing in popularity as targets, according to a study..."

"Computer Attackers target popular sites in quest for profit" IBD

• Symantec...  "found new varieties of malware rose 265% last year vs. 2007."
• "This is about fraud and theft — I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind," said Dean Turner, director of Symantec's global intelligence network unit. "Where this is headed is not good for anybody."

"Computer Spies Breach Fighter Jet Project" WSJ

• "...He spoke of his concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. air traffic control systems to cyber infiltration, adding "our networks are being mapped." He went on to warn of a potential situation where "a fighter pilot can't trust his radar."

"New Military Comand to Focus on Cybersecurity" WSJ

Why is one of the most-serious identified internet/cybersecurity risks currently affecting the Internet and network operators not on the FCC's radar screen?

• More specifically, why does a search of the FCC's website for the term "conficker" return zero results? (see below)

A Google search on "conficker"returned 4.86 million results.

"A 'Cyber Katrina' is inevitable" according to George Foresman, a former Undersecretary  for Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security.

I strongly urge you to read an outstanding, sobering and succinct post by USA Today's Byron Acohido: "Cyber Katrina is upon us" which:

• concludes "Cyber threats are accelerating;"
• highlights 8 "proof points" from respected Internet security sources that highlight "a continual increase in malicious and criminal activity on the Internet."

Byron Acohido adds:

• "Given these gloomy metrics, is there any reason to hope this cyber cyclone can be subdued? Vint Cerf, the man most often referred to as the father of the Internet, painted a dark scenario in this recent Guardian interview. When it comes to Internet security, “it’s every man for himself. . .in the end it seems every machine has to defend itself.”

Kudos to Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz for their tenacious and continuous focus on this under-reported, but critically important Internet issue -- and for their excellent book on the real and shocking gaps in everyday Internet security: Zero Day Threat.    

"On Nov. 17, Google began running ads on Google Finance, a financial-news site, and said it would soon start showing ads to some users of its Google News service as well." That was the big news in the Wall Street Journal's front page story "Google gears down for tougher times."

Is Google, which owns the world's largest Internet audience, with over 700 million users, a direct competitor to all media? You bet!

The anticompetitive significance and conflicts of interest in what Google is now doing are very large.

To date Google lulled its competitors into a false sense of security in building an audience for Google News and Google Finance but not directly competing with Google's supposed media partners for online ads.

• The Googleopoly is now behaving like any monopoly does.

The problem for media companies is that Google is a non-transparent black box, which represents itself to be an honest broker of ads -- when it is not. It obviously has a huge financial conflict of interest in serving ads.

• How can Google claim to be an honest broker of online ads when it controls ~90% of all online avertising profits in the U.S. and is planning to blatantly self deal and front run the interests of their media customers?

What Google is proposing to do is the conflict of interest equivalent of auditing their own books, or grading their own papers.