Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen
The world’s most influential information-gateway — GOOGLE Search — has recently made the decision to abandon its long-standing primary corporate policies: 1) “Don’t Be Evil” and 2) Provide internet search results based upon neutral algorithms, not human judgment; unbiased and objective.
Some may object to the charge that they have abandoned their oft-repeated mantra “Don’t Be Evil” — but to be clear, this has always meant, as Eric Schmidt (Executive Director of Google at the time) stated in a Wired profile in 2003, “Evil,” he said, “is what Sergey says is evil” (referring to Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google together with Larry Page).
As for the second point,
“As Stanford’s Terry Winograd, Page and Brin’s former professor and a consultant on Gmail, explains to Ken Auletta, “The idea that somebody at Google could know better than the consumer what’s good for the consumer is not forbidden.” He describes his former students’ attitude as “a form of arrogance: ‘We know better.’” …..
“[Larry] Page and [Sergey] Brin designed Google to avoid human judgment in rating the relevance of web pages. Recounting Google’s original design, Steven Levy describes the founders’ opinion that “having a human being determine the ratings was out of the question,” not just because “it was inherently impractical,” but also because “humans were unreliable. Only algorithms — well drawn, efficiently executed, and based on sound data — could deliver unbiased results.”
— Alex White, in “Google.gov”
In Alex White’s long discussion of the links and affinity between the Obama administration and Google executives, he notes “The common theme [as expressed by Obama and Google execs] is that we [the general public] make wrong decisions not because the world is inherently complex but because most people are self-interested and dumb — except for the self-anointed enlighteners, that is.” Like Obama, Google has appointed itself to be The Great Enlightener.
In a conference at MIT earlier this year, Obama said that tech companies such as Google “are shaping our culture in powerful ways. And the most powerful way in which that culture is being shaped right now is the balkanization of our public conversation,” contributing to the nation’s fragmentation — “. . . essentially we now have entirely different realities that are being created, with not just different opinions but now different facts —different sources, different people who are considered authoritative. It’s — since we’re at M.I.T., to throw out a big word — it’s epistemological. It’s a baseline issue.”
Let’s dive into that statement just a bit to make a point. President Obama said “…different facts —different sources, different people who are considered authoritative.”. What he says here is correct — it is a matter of which facts, what sources and whose expert opinion. There is not only one fact or one set of facts about any complex topic affecting society today. [ I wrote about this in the essay What’s Wrong With Alternative Facts?] Obama acknowledges that Google (and other technology companies) “are shaping our culture in powerful ways….” contributing to “the balkanization of our public conversation” and the nation’s fragmentation. I will point out, needlessly, that is a bad thing.
Bal·kan·ize [ Balkanized, Balkanization ]
To divide (a region or body) into smaller mutually hostile states or groups.
What exactly has Google done?
Google has decided, under the false flag of fighting “fake news” to “think of itself as a genuine public good in a manner calling upon it to give users not only the results they want but the results that Google thinks they need, the results that informed consumers and democratic citizens ought to have”. “Google, that is, has long aspired not merely to provide people the information they ask for but to guide them toward informed choices about what information they’re seeking. Put more simply, Google aims to give people not just the information they do want but the information Google thinks they should want. As we will see, the potential political ramifications of this aspiration are broad and profound.” [quotes in paragraphs above from Google.gov.]
I would add, there are also profound social and scientific ramifications as well.
According to The Guardian, Ben Gomes, vice-president of engineering, Google Search, said in a blogpost in 2017: “We’ve adjusted our signals to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content … “
What they have done appears to be a public good. They’ve moved “authoritative sources” to the top search results. The question we need to ask is: “How does this play out in the Real World?” In the real world it means that the worldview, the political bias, the social preferences, the positions taken in various ideological and scientific controversies — as decided by top Google Executives — have been virtually hard-coded into Google’s search algorithms. No longer is Google returning “unbiased and objective results”. Google search returns now, at the top of search results, only what Google’s executives think you should be able to find, only what they want you to see, only what they think all “right-thinking” people (like themselves, of course) would want. Google has created a reality in which search results reflect, exactly, the opinions and views held by top Google executives on important societal issues. One side of each issue will dominate the first few pages of searches on these important issues.
Amanda Ripley of Solutions Journalism Network, recently wrote “Once we get drawn in (to a polarized issue), the conflict takes control. Complexity collapses, and the us-versus-them narrative sucks the oxygen from the room. Over time, people grow increasingly certain of the obvious rightness of their views and increasingly baffled by what seems like unreasonable, malicious, extreme or crazy beliefs and actions of others,” …. “The lesson for journalists (or anyone) working amidst intractable conflict: complicate the narrative. First, complexity leads to a fuller, more accurate story. Secondly, it boosts the odds that your work will matter — particularly if it is about a polarizing issue. When people encounter complexity, they become more curious and less closed off to new information. They listen, in other words.” Attempts to simplify complex issues by exposing the public to only one side of an issue leads to more, not less, conflict and Obama’s “balkanization of our public conversation”.
As far back as September last year, the New York Times was reporting on Google’s apparent tampering: “Accusations that Google has tampered with search results are not uncommon and date back to the earliest days of its search engine. But they are taking on new life amid concerns that technology behemoths are directly — or indirectly — censoring controversial subjects in their response to concerns over so-called fake news and the 2016 presidential election.”
How many issues?
We don’t know yet — but Climate Change results have been tampered with in a glaringly obvious manner — all web sites even slightly contrarian have been “de-ranked” and “demoted” apparently as “low-quality” (read instead — “containing Google-unacceptable points-of-view”) and are browser-pages down the list, if they appear at all.
Suspected tampering includes, but is not limited to,: Abortion, Gun Control, climate change/global warming, US Illegal immigration, Gender issues, feral cats (an tiny issue for which Google was dinged in the press), health and sugar…these were found with a very quick check. It will be a major undertaking requiring a massive Citizen Science project to determine just how many, and which, controversial topics have been tampered with, topics into which Google has injected their own executive’s human judgement on which ideas, which opinions and which facts should be considered authoritative and which should be actively suppressed by “de-ranking” and “demoting”. Once the extent of the damage is known, it will take a broad-based social movement to get Google to take its fingers off the scales and let the Internet decide for itself.
A recent New York Times article, titled “The Case Against Google”, quipped “Google has succeeded where Genghis Khan, communism and Esperanto all failed: It dominates the globe. Though estimates vary by region, the company now accounts for an estimated 87 percent of online searches worldwide. ….. …When does a mega-company’s behavior become so brazen that it violates the law?”
Just this week, actually. The New York Times carried the story “E.U. Fines Google $5.1 Billion in Android Antitrust Case”. This case was not about tampering with Search Results — this case was about Google “abusing its power in the mobile phone market”.
“Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine,” said Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s antitrust chief. “These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere.”
The European Union fined $ 5.1 billion (4.34 billion euros) in this case. Last June, the EU fined Google “$2.7 billion for unfairly favoring some of its own services over those of rivals.”
“Google’s search engine has played a decisive role in determining what most of us read, use and purchase online,” said Shivaun Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, a British comparison-shopping site that was the first company to file a complaint against Google. “Left unchecked, there are few limits to this gatekeeper power.””
For a full version of Raff’s saga, see here.
Yes, Google dominates the Search engine field. By how much?
The charts above show that Google Search, worldwide, has over 75% of the total search traffic market share and over 90% of the mobile search traffic share. These figures are distorted — Google is banned in China, thus searches there by necessity shift to the Chinese-language-only Baidu. For rest-of-world figures, add Baidu’s share to Google’s share for a clearer picture.
Note very well, please: there is very little to be gained by comparing search results between the available search engines. Where search engines are not owned outright by Google, many/most depend on ”Google Ranking” as part of their own search algorithms, thus Google’s “de-ranking” of a web site or a whole social viewpoint affects all of them. Microsoft’s bing has long been known to “sneak a peek” at Google rankings and include them in its search algorithm. Yahoo! has a deal to use Microsoft bing’s output in its search results (“Bing will continue to provide the underlying non-paid search results and technology for Yahoo.“) So it reads like this: Google tampers with its algorithm, bing peeks at the Google results and quasi-mirrors them, Yahoo! uses bing’s results. The remaining big English-language player is Ask.com, who’s market share is so small it doesn’t even make the chart. They license someone else’s search results for general web searches, but don’t disclose who that is.
Questions for discussion:
Is it important that Google has tampered with it’s search algorithm on social, political, and scientific issues?
Is it socially significant that Google has tampered with it’s search algorithm on social, political, and scientific issues?
Is it politically important that Google has tampered with it’s search algorithm on social, political, and scientific issues?
Is it important to Science and Science Education that Google is tampered with it’s search algorithm on social, political, and scientific issues?
What are the implications for Freedom of Expression? for Free Flow of Information? for Democratic Values? for the Ethos of the World Wide Web?
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Attribution: The featured image is adapted in part from a book cover for the Orwell title “1984” designed by nusentinsaino.deviantart.com.
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Author’s Note:
This is a Commentary, meaning that it contains my personal opinions about a topic being raised in the press about Google’s behavior and changes it has made to its search algorithm over the last year or so.
I strongly suggest reading as many of the linked news articles as you have time for…I consider this to be a very important and significant issue for all users of the World Wide Web.
This is a follow-up to my recent piece: “NEWS FLASH: World’s Library Sabotaged”. The next installment in this series will cover the specific effects and implications for the topic of Climate Science — and why it matters for WUWT.
I expect that many will disagree with my viewpoints expressed above — that’s good, it means I have hit on something that readers can engage with.
Let me end with a conclusion by Adam White (his piece linked above) “… the pressure for Google to adopt ever more expansive interpretations of “exploitative,” “authoritative,” and “what people are looking for” will doubtless rise.” The pressure did rise and we are seeing the results above….Google as Arbiter of Truth, Google as Big Brother Knows Best.
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LINKS IN THIS ESSAY: [added 22 July 5:28 pm ET]
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/googlegov
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/19/news-flash-worlds-library-sabotaged/
https://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-search-results-62914
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against-google.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/eu-google-fine.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/google-eu-android-fine.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against-google.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/technology/google-cats-owls.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/google-search-bias-claims.html
https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/complicating-the-narratives-b91ea06ddf63
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/google-launches-major-offensive-against-fake-news
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/26/whats-wrong-with-alternative-facts/
https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/
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Excellent essay.
Google, and others in the intolerantvarrogant left, have forgotten the important maxim:
To do a great evil, one must convince themselves they are doing a great good.
What is a greater good than being convinced one’s opinions are the onkybacceptable opinions to have?
Something that is easily forgotten but important to remember about Google is that they are not a search engine, they are a marketing and advertising business. One of the most disturbing and unaddressed issues surrounding them is that they now hold a complete monopoly on marketing globally, and that their influence can make or break a business, small or large. In any discussion on neutrality, this needs to be taken into account. Because of the opacity of their operations, if they do (or have already) decided to bias their search results in political matters (and brag about it), and have incorporated the ability to do so, it is impossible to know if they are doing this in other arenas too. This should be of huge concern to governments and organisations like the EU, and they should seriously consider breaking up the monopoly once and for all.
As I understand it (and I might have this wrong), historically a company loses its trademark if it becomes a common household term. Hoover fell foul of this when people started calling vacuum cleaners ‘hoovers’, and lost huge value in their product..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
For years people have been saying “google it” rather than “search for it”. Surely this is grounds for google to lose their trademark and open the marketing arena up to fair competition again? To address the inequality, competitors should be able to operate under a ‘google’ banner with competing systems. To be fair they offer a very good quality product, but they do owe their favoured position to good fortune over anything else. The current and potential influence they wield – culturally, politically and economically – is very evil should not be tolerated.
Just for fun, I just ran a search for “global warming”. Isn’t it interesting that the NUMBER 1 science blog and global warming site, Wattsupwiththat, doesn’t show up until PAGE 11. And jonova.com didn’t even show up in 20 pages.
So people who actually want to learn about global warming must go through 10, google-approved, pro-globalwarming pages before they can start seeing anything that refutes the New Religion.
“So people who actually want to learn about global warming must go through 10, google-approved, pro-globalwarming pages before they can start seeing anything that refutes the New Religion.”
Only if they’re not savvy enough to restrict the search. Try “global warming scam”
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-stunning-statistical-fraud-behind-the-global-warming-scare/
Or “global warming scare”
https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/the-nazi-roots-of-the-global-warming-scare/
Or “global warming swindle”
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/great-global-warming-swindle/
Or “global warming hoax”
If you expect Google to read what passes for your mind, you get precisely what you ask for. Please. Stop. Moaning. Or search on “most viewed climate”. Despite all the protestations, this gets me to WUWT. Handy for when senility makes me forget I made a bookmark. Unless I also forget “most viewed climate”. Oh noes! Won’t somebody please make Google do my thinking for me?
Monopolies (and duopolies) are determined by market share and the ability to set pricing. They have nothing to do the quality of product or the number of competitors. For example Microsoft dominated the PC market with crappy Windows versions, when the Mac OS was far superior. And yes I can buy a Windows phone if I want, but that doesn’t change the fact that Android and iPhones have duopolies. Barriers of entry are also factors to consider.
Saying all algorithms are biased as an excuse is true but meaningless. Racists are biased, but all humans are biased, so I guess it’s okay? The issue isn’t whether Google is biased it’s how they are biased.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (which is owned by Google) have been exposed to have censored centrist, conservative and libertarian content through the use of shadow banning, demonetization and deplatforming. The Google engineer who fired for writing the non-PC memo gives great insight into the Google corporate culture, not just at the executive level, but throughout the entire organization.
Kip, you have yet to address the philosophical issue of what advantage does a random return of results provide in the way of benefit? Any system of ranking is by definition based on opinion and all opinion is subjective. The only alternative is a random listing. Your chosen string “climate change” results in 597,000,000 hits using Google. That would mean finding WUWT in a randomised list far more difficult than with Google’s technology. Who has the time to scroll through 597,000 hits for a 1% chance of finding what you want them to find?
“Kip, you have yet to address the philosophical issue of what advantage does a random return of results provide in the way of benefit? ”
Where did Kip ever suggest this?
When you have to rely on straw man arguments, Git, your position is weak and pathetic.
“Where did Kip ever suggest this?”
He didn’t, nor do I say he did. Kip objects to opinion (by definition subjective) being used to rank searches using vague terms. The alternative to this is a random listing. If there’s a third way I haven’t thought of, please enlighten me. “Objective opinion” is self-contradictory. This appears to be a clear instance of the Law of the Excluded Middle.
No, Kip and I object to political beliefs injected into a “Do no evil” business model that pretends to be fair and objective.
You appear to be conflating Google’s business model with how Google’s search engine works. Why don’t you deal with the issue of how you’re going to remove subjectivity without destroying utility?
The straw man here BTW is Kip’s choice of search terms. I suppose there are people who search on “climate change” and expect Google to read their minds… I also don’t think “authoritative” means what you appear to assume it does. Using the example I used earlier, when Jerry Pournelle linked to my blog, it “surfaced” (to use Googlespeak) my blog. That’s because Jerry’s website had a higher PageRank than mine and, importantly, was relevant. Jerry in turn gained authority from his Chaos Manor column in Byte magazine.
I can’t recall Page and Brin saying their engine was “fair and objective”, but I can recall them describing it as “democratic” because users of the engine generated “surface” when they clicked on search results. That is, Google turned web-searching into a popularity contest.
There’s a legitimate concern that popularity contests are not necessarily fair and objective, especially to minorities. But this one does maximise income from ad-flinging. If you decide from your ivory tower that the hoi poloi don’t really know what’s good for them, then you appear to be advocating some method of giving the unpopular a leg-up.
The usual reason for this is advocacy of wresting control from the successful business-owner and transferring that to the government. As a libertarian I find that far more disturbing than innuendo that Google is fiddling with their property and should be prevented from doing so.
Kip,
“I refer all those with this misapprehension to review the findings of TWO recent European Union lawsuits which have resulted in Google being fined a total of 7.8 Billion Dollars for anti-competitive business practices, both suits revolving around Google Search.”
They were not lawsuits, but administrative decisions, and the process is not yet complete, both being appealed. And if you say the EU would not agree with me, I can trump that:
“I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google. They truly have taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!”
Nick ==> I wouldn’t have pegged you as a Trump booster.
If you had read the background material, you would have discovered that the EU actions were based on suits brought by the Raff’s among others….
“the EU actions were based on suits brought by the Raff’s among others…”
Now that’s a real boost to your credibility! [/sarc]
Kip,
I’m pegging Trump as a Google booster. I’m not a booster myself – just a mostly satisfied user.
There were no lawsuits by the Raff’s either – just a complaint to the EU (won’t work after Brexit). All the action was within the EU bureaucracy.
And I thought the EU was “Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, incompetent, corrupt and leading Europe on a white-knuckle ride into economic oblivion” or something. This place sure has changed a lot while I was away!
In the US, these types of actions are often {probably incorrectly] as “anti-trust suits” … they are called, by the FTC, “anti-trust cases“.
Regardless of the quibbles about language, English is only one of three procedural languages of the EU, the EU found 7.8 billion dollars worth of anti-competitive behaviors….in any normal world, that’s a lot of anti-competitiveness.
Of course, you may think that I am part of a cabal, a secret society, a deep conspiracy — in league with the bureaucrats of the EU — to make up “fake news” to smear poor totally innocent Google…..whose only crime to to make a better product.
You might take time out for a reality check.
You are entitled to your own opinion, wrong as it may be, but for the rest of the world, the reality about Google and monopolistic/anti-competitive behaviors is very well established — so far, 7.8 billion dollars worth.
Holy Batfish Catman!
In the US, these types of actions are often {probably incorrectly] as “anti-trust suits” … they are called, by the FTC, “anti-trust cases“.
It’s interesting to note the FTC finding on Google’s purported anti-competitive behaviour:
Regardless of the quibbles about language, English is only one of three procedural languages of the EU, the EU found 7.8 billion dollars worth of anti-competitive behaviors….in any normal world, that’s a lot of anti-competitiveness.
While the FTC is required to find evidence of actual damage, the EU Commission is under no such obligation. The Commission is only required to show the potential to cause damage. Imagine if you will that this principle extended to criminal law. You could be charged with “murder”, found guilty and executed, or imprisoned for life even while the “victim” is still alive.
Of course, you may think that I am part of a cabal, a secret society, a deep conspiracy — in league with the bureaucrats of the EU — to make up “fake news” to smear poor totally innocent Google…..whose only crime to to make a better product.
Before making allegations such as this you should follow Willis’s excellent advice, “Please quote my words”. All of the above is entirely inside your imagination. What I, Nick and several others contend is that despite seeking your guidance in finding evidence of bias in search results, you have provided no such evidence. You have dragged in considerable amounts of “whataboutism”.
You might take time out for a reality check.
Back at you.
You are entitled to your own opinion, wrong as it may be, but for the rest of the world, the reality about Google and monopolistic/anti-competitive behaviors is very well established — so far, 7.8 billion dollars worth.
As far as I’m aware, the USA is part of “the rest of the world”, but then again it’s only my opinion. I gave the FTC’s decision above. You are also arguing by Appeal to Authority, a logical fallacy. Then there’s the credibility of the authority you appeal to: the EU Commission. Here are some of their decisions:
It became illegal to eat “pet” horses when investigation revealed that two million pet horses are eaten in the EU each year. Apparently it’s OK to eat your neighbour’s horse, but not your own.
All bananas must now be “free of abnormal curvature”. Under the rules, cucumbers must be “practically straight” and bent by a gradient of no more than 1/10. Great if you like Lady Finger (very sweet), but not so great if like my wife, you prefer Cavendish (not so sweet and bent).
It’s illegal to label bottles of drinking water suggesting consumption will fight dehydration. If water doesn’t prevent dehydration, what does?
After a “thorough investigation”, the EU ruled: “The evidence provided is insufficient to establish a cause and effect relationship between the consumption of dried plums of ‘prune’ cultivars and ‘maintenance of normal bowel function'”. IOW they claim there is no laxative effect when you consume them. Really? Maybe they determined that EU Commision’s decisions are enough to give you the sh!ts.
Britain’s favourite sauce, HP, is now made in Holland and so must comply with EU rules. The EU rules required the recipe be changed, dramatically reducing sales. The offending ingredient was sugar. The majority of consumers say the flavour is now “off”.
Git ==> Did you read any of the background material — or are you just searching for things that support your own view?
The Google.gov article is about the revolving-door of Google employees into the Obama administration and the close relationship between Obama himself and Google execs. It does not surprise me that FTC despite its own findings, ruled them not actionable.
The EU, though, was not so swayed.
Did you read any of the background material — or are you just searching for things that support your own view?
I certainly read what you linked to, but remain unimpressed. I tested your assertions and found them wanting, have said so and why. You have remained almost entirely silent on such things as how you would remedy the supposed misconduct by Google, or objectively order search results without randomising them. You also appear to approve the massive transfer of wealth from the US to the EU where it can be put to such useful purposes as propping up the economic basket case called Spain. I note that several times during his time as POTUS that Obama believed the US should become more like Spain. See:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/09/obama_green_jobs_con_job_and_the_ill_wind_that_blows_from_spain.html
Instead of arm waving and name calling, why don’t you address the issues I raise directly?
Git ==> I am not here to answer your questions….what ever makes you think that authors here (or anywhere) are obliged to answer your random-seeming questions?
This is not an essay on the remedy for Google’s self-admitted malfeasance . Your imagination really runs wild with “You also appear to approve the massive transfer of wealth from the US to the EU”. I simply report on the EU action that fines Google 7.8 billion dollars as support for the idea that Google is engaging in anti-competitive action.
I certainly have no opinion about Spain, Obama, and your ideas about how Obama wanted the US to become like Spain.
I’m sure that some here would love to read your thoughts on the questions you raise — maybe you should write them up as a comprehensive essay. There is a SUBMIT STORY page.
I am not here to answer your questions….what ever makes you think that authors here (or anywhere) are obliged to answer your random-seeming questions?
Nowhere have I said you are under an obligation to answer my questions that are decidedly not random.
This is not an essay on the remedy for Google’s self-admitted malfeasance.
It certainly isn’t. But it does claim that websites sceptical of CAGW are being demoted in Google searches and proCAGW websites are being promoted. Your “evidence” that Google is doing so is that the EU Commissioner has fined Google 7.8 billion dollars. Not for what you allege, not for causing actual damage to its rivals Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo etc, but for having the capacity to do so.
If you are going to moan about how Google manages its searches, you really ought to give some thought to how you are going to establish that they are causing harm and what might be done to remedy the situation if you want to justify your assertions. Clearly you feel no need to do so and that is, as you say, your prerogative. I’m fine with that.
Further you allege that Google has admitted malfeasance without showing that they did. In the anti-trust case between Google and the FTC Google was warned the company was sailing a bit close to the wind and if they wanted to avoid prosecution in the future, they would have to make certain changes to their business practices. To the best of my knowledge, Google has made those changes, or the FTC is being lax in its threats.
I refer once more to the following analysis of the issue:
Can Google Legally Manipulate Search Engine Results?
Tansy Woan J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2013; M.A., Binghamton University, 2011; B.A., Binghamton University, 2009. The author, an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1463&context=jbl
If Anthony wants an op ed from me to promote discussion in a separate thread, I’m sure he will contact me. I’ve done the research and written most of what’s needed albeit piecemeal. I can’t guarantee staying alive long enough to finish such a project, but that’s life innit?
Git ==> Of course Google can legally manipulate search results to their hearts content — it is their product. If you have thought that was the issue here — you have misunderstood.
The issue is whether or not Google’s doing so (it is their claim that they are doing it, btw, I am just looking for evidence of the result) is a breach of public trust and their own publicly stated values and standards.
I wouldn’t worry, Anthony is unlikely to solicit an op ed from you, rest easy. Anthony has never solicited one from me, either. [That’s not how this blog works….]
Of course Google can legally manipulate search results to their hearts content — it is their product. If you have thought that was the issue here — you have misunderstood.
Perhaps I did misunderstand. How would you interpret the following quote from the top of this page? Under the assumption that both statements are by you, which one am I to accept?
[emphasis mine]
The issue is whether or not Google’s doing so (it is their claim that they are doing it, btw, I am just looking for evidence of the result) is a breach of public trust and their own publicly stated values and standards.
Of course they admitted it! They admitted they have downgraded stormwatch and similar hate sites. They admitted they have removed porn from the simple search “black girls” and others. They have done so in response to vocal public demand when the algorithms used alone respond to actual demand for access to those sites. It’s certainly not what I would call “a breach of trust”, or “Being Evil”.
I’m not at all worried that Anthony will solicit an op ed from me. It would be a privilege to be able to do something for him when he has provided me with so much excellent food for thought.
“You are entitled to your own opinion, wrong as it may be, but for the rest of the world, the reality about Google…”
Again, sounds like Yogi Berra – no one eats there because it is too crowded. The rest of the world is using Google in preference to the alternatives.
Nick ==> You willy-nilly assign “cause” based on assumption — without data.
We already know Google Search has the lion’s share of the market. I have supplied far more than enough background material to support the idea that Google has been engaging in anti-competitive behaviors — much of which had the effect of boosting Google Search’s market share.
Simply repeating “No it ain’t!” does not make for a conversation.
We already know Google Search has the lion’s share of the market. I have supplied far more than enough background material to support the idea that Google has been engaging in anti-competitive behaviors — much of which had the effect of boosting Google Search’s market share.
You have most certainly not! First you need to show that a market exists. In a market goods and services are offered for sale. Access to search engines is not sold. Use of Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo etc is completely free.
One of the purposes of the Sherman Act was to prevent monopolies from stifling competition and consequently driving up prices. You cannot, by definition, drive up the price of a product that everyone can have for free. It’s widely agreed that monopolies hurt innovation. Where there is only one seller of a product, that seller has little incentive to innovate or to improve the product because the seller does not have to worry about a competing product. So how does this occur when none of the search providers charge for their services?
The number one reason for Google’s success in Internet search is because they have innovated when their competitors were not. There is no evidence that Google has acted to stifle innovation; rather the reverse. Google regularly improves its search engine in order to remain competitive.
If the government intervenes in Google’s decision-making, it’s more likely to stifle innovation as the added burden of seeking approval for changes might make innovation no longer worthwhile. There would also be the possibility that the government might decide that yes, Google’s proposed change to its search engine is effective it will increase Google’s market share, so therefore this new benefit for the consumer cannot be allowed.
PG “One of the purposes of the Sherman Act was to prevent monopolies from stifling competition and consequently driving up prices. You cannot, by definition, drive up the price of a product that everyone can have for free. ”
I am lawyer, but not an antitrust lawyer. I know of no case or statute that states what you claim. Can you give a citation for the proposition that “free” [I would state that Google is not free. It takes my time and my privacy and uses them to profit) products are not subject to antitrust laws? Wikipedia stated: “One view, mostly closely associated with the “Chicago School of economics” suggests that antitrust laws should focus solely on the benefits to consumers and overall efficiency, while a broad range of legal and economic theory sees the role of antitrust laws as also controlling economic power in the public interest.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Monopolization
JD, I am not a lawyer, but have been responsible for the implementation of law and government legislation where I live. What I am doing here therefore is relying on published legal opinion from the US.
The Northern District of California rejected KinderStart’s “Search Market” theory failed as a “relevant market” because Google, like most other search engines, provides its search services free of cost, and US antitrust law does not concern itself with “competition in the provision of free services.” Thus, the court held that “the Search Market [was] not a ‘[relevant] market’ for purposes of antitrust law.”
See KinderStart.com LLC v. Google, Inc. (KinderStart II), No. C 06-2057 JF (RS), slip op. at 8 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 16, 2007).
The Sherman Act does not address competition in the provision of free services because it never occurred to its framers to do so. They believed, as do I, that a market only exists where goods and, or services are exchanged for money.
Please note that I have not stated that “Google is free”, rather the opposite. I have stated that Google does not charge the user of its search engine rather Google “monetises” the users of its web search engine by targeted advertising (ad-flinging).
Hope that helps.
PG: The First Sentence of the Court Opinion you cite states: “This disposition is not designated for publication and may not be cited.” What this means is that the judge’s decision is designed to resolve the case before him or her and was not designed to be a statement of law to be followed by other courts or other parties. So, it is very weak authority.
Under Obama, the FTC investigated Google and its staff found that “Google has unlawfully maintained its monopoly over general search and search advertising in violation of Sec. 2, or otherwise engaged in unfair methods of competition in violation of Sec. 5” See p. 116 here http://graphics.wsj.com/ftc-google-report/ So, by strong implication the staff was rejecting your argument. Of course, Google execs were strong supporters of Obama, and undoubtedly that played a significant role in the FTC rejecting its staff’s report. In any event, the FTC staff had no problem finding that Google was regulated by antitrust law.
As I said, I am not an expert in antitrust law, but I see no reason that a commercial enterprise as powerful as Google should not be regulated by antitrust law. To me (not fully researched–first impression), I believe there is a commercial exchange between Google and its users and that is enough to implicate antitrust law. The fact that those who use Google’s search engine do not pay Google money, in my mind, shouldn’t matter because Google receives valuable commercial consideration from its users.
JD
Thanks for the response JD. As I said, I am not a lawyer, nor am I hugely familiar with US law to the extent of knowing the somewhat narrower meaning of US technical terms. When I used the word “published” I used it in its wider sense of “made generally known; publicly announced or declared; officially promulgated or proclaimed; of a book, etc., issued or offered to the public”. My bad. I was aware that it wasn’t a judicial opinion, nor did I say it was.
I have over the last few days read a number of published (in its wider sense) opinions of legal practitioners in the US about various aspects of the Google case and note that there is a number of theories indicating that until the Supreme Court makes a determination debate will continue.
It’s important to note that I have also not suggested that Google should be immune from anti-trust law; far from it. Making sense of this does, in my opinion, require distinguishing between different aspects of Google’s business. Google’s revenue comes from its ad-flinging and clearly this is a market and so should be subject to Sherman and any other relevant anti-trust legislation.
Google’s search engine needs, again in my opinion, to be evaluated on different grounds. It seems to me (and some US legal professionals) that Google search findings should be treated as a list of opinions from which searcher chooses. I take opinion here to mean “what one thinks or how one thinks about something; judgement resting on grounds insufficient for complete demonstration; belief of something as probable, or as seeming to one’s own mind to be true, though not certain or established.”
Kip and others are taking a search engine results page to be a statement of fact, rather than opinion where I use fact in the sense of “truth attested by direct observation or authentic testimony”.
Now a fact can be true or false. If the truth value of a statement is incapable of being evaluated , then by definition it’s not a fact. Clearly opinions do not have a truth value though they may be assigned a probability of being true, such a probability of course being less than one.
If we use the example of asking Google’s opinion regarding the “best digital SLR” to purchase, I find seven in the box at the head of the page: five Nikons and two Canons. Now it might be the case that I consider the Hasselblad HV DSLR to be better than what Google suggests. Am I to berate Google for not knowing that? Should I be able to take legal action against Google for “misinforming” me?
I’m afraid Kip has opened a can of worms and is objecting to finding worms in the can.
Again, thanks for your assistance in enabling me to clarify my thoughts.
PG ” My bad. I was aware that it wasn’t a judicial opinion, nor did I say it was.”
It is a judicial opinion, but the judge is saying that he or she doesn’t want it to have precedential value. Legal publishing history will explain it. 30 years ago, opinions weren’t published electronically and were published in bound volumes. In Ohio, appellate courts would designate cases that they considered to be worthy of precedential value for publication in the bound volumes. Trial judges in the appropriate appellate districts were bound to follow these decisions. The remaining (approximately 90%) unpublished opinions were part of the public record in the county where decided but were difficult to access. These were not legally given precedential value.
It seems that the federal judge is using the same procedure that was used in Ohio 30 years ago. He or she thought that the case could be decided without extensively researching all of the issues, and the Court decided that it did not want its case cited or used as precedent.
Will add that I consider Google to be extremely arrogant and that I switched to the Bing search engine about 4 years ago. At that time, Google (over the objections of 99% of the users who commented) changed its compose feature on gmail in ways to make gmail more like texting and extremely clunky. One of the stupid things that Google did was make it impossible to change the subject line when you replied. Eventually, over time Google moderated its extreme changes, but the arrogance was more than I could take and whenever possible, I avoid Google products. For comments on gmail compose and Google arrogance see: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/10vlXAH5jKo/VxDqVCO2HtEJ
Divided by a common language we are and the difficulty of being a non-specialist in the field.
Its not only Google that are arrogant. I have only recently been forced to use GMail and that fortunately only briefly. Along with a few million other users, my Yahoo! credentials were “stolen” and Yahoo! now claim I don’t know my grandfather’s name, or the name of the primary school I attended. I know there are other “free” email services, but I’ve had my GMail account as a backup almost from when it started.
Nearly all my email is to my own domain and I have had several providers over the last two decades. Currently I use FastMail mainly because their web and mobile phone interfaces are superb and they are affordable. Unfortunately, my domain registrar recently claimed I’d forgotten my password (untrue) when renewal of my domain came due. FastMail’s spam filter prevented the email to allow me to change my password to be passed on to me. The domain registrar refused to accept my GMail address for contact purposes. FastMail support was execrable even though one of the higher-ups babysat my son when he was in primary school.
I eventually sorted the problem, but it took several weeks and consumed huge amounts of time, a valuable commodity when you’re my age.
I use Google search a lot; Google Scholar almost as much as the general search engine. Both serve my purposes extraordinarily well which is why I decided to devote so much effort into ascertaining the veracity of Kip’s claim that Google was fiddling the results. A friend who does SEO says that most other useful search engines use Google (they call it peeking) so any fiddling would presumably flow through to the others.
Addendum to the above
JD, you quoted wikipedia: “One view, mostly closely associated with the “Chicago School of economics” suggests that antitrust laws should focus solely on the benefits to consumers and overall efficiency, while a broad range of legal and economic theory sees the role of antitrust laws as also controlling economic power in the public interest.”
Back in the 1960s I read a lot of political philosophy and an essay on US anti-trust impressed me greatly. It might have been by Alan Greenspan. Back in the 1930s General Electric (IIRC) had been found guilty of colluding with its rivals to keep prices higher than they could be. GE’s response was to wipe out its competition by lowering prices below what could sustain them economically.
A more recent example of anti-trust invoking the Law of Unintended Consequences was when Microsoft sold Windows 95 without their web browser Internet Explorer as they had been ordered to in their settlement of their anti-trust case. There were howls of protest because MS were selling Internet Explorer as part of the Plus Pack for Windows 95 and that was “gouging” when their rivals were giving away web browsers. Technically you were supposed to pay for Netscape, but I don’t imagine any more users paid for it than paid for Peter Tattam’s Trumpet winsock that was needed to access the Internet on Win3.x.
Of course the ultimate examples of government interference are places like North Korea. Not the kind of place I’d like to live.
A few detractors point out, and rely on in their attacks, that when they run a Google Search on the same search string (like: “climate change”) they get a different result than I noted. This line of attack falls through the “not the same thing at the same time” trap-door. Google’s algorithm is very complex and will not return exactly the same results even on self-repeated same-string searches over the period of a day — headlines change, lead article titles change and your personal relationship with Google changes the results in minor ways.
Actually, the “line of attack,” (which isn’t really an “attack” at all, Kip, it’s just a criticism and an objectively verifiable contradiction of your argument. Aren’t you guilty of ad hominem nonsense here?) is a valid criticism of what appears to be an ill-informed line of reasoning on your part (in my opinion).
If Google were conspiring to produce a certain result for a specific search, then Google would “return exactly the same results” every time. But given you’ve admitted above that “Google’s algorithm is very complex and will not return exactly the same results even on self-repeated same-string searches over the period of a day,” then it would appear you’ve contradicted your own assumptions.
If Google’s search won’t return the same results even on a self-repeated same-string search over the same day, then you haven’t a clue exactly what results will be returned on that same-string search for any given user. The best you can do is search for yourself, which confirms only that whatever is returned to you is returned for your specific instantiation of Google search. Such says nothing about what is returned for another user’s search using same search string.
Thank you, however, for your work looking into this.
Aren’t you [Kip] guilty of ad hominem nonsense here?
No he’s not. An ad hom is responding to someone’s argument by attacking them. Kip is here stating the bleeding obvious after I have pointed out much the same. So yes, he contradicts himself. I’ve tried rather hard to substantiate Kip’s claims with no success. WUWT’s apparent “burial” is easily explained without needing a Google conspiracy. The claimed beneficiaries of Google’s supposed redistribution, don’t even appear on my horizon.
Kip Hansen said:
“I refer all those with this misapprehension to review the findings of TWO recent European Union lawsuits which have resulted in Google being fined a total of 7.8 Billion Dollars for anti-competitive business practices, both suits revolving around Google Search. That does not sound like the EU would agree with Stokes.”
You don’t have to have a monopoly to engage in anti-competitive business practices. You can certainly make arguments for something being a monopoly, but simply pointing out that someone is prosecuting someone for anti-competitive business practices isn’t actually making an argument.
“My examples are only to point out the deleterious effects of this action.”
But other examples don’t point to google favoring the site you think should be ranked highest? If there is a hand on the scales, then why doesn’t it always push on the same side of the scales?
If there is a hand on the scales, then why doesn’t it always push on the same side of the scales?
It’s almost impossible to say whether it does, or doesn’t in most cases. In any event, it doesn’t really matter.
The first hand is PageRank which works based on a selection of authoritative websites transferring their authority downward. There’s a list of PageRank 10 websites here:
https://www.searchenginegenie.com/pagerank-10-sites.htm
Note that Yahoo! uses a similar system; so similar the same websites rank at the top on Yahoo! Changes at this level are minor and not very frequent. Same hand on the same side of the scale, but different scales. WUWT’s PageRank is 7, Australia’s largest retailer Coles is 6.
As well as PageRank, there are the “invisible” code tweaks that Google obviously apply. It’s no secret that stormwatch’s placement plummeted not so very long ago. Quite clearly there was a shift of hand on the scales. Doubtless there are many other changes under the hood that we won’t notice.
There are three important things here though. Kip is objecting to the fact that it’s Google’s hand on the scales. As it happens, this is Google’s right under the US constitution and this has been ruled upon by the FTC. Now it is possible to remove Google’s hand from the scales by transferring control of the scales to some other entity such as the government. That is abrogate Google’s First Amendment rights. How this can be done for one individual I have no idea. Removing everyone’s is likely to encounter some stiff opposition. Presumably this government entity would be just as “unbiased” as the Environmental Protection Agency.
The other important point is that there’s another hand on the scale: that of the user of Google. Results of a search are far more dependent on user input, through both the user’s choice of search terms and Google’s observations of users’ search behaviour. I think I have elsewhere in this thread amply demonstrated that this is more than sufficient to overcome any perceived bias from Google’s hand.
Lastly, using Google is not mandatory. We are all free to use the search engine of our own choice. We are even free to go to the public library and do our research via publications on paper and not use the Internet at all.
During the Vietnam War, the US won the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam had shot it’s last wad. But the MSM (at that time only 3 networks) covered it as if we had lost. If they had covered Bataan or Normandy in the same way, the West coast would be speaking Japanese and the East coast German. (Forgive my exaggeration but you get my point. The US would have quit.)
Freedom of the Press.
Today it mostly lives on the internet.
If the Big Boys in the search engine business are deciding (hard coding) rankings based on the coders’ opinions (or the coders’ boss’s) about the trustworthiness of a site’s content, we have a problem.
Gunga ==> At last, someone addressing one of the important issues. Thank you.
You deserve the “Thanks” for pointing it out.
I’m just an old “layman” who doesn’t like being sold a bill of goods.
(This was, I think, the 2nd of a 5 part series? Don’t be discouraged by the comments thus far. This is a site of skeptics, after all. 8- )
PS I just saw your “Epilogue”. My previous and this comment were made before I read it. (possible due to the “Edit” window.)
“During the Vietnam War, the US won the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam had shot it’s last wad. But the MSM (at that time only 3 networks) covered it as if we had lost.”
I remember reading the newspaper accounts of the Tet Offensive, while it was happening (I was stationed in Germany at the time), and the U.S. was portrayed as losing badly. Which I found very hard to believe.
I arrived in South Vietnam a few months after the Tet Offensive had ended, and the situation I found was completely different than what had been reported. U.S. and South Vietnamese troops had defeated the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong guerrilla attackers, to the point the Viet Cong were no longer an effective fighting force for the rest of the war.
I guess the Viet Cong must have been reading American newspapers and thought they were winning the war and when the Tet Offensive commenced, the Viet Cong, who had been doing their dirty work while hiding among the South Vietnamese population for decades, decided the Tet Offensive was the time to show their faces and they did, and were promptly wiped out by American and ARVN forces as a result. The Cong shouldn’t believe everything they read in American newspapers, especially if the subject is war.
My trip to South Vietnam was my first wakeup call to the fact that the MSM had a political bias, and that political bias had realworld consequences.
I never trusted the MSM after that. And I haven’t changed my mind about them even after all this time. If anything, they are much more biased and politically partisan now than even back then. The one saving grace is Fox News Channel when it came along in 1996. Before that, the Leftwing MSM had a monopoly on the “truth”.
The Leftwing MSM is in the business of creating false, leftwing realities. False realities that are harmful to the United States. Don’t be fooled. Assume they are biased until proven otherwise. Don’t accept what they say at face value because much of it is filtered through leftwing goggles.
First off, Thanks you for your service.
Second off, Will Rogers was known to say, “All I know is what I read in the papers.”
Third off, One of his kid’s commented on that quote, “Yes, but he never said he believed them.”
(PS That last is from memory. Might not be exact.)
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.
….
I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”
– Thomas Jefferson In a letter to John Norvell, Dated June 11, 1807
You mean the man-made ‘laws’ of political science, rather than the absolute laws of physical science, control our understanding of life on this planet? – an astounding, although inexplicably delayed, discovery. Two thumbs up for Dr. Tim Ball et al, who have persevered.
NY Times: Latest Google News
Hi Kip,
I am puzzled (unless Google and Bing are intentionally ignoring the posts) why several posts I have made at Lucia’s Blackboard don’t come up on the search engines. For instance, I did this post at the Blackboard. http://rankexploits.com/musings/2016/does-hillary-clinton-have-serious-health-problems-a-real-question-not-an-accusation/#comments
I used the exact words in the title and nothing came up on Bing or Google. I also used this phrase: “is Hillary Clinton seriously ill lucia’s blackboard”
Would be interested in your analysis.
JD
JD, I tried several variants of your search terms before cottoning on to the fact that pages at Lucia’s Blackboard never appear in the results. References to Lucia’s Blackboard appear in pages at Climate Audit, and Climate Etc., so it looks like Lucia’s Blackboard isn’t being indexed. Does Lucia ‘s html include <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX? on posts there? She might not want the additional traffic that high visibility brings. It costs. When I was blogging, I used to dread the possibility that I'd be "discovered" by slashdot and then be given a humungous bill by my web service provider. OTOH I used to love being the world's Pompousest Git according to Google.
Thanks very much for your input. I will ask Lucia about it. When I get an answer, I will come here and post.
JD
Found some more time than I thought JD. Looking at Lucia’s html, I find:
meta name=”keywords” content=”” /
Normally, you will find a number of words between the quotes. On my home page: art, culture, writing, photography, photographer, organic, garden, computer, house, architect, farm, journal, diary, blog, weblog, australia, home, steel, computer, lifestyle, philosophy, owner, builder, thinking, huon, franklin, tasmania,
That’s overkill; when I created it, I was obviously oblivious to the fact that only the first 20 words count for anything. Lucia has no words which means she doesn’t want to be indexed. It would appear that both Bing and Google are respecting Lucia’s wishes. This may not be true of other search engines because there’s no way to ensure the meta tag is respected by a web crawler.
You may notice that Lucia has no search box. For some reason, she strongly resists searchability, archiving – she doesn’t even have an archive of past months. And she has been able to ensure that Google doesn’t intrude.
Read the statement bottom right on her blog.
If users expect, and are lead to believe, that Google search results are unbiased, then is Google perpetrating FRAUD?
Bob ==> Google has violated the trust of its supporters, those who elevated it to its current prominence (along with a great deal of anti-competitive business practices on its own..see EU rulings.
Definitely not possible. There is only one way of presenting an unbiased search result and that is as a randomised list. Google are reasonably open about how their listings are ordered (biased). They are also open about how to bias the result according to your needs. Using Kip’s example of searching on “climate change”, this will give you a list ordered mainly by what’s popular. Page and Brin have called this democratic because it’s based on people’s actual clicking on search results. Adding a further search term will reorder the list based on that term and can completely overwhelm the supposed bias in a search on two terms.
Rather than reiterate what I have already written above, here’s an analysis by a legal expert:
Searching for an Answer: Can Google Legally Manipulate Search Engine Results?
Tansy Woan J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2013; M.A., Binghamton University, 2011; B.A., Binghamton University, 2009. The author, an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1463&context=jbl
Facts: identical searches 10-15 years apart give radically different results.
In 2018, 95%+ of all search results link to MSM drivel, as Google sells search engine rankings to the highest bidder.
2003-2008, the internet was a good education platform as links to independent, factual websites were frequent. Not any more.
If I know one thing it is that I know more than 98% of what MSM typists are allowed to upload.
Until 2015, I could still locate independent blogs via search engine.
I suspect that this is becoming harder by the day.
Google has reduced the internet from the greatest education tool ever invented to a glorified Yellow Pages. It achieved that stupendous act of vandalism in little over a decade.
And capitalism calls that adding value?!
Rhys ==> And minority views on important social, political and scientific controversies are buried under the masses of “Google-approved views” and harder and harder to find unless one knows where to look already.
This is a dangerous attack on free speech and freed flow of ideas.
Is it just me or I feel like I can’t trust Google every day more and more? I don’t know why. Maybe I’m a little too paranoid, but I have an urge to delete as much info as I can that Google, Facebook and other sites are keeping about me. I found a practical article, if someone is interested – check it out https://vpnpro.com/blog/what-does-google-know-about-me/