GOOGLE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
September 15 -- 2018
David Cicilline, a U.S. Rep. from Rhode Island, blasted Google with a tweet on Thursday that said the search giant shouldn’t be using its vast resources to enable authoritarianism in China.
Included with his tweet, which you can see below, is a copy of a letter that Rep. Cicilline joined a bipartisan group of congressmen in addressing to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Among other things, it says the lawmakers felt compelled to reach out to Google with a list of questions following the disclosure last month that Google is looking into making a version of its search engine available in China that would block some websites and search terms. “We have a responsibility,” they wrote, “to ensure that American companies are not perpetuating human rights abuses abroad.” Ouch.
In the letter, which includes several questions directed at Google’s chief executive, they ask if the company would “ensure that individual Chinese citizens or foreigners living in China, including Americans, will not be surveilled or targeted through Google applications.” The lawmakers also want to know what words or search terms Google would put controls in place to prevent users in China from being able to surface results for.
As we reported this afternoon, Google has already toyed around with a version of its search engine to pass Chinese muster that included blacklisting search terms like “human rights,” “student protest” and “Nobel Prize.”
David Cicilline, a U.S. Rep. from Rhode Island, blasted Google with a tweet on Thursday that said the search giant shouldn’t be using its vast resources to enable authoritarianism in China.
Included with his tweet, which you can see below, is a copy of a letter that Rep. Cicilline joined a bipartisan group of congressmen in addressing to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Among other things, it says the lawmakers felt compelled to reach out to Google with a list of questions following the disclosure last month that Google is looking into making a version of its search engine available in China that would block some websites and search terms. “We have a responsibility,” they wrote, “to ensure that American companies are not perpetuating human rights abuses abroad.” Ouch.
In the letter, which includes several questions directed at Google’s chief executive, they ask if the company would “ensure that individual Chinese citizens or foreigners living in China, including Americans, will not be surveilled or targeted through Google applications.” The lawmakers also want to know what words or search terms Google would put controls in place to prevent users in China from being able to surface results for.
As we reported this afternoon, Google has already toyed around with a version of its search engine to pass Chinese muster that included blacklisting search terms like “human rights,” “student protest” and “Nobel Prize.”
Google's radical agenda
Google recently agreed to forfeit $500 million to avoid prosecution for knowingly accepting illegal advertisements from online Canadian pharmacies. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Google knew that the pharmacies were promoting illegal importation of drugs, yet it continued to accept the ads and provide customer support to the advertisers.
However, this isn’t an isolated incident. Google has repeatedly been accused of violating privacy laws, facilitating copyright infringement and aiding online piracy. Google consistently demonstrates disregard for the rule of law — a disregard stemming from Google’s radical political beliefs.
Google’s radical ideology consists of five key ideas:
Information should be free:
Google and its political allies want to turn the Internet into an “information commons.” To that end, they seek to weaken copyright, trademark and patent protections. This “what’s yours is mine” philosophy is used by Google to monetize others’ information and content without paying for it. For example, Google allows its customers to use others’ trademarks as search advertising keywords.
Access to information should be unfettered:
Google aims to replace user privacy and data security with radical transparency and openness. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wants us to believe that omnipresent surveillance is simply a modern fact of life: “If you’re online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision.” What Schmidt doesn’t mention is that Google uses its free products and services to track and profile users. That’s why Google has earned the moniker “Big Brother Inc.”
Innovators don’t need permission:
Google believes that if you are developing innovative solutions, you shouldn’t require others’ permission to use their property or violate their privacy. Put another way, innovators provide a service to society and should be exempt from laws that get in their way. For example, Google appointed itself to scan and digitize the world’s books without first obtaining permission from copyright holders.
Everything that’s technically possible is allowable:
Google believes that if something is technically possible, it should be done, because inevitably it will be done. Therefore, the development and use of technology trumps all other values. This idea can be used to justify everything from tracking and profiling users against their wishes to cloning human beings.
Our information-based society should be run by engineers:
Google believes that technology is too sophisticated and complex to be managed by non-experts. Therefore, the Internet should be run by elite engineers (many of whom work at Google). This idea places Google above the laws, rules, norms and standards of accountability that apply to everyone else.
Google’s radical ideology poses a number of dangers. Google is the dominant provider of Internet search service, handling about 80% of Internet searches worldwide. Google has the power to determine what information gets found and what gets lost in the crowd. Google claims that its search engine is “unbiased” but has admitted to using human raters, regularly adjusting its search algorithm and placing its own content at or near the top of search results. If Google manipulated search results in subtle ways for political purposes, would we even know it?
As the world’s biggest data-mining operation, with more than one billion users, Google knows more about influencing people than anyone in history. That may explain why Google’s dominance of search advertising is even more pronounced than its dominance of search. With this knowledge, Google has acquired unprecedented power to sway public opinion — should it choose to do so.
In fact, Google’s leaders have repeatedly said that they are not in business to make money but to “change the world.” As they stated in their 2004 IPO letter, “We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place.” Eric Schmidt is even more emphatic: “The goal of the company is not to monetize anything … The goal is to change the world — and monetization is a technique to do that.”
As the Internet’s lone superpower (consuming more electricity than Salt Lake City), Google has the wherewithal to influence elections, trade favors with government agencies and meddle in international disputes. Eric Schmidt publicly boasted that Google is on track to develop “truth predictor” software to keep politicians honest. Google’s free Political Campaign Toolkit promises to help candidates win elections. It all sounds non-partisan until you consider the evidence to the contrary. For example, Google removed Republican Senator Susan Collins’s AdWords ads countering television ads by Moveon.org based on a company policy that (as Brit Hume showed) Google only selectively enforces.
Google wants to change the world by destroying privacy, abolishing property rights and putting its engineers in charge of the Internet. With that attitude, it’s no surprise that Google felt justified hosting advertisements by pharmacies promoting the illegal importation of drugs. As the dominant provider of search and search advertising services, armed with its radical ideology, Google could cause far worse damage. It’s up to the rest of us to make Google obey the law, respect the rights of others and be more accountable.
Ira Brodsky
Author, "The History & Future of Medical Technology"
Google recently agreed to forfeit $500 million to avoid prosecution for knowingly accepting illegal advertisements from online Canadian pharmacies. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Google knew that the pharmacies were promoting illegal importation of drugs, yet it continued to accept the ads and provide customer support to the advertisers.
However, this isn’t an isolated incident. Google has repeatedly been accused of violating privacy laws, facilitating copyright infringement and aiding online piracy. Google consistently demonstrates disregard for the rule of law — a disregard stemming from Google’s radical political beliefs.
Google’s radical ideology consists of five key ideas:
Information should be free:
Google and its political allies want to turn the Internet into an “information commons.” To that end, they seek to weaken copyright, trademark and patent protections. This “what’s yours is mine” philosophy is used by Google to monetize others’ information and content without paying for it. For example, Google allows its customers to use others’ trademarks as search advertising keywords.
Access to information should be unfettered:
Google aims to replace user privacy and data security with radical transparency and openness. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wants us to believe that omnipresent surveillance is simply a modern fact of life: “If you’re online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision.” What Schmidt doesn’t mention is that Google uses its free products and services to track and profile users. That’s why Google has earned the moniker “Big Brother Inc.”
Innovators don’t need permission:
Google believes that if you are developing innovative solutions, you shouldn’t require others’ permission to use their property or violate their privacy. Put another way, innovators provide a service to society and should be exempt from laws that get in their way. For example, Google appointed itself to scan and digitize the world’s books without first obtaining permission from copyright holders.
Everything that’s technically possible is allowable:
Google believes that if something is technically possible, it should be done, because inevitably it will be done. Therefore, the development and use of technology trumps all other values. This idea can be used to justify everything from tracking and profiling users against their wishes to cloning human beings.
Our information-based society should be run by engineers:
Google believes that technology is too sophisticated and complex to be managed by non-experts. Therefore, the Internet should be run by elite engineers (many of whom work at Google). This idea places Google above the laws, rules, norms and standards of accountability that apply to everyone else.
Google’s radical ideology poses a number of dangers. Google is the dominant provider of Internet search service, handling about 80% of Internet searches worldwide. Google has the power to determine what information gets found and what gets lost in the crowd. Google claims that its search engine is “unbiased” but has admitted to using human raters, regularly adjusting its search algorithm and placing its own content at or near the top of search results. If Google manipulated search results in subtle ways for political purposes, would we even know it?
As the world’s biggest data-mining operation, with more than one billion users, Google knows more about influencing people than anyone in history. That may explain why Google’s dominance of search advertising is even more pronounced than its dominance of search. With this knowledge, Google has acquired unprecedented power to sway public opinion — should it choose to do so.
In fact, Google’s leaders have repeatedly said that they are not in business to make money but to “change the world.” As they stated in their 2004 IPO letter, “We aspire to make Google an institution that makes the world a better place.” Eric Schmidt is even more emphatic: “The goal of the company is not to monetize anything … The goal is to change the world — and monetization is a technique to do that.”
As the Internet’s lone superpower (consuming more electricity than Salt Lake City), Google has the wherewithal to influence elections, trade favors with government agencies and meddle in international disputes. Eric Schmidt publicly boasted that Google is on track to develop “truth predictor” software to keep politicians honest. Google’s free Political Campaign Toolkit promises to help candidates win elections. It all sounds non-partisan until you consider the evidence to the contrary. For example, Google removed Republican Senator Susan Collins’s AdWords ads countering television ads by Moveon.org based on a company policy that (as Brit Hume showed) Google only selectively enforces.
Google wants to change the world by destroying privacy, abolishing property rights and putting its engineers in charge of the Internet. With that attitude, it’s no surprise that Google felt justified hosting advertisements by pharmacies promoting the illegal importation of drugs. As the dominant provider of search and search advertising services, armed with its radical ideology, Google could cause far worse damage. It’s up to the rest of us to make Google obey the law, respect the rights of others and be more accountable.
Ira Brodsky
Author, "The History & Future of Medical Technology"
IS GOOGLE PLAY SAFE FOR CHILDREN?
Apps available for download in Google’s Play Store marketplace frequently expose kids to content that’s inappropriate and even trick some youngsters into unwittingly making in-app purchases. That’s according to a complaint that a collection of consumer and privacy advocates has filed today with the FTC.
The complaint calls for the FTC to “investigate whether Google is misrepresenting to parents that the apps in the Family section of the Play Store are child-appropriate when they are not, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act.”
Groups behind the filing of the complaint include almost two dozen consumer and public health advocacy organizations. They’re led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy. They note that apps presented within the kids and family section of the Play Store are supposed to follow stipulations spelled out in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA), but the problem as identified in the complaint is that Google doesn’t verify those apps’ compliance. Which is why the complaint asks the FTC to require that Google only include apps within that section — or to only say an app is kid-friendly — once the app has been subjected to testing and human review.
Again, from the complaint: “Many apps violate COPPA by collecting personal information from children without giving notice to parents and obtaining verifiable parental consent. Some apps that Google promotes as family-friendly also deploy unfair and deceptive advertising practices — such as manipulating kids to watch ads or make purchases in order to advance in a game.
Our research also revealed that many apps feature inappropriate content for children. Google has known about several of these problems for some time, yet has not taken adequate steps to enforce its own criteria for developers. Thus it is imperative that the FTC swiftly investigate Google’s Play Store Family operations and stop these deceptive practices so that children will be protected.”
The CCFC’s executive director told TechCrunch that the complaint doesn’t call out Apple’s iOS app store, because there hasn’t been a similar analysis done there. And speaking of TC, a Google spokesperson also told the outlet it’s taking the issues raised in this complaint seriously. For example, the company has already removed thousands of apps from the family section this year, and it also rejects a third of applications.
“Parents want their children to be safe online and we work hard to protect them,” Google told TC. “Apps in our Designed for Families program have to comply with strict policies on content, privacy and advertising, and we take action on any policy violations that we find. We take these issues very seriously and continue to work hard to remove any content that is inappropriately aimed at children from our platform.”
The complaint calls for the FTC to “investigate whether Google is misrepresenting to parents that the apps in the Family section of the Play Store are child-appropriate when they are not, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act.”
Groups behind the filing of the complaint include almost two dozen consumer and public health advocacy organizations. They’re led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy. They note that apps presented within the kids and family section of the Play Store are supposed to follow stipulations spelled out in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA), but the problem as identified in the complaint is that Google doesn’t verify those apps’ compliance. Which is why the complaint asks the FTC to require that Google only include apps within that section — or to only say an app is kid-friendly — once the app has been subjected to testing and human review.
Again, from the complaint: “Many apps violate COPPA by collecting personal information from children without giving notice to parents and obtaining verifiable parental consent. Some apps that Google promotes as family-friendly also deploy unfair and deceptive advertising practices — such as manipulating kids to watch ads or make purchases in order to advance in a game.
Our research also revealed that many apps feature inappropriate content for children. Google has known about several of these problems for some time, yet has not taken adequate steps to enforce its own criteria for developers. Thus it is imperative that the FTC swiftly investigate Google’s Play Store Family operations and stop these deceptive practices so that children will be protected.”
The CCFC’s executive director told TechCrunch that the complaint doesn’t call out Apple’s iOS app store, because there hasn’t been a similar analysis done there. And speaking of TC, a Google spokesperson also told the outlet it’s taking the issues raised in this complaint seriously. For example, the company has already removed thousands of apps from the family section this year, and it also rejects a third of applications.
“Parents want their children to be safe online and we work hard to protect them,” Google told TC. “Apps in our Designed for Families program have to comply with strict policies on content, privacy and advertising, and we take action on any policy violations that we find. We take these issues very seriously and continue to work hard to remove any content that is inappropriately aimed at children from our platform.”
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Good Gopher, developed by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and editor of NaturalNews.com is using his technical expertise to create GoodGopher.com which will benefit all "alternative" websites publishing truth rather than publishing propaganda and leftist ideologies.
Good Gopher is building the internet's largest search engine for those searching for information and news on liberty, natural healing, central banks, food freedom, advanced science and a multitude of other topics no longer allowed in NSA-controlled search engines.
Good Gopher's Pledge of Integrity is the world's first privacy-protected search engine that filters out corporate propaganda, government disinformation.
Good Gopher is the "Anti-Google" search engine and here's what we pledge to all our users:
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ISLAM
ISLAMIC STATE CLAIMS BOMBING AT A KABUL WEDDINGTHAT LEFT 63 DEAD AND 182 INJURED
Another 182 people were wounded in the Saturday night explosion, government spokesman Feroz Bashari said. Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi confirmed the casualty toll as families began to bury the dead. Some helped to dig graves with their bare hands.
Kabul residents were outraged as there appears to be no end to violence even as the United States and the Taliban say they are nearing a deal to end their 18-year conflict, America’s longest war.
The Taliban condemned the attack as “forbidden and unjustifiable” and denied any involvement. Both the Taliban and IS have carried large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past.
Kabul residents were outraged as there appears to be no end to violence even as the United States and the Taliban say they are nearing a deal to end their 18-year conflict, America’s longest war.
The Taliban condemned the attack as “forbidden and unjustifiable” and denied any involvement. Both the Taliban and IS have carried large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past.
The blast occurred in a western Kabul neighborhood that is home to many of the country’s minority Shiite Hazara community. IS has claimed responsibility for many attacks targeting Shiites in the past. A statement by the militant group posted on an IS-linked website on Sunday said a Pakistani IS fighter seeking martyrdom targeted a large Shiite gathering in Kabul.
The statement also claimed that after the suicide bombing, a car bomb was detonated in the attack but Afghan officials have not confirmed this.
The bomber detonated his explosives near the stage where musicians were playing and “all the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed,” said eyewitness Gul Mohammad.
Ahmad Omid, a survivor, said about 1,200 guests had been invited to the wedding of his father’s cousin.
“I was with the groom in the other room when we heard the blast and then I couldn’t find anyone,” he said. “Everyone was lying all around the hall.”
The statement also claimed that after the suicide bombing, a car bomb was detonated in the attack but Afghan officials have not confirmed this.
The bomber detonated his explosives near the stage where musicians were playing and “all the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed,” said eyewitness Gul Mohammad.
Ahmad Omid, a survivor, said about 1,200 guests had been invited to the wedding of his father’s cousin.
“I was with the groom in the other room when we heard the blast and then I couldn’t find anyone,” he said. “Everyone was lying all around the hall.”
The wedding halls also serve as meeting places, and in November, at least 55 people were killed when a suicide bomber sneaked into a Kabul wedding hall where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. The Taliban denied involvement in that attack, and IS did not claim responsibility.
Saturday night’s explosion came a few days after the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, with Kabul residents visiting family and friends, and just ahead of Afghanistan’s 100th Independence Day on Monday. The city, long familiar with checkpoints and razor wire, has been under heavier security ahead of the event.
Saturday night’s explosion came a few days after the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, with Kabul residents visiting family and friends, and just ahead of Afghanistan’s 100th Independence Day on Monday. The city, long familiar with checkpoints and razor wire, has been under heavier security ahead of the event.
NEWS (1)
