Tweets of the Week

The Australien Government has made an ad about the new media legislation it just passed, and it's surprisingly honest and informative! pic.twitter.com/iD5KRenxGT

— theJuiceMedia (@thejuicemedia) February 25, 2021

Who else needs to see this? pic.twitter.com/Y2B66ZOWaI

— Kailas Wild 🐨 (@kailaswild) March 1, 2021

GOOGLE INC: Being Evil Is Now Our Corporation Policy

Google Inc quietly dropped its original motto “Don’t Be Evil” some time ago, then it dropped its corporate name, became the new holding company Alphabet Inc and a new weak and watery motto surfaced - “Do The Right Thing”.

Now Alphabet Inc has just as quietly announced another change. One that allows this Internet giant to build a complete portrait of a user by name, based on everything they write in email, every website they visit and the searches they conduct without the informed consent of said users.

Pro Publica, 21 October 2016:

When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.”

And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClick’s massive database of web-browsing records separate by default from the names and other personally identifiable information Google has collected from Gmail and its other login accounts.

But this summer, Google quietly erased that last privacy line in the sand – literally crossing out the lines in its privacy policy that promised to keep the two pots of data separate by default. In its place, Google substituted new language that says browsing habits “may be” combined with what the company learns from the use Gmail and other tools.

The change is enabled by default for new Google accounts. Existing users were prompted to opt-in to the change this summer.

The practical result of the change is that the DoubleClick ads that follow people around on the web may now be customized to them based on your name and other information Google knows about you. It also means that Google could now, if it wished to, build a complete portrait of a user by name, based on everything they write in email, every website they visit and the searches they conduct.

The move is a sea change for Google and a further blow to the online ad industry’s longstanding contention that web tracking is mostly anonymous. In recent years, Facebook, offline data brokers and others have increasingly sought to combine their troves of web tracking data with people’s real names. But until this summer, Google held the line.

“The fact that DoubleClick data wasn’t being regularly connected to personally identifiable information was a really significant last stand,” said Paul Ohm, faculty director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law.

“It was a border wall between being watched everywhere and maintaining a tiny semblance of privacy,” he said. “That wall has just fallen.”…..

It must be something in the air.....

Google’s web page summaries can sometimes be mildly disconcerting when efforts to be concise have unexpected results.

Take this item from a recent search which appears to suggest that the Hon. Anthony John Tony Abbott lasted as Australian Prime Minister for less than three months:

Snapshot taken 29 December 2013

Or is Goggle Search accidentally playing into the hands of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire which was beginning to maliciously suggest Australian Labor Party leadership instability on 30 December 2013:

I'd like to be Man of the Year, even if it is no more than an award from a Herald reader, Lyn McGrath, of Bilambil Heights, and even if she has set the bar very low. Having revealed that I make my wife breakfast in bed and acquired pro-feminist credentials, Ms McGrath wrote to the Herald last week saying that all I have to do to be in the running for her award is to say one positive word about the ALP.

I accept the challenge. I offer two positive words: Tony Burke.

Tony Burke will be the next Labor prime minister. He is authentic, a crucial advantage in politics, and pragmatic, intelligent and decent. (I'm way over my quota here Lyn.)

However, I also point out he is, like most Labor MPs, yet another former union official and has thus not spent a day of his career in a wealth-creating business. The bulk of his career has been at public expense.

And by 4 January 2014 was lining Liberal Party ducks up in a row:

ALL governments engage in succession planning. Not necessarily in a formal sense, but the competitive juices of politics mean that ambitious individuals like to position themselves as the potential heir-apparent to the current leader, often well before their time is up.....

even if his polling numbers collapse my suspicion is that the Coalition government would not allow itself to let leadership instability dominate its time in power.

That doesn't mean that the informal positioning of ambitious future leadership candidates won't continue. Names such as Joe Hockey, Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull would all see themselves as viable alternatives to Abbott one day....

Google caught doing evil again

Teh Beeb in Britain posted this online on 31st October 2012:
"A jury in Australia has found Google liable for damages after a complaint that its search results had linked a local man to gangland crime. Milorad Trkulja had alleged that the US firm's image and web results had caused harm to his reputation. The 62-year-old had said the site had refused to remove the material when asked. He had previously won a related case against Yahoo. Google has not commented on the verdict and might still appeal. The judge is expected to set the level of damages owed within a fortnight."

Google's Street View cars collected names, addresses, telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, email, text messages, medical records, video and audio files

Australian Financial Review 7 May 2012:

Google could face new investigations by the Privacy Commissioner over its harvesting of personal information using Street View cars after a 17-month investigation by US authorities found it wasn’t the act of a “rogue” engineer.

From 2007 to 2010, Google’s ­specially designed Street View cars travelled the world taking detailed photos, recording wi-fi details and sucking up data carried on open wireless networks.

The report by the Federal Communications Commission found that “Google’s Street View cars collected names, addresses, telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, email, text messages, medical records, video and audio files”. When the snooping was discovered the search giant apologised for the collection and said it was due to a “rogue” code inserted by an engineer without permission.

But the FCC found that management was, in fact, told about the proposal in a series of documents and said Google obstructed its investigation. The company claimed its management didn’t read the proposal.

Authorities in Australia, the UK and Germany are examining the FCC’s report and considering further action. Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim told The Australian Financial Review his department would analyse the FCC report over the next three weeks to see if new investigations were required.

In 2010 Mr Pilgrim’s department found Google guilty of breaching the Privacy Act. But when the issue was referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), it said there was evidence that the breach was “inadvertent” and that there was little chance of a conviction because gathering evidence would be too hard.

Doing Evil: He said she said

Sergey Brin in Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin :

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever,…...

Clarencegirl:

You are part of that threat, Google…………… Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Google Bypassing User Privacy Settings, etc; etc; etc.

Notice to Google Inc. 1 March 2012

As of midnight 1 March 2012 North Coast Voices has suspended displaying Google advertising due to the intrusive nature of the corporation's New Privacy & Terms Policy coming into effect on that day.

Google Maps: Going to Whoop Whoop via Wollongong anyone?

Alerted on 3rd January by @R_Chirgwin Google Maps has to be taking the piss this time: http://t.co/yEZKWRqz, it became obvious that Goggle Maps was having a bit of a 2012 breakdown.

By 6th January the Pacific Highway had virtually disappeared as a desired route to anyway along the NSW east coast:

According to ABC North Coast News:

Drivers travelling between Sydney and the Queensland border are being steered inland.

A Google Maps request for directions between Sydney and Byron Bay recommends an inland route through Armidale and Tenterfield, rather than the more direct Pacific Highway trip.

Transport Management Centre spokesman David Wright says he is aware of the problem.

"The issue we're experiencing is due to a third-party map provider which does have some routing issues at the moment," he says.

Ooopps! Google bombs again

Is Google Inc. getting so big that it can't keep an eye on its management staff or has You can make money without doing evil been tossed out the backdoor onto obsolete corporate philosophy pile?

Reuters 24^th August 2011 - Google Inc has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a criminal probe into ads it accepted for online Canadian pharmacies selling drugs in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

The advertisements led to illegal imports of prescription drugs into the country, the Justice Department said.
The forfeiture is one of the largest ever in the United States, according to the department. It represents Google's revenue from Canadian pharmacy advertisements to U.S. customers through Google's AdWords program and Canadian pharmacies' revenue from U.S. sales.
Google had previously set aside that amount for a possible settlement over its advertising practices, according to a regulatory filing in May.
Google, the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, had $29 billion in gross revenue in 2010.

Google Profile causing sh#t to happen?

Google Profile tells us to “Decide what the world sees when it searches for you. Create a public profile to display the information that you care about and make it easy for visitors to get to know you.”

Sounds fair, doesn’t it?
But what happens when you have the same name as someone else or someone hijacks your online identity?

Well this happens……

Snapshot taken of a page one Google Search on 18th August 2011

Snapshot of a 6th April 2011 cease and desist request on Chilling Effects

Faaark orf, Google! You need me more than I need you

“From 31 July, people who have created private profiles in, say, the ad broker's free email service Gmail will be deleted by Google unless individuals switch it to public view.

"The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don't allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public," said the company.

Google said that it would only require a user's full name and gender to be displayed on the public profile. Any other information an individual doesn't want to reveal to the world can be edited or deleted.

"If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011," said Google.

The move is part of Mountain View's wider ambition to bake social products into its search and email products.

As a result, anyone planning to use Google+ will need a public profile with, at minimum, their full name and gender displayed.” {The Register 7^th July 2011}

Apology to all our readers

Due to the fact that Blogger.com had been experiencing difficulties, went offline to fix same, temporarily removed current versions of its hosted homepages and did not replace all the missing posts as promised; in the last twenty-four hours North Coast Voices has not been able to display all its posts.
To replace one of these missing posts accurately North Coast Voices Administration had to rely on its Blogotariat feed. Hat tip to the folks over at that blog aggregate site.
Hopefully, all is now well.
North Coast Voices apologizes for any confusion this may caused our readers.

OMG! Even Google went crazy

Even Google in Australia went ape
over the marriage of William to Kate

Anony-mice

Yamba

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration.

Hey, Google! Give me back my ability to do a decent search or I walk

I only lost Google Search Engine’s Search Within Results option last week when using Internet Explorer – AND I WANT IT BACK NOW! It was more than annoying when Google decided to install Web History which automatically modified search results on a predictive basis thus limiting deliberately wide searches. It was simply awful coping with that intrusive low IQ Instant Search until I managed to permanently switch it off. However, the last straw was finding the search within option deleted by those increasingly highhanded geeks at Google Inc. Now looking about for a new search engine to be my ‘best friend’ in cyberspace.

Browned Off
Bangalow

* Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at gmail dot com to submit comment for consideration.

A thought bubble I can believe in....

RaboDirect general manager Greg McAweeney told an audience from the finance sector in Sydney last week that companies such as Google and PayPal are more responsive and trusted than banks.
"If Google got up and said we are going to offer a savings account, for me, that would be very difficult and confronting," McAweeney said.

Graphic from Darren Pauli/ZDNet Australia

Defamation litigation against Internet search engines continues and yet another blog thinks it's teflon-coated

In 2004 there was a shooting incident in a Melbourne suburb which was reported in The Herald-Sun at the time in an unexceptional manner.

Very little was heard of the incident after that until sometime between 2007 and 2009 a blogger appears to have created a post based on a second published news report.

This post was apparently capable of being read as a series of imputations that would lead the reader to believe that the named victim was associated in some way with unlawful activity. That original post is no longer displayed by Internet search engines.

The matter is are currently before the Court in what seems to be two separate defamation cases.

Which should have made OzSoapbox rather wary. Instead in July this year this second (and apparently unrelated) website owned by a Taiwan-based blogger has blithely proceeded to justify the Court's 2010 decision that parts of the original post were capable of giving rise to defamatory imputations and that litigation could proceed.

Indeed, OzSoapbox went even further with this particular comment after its 3 July 2010 post concerning the defamation litigation:

ozsoapbox
July 9th, 2010 at 4:02 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
_______________________________________________________
Buddy, Id be very careful with this article and what you are
implying, the person in question will be very interested in this,
that is for certain.
____________________________________________

That sounds a bit threatening.

I'd have thought [redacted by North Coast Voices] 'd have his hands full trying to get rich
suing search engines to send out hitmen after me.

If geographic distance didn't save Yahoo! and Google from being served, one wonders if OzSoapbox will also find itself involved in litigation.

Young Nats take their bat 'n' ball and go home but Young Libs battle on....

Now according to the Australian Electoral Commission:
"On 10 June 2010, the delegate of the AEC determined that the application by the Young National Party of Australia for voluntary de-registration be accepted and that the party be removed from the Federal Register of Political Parties."
Which left me wondering how their companions the Young Liberals were doing, so using the search term "young liberals aec" I sought further information and I came across these:

http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22young+liberals%22+aec&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22young+liberals%22+aec&gs_rfai=&fp=1

http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=9176

Is something afoot in that political camp or has VexNews just gone too far?

Google's Street View rubbishes Grafton

A Grafton street before the 'rubbishing'

There were a few wry smiles in the Clarence Valley this week as "The Daily Examiner" reported that Google's Street View camera car was recording Grafton streets right in the middle of council's curbside household rubbish collection last time it passed through.

Expect to see some Grafton streets sporting old beds, kitchen sinks, broken pedestal fans and discarded rugs on footpaths when snapped in the latest photos available on Google Earth and Maps sometime in the next six months.

When Rupert loved Google

Remembering Rupert Murdoch's recent dummy spit about how Google was stealing his mojo and costing his media empire money by running the news aggregate site Google News, it was interesting to stumble upon this little snippet from 2006.


It appears that Rupert's love is a fickle thing - it only lasts as long as the economic good times.

It's not easy being Google ;-)

"Google may be mapping the streets of the Western world but the good folk of Broughton, in Buckinghamshire, England, don't want a bar of it.
The Google Street View car was blocked from filming last week by angry residents, led by Paul Jacobs, who alerted neighbours after spotting the car from his window.
"I don't have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home," Mr Jacobs told the BBC.
"We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike."
Mr Jacobs called police, who arrived to find a crowd in dispute with the Google driver, but the car moved on." [Brisbane Times on 6th April 2009]

"Mr [Rupert] Murdoch also questioned whether the newspaper industry should continue to allow online news aggregators such as Google to aggregate newspaper content without being compensated for it.
"Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?" [The Australian 4th April 2009]

"Google launched Street View in the U.S. in May 2007, soon visually documenting and uploading the streetscapes of eight other countries to the web. Later that year, crews also embarked on Canadian streets, snapping static shots from camera-mounted sedans embossed with the ubiquitous company logo.
Holding an array of cameras, each vehicle moves along public roads collecting raw images of everything that happens to be in view – including residences, passersby and any other happenstance activity that's trapped by its sophisticated lenses.
It's the 2007 photos that will be showcased in the upcoming release. The reason they're only being posted now is partially thanks to concerns previously raised by the federal privacy commissioner, who feared the easily accessible photos showing some citizens could infringe on their privacy, Denham said.
Canada's privacy laws require that the person being photographed give their consent to the pictures being published, unless they are being taken for "journalistic, literary or artistic purposes."
The company recently approached Denham's office to explain what measures it has taken to alleviate its misgivings. In post-production, Google now subjects all photos to an automated process of blurring people's faces and licence plates." [TheStar.com on 5th April 2009]

"COMPANIES that aggregate mainstream media content without paying a fee are the "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet" and will soon be challenged, Robert Thomson, the Australian-born editor of The Wall Street Journal has warned.
Thomson, who was holidaying in Australia last week, said companies such as Google were profiting from the "mistaken perception" that content should be free........
"Google argues they drive traffic to sites, but the whole Google sensibility is inimical to traditional brand loyalty," he said.
"Google encourages promiscuity -- and shamelessly so -- and therefore a significant proportion of their users don't necessarily associate that content with the creator.
"Therefore revenue that should be associated with the creator is not garnered." [The Australian 6th April 2009]

"A trademark lawsuit against Google that a lower court had dismissed in 2006 has been given new life.
Rescuecom, a Syracuse, New York, computer services franchising business, sued Google in 2004, alleging that Google has seriously hurt its business by serving up competitors' ads when users search for "Rescuecom" in Google's search engine.
The suit alleges that Google and Rescuecom competitors buying the ads profit without authorization from the Rescuecom trademark, and that the practice can also confuse potential customers and franchisees, resulting in lost business.
In its defense, Google argued that the selling "Rescuecom" as a keyword to competitors that triggers their ads along with search results isn't a trademark infringement under the Lanham Act." [Computer World 6th April 2009]