Topic: Why Google Is the New Evil Empire (Read 11347 times)

(Vivaldi Browser) My friends at Google: it is time to return to not being evil



I have known Google longer than most. At Opera, we were the first to add their search into the browser interface, enabling it directly from the search box and the address field. At that time, Google was an up-and-coming geeky company. I remember vividly meeting with Google’s co-founder Larry Page, his relaxed dress code and his love for the Danger device, which he played with throughout our meeting. Later, I met with the other co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, and got positive vibes. My first impression of Google was that it was a likeable company.

Our cooperation with Google was a good one. Integrating their search into Opera helped us deliver a better service to our users and generated revenue that paid the bills. We helped Google grow, along with others that followed in our footsteps and integrated Google search into their browsers.

However, then things changed. Google increased their proximity with the Mozilla foundation. They also introduced new services such as Google Docs. These services were great, gained quick popularity, but also exposed the darker side of Google. Not only were these services made to be incompatible with Opera, but also encouraged users to switch their browsers. I brought this up with Sergey Brin, in vain. For millions of Opera users to be able to access these services, we had to hide our browser’s identity. The browser sniffing situation only worsened after Google started building their own browser, Chrome.

Now, we are making the Vivaldi browser. It is based on Chromium, an open-source project, led by Google and built on WebKit and KHTML. Using Google’s services should not call for any issues, but sadly, the reality is different. We still have to hide our identity when visiting services such as Google Docs.

And now things have hit a new low.

As the biggest online advertising company in the world, Google is often the first choice for businesses that want to promote their products or services on the Internet. Being excluded from using Google AdWords could be a major problem, especially for digital companies.

Recently, our Google AdWords campaigns were suspended without warning. This was the second time that I have encountered this situation. This time, however, timing spoke volumes.

I had several interviews where I voiced concerns about the data gathering and ad targeting practices – in particular, those of Google and Facebook. They collect and aggregate far too much personal information from their users. I see this as a very serious, democracy-threatening problem, as the vast targeting opportunities offered by Google and Facebook are not only good for very targeted marketing, but also for tailored propaganda. The idea of the Internet turning into a battlefield of propaganda is very far away from the ideal.

Two days after my thoughts were published in an article by Wired, we found out that all the campaigns under our Google AdWords account were suspended – without prior warning. Was this just a coincidence? Or was it deliberate, a way of sending us a message?

When we reached out to Google to resolve the issue, we got a clarification masqueraded in the form of vague terms and conditions, some of which, they admitted themselves, were not a “hard” requirement. In exchange for being reinstated in Google’s ad network, their in-house specialists dictated how we should arrange content on our own website and how we should communicate information to our users.

We made effort to understand their explanations and to work with them on their various unreasonable demands (some of which they don’t follow themselves, by the way). After almost three months of back-and-forth, the suspension to our account has been lifted, but only when we bent to their requirements.

A monopoly both in search and advertising, Google, unfortunately, shows that they are not able to resist the misuse of power. I am saddened by this makeover of a geeky, positive company into the bully they are in 2017. I feel blocking competitors on thin reasoning lends credence to claims of their anti-competitive practices. It is also fair to say that Google is now in a position where regulation is needed. I sincerely hope that they’ll get back to the straight and narrow.


https://vivaldi.com/blog/google-return-to-not-being-evil/

Google knows everything you do in real life too. Have you ever used their map on your phone to find a direction? That was recorded. Have you ever tried "Hello Google" and ask a question for fun? That was recorded. At least google lets you listen and delete all the recordings made every time you said "Hello google". I did just that.

No. Not just on the internet. IRL too.

I never use google again once I know that they can know everything we do on the internet, use duckduckgo.

Google almost have everything information

So you trust Google 100% all the time. Do you trust your own parents 100% all the time?

If your access to google was cut out, how much would you be able to do on your own, using your own brain?

Next time go to wiki and visit the page of someone controversial according to somebody, anybody. Take a screen shot (png). Revisit the same page a week later. Take another screen shot. It is easy to tell if something has changed or not. It is more difficult to tell with search results from google, but the differences exist.

Google will never be your teacher, nor a replacement for your functioning brain, but google tries hard for this to happen.




Google Issues Ultimatum to Conservative Website: Remove 'Hateful' Article or Lose Ad Revenue




"Yesterday morning, we received a very bizarre letter from Google issuing us an ultimatum," Shane Trejo, media relations director of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Michigan, wrote on The Liberty Conservative. "Either we were to remove a particular article or see all of our ad revenues choked off in an instant. This is the newest method that Big Brother is using to enforce thought control."

The ultimatum came in the form of an email from Google's ad placement service AdSense. The email specifically listed an article on The Liberty Conservative's site, stating that the article violated AdSense's policies.

"As stated in our program policies, Google ads may not be placed on pages that contain content that: Threatens or advocates harm on oneself or others; Harasses, intimidates or bullies an individual or group of individuals; Incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization," the email stated.

The email warned The Liberty Conservative that it must either remove ads from that page, or "modify or remove the violating content to meet our AdSense policies."

"Please be aware that if additional violations are accrued, ad serving may be disabled to the website listed above," the AdSense email warned. "Please be aware that the URL above is just an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of this website or other sites that you own."

Trejo argued that the article Google specified "contained no offensive content." Rather, it "was merely distinguishing the many differences between the alt-right and literal Nazis."

The Liberty Conservative writer suggested that the article was singled out because it was written by former Liberty Conservative contributor James Allsup. Allsup was involved in the "Unite the Right" riot (which Trejo described as a "rally-turned-riot") in Charlottesville, Va. Trejo said the article was targeted because "it was authored by a man deemed to be an 'unperson' by the corporate elite."

"Due to financial constraints, we had to comply with Google's strong-arming tactics for the time being," Trejo admitted. "An independent publisher such as The Liberty Conservative needs revenue from the Google ad platform in order to survive."

Despite this necessary surrender, The Liberty Conservative writer remained optimistic. "We look forward to the day where rival ad platforms who respect the intellectual freedom of their customers can outcompete Google, but those days have not arrived yet," he wrote. "These tech companies have us all by the short hairs, and post-Charlottesville, they are all working in unison to enforce the Orwellian nightmare. Nobody is safe."

Chillingly, Trejo called on "all conservatives and libertarians" to "realize that the Orwellian nightmare enforced by private hands is just as harmful to human freedom as if the dystopia was enforced by the hands of government commissars. The results will be the same, as freedom of expression will be sacrificed to the God of political correctness."



https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/31/google-issues-ultimatum-to-conservative-website-remove-hateful-article-or-lose-ad-revenue/



Turning Online Censorship Into Our Victory











GOOGLE/YOUTUBE CENSORSHIP GOES TOO FAR









Youtube Crackdown Continues with Diamond and Silk, RedPillBlack, and Others

I don't see google established harmful effects to my self,, In my own definition this is my 2nd teacher, if ever i find difficulties in my work and school i simply visit google to find solutions of my problem.. I guess what makes it evil is that when abusing yourself exposed in exploring google might cause you into physical or  mental  dis orders..

Google makes more good stuff lol

So far 2 (semi publicly known) people got locked out of all their google services all at once (youtube, gmail, cloud, etc) for wrong think. Gmail scans your emails to provide you with ads. I could see google's AI refusing giving you access to your gmail account one day because of what you wrote.

Google is a global company. The company will not be able to inspire confidence. It collects information about all and how she manages it no one knows. We can't opportunity to opt-out of our data because without it you will not be able to use many services. I think Google is more evil.

Google is coming after critics in academia and journalism. It’s time to stop them.



About 10 years ago, Tim Wu, the Columbia Law professor who coined the term network neutrality, made this prescient comment: “To love Google, you have to be a little bit of a monarchist, you have to have faith in the way people traditionally felt about the king.”

Wu was right. And now, Google has established a pattern of lobbying and threatening to acquire power. It has reached a dangerous point common to many monarchs: The moment where it no longer wants to allow dissent.

This summer, a small team of well-respected researchers and journalists, the Open Markets team at the New America think tank (where I have been a fellow since 2014), dared to speak up about Google, in the mildest way. When the European Union fined Google for preferring its own subsidiary companies to its rival companies in search results, it was natural that Open Markets, a group dedicated to studying and exposing distortions in markets, including monopoly power, would comment. The researchers put out a 150-word statement praising the E.U.’s actions. They wrote, “By requiring that Google give equal treatment to rival services instead of privileging its own, [the E.U.] is protecting the free flow of information and commerce upon which all democracies depend.” They called upon the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice and state attorneys general to apply the traditional American monopoly law, which would require separate ownership of products and services and the networks that sell products and services.

Google has been funding New America for years at high levels. Within 24 hours of the statement going live, Google representatives called New America’s leadership expressing their displeasure. Two planned hires for the Open Markets team suddenly were canceled. Three days later, the head of the Open Markets team, the accomplished journalist Barry C. Lynn, received a letter from the head of the think tank, demanding that the entire team leave New America. The reason? The statement praising the E.U.’s decision against Google was, according to New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter, “imperiling the institution.” (As of this writing, Slaughter has denounced the story as false, claiming that Lynn was dismissed for failures of “openness” and “collegiality.”)

When Google was founded in 1998, it famously committed itself to the motto: “Don’t be evil.” It appears that Google may have lost sight of what being evil means, in the way that most monarchs do: Once you reach a pinnacle of power, you start to believe that any threats to your authority are themselves villainous and that you are entitled to shut down dissent. As Lord Acton famously said, “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.” Those with too much power cannot help but be evil. Google, the company dedicated to free expression, has chosen to silence opposition, apparently without any sense of irony.

Google did not always operate this way in relation to think tanks, even those it funded. The head of Google’s parent company, Eric Schmidt, served on the board of New America starting 2000 and was chairman from 2008 through May 2016. The Open Markets institute has long studied excessive corporate power and argued for the importance of antimonopoly laws. They were not previously punished for their work.

But in recent years, Google has become greedy about owning not just search capacities, video and maps, but also the shape of public discourse. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Google has recruited and cultivated law professors who support its views. And as the New York Times recently reported, it has become invested in building curriculum for our public schools, and has created political strategy to get schools to adopt its products.

This year, Google is on track to spend more money than any company in America on lobbying. In 2015, it was the third biggest corporate spender, paying more than Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin or the Koch brothers on lobbying. Much of what it is spending its money on has nothing to do with technical details regarding its search engine and everything to do with using its power in its search engine to shut out some competitors and build power over others.

It is time to call out Google for what it is: a monopolist in search, video, maps and browser, and a thin-skinned tyrant when it comes to ideas.

The imperial overreach of Google in trying to shut down a group of five researchers proves the point that the initial release from Open Markets was trying to make: When companies get too much power, they become a threat to democratic free speech and to the liberty of citizens at large.

In 1948, in the Supreme Court case U.S. v. Columbia Steel Co., Justice William O. Douglas explained that the traditional philosophy of American antitrust law is that “all power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy … should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men.”

Google is forming into a government of itself, and it seems incapable of even seeing its own overreach. We, as citizens, must respond in two ways. First, support the brave researchers and journalists who stand up to overreaching power; and second, support traditional antimonopoly laws that will allow us to have great, innovative companies — but not allow them to govern us.

Google’s actions forced the Open Markets team to leave New America. But, thankfully, it did not succeed in silencing them entirely. Open Markets will continue on as a separate organization, which I will chair. Their work exposing corporate monopolies and advocating for regulation is more important than ever. Google shows us why.



http://archive.is/bnBnJ#selection-1377.0-1389.330

maybe we can find anything everything at google..
but i hate to say this i am not one of this ...
GOOGLE IS NOT AN EVIL EMPIRE >> though manyscammers spread around the world ..
but my definition on google is the new and BEST DICTIONARY EVER

Are you sure your data is not traded by google? There is not enough strong evidence that google does not sell our personal data.

It is always possible to find an exit. Only will he be safe? Think, that an answer for this question will give nobody. Technologies are too well developed.

bullshit. Google for now-day one is the most progressive company what bring to world revolutionary developments

They're using the Google javascript capcha system where you have to click to identify parts of images when you login to this forum now!

People need to say no to Google!

Google is a company that fit into all the secret corners of our lives. Who loves this? Google has become a total spy who gathers information about us even without our knowledge and no one knows where and to whom this information can get. Google is evil on a global scale.

I don't mind if it knows and sees my personal info till Google doesn't use it again me. I found really annoying the fact Google service controls advertising data, it makes me mad sometimes and suspicious the way they try to convince me to buy smth, read smth, watch smth.

Every big company was called evil empire - now it is Google, before that it was Microsoft.

There is anti monopoly legislation to take care of the monopolists.

everything was created with corresponding advantages and disadvantages...
But since we are human and being gifted with wisdom then all we need to do is use that wisdom..
You can see if something has an evil effect to you without anyone telling you so...
So if you feel like something's wrong with then stop using it...