Ira Brodsky.com - Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc.

Portuguese Version of Search & Destroy Now Available in Brazil

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:48:52 -0500

A Portuguese translation of Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. is now available from Matrix Editora in Brazil.

The Korean version is available here.

Preface to Korean Version of Search & Destroy, Why You Can't Trust Google Inc.

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:32:37 -0500

Since the English version of this book was published in 2011, Google has been accused, investigated, and punished for one misdeed after another. The offences include violating users’ privacy, infringing others’ property rights, engaging in anti-competitive behavior, obstructing investigations, and breaking rules and laws. Google critic Scott Cleland’s book is the only book that makes sense out of what is clearly a pattern of misbehavior, showing that it is a natural consequence of Google’s strategy, ambitions, and tactics.

Google remains the dominant force in the digital information universe. Simply put, there is no escaping Google’s clout and reach. Though Google is not the top search engine in Korea, the company has tremendous power over Korea’s economy, and collects a huge volume of data about Korea and Koreans. Google is the information and e-commerce gatekeeper in most of the countries that Korean exporters do business. Troublingly, Google is both a partner and a competitor to Korean electronics giants Samsung and LG. And Google collects massive amounts of data about Korean businesses, homes, and individuals through Google Earth, Google Street View, Gmail, and hundreds of other products.

Google is being investigated by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC). Google claims it is cooperating with this and other probes around the world. Reportedly, when KFTC investigators raided Google’s Korean office in September of 2011, employees deleted files from computers. Claiming they were telecommuting, employees stayed home the following day. The KFTC is considering fining Google for obstructing its investigation.

Unfortunately, this can’t be dismissed as just a misunderstanding or isolated incident. Google is under investigation in the US and elsewhere for eavesdropping on wireless networks with its Street View cars in what is widely known as the “WiSpy” scandal. When it was first disclosed that Google was recording data (including confidential passwords) sent over unencrypted wireless networks, Google claimed it was an accident—the actions of a lone engineer working without the company’s knowledge or permission. However, an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) discovered that the engineer told two fellow engineers, one of them a senior manager, what he was doing and described the data collection scheme in a written report that Google says was “preapproved” (implying that no one was expected to read the report). Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the New York Times, “Google’s rogue engineer scenario collapses in light of the fact that others were aware of the project and did not object.” The FCC fined Google for obstructing its investigation, suggesting that we still don’t know the full story.

The KFTC is particularly concerned that Google is blocking competitors from the burgeoning mobile search market. Naver and Daum complain that Google makes its search engine the default search engine on Android smart phones, that Android phones can’t be ordered with other search engines preloaded, and that it’s very difficult for users to change to a competing search application.

Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility is problematic for Samsung and LG. As the supplier of the Android operating system, Google is a partner. As owner of Motorola Mobility, Google is a competitor, selling competing handsets and controlling a number of essential handset patents. It’s not uncommon for a large corporation to partner with a company in one area and compete with that same company in another. However, it only works when that large corporation acknowledges that there is a potential conflict of interest and takes steps to prevent conflicts and maintain trust. Unfortunately, Google is highly secretive and often says one thing while doing another.

For example, Google claims that it cares about users’ privacy but does things that suggest otherwise. Google recently changed its privacy policy without giving existing users the ability to opt out. The change permits Google to harvest information about individual users from multiple products. This means that Google will be able to assemble more comprehensive profiles of users—leaving users with less privacy. And in a separate incident, Google was caught overriding users’ privacy settings in Apple’s Safari Web browser.

It all makes sense when you realize that Google takes its mission “to organize the world’s information” quite literally. Google wants to control all of the world’s information and it is making tremendous progress toward that goal—digitizing the world’s books, gathering data from the sky and the streets, and monitoring people’s use of the Internet, mobile phones, and other devices.

And that’s why Korea—like other nations—must safeguard its interests.

Ira Brodsky
May, 2012

UPDATE: The Korean version has been published by Acorn Publishing in Korea.

Why Steve Jobs Was Angry At Google

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:15:44 -0600

As Walter Isaacson recounts in his best-selling biography, Steve Jobs promised to “go to thermonuclear war” over Google’s Android smartphone. But it wasn’t merely because Jobs was a fierce competitor. One of the greatest entrepreneurs in U.S. history, Steve Jobs was painfully aware that Google does not respect others’ intellectual property rights, and he understood that Google’s practices are a threat to innovation.

Jobs’ attitude toward intellectual property rights could not have been more different from Google’s. Steve Jobs didn’t manufacture and sell products at low prices. And he certainly didn’t dump free products on the market as does Google. Steve Jobs used his natural good taste and high standards to imbue products with added value. Based on his innate sense of functionality, ease of use, and elegance he was able to command significantly higher prices than his competitors.

Steve Jobs saw Google’s Android as the result of intellectual property theft. And he probably understood how Google expected to get away with it. Google can make more money using others’ intellectual property to sell advertising than its owners can make using the intellectual property to develop and sell products. That’s why Google is confident that if push comes to shove it can always purchase a settlement. But as Steve Jobs told Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, “I’m not interested in settling. I don’t want your money.”

There are other examples of how Jobs’ attitude toward intellectual property rights was the opposite of Google’s. Jobs made a habit of keeping new products secret until they were ready for a big, splashy launch. Google routinely introduces beta versions of products. Steve Jobs was a perfectionist; he expected Apple products to work flawlessly from Day One. Google offers its products “as is” and tells users, in effect, “don’t bother calling our customer service department—we don’t have one.”

Steve Jobs created the iTunes store so that consumers could buy music rather than steal it, and so that music producers could receive fair compensation. Google, in contrast, has aided and abetted online pirates. Google scans books without the copyright holders’ permission. Google has even asked artists to supply it with artwork in exchange for exposure rather than pay—as if Google were the starving artist.

The independent-minded Jobs swam against the current of “open systems” and demonstrated convincingly that end-to-end proprietary systems offer significant benefits to consumers. Nor was Jobs intimidated by widespread attempts to disparage proprietary solutions by labeling them “closed.” Jobs proved that he could consistently deliver great products and services using proprietary systems, and he also proved that proprietary systems are not an obstacle to multi-vendor support.

Google’s advocacy of “open systems” is hypocritical. Google urges others to use open systems because open systems are less private. Meanwhile, Google zealously guards its search engine and ad auction secrets—resisting all calls to make these systems more transparent.

Steve Jobs dismissed Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” mantra because he understood that it was pure theater. He judged Google not by their slogans but by their actions. He saw Android as brazen theft and was determined to prevent Google from getting away with it.

Ira Brodsky is co-author with Scott Cleland of the new book Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. Visit SearchAndDestroyBook.com.

Google's Radical Agenda

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:18:44 -0500

My OpEd at the Daily Caller:

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 as early as 2003 that the pharmacies were promoting illegal importation of drugs, yet it continued to accept the ads and provide customer support to the advertisers through 2009.

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 is co-author with Scott Cleland of the new book Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. Visit SearchAndDestroyBook.com.

Google Caught Stealing (Again)

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:35:03 -0500

An article in Today's Wall Street Journal describes how Google has been using customer reviews from other sites to beef up its Google Places service:

Google Inc. has made changes to the way its search engine displays information about local businesses, a move that follows the disclosure of a U.S. antitrust investigation of its business practices.

The company said it removed snippets of customer reviews that were taken from other Web firms for its Google "Places" service, which has millions of pages for local businesses. Google's practices have drawn fire from some of those Web companies, and is believed to be among the issues the Federal Trade Commission is investigating.

Since last year, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Citysearch—sites with local-business reviews generated by their visitors—have complained Google effectively stole their content and posted it on Google's own pages. Google Places competes with those sites and provides information on millions of restaurants, hotels and other businesses, including store hours, location and photos.

Following Thursday's change, Google Places showed a marked decline in the number of reviews listed for some businesses. For example, Keens Steakhouse in New York displayed 60 reviews Friday, compared with more than 3,000 last month.

While some rivals welcomed the change, they continued to support the antitrust investigation into Google and complained the company still gives preferential placement to Google Places over links to their sites in search results.

I don't know how to describe this as anything other than stealing. Note also the allegation that Google manipulates search results to favor Google Places. (That Google doctors what it claims to be "unbiased" search results was publicly admitted by a top Google executive quite some time ago.) You can read the rest here.

Why Google Replaced The Golden Rule With 'Don't Be Evil'

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 07:52:33 -0500

This is the third in a series of posts about Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.

Steve Jobs said that "Don't Be Evil" is BS. But he either couldn't or wouldn't say why. Hope my Op-Ed at the American Thinker helps:

Google is once again demonstrating that it treats others in ways that it does not want to be treated. Google is requiring users of its latest social networking service, Google+, to have public profiles. Meanwhile, top Google executives are taking advantage of a hidden Google+ feature to enjoy greater privacy.

Google wants Google+ users to disclose the number and identities of their friends. But top Google executives are hiding the very same information. Technology writer Ed Bott learned how when he visited socialstatistics.com, a website that tracks thousands of Google+ users. [The site has since been modified.] Bott observed that four of the top ten users (ranked according to number of "followers") were Googlers. He also noticed something different about them: each displayed a "0" in the "friends" column. Exploring Google+'s user interface, Bott discovered what he describes as a "useful but hard-to-find privacy feature that is disabled by default." He found that clicking on an unlabeled icon opens a dialog box and unchecking one of the settings makes information about your friends private.

In theory, any Google+ user can hide the number and identities of their friends. But Google+'s designers went out of their way to discourage most users from doing this. As the world's biggest data-mining operation, Google knows more about user behavior than anyone else. Most users presume the default settings are best and won't try to change them. Still, other users might be curious, so Google hid the dialog box behind an unlabeled icon. Those users who do manage to find it would have to uncheck a box; Google knows that some users would never think to do that while others would worry about unintended consequences. In the end, only insiders and power users get privacy.

Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated case: Google routinely treats others in ways that Google does not want to be treated. Google advocates open systems -- particularly in markets Google does not control. But Google's search engine and ad auctions are closed systems. Google claims that it cares about users' privacy. But Google's previous social networking service, Google Buzz, outraged users by publicly disclosing their Gmail contacts. And Google's Street View cars eavesdropped on users' wireless networks. Google tells users they should accept the loss of privacy as a modern fact of life while Google zealously guards its search, ad auction, and infrastructure secrets.

How does Google get away with treating others in ways that Google does not want to be treated? Google's founders crafted a brilliant public relations strategy (pretending all the while that they don't engage in PR). They insist that Google isn't in business to make money but to make the world a better place. And they said, "You can make money without doing evil." These claims were used to convince people that Google is the world's most ethical company. And it worked: Google has gained the trust of one billion users.

To wit, Google gets away with violating the Golden Rule by claiming it has invented something better. By touting its "Don't Be Evil" motto, Google brushes aside a principle that has been universally recognized as the single best guide to ethical behavior for well over two millennia.

It's hard to argue with Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto; everyone agrees that companies should not be evil. However, as a guide to ethical behavior "Don't Be Evil" is seriously flawed. In fact, it may be the lowest business ethics standard ever devised. Most people think of evil as the worst extreme on the ethical continuum. Evil is what we fear most. When asked for an example of a truly evil person, most people will think of someone such as Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden. It goes without saying that businesses should not be evil.

Most unethical business practices fall short of evil. Lying and cheating are wrong, but few people would consider someone who makes false claims on a job application to be evil. By promising not to be evil, Google leaves room for infringing copyrights, falsely claiming that its search engine is unbiased, and misrepresenting the purpose of its free products and services.

"Don't Be Evil" is a clever slogan that skips right past the kinds of ethical decisions businesses must make every day. If Google's leaders agreed to being treated the way they treat others, then rest assured that they would be more respectful of others. The Golden Rule is still the best guide to proper behavior. It's time for Google to admit what ethical people have known since antiquity.

Ira Brodsky is co-author with Scott Cleland of the new book Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. Visit www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com.

More Relevant Ads Versus Privacy

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:20:24 -0500

This is the second in a series of posts about Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.

I am amazed at how willing some people are to totally ditch their privacy for "more relevant ads." I'm willing to give up a little privacy for more relevant ads in specific areas. But forfeiting all privacy means forfeiting safety, individuality, and even free expression. And always receiving "more relevant ads" is like donning blinders.

I confess that during the 1990s I was leery of privacy activists. At that time the issue was whether individual websites should be allowed to recognize returning users and track how they used their sites. It struck me as counterproductive to prevent websites from leveraging personalization technology. Plus, privacy activists seemed to be calling for government intervention in a market offering consumers more and more choices.

However, things have changed. With retail and wholesale search, embedded YouTube videos, and Google Analytics—to name just a few—Google can track you almost everywhere you go on the Web. I don't mind being recognized by Amazon.com and being presented book recommendations. But I don't want to be tracked everywhere and at all times. Nor do I only want to see ads that reinforce my existing interests and likes. (Advertising is a great way to spur new interests.)

I've learned that privacy is important. Without privacy, you can’t be who you want, because you are forced to reveal everything. Without privacy, there’s little opportunity for independent thought or dissent, because your ideas are immediately subjected to public scrutiny. Without privacy, there can be no human dignity, because others can barge in on you whenever they like.

Here's the kicker: You cannot establish and maintain your personal identity without privacy. Your account numbers, user IDs, passwords, and phone numbers are your private property. Keeping that information confidential is not only legitimate, it’s necessary for your safety.

I also reject Eric Schmidt's creepy argument: “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.” The fact that a decision is a "societal decision" does not make it right.

Google's Dangerous Mission

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:23:41 -0500

From my Op-Ed today at The Daily Caller:

With data breaches and cyber attacks littering the news, Google’s mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” is proving increasingly dangerous. By purposely storing all of the world’s information in one place, putting everyone’s eggs in one basket, Google exposes Internet users, content producers and even governments to huge and unnecessary risks. The utopian vision behind Google’s mission — that all information (including private property) should be centralized in the hands of one unaccountable entity — can only lead to a series of disasters and ultimately tyranny.

Read the whole thing here.

How The Web Was Lost

nospam@example.com (Ira Brodsky) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:21:17 -0500

This is the first in a series of posts about Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.

In the 1990s, most of us saw the World Wide Web as a liberating technology. Built atop the “network of networks,” there is no limit to how much information the Web can hold. And it’s incredibly fast: You can jump from one end of the globe to another in a split second just by clicking on a hyperlink. The Web gives consumers access to information on virtually any topic. And anyone can publish on the Web—usually for a fraction of what print media costs.

The Web promised to change everything—and in many ways it has.

Our expectations only seemed to grow as the number of users and websites increased. Many of us believed the Web would perfect the free-market system: all markets would be global in scale; buyers and sellers would always be well informed; and all transactions would occur at the speed of light.

The Web would give everyone yearning for freedom a platform from which to speak, and it would undermine and ultimately defeat anyone engaging in censorship. No government would be able to stem the free exchange of information and ideas.

It was hard to see any downside. The barriers to entry were remarkably low. Anyone with a personal computer and a dial-up modem could get on the Web. High speed access over cable TV networks was rolling out, and telephone companies promised a competing high speed service using phone lines.

We celebrated the fact that the Internet was a self-organized, unregulated, “dumb network.” The days when we had to play according to the Phone Company’s rules were finally over. No single entity could control the Internet. Most of the intelligence resided at the edges of the network—in the hands of end users and a multitude of small websites.

What could possibly go wrong? The technology was evolving so rapidly that it seemed the moment a threat to competition or choice appeared it was already on the road to obsolescence.

If there was a first mover advantage, we theorized, there was also a second and a third mover advantage. No one worried about the network effect—a large company’s ability to extend its market lead by acquiring customers at a faster rate—because online markets were in constant flux. New companies with new solutions emerged daily. Competition was always just one click away.

What we didn’t see—what we refused to see—was the Internet’s winner-take-all dynamic. Scott Cleland calls it the Internet Choice Paradox: The Web offers consumers what looks like infinite variety, but most users eventually select favorite search engines, social networks, and news sites. Information producers trying to reach a large audience soon find that they have very few choices. A relatively small number of sites become the Web’s information gatekeepers and e-commerce toll collectors.

That could only mean one thing: the Internet would enter a period of concentration (of information) and consolidation (of companies). The technology might continue to evolve, but only a few business models would thrive. A small group of winners would seize control.