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Posted in Menacing Monopoly

Surprise! Google violates its own policies to promote Chrome

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

Don’t be evil… be hypocritically evil!

Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and “thin” content, seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser. File this under “what were they thinking.”

Aaron Wall wrote about the campaign today at SEO Book, spotting how a search for “This post is sponsored by Google” brings back over 400 pages written apparently as part of a Google marketing campaign.

We’re checking with Google for confirmation that the company is behind the campaign, but expect a response to be delayed, as Google’s PR department, like much of Google, is off today. But it certainly appears to be Google-backed.

Google is increasingly relying on advertising to try to win over converts to its spyware-laden browser, Chrome, which is built on top of open source software originally derived from the KDE Software Compilation (KHTML). Google’s “ChromeOS” and Chromebooks aren’t doing so well, but Google has successfully convinced millions to download Chrome (the browser) by relentlessly hyping it on its web properties and bundling it with other downloads (like Google Earth).

Though Google is undoubtedly hoping that Chrome’s market share will continue to grow at Mozilla’s expense, it decided against parting ways with the nonprofit software maker recently, choosing instead to renew an agreement that will keep Google as the default search engine in Firefox for a few more years. But we believe Google’s executives didn’t sign off on the agreement out of the kindness of their hearts. They did so because they didn’t want to see Microsoft’s Bing become the default search engine in Firefox. (Microsoft had apparently made an offer and had put money on the table). Microsoft, of course, happens to make its own browser – Internet Explorer. But it has been working hard to integrate Bing into Firefox recently.

Posted in Menacing Monopoly

Google places misleading ads designed to steal Yelp’s traffic on its mobile search engine

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

The Monster of Mountain View continues to engage in anticompetitive behavior:

If you search for “Yelp” on Google from your mobile phone the top paid result, even above the organic result to Yelp.com, takes you to Zagat.  I am only seeing this on mobile searches. While it is a common practice for companies to advertise against their competitors’ names in search advertising, in this case it is Google itself which is bidding for that search term and taking the top spot.  A classy move.

TechCrunch has a screenshot of the ad. The link is titled “Yelp”, but it goes to Zagat, which was recently purchased by Google and is now a subsidiary.

Because AdWords ads appear above what are known as the “organic” search results (which is a misnomer, there’s no such thing as “organic” search results), the real Yelp will always appear below the fake Yelp link as long as Google continues running its ad for Zagat. And of course, Google can run its Zagat ad forever… because Google can give itself as much advertising space as it likes.

TechCrunch notes that Yelp could fight back by buying its own Google ad. But then it’s just forking over money to a competitor.

What Google is doing here is a perfect example of why it is a menacing monopoly, and should be boycotted.

Posted in Undependable Support

Google’s support for Android sucks

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

Blogger Michael DeGusta has published an illuminating chart which shows just how bad Google is at pushing out updates to phones running its spyware-laden Android operating system. He writes:

I went back and found every Android phone shipped in the United States1 up through the middle of last year. I then tracked down every update that was released for each device – be it a major OS upgrade or a minor support patch – as well as prices and release & discontinuation dates. I compared these dates & versions to the currently shipping version of Android at the time. The resulting picture isn’t pretty.

From the chart, he extrapolated some devastating numbers:

  • 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
  • 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
  • 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
  • 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
  • 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
  • 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
  • In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
  • At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.

DeGusta goes on to discuss why Google is unable to match Apple in terms of support for users of older hardware. His piece is definitely worth reading.

Posted in Shoddy Security

Another high-profile YouTube account hacked

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

First it was the Sesame Street YouTube account. Now it’s Microsoft’s:

Microsoft’s official YouTube channel appears to have been taken over by someone not affiliated with the company, who has removed all of the videos and posted solicitations for sponsorships, apparently anticipating an influx of traffic as the news spreads.

I subscribe to the company’s YouTube updates and received notification this morning of two new uploads by the company, both of them rudimentary videos apparently soliciting advertisements for the channel. Since then a third video has been uploaded, along the same lines.

A YouTube account is, of course, a Google account – meaning that someone who signs up for YouTube isn’t just creating an identity on YouTube; they’re creating an identity that can be used with other Google offerings, such as Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, or Google Maps. The list goes on… and on… and on…

Who knows what else the hackers compromised that was in that Google account?

This is why it’s a bad idea to do business the Google way. Google’s account security sucks, as demonstrated by these recent break-ins.

When you trust one company to handle your emails, chat, videos, documents, pictures, credit card data, and other sensitive information, you’re asking for trouble. A lot of trouble.

Posted in Poor Quality Assurance, Shoddy Security

City of Los Angeles demands partial refund from Google; LAPD says Google Apps not secure

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

The City of Los Angeles made a big mistake when it decided to do business with the Monster of Mountain View. Now the city is trying to get a partial refund from Google because some of its departments refuse to use Google’s insecure Apps offering:

Two years after the City of Los Angeles approved a $7.25 million deal to move its e-mail and productivity infrastructure to Google Apps, the migration has still not been completed because the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies are unsatisfied with Google’s security related to the handling of criminal history data.

Los Angeles officials originally expected to roll Google Apps out to its 30,000 users by June 2010, in partnership with systems integration contractor CSC. But that number has been reduced to about 17,000 employees, largely because of security objections raised by the LAPD and other safety-related departments. Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog opposed the deal, and this week released a letter LA officials sent to CSC in August, which states “The City is in receipt of your letter dated May 13, 2011, wherein CSC indicates that it is unable to meet the security requirements of the City and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for all data and information, pursuant to U.S. DOJ Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) policy requirements.”

Google has a poor reputation when it comes to privacy and security. That’s because Google’s business model is built on collecting as much user data as possible and monetizing it. Google’s response to security problems has been to collect even more personal information; these days, Gmail users are asked to associate their mobile phone numbers with their Google accounts, all in the name of improved security.

Of course, if a person who uses only GoogleTech loses their Android phone, their email, contacts, web history, and so much more could all be compromised simultaneously. That’s the danger of trusting one company with your data.

Posted in Undependable Support, War on Privacy

Google kills off Buzz, several other products

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

Goodbye, Google Buzz. You won’t be missed:

According to a new post by Google VP of Product Bradley Horowitz, on the official company blog, Google is delivering the death blow to several more products and services, including its code search engine, Buzz, Jaiku, iGoogle features and the University Research Program for Google Search, the latter which provides API access to Google Search results for a small number of academic institutions.

This is hardly the first time Google has killed off products. It previously axed Google Wave and Blogger’s FTP publishing, for instance.

Of course, in the case of Buzz, Buzz is no longer necessary now that Google has its bigger and better Facebook clone, Google+.

The Monster of Mountain View’s latest moves are just more proof that it doesn’t pay to be a Google early adopter. Google has bought a great many promising startups, only to shut them down and assign the talent to work somewhere else in the Googleplex.

The lesson for startups? If Google comes knocking, slam the door in their face and tell them to go away. Yelp and Groupon both spurned Google takeover offers, and they were wise to do so.

Posted in Menacing Monopoly

Google swallows Zagat Ratings

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

Two years after it tried and failed to buy Yelp, Google has reached an agreement with Tim and Nina Zagat of the eponymous Zagat Survey to acquire their company:

“With Zagat, we gain a world-class team that has more experience in consumer based-surveys, recommendations and reviews than anyone else in the industry,” said Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president responsible for the tech giant’s efforts in local, maps and location services, in a blog post.

“Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering — delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.”

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the Monster of Mountain View reportedly paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $125 million.

Zagat has been in business for more than thirty years. It was created in 1979 to organize and aggregate restaurant reviews. For many years, its guides were sold as books.

In the late 1990s, Zagat actually had a partnership with Microsoft, which integrated its restaurant guide into its Expedia Streets 98 mapping program. (Streets later became Microsoft Streets & Trips; Expedia was ultimately spun off as a separate company.)

Now Zagat is just another cog in the Googleplex.

Pretty sad that its founders decided to sell out instead of remaining independent.

Posted in Poor Quality Assurance

Proof that Google Places is a joke

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

The New York Times has another tale of Google crowdsourcing gone awry. It seems that some people are using a “feature” on Google Places to falsely report that a competing business has closed up shop and gone away. It’s a system that’s easily abused:

In mid-August, a search consultant and blogger named Mike Blumenthal was so rankled by what he considered Google’s cavalier attitude to closings on Google that he committed an act of online disobedience: He “closed” Google’s offices in Mountain View, Calif. For a brief period, Google itself was “reportedly closed,” according to Places. “I did it to point out how annoying this is when it happens,” he said.

Excellent, Mike. Most excellent!

On Aug. 15, Mr. Blumenthal posted a screen shot of Google’s Places page “reportedly closed,” noting that it took just two people — him and a friend — to pull off this stunt. It seemed to get the company’s attention. At least one change to closings on Places has already been made. Since late August, a business that is newly tagged “permanently closed,” receives an alert via e-mail from Google, informing the business owner of the change.

The New York Times article ends, however, by noting that some frustrated business owners have been unable to get the Monster of Mountain View to remove malicious “closed” and “permanently closed” notices despite repeated emails and phone calls. Why does that not surprise us?

Posted in Legal Troubles

U.S. government announces Google will pay $500 million fine to settle illegal advertising charges

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

It looks like Google critic David Brandt was right about Google being in bed with rogue online pharmacies. Here’s the Department of Justice:

Online search engine Google Inc. has agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United States, resulting in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States, announced Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole; Peter F. Neronha, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island; and  Kathleen Martin-Weis, Acting Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA/OCI).  The forfeiture, one of the largest ever in the United States, represents the gross revenue received by Google as a result of Canadian pharmacies advertising through Google’s AdWords program, plus gross revenue made by  Canadian pharmacies from their sales to U.S. consumers.

As part of the settlement, Google also agreed to an admission of wrongdoing.

It looks like justice has been served. This is a pretty steep fine. Obviously, DoJ investigators were able to find strong evidence that Google was flagrantly breaking the law, or Google wouldn’t have settled the charges. The cost of the settlement has already decreased Google’s quarterly profit by 22%, after the company set aside the money it anticipated having to pay the feds.

“This investigation is about the patently unsafe, unlawful, importation of prescription drugs by Canadian on-line pharmacies, with Google’s knowledge and assistance, into the United States, directly to U.S. consumers,” said U.S. Attorney Neronha. “It is about taking a significant step forward in limiting the ability of rogue on-line pharmacies from reaching U.S. consumers, by compelling Google to change its behavior.   It is about  holding Google responsible for its conduct by imposing a $500 million forfeiture, the kind of forfeiture that will not only get Google’s attention, but the attention of all those who contribute to America’s pill problem.”

LGB applauds the United States government for holding Google accountable in this case. Perhaps this investigation will cause the Monster of Mountain View to think twice before breaking the law in the future.

Google issued a short, meek statement on the settlement and then refused to comment further. The statement read:

We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the U.S. by Canadian pharmacies some time ago… However, it’s obvious with hindsight that we shouldn’t have allowed these ads on Google in the first place. Given the extensive coverage this settlement has already received, we won’t be commenting further.

It actually took Google years to get around to banning rogue online pharmacy ads. Google’s competitors took such actions back in 2003, but Google did not follow suit. Instead, it behaved unethically and illegally. Now it will pay the price.

Posted in Menacing Monopoly

Google announces its biggest acquisition ever: It wants to buy Motorola Mobility

Posted on by Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

The Monster of Mountain View is trying to make a monster deal:

In a bid to strengthen its mobile business, Google announced on Monday that it would acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the cellphone business that was split from Motorola, for $40 a share in cash, or $12.5 billion.

The offer — by far Google’s largest ever for an acquisition — is 63 percent above the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday. Motorola manufactures phones that run on Google’s Android software.

Considering that the feds recently initiated an antitrust investigation of Google, this is a rather aggressive move on Google’s part. $12.5 billion is nearly three times what Microsoft, RIM, Apple, Sony, and others put down to buy the patent portfolio of the now-defunct Nortel Networks. Google had been bidding separately for the portfolio, but it decided to pull out as the price went over $4 billion, leaving its competitors victorious.

Google will be pushing hard for this deal to go through. They are clearly ready to sweet-talk regulators for as long as it takes to win approval. They stand to pay a huge financial penalty if they can’t:

Google agreed to pay Motorola Mobility $2.5 billion if the deal falls through, a person familiar with the matter said. Motorola Mobility would pay $375 million if it decided not to sell to Google, the person said. Jennifer Erickson, a spokeswoman for Motorola Mobility, declined to comment on the breakup fee, as did Aaron Zamost, a spokesman at Google.

Motorola’s rivals – chiefly HTC and Samsung – might want to start rethinking their alliance with Google right about now. They’ve just been spurned.

Google may try to claim they are not aspiring to copy Apple’s business model, but such claims are laughable now considering the deal they announced this morning. There’s no way Google would pay such a premium for a phone manufacturer just to gain control of some patents. No, this is about Google entering the hardware business. Apple just took the top spot from oil giant ExxonMobil as the world’s most valuable company. Most of their revenue comes from selling hardware.

Google figures it can make a lot more money than it does now if it sells hardware and then serves up ads on the devices it sells. They want to exercise more control over the user experience. With Motorola Mobility, Google will be able to make its own phones, tablets, and dumbed-down laptop computers (Chromebooks). It is seeking to gain the power to dispense with partners and instead concentrate on building a fan club like Apple does.

Regulators should say no to this deal. They won’t, but they should. It’s bad for competition in the wireless industry and it’s bad news for user privacy and security.