Category Archives: Google

Passwords are one of the worst things on the internet, Mark Risher, Googles senior director for account security, identity, and abuse told The Verge. Though theyre essential for security and to help people log in to many apps and websites, theyre one of the primary, if not the primary, ways that people actually end up getting compromised.

Its a strange thing for a Google security executive to say because the last time you logged into Gmail, you probably typed in a password. But the company has been trying to nudge users away from the model for years, or at least minimize the damage. And in the coming weeks, one of Googles quietest tools in that fight the Password Checkup feature will be getting a higher profile, as it joins the Security Checkup dashboard built into every Google account.

Risher is right to be concerned. Though you can use a tool like a password manager to help keep track of your logins, a lot of people just end up reusing passwords for many accounts. Fifty-two percent of people reuse the same password for multiple accounts, according to the results of a poll published in February 2019 by Google and polling firm Harris. Thirteen percent of people reuse that password for all of their accounts, that poll found. And Microsoft said in 2019 that 44 million Microsoft accounts used logins that had been leaked online.

While reusing passwords can be one way to remember a complex word, phrase, or combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that you think no one will ever be able to guess, the practice can put your personal information in danger. If that reused password gets leaked as part of a data breach, hackers could then have the key to many of your other online accounts no matter how complex the phrase is.

We know from other research weve done in the past that people whove had their data exposed by a data breach are 10 times more likely to be hijacked than a person thats not exposed by one of these breaches, said Kurt Thomas, a member of Googles anti-abuse and security research team.

Google has been trying to help users build better password habits for some time, slowly but surely. For years, the company has offered a built-in password manager in Google Accounts on Chrome and Android that can save your passwords and autofill them on websites and apps, for example.

But over the past year or so, Google has also been working to help people proactively make better passwords with Password Checkup. The tool checks logins against a database of 4 billion leaked credentials, seeing if the password youre typing in matches one thats already leaked. It launched first as a Chrome extension in February 2019, and Google baked it into Google Accounts in October and into Chrome in December.

Its not a new idea, but Google is uniquely well-positioned to offer something like Password Checkup. The company has access to billions of passwords and the scale to roll out Password Checkup to billions of users in a way that integrates with account security tools on which many people already rely.

Figuring out how to let Password Checkup flag compromised credentials in a privacy-respecting way was a tough technical problem that required a combined effort from both Google and Stanford. The challenge was finding a way to automatically check a users credentials against a database of breached logins without revealing that information to Google or giving the user access to the whole database, all while scaling that solution to Googles huge user base, researchers from both organizations told me.

To do so, Google stores a hashed and encrypted version of every known username and password exposed by a data breach. Whenever you log into an account, Google will send a hashed and encrypted version of your login info against that database. That way, Google cant see your password, and you cant see Googles list of known-compromised logins. If Google detects a match, Google will show an alert recommending that you change your password for that site.

Google gets compromised logins from multiple different sources and trusted partners, Thomas said, including underground forums where password dumps are openly shared. We have an ethical policy that we will never pay criminals for stolen data, he continued. But just by virtue of how these markets work, very often, [stolen data] will bubble up and become available. Using personas Google has in those marketplaces, the company can acquire the data, he said.

Password Checkup took about two to three years from inception to having it appear in many Google products, according to Thomas. Down the line, Google wants to have Security Checkup email you when it detects that a stored login has been compromised in a data breach, which the company plans to launch in the coming months. And later this year, Google aims to let people use Password Checkup in Chrome even if they arent logged into a Google account.

Google isnt the only company to offer some kind of password-checking functionality. Paid password manager 1Password recommends changing weak or duplicated passwords and also offers Watchtower, which checks your logins against Troy Hunts Have I Been Pwned database of more than 9 billion compromised accounts and flags any matches. And Apple announced yesterday that its next version of Safari will have a password-monitoring tool that appears to work similarly to Password Checkup.

But Google has an advantage in helping people with their passwords thanks to its massive scale. And tools like Password Checkup and the built-in password manager ladder up to a broader goal to make online security easier for users.

What I like security to be and what I think [Password Checkup] is a good example of is, how do you make it easier for regular people to do the right thing? Googles VP of security engineering Royal Hansen told The Verge. Its not about alerting you with more and more problems, he said. Its about making it easier for you to do, frankly, the most basic step.

Update June 23rd, 4:06PM ET: Added context about where Password Checkup is already available.

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Google is on a mission to stop you from reusing passwords - The Verge

A chorus of business leaders have slammed the Trump administration's announcement that it is cracking down on a handful of work visas including those widely used by high-skilled tech workers.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Monday banning a handful of new visas through the end of the year including the H-1B visa (largely used by workers in the tech sector) and the L-1 visa (often used for transferring managers or executives from the foreign arm of a company to the U.S.), among other visa types.

Some 388,403 H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal year 2019, with 138,927 of those petitions being first-timers for initial employment at their companies, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report released in March.

More than 66% of those approved H-1B petitions were for workers in "computer-related occupations," according to the report.

Applicants for the H-1B visa must be highly educated. According to the same report looking at last year's data, 36% of the H-1B petitioners that were approved held a bachelor's degree, 54% held a master's degree and 8% held a doctorate degree.

In the proclamation, the Trump administration presented the move as a way of freeing up thousands of jobs for American workers amid the coronavirus-induced unemployment crisis.

Critics have argued that highly skilled tech workers especially in STEM fields, however, can actually help create jobs in the U.S. economy.

A study from the nonprofit immigration research and advocacy organization the New American Economy argued that every H-1B visa holder creates 1.83 jobs for native-born American workers.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas J. Donohue called the proclamation a "severe and sweeping attempt to restrict legal immigration" that will actually reduce job creation.

"Putting up a 'not welcome' sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers wont help our country, it will hold us back. Restrictive changes to our nations immigration system will push investment and economic activity abroad, slow growth, and reduce job creation," Donohue said in a statement.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has long defended the need for an immigrant workforce at Apple, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the proclamation.

"Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American Dream," Cook tweeted. "There is no new prosperity without both. Deeply disappointed by this proclamation."

Apple had 1,136 H-1B visa approvals during 2019's fiscal year, according to data from the USCIS.

In this handout provided by Apple, CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at an empty Steve Jobs Theater June 22, 2020, in Cupertino, Calif.

Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai echoed Cook's sentiments.

"Immigration has contributed immensely to Americas economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today," Pichai wrote in a tweet. "Disappointed by todays proclamation - well continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all."

Google had 2,678 H-1B visa approvals in 2019, according to the USCIS data.

In this May 7, 2019, file photo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the 2019 Google I/O conference at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.

Microsoft's President Brad Smith also responded on Twitter, saying that immigrants "are contributing to this country at a time when we need them most."

"Now is not the time to cut our nation off from the worlds talent or create uncertainty and anxiety. Immigrants play a vital role at our company and support our countrys critical infrastructure," he wrote. "They are contributing to this country at a time when we need them most."

Microsoft had 1,701 H-1B visa approvals in 2019, according to the U.S. CIS data.

Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, added that these immigrant workers generate "innovation" and "growth."

"As we plan for recovery from the COVID-19 crisis let's focus on common sense & fair immigration policies. H-1B workers should be treated with respect & dignity," Benioff wrote. "They generate real innovation & growth . . . benefiting us all and fueling our economy. We embrace all our Ohana."

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also reacted to the news on Twitter, writing, "Very much disagree with this action. In my experience, these skillsets are net job creators. Visa reform makes sense, but this is too broad."

Finally, Twitter also slammed the announcement in a statement, arguing the move is damaging to the "economic strength" of the U.S.

"This proclamation undermines Americas greatest economic asset: its diversity. People from all over the world come here to join our labor force, pay taxes, and contribute to our global competitiveness on the world stage," Twitter's VP of public policy and philanthropy, Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, said in a statement. "Unilaterally and unnecessarily stifling Americas attractiveness to global, high-skilled talent is short-sighted and deeply damaging to the economic strength of the United States."

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Apple, Google and chorus of tech business leaders slam Trump's new visa restrictions - ABC News

With help from Cristiano Lima and John Hendel

Programming announcement: This 10 a.m. version of Morning Tech will end daily publication this fall and move to a week-ahead style newsletter that publishes on Monday mornings. The daily 6 a.m. version will continue for POLITICO Pro subscribers. For information on how you can continue to receive daily policy content, as well as information for current POLITICO Pro subscribers, please visit our website.

GOP vs. Google: Googles dominance of online advertising is already under Justice Department scrutiny. Now, Republicans are pointing to Googles move to cut off ad revenue to a right-wing blog as proof of alleged anti-conservative bias and reason to roll back Section 230.

Facebook and the election: Facebook is launching a sweeping get-out-the-vote effort as critics accuse the company of not doing enough to address potentially dangerous or misleading content on the platform.

MT scoop: More than 100 leading civil rights and civil liberties groups are demanding House leaders cut off federal funding for law enforcement surveillance technologies that are antithetical to the First and Fourth Amendment.

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ITS WEDNESDAY; WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! Im your host, Alexandra Levine. A friendly reminder that fellow tech reporter Cristiano Lima is interviewing Microsoft President Brad Smith on Thursday at 2 p.m. Sign up for that discussion here; watch live here. What are you most interested to hear about? Send us your questions at the info below.

Got a news tip? Write me at [emailprotected], or follow along @Ali_Lev and @alexandra.levine. An event for our calendar? Send details to [emailprotected]. Anything else? Full team info below. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

GOP VS. GOOGLE Googles decision to block right-wing website ZeroHedge from using the Google Ad platform (and its threat to do the same for The Federalist) has added fuel to GOP calls to roll back Section 230 protections for tech giants for alleged anti-conservative bias and at a time when theyre already feeling emboldened by President Donald Trumps recent social media executive order. Google said Tuesday that the comments sections on those sites contained derogatory, racially fueled content, and our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites.

Republicans react: The House Judiciary Committees top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, raised alarm on Twitter about tech companies taking action against conservative sites during an election year. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who alleged on Twitter that activist journalists at NBC (which had earlier reported the story) pressured Google into censoring The Federalists website, adding: When will Big News and Big Tech #StopTheBias?! And FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has thrown his weight behind the presidents executive order targeting Section 230, said Tuesday evening that Google makes one of the strongest arguments yet for Section 230 reform.

Whats next: Googles dominance over online ads is already raising eyebrows at the Justice Department, as Leah has reported. But Googles decision to penalize websites based on their comments sections could spark another big debate: That kind of content is protected by the First Amendment, while Googles right to take down that content is protected by the so-called good samaritan clause of Section 230, which states the company can make good faith attempts to crack down on objectionable material without opening itself up to liability. Watch for these concerns to potentially come up today during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on the agencys role in reforming Section 230.

AHEAD OF ELECTION, FACEBOOK PLEDGES MAJOR VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE Facebook aims to help 4 million people register to vote in the months leading up to November's presidential election, a major get-out-the-vote drive that comes as critics assert the social network has not done enough to stamp out misleading posts that undermine the democratic process, Steven reports.

Pre-empting the critics: In a USA Today op-ed Tuesday evening, Zuckerberg acknowledged that these new actions wont satisfy everyone. "Everyone wants to see politicians held accountable for what they say and I know many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content," he wrote in the editorial. "But accountability only works if we can see what those seeking our votes are saying, even if we viscerally dislike what they say."

Critics have accused Zuckerberg of abdicating responsibility on content moderation, particularly in its recent decision not to take down inflammatory and potentially dangerous posts from Trump. (Backlash against that decision prompted Zuckerberg to announce the social media giant would re-examine its policies against violent threats and voter suppression.)

FIRST IN MT: GROUPS URGE CONGRESS TO DROP SURVEILLANCE TECH FUNDS More than 100 civil rights and civil liberties groups today are calling on House leaders to cease federal funding for the surveillance technologies that are being used to militarize our communities and criminalize dissent. In a letter going out today to top lawmakers in the House and its Judiciary Committee, the groups say law enforcement use of cutting-edge tools to monitor protests against the killing of George Floyd has chilled activists' free expression rights.

What theyre pushing for: The groups which include the ACLU, Color of Change, Free Press and the Center for Democracy & Technology also call for dramatic changes to our surveillance infrastructure, which has also contributed to increased militarization and policing abuses. They urged legislators to stop agencies from using their intelligence assets for general policing, including surveillance of protests.

The background: The push comes as Democratic lawmakers have increasingly sounded the alarm on law enforcement surveillance, including the use of emerging technologies like facial recognition software and drones, at the recent wave of racial justice protests.

Where talks stand on the Hill: The bicameral Democratic police reform package included some narrow checks on such tools, including banning warrantless federal law enforcement use of facial recognition software on body-cam footage. But the incoming Senate GOP policing package includes no mentions of facial recognition software, biometric identification or surveillance more broadly, according to bill text obtained by POLITICOs Marianne LeVine signaling daylight on the issue between the two sides.

INDUSTRYS MIXED MESSAGING ON THE FIGHT AGAINST RACIAL INJUSTICE The Internet Association is out this morning with a statement stressing the industrys commitment to diversity and inclusion and sharing guidelines for lawmakers working to address racial injustice. The catch-22: Several of the trade groups member companies have been accused in recent weeks of projecting messages of racial solidarity and progressive values to the outside world that some employees say do not mirror the firms internal culture or business decisions.

Former workers from one member company that had declared solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Pinterest, went public this week with stories about racism and gaslighting they said they endured under leadership there. Members Amazon and Microsoft were called out for expressing solidarity while also providing surveillance tools to law enforcement. (Theyve since bent to public pressure to take temporary timeouts from facial recognition.) Airbnb, also a member, on Monday announced Project Lighthouse, a joint effort with racial justice group Color of Change to identify bias (around first names or profile photos, for example) and measure discrimination when booking or hosting on the platform.

IA believes that Black Lives Matter, the trade association said today in what it described as a value statement. It stressed the sectors commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive online community and workforce and outlined steps the industry is taking to get there. Those include IAs second annual survey examining existing diversity and inclusion efforts at member companies and a soon-to-launch job referral site, meant to be a centralized hub for diverse job applicants to apply to open positions at those firms. IA also called on Congress to reform accountability measures and transparency in policing; demilitarize law enforcement; and invest in alternatives to incarceration.

LIGADO FIGHT REDUX Tuesdays reconfirmation hearing for GOP FCC Commissioner Mike ORielly turned into another tussle over the agencys April order approving satellite company Ligado Networks 5G plans, which critics like the Pentagon say will disrupt GPS. Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) played ORielly off of two other nominees, for positions at the departments of Transportation and Commerce, who expressed alarm about Ligado.

Quote du jour: Im not sure my fellow colleague at the table is right to say NTIA has been uniformly opposed to the situation. My conversations with multiple people suggest that NTIA has had a different viewpoint over the time period, and it wasnt until the dismissal of an administrator that the position was as it is now. Translation: ORielly is saying the Trump administration was less hostile to Ligado prior to the resignation of former Administrator David Redl in May 2019.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, meanwhile, defended the Ligado decision in a letter to several Senate Commerce members.

MEANWHILE: WICKER PLANS BROADBAND LEGISLATION? During that hearing, the Commerce chairman revealed hes now focused on how to speed up the disbursement of rural broadband subsidies from the FCCs October Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction of $16 billion. Although he previously had expressed interest in speeding up when that auction begins, Wicker says hes turned his attention to how to fast-track getting the broadband subsidy money out the door to telecom providers after the first phase of that auction happens.

I may have a proposal, Wicker told ORielly. Once phase 1 auction occurs, I think we can help you with some extra funds and some incentive from the administration, on a bipartisan basis, to move this ahead.

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How Facebook is preparing for the US 2020 election

Tripled safety and security teams to 35,000 people Implemented 5-step political ad verification Providing greater political ad transparency Launching new Voting Information Center

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Cheryl Bruner, previously a longtime in-house lobbyist for IBM, is joining Red Hats Washington office as public policy director. Shes expected to focus on information technology and telecommunications issues as well as lobbying Congress.

Will tech CEOs testify?: The CEOs of Amazon, Facebook and Google have said they would testify before the Houses antitrust panel if all CEOs of those companies, and Apple, collectively agree to, POLITICO reports but Apple remains a holdout.

EU antitrust spotlight: Apple now has a target on its back, POLITICO reports, On Tuesday, the iPhone maker found itself on the wrong side of the law when the European Commission opened two antitrust investigations one into whether the company treated rivals like the music-streaming service Spotify unfairly in its popular app store; the other into how other competitors were treated in its mobile payments service.

Meanwhile: Apple faced harsh criticism on Tuesday from regulators and the companies behind some of the most popular apps in its App Store, including Tinder and Fortnite, a sign of the growing discontent with Apples grip on the mobile economy, WaPo reports.

Opinion: How Iran Became the New Battle Line Between Conservatives and Twitter, via POLITICO Magazine.

If I had $5 billion: Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, is quietly building a mysterious 2,100-acre luxury retreat ranch in Colorado for American public school teachers, Vox Recode reports.

Zynn, de-platformed: TikTok rival Zynn, which in recent weeks had been the top free iPhone app on Apples U.S. App Store, has been removed from both the iOS and Android app stores, Business Insider reports.

ICYMI: T-Mobile is laying off hundreds of Sprint employees, TechCrunch reports.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([emailprotected], @bkingdc), Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected], @HeidiVogt), Nancy Scola ([emailprotected], @nancyscola), Steven Overly ([emailprotected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([emailprotected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([emailprotected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([emailprotected], @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen ([emailprotected], @leah_nylen).

TTYL.

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Google stokes GOP allegations of tech bias - Politico

In celebration of the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth, Google has produced a video Doodle set to the first verse of the poem Lift Every Voice and Sing, often called The Black National Anthem. Its a 90 second piece of rousing animation that honors the end of slavery in the US. The video features art from artist Loveis Wise, music produced by Elijah Jamal, and the poem is read by LeVar Burton.

Although slavery officially ended with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, it wasnt until June 19th, 1865 that the federal order reached Galveston, Texas on the western edge of the Confederacy. Juneteenth is shorthand for June Nineteenth.

This is an American story about freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I hope that in these brown faces many Americans can see themselves, said Googles Angelica McKinley, the Doodles lead art director in an accompanying video describing its creation.

The Doodle is just one of the ways Google is celebrating Juneteenth this year. Earlier this month it added the day as a holiday in the United States in Google Calendar, and the company also says its added new Google Assistant responses to questions like Hey Google, whats Juneteenth? Google Arts & Culture has a new exhibit on the historical legacy of Juneteenth made in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History, and YouTube Music has a playlist titled Juneteenth: Freedom Songs featuring artists like Beyonce and Bob Marley. Google Earth has also been updated to include satellite imagery of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC.

Although Juneteenth is a significant moment in US history, it is not currently designated as an official federal holiday, although most states now recognize it. Its an especially significant date this year, following weeks of protests against racism and police brutality in the country.

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Google Doodle celebrates the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth - The Verge

(Sridhar Ramaswamy/Greylock Ventures)By Daisuke Wakabayashi

By the end of his 15 years at Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, then the executive in charge of the companys $115 billion advertising arm, had grown disillusioned with the business he had helped build.

The relentless pressure to maintain Googles growth, he said, had come at a heavy cost to the companys users. Useful search results were pushed down the page to squeeze in more advertisements, and privacy was sacrificed for online tracking tools to keep tabs on what ads people were seeing.

The final straw came in November 2017 when news reports found videos of scantily clad children on YouTube featuring ads from Deutsche Bank, Amazon, eBay and Adidas. The advertisements were served automatically by the technology systems overseen by Ramaswamys team.

Nearly two years after he left Google, he is testing his newfound conviction by mounting a challenge against his former employer. His new company, Neeva, is a search engine that looks for information on the web as well as personal files like emails and other documents. It will not show any advertisements and it will not collect or profit from user data, he said. It plans to make money on subscriptions from users paying for the service.

As evidenced by the antitrust investigations into Googles businesses, challenging the company is no easy task. Google accounts for roughly 90% of all searches globally and competitors have tried unsuccessfully for years to make inroads.

Neeva faces the additional hurdle of getting people to pay for something that many have come to expect as free. While there is a growing awareness that free services from Google and Facebook come at the expense of personal data, many consumers even those who express a concern about their privacy are often unwilling to pay for an alternative.

Neeva recalls a notion raised, ironically, by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a 1998 research paper when they were doctoral students at Stanford University. They wrote, at the time, that advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results.

Search advertising has become much more sophisticated since the 1990s, but much of the same conflicts of interest remains, according to Ramaswamy. Companies are often torn between serving the interests of advertisers or the interests of users.

He pointed to how Google has devoted more space to ads at the top of search results with the results users are seeking pushed down the page an issue more pronounced on smaller smartphone screens.

Its a slow drift away from what is the best answer for the user and how do we surface it, he said. As a consumer product, the more pressure there is to show ads, the less useful in the long term the product becomes.

Google said it did extensive user testing and found that people see relevant ads and offers extremely useful.

There are many different vertical and general-purpose search options for people, and we regularly see new approaches. Ads make Google Search free for everyone, and we only show them on a very small fraction of overall queries, said Chi Hea Cho, a Google spokeswoman.

One search competitor said ads did not have to come with privacy concerns, either. Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, a privacy-minded alternative to Google, said subscriptions turned privacy into a luxury. DuckDuckGo presents ads but it says it does not track user behavior.

If you want the most impact to help the most people with privacy, you have to be free because Google will be free forever, he said.

Neeva has not set a price for its subscription. It will be free for initial users until the end of the year. After that, Ramaswamy said he aimed to charge a monthly subscription of less than $10 and he hopes to bring the price down over time as more users sign up.

In conversations, Ramaswamy, 53, is measured and cerebral, very much like the academic teaching computer science that he was before he joined Google in 2003. But its still jarring to hear about the pitfalls of ads from someone who was once hailed the most important figure in online advertising.

He said that he was not anti-ad and that ad-supported businesses made sense in some instances. But once a company turns to advertising for its primary source of revenue, he said, it starts making small compromises like adding more ads to the top of search results that ultimately lead to an outcome that youre not particularly happy about.

When asked why he, as one of Googles most senior executives, did not intervene, he said there was an implicit understanding that his teams job was to keep money flowing.

The core idea that you have to help revenue grow and that was important to the companys success were not things you questioned. Im not defending this. I was very much a part of this, he said.

As software engineer, Ramaswamy never imagined a career in advertising. In 1989, he came to the United States from his native India and earned a doctorate in computer science from Brown University. Before he joined Google, he did stints in academia; at Bell Labs, a research facility owned at the time by Lucent; and at another startup.

He started with the unglamorous search advertising team where his job was to make sure the systems remained up. Even in those days, an outage could cost Google $1,000 a second. His rise at Google mirrored a shift in how people bought ads. It was no longer the realm of art directors but something more akin to traders making automated bids on where ads would go and how much to pay.

In 2013, he became Googles senior vice president for advertising and commerce, overseeing all of the companys ad systems. His responsibilities included overseeing advertising at YouTube to take a video service replete with problematic content and turn it into something that could challenge television networks for advertising revenue.

In 2017, when The Times of London published examples of videos that exploit young children and appeal to pedophiles carrying ads, Ramaswamy reached a breaking point.

This is an impossible conflict and we kind of muddled our way through it, he said. All of us have boundaries for what we will tolerate in our jobs. There comes a point where you say the environment I am working in has a situation that is not acceptable to me.

He felt it was a no-win situation. If YouTubes automated systems held a high bar for what was suitable for advertising, the company risked angering some vocal creators upset at being ineligible for ad revenue. With a less restrictive approach, the chances of a troubling video running with ads was higher. This would anger advertisers and effectively create a financial incentive to keep making problematic content.

After he left Google, Ramaswamy appeared ready to follow the well-worn path of accomplished Silicon Valley executive to venture capitalist, joining Greylock Partners. But after a few months, he quietly started working on Neeva, recruiting former Google colleagues including his co-founder, Vivek Raghunathan, a former vice president at the company who worked with Ramaswamy on search ads and YouTube ads during his 11 years there.

Neeva, which is based in Googles hometown, Mountain View, California, has raised $37.5 million with equal investments from Greylock, Sequoia Capital an early investor in Google and Ramaswamy himself. It has 25 employees.

Neeva is not an all-new search engine from the ground up. The search rankings are powered by Microsoft Bing, the weather information comes from weather.com, stock data from Intrinio, and the maps are from Apple. When users link their Google, Microsoft Office or Dropbox account, Neeva sifts through personal files as well as the public internet for the right answers.

And because it knows the people in your contacts, the retailers you ordered from, and news publications you received newsletters from, Neevas search results will become more personalized over time.

We felt very strongly that there needed to be alternatives, alternative viewpoints, and alternative business models, Ramaswamy said.

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Former Google executive, Sridhar Ramaswamy, takes aim at his old company with startup Neeva - ETtech.com

Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet

Photo by Bloomberg

Huawei is a national security risk and has engaged in unacceptable acts like routing network information to the Chinese government, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has claimed.

"There's no question that Huawei has engaged in some practices that are not acceptable in national security," Schmidt said in a documentary to be aired on BBC radio.

"There's no question that information from Huawei routers has ultimately ended up in hands that would appear to be the state," he added. "However that happened, we're sure it happened."

The telecommunications giant has often been accused of posing a risk to national security, with U.S. officials worried it could enable Chinese espionage. Washington has put significant pressure on allies to bar Huawei from accessing their next-generation 5G mobile networks. The U.K. is now reviewing a decision to allow the firm a restricted role in its 5G rollout.

Experts say that Huawei would haveno choicebut to hand over network data to Beijing if it is requested due to Chinese espionage and national security laws. But Huawei has repeatedly denied accusations that it passes data to Beijing and insists it's independent from government.

The firm hit back at Schmidt for his comments Thursday, disputing the suggestion that it hands customer data to the Chinese authorities.

"The allegations made by Eric Schmidt, who now works for the US government, are simply not true and as with similar assertions in the past, are not backed by evidence," Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang told CNBC.

Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, is now chair of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board.

In his interview with the BBC, he said he had previously held "prejudices" about China, such as the belief that tech firms in the country are "very good at copying things." He added that these prejudices now "need to be thrown out."

"The Chinese are just as good, and maybe better, in key areas of research and innovation as the West," Schmidt told the U.K. state-backed broadcaster. He urged Western countries to keep pace with the world's second-largest economy by investing more in research funding, ensuring increased public-private sector collaboration and remaining open to international talent.

It's not the first time Schmidt has commented on China. In 2018, the billionaire warned of a "bifurcation" of the internet into two separate models one led by the U.S., and the other by China. He also admitted to having advocated for Google's work in China when it originally pulled out of the country. Google nixed plans to launch a censored search engine in China in 2018 following outrage from employees.

For more on Schmidt's views about Huawei, read the BBC's report here.

Excerpt from:

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says there's 'no question' Huawei routed data to Beijing - CNBC

Even Google cant avoid the vicious impact of COVID-19 on the ad industry.

The ad giants net US digital ad revenue will decline by 5.3% this year to $39.6 billion, according to eMarketer, even as it projects the digital ad market as a whole to grow 1.7% to $134.7 billion. As a result, Googles market share will shrink to 29.4%, down from 31.6% last year.

This is the first time Googles ad revenues have declined since eMarketer began forecasting on the platform, said principal analyst Nicole Perrin. Before the pandemic, eMarketer projected 12.9% growth at Google, with its market share shrinking slightly.

We all are aware of the pandemic and how tough its been on the economy, she said, but Google having revenues decline is pretty striking.

The decline will come from search, which makes up roughly 80% of Googles advertising business, as well as programmatic. EMarketer anticipates Googles search revenues will decrease by 7.2%, and programmatic will decline by roughly 5%. Googles search business has been hit hard by a broad pullback from travel advertisers as their businesses shut down due to the pandemic.

[Travel advertisers] had a relatively large share of spend on Google search, Perrin said. Its an important category for Google.

The decline in ad spend exposes Googles over-reliance on travel brands and vice versa to fuel search activity and spend. That will likely change moving forward, as Google focuses on diversifying its offerings into new areas such as cloud and shopping, as well as bringing more direct response ad products to YouTube. YouTube will continue to grow this year, but not enough to counterbalance declines in search.

I would expect Google to continue doing a lot of things they're working on in those areas, Perrin said.

Travel brands, meanwhile, will continue to spend less on customer acquisition and try to diversify spend away from Google as their businesses slowly recover.

Their concern is, are we paying for travelers who wouldve bought from us anyway? Perrin said. Thats a higher strategic question around acquisition marketing.

On Googles coattails

As Google loses share, Facebook and Amazon will continue to gain, albeit at a slower rate than what eMarketer had predicted before the pandemic.

Facebooks ad revenues will grow just 4.9% this year to $31.4 billion, compared to its 21% growth rate in 2019. And Amazons ad revenues will grow 23.5% this year to $12.75 billion, compared to its 39.4% growth rate last year.

Because of this slowdown and Googles overall decline, the triopoly will remain flat this year at 0.2%, its lowest growth rate in a decade.

But unlike Google, Facebook and Amazon will continue increasing their share of the ad market, to 23.4% and 9.5% respectively, up from 22.7% and 7.8% last year.

Facebook isnt necessarily stealing share from Google because their platforms are often used for different objectives, Perrin said.

But Amazons growth is directly impacting Googles search revenues, as people search more for household products under lockdown. Amazons search revenues will grow 25.2% this year to $9.3 billion, growing its market share to 17%. Meanwhile, Googles search market share will drop to 58.5% from 61.3% last year.

The share of search is decreasing for Google and increasing for Amazon pretty quickly, she said. To the extent that people are shopping online more now, it tends to be a lot of the things you would get from Amazon.

But Googles business will likely bounce back by 21% in 2021, depending on the trajectory of the virus, Perrin said.

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Google Loses Share Of Ad Market As Travel Brands Pull Back On Search - AdExchanger

It hasnt been the best of months for Chrome with problems on macOS and Windows. But now Google has announced a potentially game changing reason for millions of users to quit Windows for Chrome OS.

INDIA - 2020/04/01: In this photo illustration the most popular Operating System for Computer ... [+] Windows 10 logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In a new blog post titled The future of computing showed up early, Google Chrome OS vice president John Solomon has revealed that native Windows apps - including Microsoft Office - will soon run on Chromebooks. This will be true local support that will work offline, giving users the opportunity to ditch Windows and move to Googles super fast, super secure operating system.

How is Google doing this? The company has partnered with Parallels, a virtualization software business. Parallels had already developed a Remote Application Server (RAS) which could virtualize Windows apps and even a full Windows desktop on Chrome OS, but users had to be online at all times to access it and performance could lag. Both these key obstacles will now be removed.

Moreover, they will be removed very soon. While it sounds like a far fetched concept, Google states that Parallels integration with Chrome OS will launch in the Fall.

Parallels running Windows apps on Chrome OS

Caveats? There are a few. First, Google is prioritizing support for Chrome OS enterprise users, even though wider support is inevitable, Second, gaming support seems unlikely given a) Chromebooks dont typically have the power to run most Windows games smoothly, b) Google Stadia already caters for this. Third, Windows apps use a lot of storage which may not suit many existing Chromebooks.

Despite these obstacles, the news has the potential to cause the biggest shake up in computing in years, transforming Chrome OS from a specialist player into the most flexible operating system available (remember: it already runs Android apps). Moreover, what chance Google can add macOS support next?

___

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Google Chrome Just Gave Millions Of Users A Reason To Quit Windows 10 - Forbes

With protests over racial inequality and police brutality sweeping the nation, Google is adjusting its own internal policies to make them more equitable. In a letter to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai suggested that his goal is lasting, meaningful change.

What does meaningful change look like at Google? First, were working to improve Black+ representation at senior levels and committing to a goal to improve leadership representation of underrepresented groups by 30 percent by 2025,Pichai wrote. On a tactical level, that will mean more external recruiting for senior management roles, along with site and country-specific plans to recruit and hire more underrepresented Googlers.

Thats in addition to internal programs designed to boost the hiring, retention, and promotion of underrepresented groups within Google (as well as ensure their mental and physical health). As with so much at the company, this added focus on accountability will be paired with measurable goals of some sort. The big question is whether these programscan do more than Googles existing diversification efforts, which have translated into incremental (but somewhat steady) progress over a number of years.

Pichai also plans on changing some key policies within Googles buildings. For example:

Weve had a security practice of Googlers watching for tailgaters in order to reduce instances of unauthorized visitors in offices. We have realized this process is susceptible to bias. So, over the past year, our Global Security and Resilience team partnering with a cross-functional working group, conducted extensive research, listened to Black Googlers experiences, and developed and tested new security procedures to ensure we could maintain the safety and security of the Google community without relying on this type of enforcement. Now, as we prepare to return to the office, we will end the practice of Googlers badge-checking each other and rely on our already robust security infrastructure.

Google plans ongradually reintroducing employees to its offices, with only 10 percent to 15 percent returning at first. Many may not return for the rest of 2020, and some of the companys in-office amenitiesincluding its cafeterias and break roomswill remain closed until theCOVID-19 pandemichas truly passed. This reset offers Pichai the chance to more seamlessly integrate some of these physical policies.

Google is also adjusting its external products to meet the moment, Pichai wrote:

Some activations have already launched, including the Assistants responses to questions related to Black Lives Matter andas of this weekJuneteenth. Were also working quickly to give merchants in the U.S. the option of adding a Black-owned business attribute to their Business Profile on Google to help people find and support Black-owned local businesses by using Search and Maps. This opt-in feature is in development and will roll out to Business Profiles in the coming weeks.

Googlehas already committed millions of dollarsto organizations working to address racial inequalities, and YouTube (one of its subsidiaries) is rolling out a multi-year, $100 million fund dedicated to amplifying and developing the voices of Black creators and artists and their stories. While these programs are earning the company a lot of publicity, though, it may take years before their actual effect can be measured.

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How Google Boosts Internal Diversification Efforts - Dice Insights

Google is ending the trial program of a service that sent users algorithm-selected prints from their Google Photos libraries, Droid Life reported. The subscription-based service launched in the US in February with a monthly fee of $7.99 that got you 10 4x6 prints from the previous 30 days.

The printing service allowed users to choose which themes the service should prioritize in selecting the prints, offering people and pets, landscapes, and a little bit of everything as options. Users were able to edit the selections before the photos were printed.

Google sent a notice to subscribers that the service would not be available after June 30th, according to Droid Life:

Thank you for your invaluable feedback these last several months. You have provided us with a lot of helpful information about how we can evolve this feature, which we hope to make more widely available. Please keep your eyes open for future updates.

Although we will be ending the trial program, we hope that you have experienced some joy from the prints you received along the way.

Its not clear when or if Google will re-launch this service more widely in the future, or if its being shelved indefinitely. Weve reached out to Google for more information.

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Google ends trial of photo service that picked and printed photos for users - The Verge