Category Archives: Google

Last week, third-party cookies received a stay of execution from Google that will allow them to survive until late 2023 almost two years beyond their previously declared decommission date. But the search-ads-and-apps biz is already planning a resurrection of sorts because third-party cookies are just too useful.

The Chocolate Factory envisions a lesser form of third-party cookie, one that in theory won't be used for tracking but will be able to support other more acceptable use cases. Google software engineer Dylan Cutler and engineering manager Kaustubha Govind call their confection "partitioned cookies" in a Web Platform Incubator Community Group proposal called "CHIPs."

Cookies are files that web applications can set in web browsers to store data. They have legitimate uses, like storing data related to the state of the application (e.g. whether you're logged in), and they can also be used for tracking people across websites.

Third-party cookies set by scripts that interact with third-party servers track people by storing a value on one website and then reading that value on another website that implements a similar third-party script. The third-party service in this case then knows all the websites running their script that were visited by the tracked individual.

That's the sort of privacy-invading behavior that led browser makers like Apple, Brave, Mozilla, and others to block third-party cookies by default. But doing so has created problems by interfering with applications that rely on third-party cookies to deliver services across domain contexts.

The browser security model is based on the distinction between first-party and third-party contexts. When an individual visits a specific web domain, that domain operates in a first party context; services available at other domains are considered third-party and face various limitations on what they can do.

Google's CHIPs proposal Cookies Having Independent Partitioned State calls for cookies that can be set by third-party service but only read within the context of the first-party site where they were initially set, as opposed to other sites also running the setter's third-party script.

For example, Cutler and Govind describe a scenario where the site retail.com wants to work with a third-party service support.chat.com to embed a support chat box on its site.

"Without the ability to set a cross-site cookie, support.chat.com could instead rely on retail.com passing along their first-party state (or some derived value of it)," the Googlers explain in their proposal. "However, if the users have not yet created an account and the support widget is helping them sign up, then retail.com would have no notion of identity to forward to support.chat.com."

There are other plausible uses too, like third-party content delivery networks that use cookies to serve access-controlled content, front-end frameworks that rely on remote hosting and remote procedure calls to interact with services, and embedded code designed to support software-as-a-service apps.

Firefox and Safari have each taken steps toward implementing their own versions of partitioned cookies, so Google's approach has conceptual support from other browser makers even if the implementations currently differ.

But privacy advocates have taken issue with Google's approach declaring intent to prototype the technology without much consultation.

"The tech has been talked about for awhile, it works when combined with other techniques to slightly reduce the harm from third-party cookies, but it's not the same as deprecating third-party cookies," said Zach Edwards, co-founder of web analytics biz Victory Medium, in a message to The Register.

"Google is proposing this shift without even acknowledging how it fits into larger plans, and thus making people guess and try to work out the calendar for upcoming Chrome additions and deprecations," he said. "It's an outrageously impossible task if the company making those decisions doesn't keep a running list of changes that impact global businesses, and also flippantly suggests new additions on non-Google websites and via a regularly rotating group of largely unknown Google developers, who when challenged about proposals often fall back on, 'All opinions are my own.'"

Such concern is widespread among those involved in ad tech and marketing because Google is in the midst of changing the rules by which online advertisers operate. The effort to phase out the third-party cookie is part of the company's ongoing Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aims to implement multiple technical specifications that change how online advertising works in the browser. And no one not Google, its allies, its competitors, regulators, or internet users is certain how these works-in-progress will eventually work and interoperate.

In January, the UKs Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) began poking around in Google's Privacy Sandbox to see whether the contemplated changes would disadvantage competitors. In response, Google made a set of commitments to be more forthcoming about its technologies and the viability of competing alternatives.

"The CMA seemingly told Google that they need to change their process and communicate more clearly how data supply changes are being made in Chrome and in Google's advertising systems," said Edwards.

"But if this new proposal is how Google perceives the CMA-mandate, then the folks in the UK should schedule a bit more tea time because they are spinning their wheels during office hours on demands that are being ignored."

Even seemingly minor proposals like CHIPs can be complicated because they don't exist in isolation. They have to be considered in the context of all the other technologies they may touch in deployment.

For example, Google has a proposal called First-Party Sets that would make different domains (e.g. apple.com and icloud.com) owned by the same company function as a single first-party domain for the purpose of cookies. Privacy researcher Lukasz Olejnik has expressed concern about how CHIPs might expand the tracking possibilities when used in conjunction with First-Party Sets.

What's more, the proposal itself acknowledges that partitioned cookies cannot currently be defended against Chrome extensions.

"Extensions' background contexts can query and store cookies across partitions, meaning they could store a cross-site identifier across partitions," explain Cutler and Govind. "Unfortunately, this type of attack is unavoidable due to the nature of extensions."

"Even if we block partitioned cookies (or even all cookies) from extensions' background contexts, an extension could still use content scripts to write cross-site identifiers to the DOM which the site's own script could copy to the site's partitioned cookie jar."

And there are other potential problems that need to be ironed out, like the risk of making sites more prone to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and increasing the risk of denial-of-service attacks through cookie proliferation that exceeds Chrome's 180-cookie-per-domain limit.

None of these issues are insurmountable. But perhaps Google's decision to treat the technical foundations of web advertising a business upon which it and so many companies depend as a set of experiments needs to be reconsidered in light of the company's market power. Moving fast and breaking things may work well for a nimble startup but when giants do so there's collateral damage.

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Google has second thoughts about cutting cookies, so serves up CHIPs - The Register

Google Cloud and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today announced a partnership to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions to help communications service providers (CSPs) digitally transformand to unlock new enterprise and consumer use cases.

Globally, industries with edge presences - including communication service providers, retailers, manufacturers, transport businesses, healthcareand media/entertainment providers - face pressures to build more digitized businesses and new digital experiences for their customers.

To help businesses address this shift, Google Cloud and Ericsson are working together to develop new solutions at Ericssons Silicon Valley D-15 Labs, a state-of-the-art innovation center where advanced solutions and technologies can be developed and tested on a live, multi-layers 5G platform.

Ericsson and Google Cloud have already completed functional onboarding of Ericsson 5G on Anthos to enable telco edge and on-premise use cases for CSPs and enterprises.

As part of the partnership, Google Cloud and Ericsson are also piloting enterprise applications at the edge on a live network with TIM. The project, which will automate the functions of TIMs core 5G network and cloud-based applications, will use TIMs Telco Cloud infrastructure, Google Cloud solutionsand Ericssons 5G core network and orchestration technologies.

The joint offerings will help enterprises in the automotive, transportation, manufacturingand other sectors improve efficiencies and lower latency by bringing connectivity close to companies physical locations.

Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, says: Organizations have a tremendous opportunity to digitally transform their businesses with 5G and cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge. We are proud to partner with Ericsson to help build a foundation for communications service providers and enterprises alike to take advantage of cloud technology and cloud-native services, from telecom network core to the edge and enterprise premises.

Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America, says: 5G is a powerful innovation platform. Combined with edge cloud capabilities, 5G has the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of virtually any sector of industry or society. We are excited about our partnership with Google Cloud as we engage with our customers to leverage our combined capabilities to solve real-world business challenges for the benefit of consumers, enterprises and society at large.

Ericsson and Google previously formed a services partnership to enable the digital transformation of operator networks and application migration through cloud-native, container-based solutions.

To learn more about Google Clouds telecom strategy, click here.

Additional Resources:

About Google CloudGoogle Cloud accelerates organizations ability to digitally transform their business with the best infrastructure, platform, industry solutions and expertise. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Googles cutting-edge technology all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

About EricssonEricsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The companys portfolio spans Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services, and Emerging Business. It is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericssons innovation investments have delivered the benefits of mobility and mobile broadband to billions of people around the world. Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York. http://www.ericsson.com

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Google Cloud and Ericsson partner on 5G Edge - Ericsson

The European Union has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google is stifling competition in the highly profitable online advertising market. The probe follows cases in France and elsewhere in Europe questioning how the company runs its ad business. It is the first time the EU has investigated Googles online display advertising business, where it serves as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers to fill ad space on web pages and apps.

Google collects data to be used for targeted advertising purposes, it sells advertising space and acts as an online advertising intermediary. So, Google is present at almost all levels of the supply chain for online display advertising, the European Commissions competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack. The investigation will also touch upon Googles plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome as part of its Privacy Sandbox plans, as well as the upcoming changes to advertising IDs on Android. At the heart of this is the question as to whether Google is unfairly limiting access to user data to its competitors?

This follows on the heels of the recent case in France where the competition regulator there fined Google $267 million last week for favoring its own services for placing online ads at the expense of rivals. The competition authority ruled that Google gave preferential treatment to its own ad inventory marketplace AdX and to the Doubleclick Ad Exchange, its real-time platform for letting clients choose and sell ads.

More to the point, ...it is the first decision in the world to look into complex algorithmic auctions processes through which online display advertising works," the authority's president Isabelle de Silva said in a statement.

Related Article:Highlights From Google's Marketing Livestream

Aidan Fitzpatrick is the founder of UK-based Reincubate. He said that Google has a bunch of data and can monetize it, but that does not mean that others have the capability to do that too. The key is the scale and Google's move to deprecate cookies removes a scale of data from the competitive realm of the marketplace for most enterprises, he said.

As ingrained consumer behavior makes Google the default in search and therefore the default repository for consumer data removing access to this data does stringently limit competitor access. Unfairly so? he asks. Difficult question as it was Google, not the competitors, who endeavored to create a search ecosystem for consumers to operate in, and to monetize that ecosystem through the exchange of access for user data.

It raises the question, at what point does the Google market model become a monopoly of consumer data? If the large tech players effectively remove all data access from the marketplace, then it imperils free enterprise and is inherently unfair. If some tech leaders do it and others don't then what are the options for the competitive marketplace seeking data-fueled resources?

Facebook might be able to monetize some user behavior data, but it would not just need a single person's data it needs the whole graph of data and interactions. Could any other business without scale make use of that? Would the data be relevant? Would making them share it be useful? Or other large search entities such as Bing.

If not considered unfair practice today, I predict that if this present course of data firewalling under the banner of consumer privacy will indeed lead to unfair competitive practice, he said.

Of course, there is another, more significant issue, which this line of questioning opens: Who really owns this consumer data, anyway? Or are there staked portions to be considered?

You own the photo you post on Instagram, and the description you write. But if someone likes your photo, is that your data? Or theirs? Or both? Whose consent is required to transfer that? If you can answer that question, is the answer the same in the UK as it is in the U.S.? What about in India?

While Google's reported market share of the display market may appear lower you could argue Facebook and Google are servicing entirely different digital markets and customer needs. Google has a monopoly of the search market at 92% (2021). Facebook market share of the social media market is 71% (2021), also a monopoly, said Adam Clarke a corporate SEO expert and author.

Google's data is at the very core of maintaining their competitive position. Everything a user searched since they have signed up for a Gmail account, including where to study, financial research, relationship problems, family concerns, career, news and media preferences all saved in Google's servers," he added.

"This data is kept securely at Google, to keep their advertising services more relevant and targeted than competitors by a significant degree. This data, which is essentially a chronology of user's life and interests, is very valuable."

He pointed out that almost every website you visit has the Google Analytics tracking code, which feeds user information to Google's advertising software. The only way for other people to use this data is to become a customer of Google's display ad services.

Google Analytics move to phase out third party cookies is marked as a move to improve privacy, but is also likely (but unverified) to be part of a much larger initiative to slowly, but eventually phase out third party cookies in Chrome and the Google search results.

This will be replaced with Google's machine learning technology that is able to fingerprint users without the use of a third party cookie, by analysing the user's online behaviour patterns through machine learning software. This would force all websites that want any kind of targeted advertising to rely on Google's ad services and Facebook, as those are the only two services that will have any sufficient data.

Yes, it's fair to say Google's display services are a monopoly for the search engine market and the only way that someone can avail themselves of this data is to be a paying customers, and there's unlikely to be any valid competitors for targeted advertising anytime soon that will supplace Google and Facebook's monopolies of the search and social markets, respectively, or realistically become a competitor anytime in the future, he said.

Google is unfairly limiting access to user data to its competitors, Bill DeLisi, CEO of Chino, CA-based GOFBA, concludes. It is well known in the industry that Google requiring advertisers to use their own Ad Manager to display ads on YouTube, and favoring its own ad exchanges on YouTube and other sites, has presented an unfair advantage to Googles competitors, he said.

With Google eliminating 3rd party cookies in Chrome with their Privacy Sandbox plan (use this link for Privacy Sandbox: they will have control over some of the most drastic changes on the internet. By blocking third-party tracking cookies, Google is actually walling off a portion of the internet. This would be a major disadvantage to its ad competitors by pretty much eliminating their access to detailed information about consumer web behavior, he said.

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Google Stands Accused of Unfairly Limiting Data Access to Its Competitors - CMSWire

Now that Google Photos no longer offers free unlimited photo storage, you may want to check out a different online service to store and manage your photos. If youre a PC user, Microsoft OneDrive may be worth considering because its built into Windows 10 and is seamless and easily accessible.

Though OneDrive isnt a dedicated photo manager like Google Photos, you can still use it to back up, sync, and share your photos from your PC, the mobile app, and on the web. It can also be used to view, manage, and search for photos, create special albums, view photos by location, and automatically upload any images taken on your mobile device.

The major downside with OneDrive is that it offers only 5GB of free storage. And that amount of space is for all of your files, not just your photos. Even Google Photos still gives you 15GB of free storage. However, if youre an Office 365 subscriber, you get a whopping 1TB of OneDrive space. Otherwise, you can score 100GB of storage for $1.99 a month.

Now, lets look at the ways to enlist OneDrive as your photo manager. For the steps here, well assume youre already using OneDrive for file backup and syncing.

To back up and sync files and photos in OneDrive, place them within the OneDrive folder in File Explorer or inside the Desktop, Documents, or Pictures folders. This means you can leave your default Pictures folder where it is, and the photos inside will be synced.

To set this up, right-click on the OneDrive icon in the Windows System Tray and select Settings. At the Settings window, click the Backup tab and click Manage backup.

Make sure that the Pictures entry is selected and then click the Start backup button. OneDrive tells you that its starting to back up your files. Click View sync progress to check on the status of the backup. After the backup is complete, you can view your synced photos from the Pictures folder in File Explorer.

By default, your photos (and other OneDrive files) are stored online and only downloaded to your PC when you open them. The idea here is to save space on your hard drive.However, this means you need to be connected to the internet to access your files. You can tell if a file or folder is being stored online only because it will display a cloud icon next to it.

To download a folder or file so that its always stored on your computer as well as in the cloud, right-click on it and select Always keep on this device. After the folder or file has been downloaded, a green check mark appears next to it.

To store all your synced photos and other files on your computer, right-click the OneDrive System Tray icon and select Settings. Click the Settings tab and uncheck the box next to Save space and download files as you use them, then click OK.

You can also automatically upload photos to OneDrive that you save on your computer. With the OneDrive Settings window open, click the Backup tab.

Check the box under Photos and Videos to automatically save photos and videos to OneDrive whenever you connect a camera, phone, or other device to your PC. You can also opt to automatically save screenshots to OneDrive. Click OK when done.

You can do one better if you use the mobile app for iOS and Android. Instead of connecting your phone to the computer in order to sync photos, the app can upload any photos and videos you take to OneDrive automatically.

To turn this on, open the app and tap the Photos icon in the toolbar. You should see a prompt at the top telling you that Camera upload is turned off. Tap the Turn On button, and any photos you take will automatically be saved to OneDrive.

You can share a photo in OneDrive from your computer. Right-click on the photo you want to share and select the Share command. In the pop-up window, choose whether you want the recipient to be able to edit the file or only view it.

Type the name or email address of that recipient, add a message if you wish, and then click the Send button to share the file.

There is more you can do with your photos by heading to your online OneDrive website. Right-click on the OneDrive icon in the System Tray and choose the View online option. At the left pane, click the Photos category to see all the photos stored in OneDrive organized by date.

By default, this view reveals all your photos stored in OneDrive. To narrow the scope to just photos stored in the Pictures folder, click the drop-down arrow next to Show photos and change it to Pictures folder. Squeeze more photos on the screen by displaying them as tiles. Click the drop-down arrow next to the square in the upper right and select Tiles.

Click a photo to open and view it full screen. From the top toolbar, you can share the photo, add it to an existing or new album, play a slideshow, rotate its orientation, or edit the image. Other options allow you to download it to your computer, delete it, open the files location in OneDrive, embed a link to the file for a website or blog, or view the images version history.

Use the Next and Previous buttons to cycle through images. To view information about the photo, click the Info icon, or click the X button to return to a view of all your photos.

If you wish to edit a photo, click the Edit button. From the editing screen, you can crop, flip, or rotate the image. The photos brightness, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, warmth, or tint can also be tweaked.

Click the Albums tab to view your photos within collected albums. If you want to create albums for your photos, OneDrive already suggests potential albums based on multiple photos from a specific date. Click one of the suggested albums and choose Add to your Albums to keep it or Discard album to get rid of it.

You can create your own album by clicking the Albums tab on the website. Click Create a new album, then name your album and select the photos you wish to add.Click on each photo individually or click the circle in front of a specific date to grab all photos for that date. Click Add album at the top and your new album appears.

You can also find photos based on location under the Places tab. On this page, you can click a specific place to find all photos geotagged with that location.

If you cant find a specific photo, you can search for it. Use the search box at the top of the OneDrive website to search by name or tag. Thanks to the artificial intelligence used in OneDrive, you can even search for an object or text in the photo.

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Quitting Google Photos? How to Manage Your Photos With Microsoft OneDrive - PCMag

Samsung has taken the wraps off it and Googles new unified smartwatch platform at MWC 2021 sort of. The company isnt announcing a new Galaxy Watch today, or even what the new platform will be called (its unofficially referred to as Wear); those announcements will come later this summer at a proper Galaxy Unpacked event. But what Samsung did show off was a first look at what its new One UI Watch software will look like, and it elaborated on just what the new Google / Samsung partnership could mean for future Galaxy Watches.

To be clear: what Samsung is showing of One UI Watch wont be what all smartwatches built on the new unified Google / Samsung platform look like its an added layer on top specifically for Samsung devices. Its similar to what Samsungs One UI does for Samsungs smartphones. The goal is a consistent look and experience across all of Samsungs hardware and software, and so far it looks lovely.

The Settings menu has been redesigned to look more like the phones menu, and things sync from the phone: if you have additional time zones set in your clock app, theyll be there on the watch, and blocked callers on the phone will be blocked on watches, too. Samsung also showed off a new watchface design tool, which will be available for Android developers later this year to easily create new watchfaces for the platform. Its unclear yet if current Tizen or Wear OS watchfaces will work with the new OS or One UI Watch, but the current options have also been seriously lacking, so any new choices even ones largely reliant on developers are welcome.

Best of all, similar to the Apple Watch, when you install a smartwatch-compatible app on your phone, the corresponding watch app will automatically install on the watch as well. You won't need to manually install anything as you currently do on Tizen-based watches, or deal with the weird on-wrist app store that has made getting apps on Wear OS frustrating. Youll just download an app to your phone and it should appear directly on your wrist, too.

The new One UI Watch experience is expected to first appear on Samsung wearables at a Samsung Unpacked event later this year. Given other recent Samsung hardware rumors, it sounds like this Unpacked should be a big flipping deal.

Update June 28th, 1:43PM ET: Added images from Samsungs Mobile World Congress 2021 presentation.

Correction: Samsungs new watchface designer will be available to developers later this year, not next year as we originally said. We regret the error.

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Samsungs new Google-based smartwatch software addresses a lot of old annoyances - The Verge

Google's "Downtown West" proposal is Google's fist mix-used campus, comprising of 80 sprawling acres in downtown San Jose.

Sitelab Urban Studio

Google's path to its massive tech campus planning in San Jose began with activists chaining themselves to chairs inside City Hall over the city's decision to sell public land to the tech giant. It ended with some of its biggest opponents signing its praises.

Last month, the San Jose City Council approved Google's plan for a mixed-use megacampus that spans80 acres and 7.3 million square feet of office space in the heart of California's third-largest city. To win over critics, Google designated more than half of its campus to public use and offered up a $200 million community benefits package that includes displacement funds, job placement training, and power for community leaders to influence how it's spent.

"It's certainly a much different process in the end versus what we saw at the beginning with regards to community and labor movement," said Jeffrey Buchanan, director of public policy for San Jose-based community coalition Working Partnerships USA.

"It was a reminder of how organizing works and matters," said nonprofit Silicon Valley Rising director Maria Noel Fernandez. "Now, it really does feel like a partnership."

The successful partnership comes as tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon seek to expand their real estate footprint around the country while residents complain of displacement. It comes two years after Amazon famously abandoned plans to build a campus in New York after communities opposed it. It also comes as labor groups and employees are growing more vocal about the influence big tech companies exercise. Some local organizers said their success with Google is paving a path for future organizing with tech.

But it took four years to get there.

Google had a long history of dealing with city government and the community near its headquarters in Mountain View, 10 miles up the road from San Jose. But the company had no history of investments in San Jose itself, even though many of its workers live there.

The process started off on the wrong foot, community members said.

Silicon Valley Rising campaign lead Maria Noel Fernandez leads a protest at Google's 2019 shareholder meeting at company's campus in Sunnyvale, California.

Jennifer Elias | CNBC

It began when the campus plan appeared cloaked in secrecy at a time just as the conversation around tech power and antitrust was beginning to gain traction in the broader world. To the local community, it appeared that Google and the city were secretly plotting to give the company public land without much discussion with the community.

In 2017, the public found out that the city of San Jose had entered exclusive talks with Google, which intended to buy all the parcels in a roughly 240-acre area. In 2018, local media reports uncovered non-disclosure agreements between public officials and Google. Buchanan's organization Working Partnerships USA sued the city, alleging it was conducting backroom deals with the tech giant.

"One of our initial concerns was with the NDAs," Fernandez said.

"The NDA was just such a bad look for the project," agreed Bob Staedler, who is a principal at Silicon Valley Synergy, a San Jose-based land use and development consulting firm."So, it just started off badly."

Another big concern was displacement, which the city had seen as tech employees from Apple, Google and others moved in over the years. Within one week of the news breaking that Google was coming to town and taking most of downtown with it, home prices in a three-mile radius of the site jumped 7%, -- and rose from there in the following months, experts told CNBC at the time.

Community groups protested at every Google and city event in sight. At a particularly contentious city council meeting, several protesters chained themselves to the chairs. Protesters also made scenes outside of Google's marketing conference in San Jose, and teamed up with employees and investors for a protest outside of the company's 2019 shareholder meeting, where picketers held signs reading "Welcome to Googleville," and"Hey Google, Don't evict me."

Fernandez led most of them, speaking into a megaphone.

"Since Google went into exclusive negotiations agreement, I've had two kids since." Fernandez said. "But it almost feels like Google's been my third."

After such displays, the company announced a $1 billion housing pledge to build 20,000 Bay Area homes over the next decade but residents still held off on their excitement, fearing the company was throwing money at the problem without providing details or plans of how exactly it would be spent. Shortly after Google's announcement, U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., sent CEO Sundar Pichai a letter requesting more details.

At the time, Google told CNBC it had heard criticism around the timing of the announcement, but that it also recognized that Bay Area housing had reached a crisis point.

Fernandez' organization called Google's housing investment a "win" but added there was much more work to be done.

Google kept scooping up land around the region and adding to the frustration from labor organizations seeking answers. "We wanted to make sure they weren't just throwing money at the problem," Buchanan said.

Fernandez said at that point, local organizers had a clear message for Google: "Swim upstream or build something together."

In 2019, Google put together a diverse cohort of community liaisons to talk with local residents, listen to their concerns and highlight their stories. Community members said these open-door conversations eventually led to them having a seat at the table when it came to decisions.

That cohort consisted of newly hired folks, several women and people of color who had held roles ranging public affairs to real estate.

One was Ricard Benavidez, who is responsible for the "design, programs and partnerships that are essential for inclusive real estate development," according to his LinkedIn page.

Another, Javier Gonzles, was a San Jose native who often connected to residents about their shared love and concerns for the region's blue collar workers, arts and culture.

"I think it was just the times where they made themselves available to have a coffee or an off the record chat with organizations," Bob Staedler said. "Instead of Google being a monolith, you really needed a human."

Google holds a community presentation and feedback session in San Jose for its proposed mega campus.

Jennifer Elias / CNBC

These liaisons became trusted members of the community who listened to concerns and followed up, residents said.

"They put together a team of folks who were really interested in working more closely as a community as partners," said Buchanan. "As the team came together, you saw the relationship with Silicon Valley coalitions, the complexion of the conversation changed over time."

By the end of 2019, local community members started to see a shift.

One key hire was Google's district lead for San Jose, Alexa Arena, who joined the company 2019. She previously worked for real estate company LendLease, which partnered with Google on its Bay Area housing plans, and she had experience with contentious real estate plans.Adding Arena showed community members that the company was sending somebody with real decision-making power to listen to them.

They say Arena's presence was unassuming and calm, and she displayed awareness that she was entering an established and historic community a departure from Google's entrance in 2017, when the company and city officials kept referring to the project as a "game-changer" for the city.

"It's really different than what we see in projects of a normal scale," Arena told a large group of San Jose residents at an early public feedback session in 2019. "In this case, it's Google that's the end user."

She thanked the people for their time and for allowing the company to be builders in an already historic city, but she didn't do so in a pandering way, community members said.

"We're here for the long haul," read her first slide at the 2019 community presentation.

"For the first time ever we saw that real intentional process," Buchanan said. "For all of us, it felt pretty different."

Residents tested her authenticity and expertise. If Arena didn't know the answer, she wouldn't pretend to, but would repeat the question back to make sure she understood it, then consult others at the company or external partners. She followed up on items of concern, such as how the placement of a six-story building near an existing neighborhood would work.

Many organizers said the diverse makeup of the Google team helped them relate better to minority members of the community.

"She has a different set of skills that a white guy would not have," Staedler said about Arena. "There's media training and there's just a natural way where Alexa, especially, wasn't trying to sell you something."

By 2020, Google began to understand residents needed more transparency and wouldn't settle for a partial view of the plans. As a result, the company made a series of updates to its plans, including a community-based governance committee for certain funds.

The company also hired a local agency to design a website, which displays updates, timelines, expectations and other details of the campus plans. The website displayed residents' key concerns such as "Keeping an authentic non-corporate character " and "losing mom + pop shops." It also began an email list, where it would send periodic updates on the campus with the option for readers to send feedback on the plan.

Google tech campus community feedback session

Jennifer Elias | CNBC

By 2021, the company had conducted more than 100 listening sessions, and its plans were beginning to sihft. It updated renderings of the space to reflect a warm, inviting open space where workers, residents kids and artists could walk among each other, eat together or shop together. That was a stark contrast to the first renderings, which displayed cold, basic high-rise buildings overlooking the rest of the region while young, hip tech workers walked around.

"Thousands of conversations helped us hone in to what we really want in a site, which was much less the corporate campus and the financial district and much more a resilient neighborhood," said Alexa Arena, Google's district lead for San Jose in aOct. 2020 video.

It's "the opposite of a traditional corporate campus," lead urban designer Laura Crescimano said at the time.

The biggest win for community organizers is gaining decision-making power over how community dollars are designated and disbursed.The final agreement included the establishment of a 13-member advisory committee that must include five members with lived experiences from the community.

"The decision power isn't going to sit in city hall or elected politicians but with the community and be intentional about the power imbalances for those who experience them," Buchanan said.

"To be able to have real power in decision-making at this level is something we haven't really seen before," Fenandez said.

A project labor agreement ensures apprenticeship on the job and fair wages for construction workers to make sure "non-Google workers benefit too."

Buchanan said since the approval, organizations like Amazon and Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics have reach out for advice on how they can connect with neighboring communities given the success of the Google partnership.

"I think it's really representative of how community can come together around some complex projects and make sure it works for all residents and businesses of San Jose," South Bay Labor Council CEO Jean Cohen told a local television show. "Google's not a union employer but Google's been a really good partner in figuring out how to make this project work for as many union members as possible."

While some critics still remain, organizers say the project has created a positive pathway for future organizing on real estate projects and more. Cohen added that she thinks the conversations have gone so well that she sees it continuing after the project finalization.

"Once the project is complete, there's been conversations with Google about how to make sure unions can organize," Cohen said. "So I believe there's a lot of dialogue that's positive so eventually those companies do decide they may want to be union companies."

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How Google won over some of its biggest critics to build a megacampus in San Jose - CNBC

Purpose At Work: How Google Is Building Diversity & Inclusion With Performance Paradigm

While diversity, equity and inclusion are paramount to attracting and retaining top talent, many companies miss the mark. When brands do implement a program, it may not actually be effective. For so long, we looked up at largely white men and asked them how the organization is doing on diversity, equity, and inclusion, Michael Munoz, who leads diversity, equity and inclusion within Marketing at Google, tells We First. We need to look at the Black, Latinx, Asian, indigenous populations and ask, How are we doing at building a culture where you feel empowered and a strong sense of psychological safety?

Performance Paradigm is helping Google do just that. The company has been advising top business leaders for nearly 30 years about how to shift the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to create more deeply engaged leaders and teams. A lot of senior leadership is afraid of messing up. I don't care if you mess up. If you're trying, at least youre showing evidence of effort. That will make your team stay. We need people to get involved and stay engaged. Reggie Butler, founder of Performance Paradigm, says.

Google has contracted Performance Paradigm to develop their own diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Examined Human and Digital Human. Through shared experiences and community building, the partnership is a disruptive way to truly incorporate DEI within Google. The collaboration between Performance Paradigm and Google offers actionable insights for executives looking to Lead With We.

Why companies get diversity, equity and inclusion wrong

Despite the best of intentions, many DEI programs havent produced long lasting change. Somebody will look at their organization and say, We have a representation issue. They try to solve for representation. However, they don't solve the environmental issues that create exclusion, Butler says. People don't feel like they belong. People have very different lived experiences. The bigger issue is more complex than representation. So, sometimes it doesnt look like theres much progress in organizational programs. Theyre only looking at certain indicators. Essentially, many leaders arent considering the whole picture. They must understand and highlight new perspectives to start deconstructing old habits.

How the partnership began

It takes leadership with an active desire and understanding to change complex issues around race, sexual orientation, and unconscious bias. The partnership between Google and Performance Paradigm started with Reggie and Michaels shared desire to disrupt the status quo.

I was tired of looking at data that said people from different genders and races were having different experiences. To fix that, we needed to change the way that their managers and leaders were thinking about them in the organization. That is the beginning of changing behaviors, Munoz says.

When the two met, they both wanted to implement a program that would be so transformative that staff members and leadership couldnt go back to their desks and forget about it.

It all started with someone trying to solve a human-centered problem. They need different people to actually be a part of that solution, Butler adds.

A collective love for art and music as well as the belief that shared experience can be a transformational tool to create community, brought the two thought leaders together. Those shared values sprouted the formation of new DEI models.

Examined Human is the first thing we built together. We've created a bunch of shared experiences that Covid-19 made Digital Human necessary for us to do. We migrated a lot of that content, methodology and learnings about creating shared experience into a digital platform, Munoz says.

Fundamentals of Digital Human:

Digital Human helps leadership and team members navigate DEI. The program concentrates on four key behaviors, Munoz describes.

Biases can be deeply rooted. It takes real work to break them down. Our leaders need to unlearn, Munoz says. Unlearning is a powerful concept. Executives often have to face difficult questions that might bring up uncomfortable feelings. When executives ask, How can I do more? I often ask them When did you realize you were white and it mattered? How are you using your position to deliver access and privilege to others? Butler shares. Those questions are presented to them through an experience. So they cant unsee it.

One of the engagement activities we do is called 2, 24, 25. You pick two people on your team, one that you know fairly well and one that you barely know. Within 24 hours, schedule a 25-minute meeting with them and talk about them. Don't talk about a project, Butler explains. The feedback we get sounds like, It was pretty easy to start the conversation with the person I knew. When I went to the person I didn't know, they thought something was wrong. It was awkward but a great exercise. It highlights that you're supposed to create belonging for all, not belonging for people in your prototype.

To create that sense of belonging, the Digital Human platform includes 12 weeks of workshops and exercises. The content is structured like a four season show. We still used art and all the experiential things to deliver it, but we wouldn't let them fast forward. We wouldn't let them binge, they had to stop and do the work, Butler says.

Purpose At Work: How Google Is Building Diversity & Inclusion With Performance Paradigm

Facing resistance from leadership

For senior leadership, 12 weeks of diversity and inclusion training might sound like a diversion from hitting project deadlines and sales targets.

People ask me all the time, Why is diversity important? Munoz says. The answer is, it's not. It's not important unless you build a culture of inclusion. If you have an organization with a lot of diversity and no psychological safety, that company either has or will soon have a retention problem.

We took a lot of heat when we decided to go for it, he continues. People said, I only have three hours. Let me just binge through this. What's been incredible is that now folks are emailing me to say, It's my Friday night appointment viewing. It helps them frame how they want to show up the next week or in the next one-on-one differently.

By measuring results based on feedback from underrepresented employees, Google is getting a better sense of the long lasting benefits. Team members will ping me and say, I'm going to stay here longer because my relationship with my manager has gotten better. I don't know what you did to them when they went through the training but theyre showing up for me differently. I feel like I have a voice. I have better psychological safety., Michael explains.

We've got to move a person from being transactional about their job and the people that help to get the job done, to being transformative and human-centered, Butler says. When people come out of the training, they're more focused on their humans than they are on the project.

Ultimately, the long-term benefits of building culture and retaining talent pay off when it comes to DEI training like Digital Human and Examined Human. Are you able to retain the talent that you have and acquire new, diverse, underrepresented talent moving forward? that's going to be the new barometer for us, Munoz says.

Dealing with discomfort

When you're trying to be at service to everyone inside your organization, there can be sensitivity amongst those who have enjoyed privileges. They may feel like theyve done something wrong. At the same time, there can be uncomfortable feelings around favoring those who have been marginalized in different ways in the past and trying to better serve them. How can a company resolve that?

We started both programs with the premise that human connection will define our future, Munoz says. We're creators of a just Google that elevates the power of people through equitable systems, continuous learning and collective action. When you center everything on this operating premise, it frees people up. It brings us to focus on the common good and collective action. There can also be a paralysis, especially for white males in leadership positions. They dont want to say anything wrong or be perceived as out of touch, so they dont say anything.

Another core concept of the training is the idea of calling in. We think everyone needs to find their voice and be vulnerable, Munoz says. The Digital Human or Examined Human programs help folks understand that there is a place for everyone in the conversation but doing nothing is not an option.

When the focus goes astray, Munoz and Butler use methods like art, music and frameworks to bring the focus back towards the common goal. We try to create shared experiences through storytelling and narratives, but also some shared accountability, Butler says. Heres an example. We were talking about how people who are Black, Latinx and women, have a very different experience than white males. We take them through a small exercise. Some of them say, That's never happened to me. So I don't believe it's true. Somebody else in the room goes, It happens every day. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean we're not supposed to do something. By having collective experiences, Reggie and Michael hope participants from all backgrounds will feel a deeper sense of belonging at work.

Tools for diversity and inclusion:

Performance Paradigm utilizes what Reggie calls R.I.C.H. Dialogues to facilitate authentic communication and community building. R.I.C.H. is an acronym for race, identity, culture, and heritage, he says. It's a type of communication tool that accelerates relationship management by exploring all the different points of view around race, identity, culture, and heritage.

Behavior change, whether it's around DEI, marketing or even taking a different route to work, is extremely difficult to catalyze. It starts with people saying, I know what the problem is. I may not know what to do, but I must listen. If we can get people to use a tool to help them frame these conversations that typically paralyze them, we're going to make incremental progress, Butler says.

Long lasting impacts

While unlearning and increased awareness often happens after a DEI training, it can be difficult to maintain and measure the long lasting impacts. Some of the ways Digital Human and Examined Human try to prolong the lessons is by providing participants with memorabilia like bracelets and art, as well as building real relationships with coworkers and employees on a human-to-human level.

It's an opportunity to rejigger peoples mindsets to catalyze the experience in the course so they show up a little differently for their one-on-one meetings, Munoz says. By implementing leadership buy-in, measuring the success by feedback from underrepresented groups and taking a more human approach, the impacts of diversity, equity and inclusion can be sustained over time.

Numerous studies have shown that diverse teams are more resilient, more creative and more effective at generating results. Talk about diversity and innovation. Imagine when everybody's working well together. Munoz says. That's that magic sauce that is going to unlock the creativity we've talked about for years.

If youd like to dive deeper with more purpose-led companies like Performance Paradigm and Google, check out the Lead with We podcast here, so that you too can build a company that transforms consumer behavior and our future.

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Purpose At Work: How Google Is Building Diversity And Inclusion With Performance Paradigm - Forbes

Google will now tell users when search results are rapidly changing around a breaking story. Some searches will now bring up a warning that it looks like these results are changing quickly, and a subheading will explain that if this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources. In a blog post, the company suggests that users might want to check back later when its found more results.

The notice is initially appearing on US-based English-language results when a topic is rapidly evolving and a range of sources hasnt yet weighed in. Google will expand the tools presence to other markets in the coming months.

While Google Search will always be there with the most useful results we can provide, sometimes the reliable information youre searching for just isnt online yet, the company explains. This can be particularly true for breaking news or emerging topics, when the information thats published first may not be the most reliable. Recode reported on the feature yesterday, following up on a tweet from Stanford Internet Observatory researcher Renee DiResta.

A sample Google search screenshot features the query ufo filmed traveling 106 mph, an apparent reference to a recent tabloid story about a 2016 UFO sighting in Wales. (Currently, that precise search result does not actually include the warning.) Someone had gotten this police report video released out in Wales, and its had a little bit bit of press coverage. But theres still not a lot about it, Google search public liaison Danny Sullivan told Recode. But people are probably searching for it, they may be going around on social media so we can tell its starting to trend. And we can also tell that theres not a lot of necessarily great stuff thats out there. And we also think that maybe new stuff will come along.

That whimsical example aside, Google has inadvertently showcased incorrect information after mass shooting events where early official reports are often inaccurate and deliberate misinformation is common. (This is sometimes exacerbated by data voids, or keywords that have few search results and can be easily hijacked by bad actors.) This warning wont necessarily stop bad content from surfacing, and its not clear exactly how Google determines a sufficient range of sources. But it could remove some of the false legitimacy that high Google placement can confer on early, unreliable search results.

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Google is warning users when its search results might be unreliable - The Verge

When it comes to consumer health, Apple has kept a step ahead of Google, between winning FDA clearance for an atrial fibrillation feature for Apple Watch, to adding a feature for people to manage their health records. But after its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, Google seems to be making the wearables company the focus of its consumer health efforts.

Recently, the company shuffled its health business, moving roughly 130 of its 700 workers to its Fitbit and Search divisions, according to a report by Business Insider. Fitbit will gain some of the teams that were working on health sensors and personal health records, according to the report. None of the remaining Google Health employees will be focused on consumer technology, leaving Fitbit to lead that charge.

Analysts interviewed by MedCity News said its no surprise that Google would focus its consumer health efforts on Fitbit, given the broad reach of its devices and its inroads with health plans.

The majority of Fitbits customers are consumers, which makes it important for both Google and Fitbit to focus on, Ramon Llamas, a research director at IDC covering mobile devices, wrote in an email.

But the company still faces a big challenge in elevating wearables beyond a nice-to-have device to something with clinical value.

If you look at what Apple is messaging or what Samsung is messaging with these deviceshealthcare or wellness is a must-have, said Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester.

Adding to analytics, wellnessIts difficult to know what all Google has planned for Fitbit. With Googles announcement of the acquisition, Googles senior vice president of devices and services said it would bring its software, hardware and AI expertise.

With Googles scale, Ask said its likely that the tech giant would be able to contribute some resources that Fitbit didnt have.

She and Llamas speculated that most new features would build on Fitbits health and wellness efforts, as well as the data collected by these devices.

While Fitbit started with more of a walled garden strategy, it may look to add more health services that can build on the wearable data users collect.

Its about services you can build around the insights, Ask said. Its not that unique that you can take my heart rate or detect an arrhythmia.

Fitbit also helps fill a big hole in Googles healthcare strategy. Whie it had struck some partnerships with smartwatch-makers, most of them didnt focus on wellness features. The companys own health and fitness app, Google Fit, also has not kept up, Llamas said.

Meanwhile, Fitbit has helped develop some of the best-in-class health and fitness applications out there. This seems like a clear fit for Google, he wrote.

Of course, one big challenge that Fitbit and its competitors face is taking these features beyond a wellness use case. Most wearable device users are affluent and active to begin with, according to a Forrester analysis, making them less likely to reach people with the most health needs.

And even with FDA-cleared indications, most doctors still dont use data from the devices in their practice.

These are still primarily wellness devices, Ask said. Doctors dont trust the data uniformly and they arent used day-to-day by MDs. Its not the primary thing thats informing their decisions about treatment.

Googles broader health strategyThis isnt the first time Alphabet has switched up its health efforts. It previously rolled DeepMinds health team into Google Health, and its other major healthcare effort, Verily, also shuffled its leadership last year.

The company has tested a variety of projects, from trying to build a consumer-facing health records tool, to attempts to build an AI tool to screen for diabetic retinopathy. Not all of them have been successful.

Its harder to know what Alphabets strategy is, Ask said. Theyre more likely than Apple to put out a lot of different bets.

For its part, Google shared few details about the restructuring. In an email, the company stated that it had brought together some teams to combine expertise and focus our efforts on health and wellness.

The remaining Google Health team will build products for clinicians, conduct research and ensure all-health related projects at the company meet high standards.

Photo credit: Fitbit

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Why Google is focusing its consumer health efforts on Fitbit - MedCity News

Google

Google's latest Nest Thermostat already had a better price than its predecessors. Even at $130, weclocked this as a great buy, but right now you can score the sleek Nest Thermostat for $30 off,down to $100 on Amazon. Not only are you saving a cool $30, but the device may very well pay for itself over time,since it can be programmed to turn off your heat or AC when you leave the house -- even in a rush -- keeping your overall energy output lean and green. This is the lowest the model has dropped on Amazon to date.

In addition to the lower price tag, the most recent iteration of the smart thermostat has design improvements including a slimmer build and a reconfigured app. As with previous Nest models, this thermostat has built-in motion, temperature, humidity and ambient light sensors. It works withAlexaandGoogle Assistantand has remote access via the Google Home app.

Read more:Nest Thermostat review: A better Nest for less

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Save $30 (and energy) with a Google Nest Thermostat for $100 - CNET