Category Archives: Google

We Have Met the Evil and It Is Not Google or Apple: It Is Us

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Cross-posted on my Forbes blog, The New Persuaders.

So much talk about evil these days. Google is evil for promoting results from its Google+ social network on search results pages, and even for changing its privacy policy to make clear its services share data. Apple is evil for not coming down hard enough on harsh working conditions at its Chinese suppliers’ factories.

Well, maybe. But if they’re going to be honest, the many pundits piling on to today’s titans of tech need to look up from the screen and into the mirror. Google’s and even Apple’s businesses, warts and all, don’t exist without our explicit participation. As Pogo famously said, albeit in a different context: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Now, I’m still not so sure Google’s actions on either score rise to the level of evil by any reasonable meaning of the term. (In fact, the furor over Search plus Your World  makes me think of Pogo creator Walt Kelly’s second most famous line: “Don’t take life so serious, son. It ain’t nohow permanent.”) But it sure looks like Google’s at least edging closer to the evil line than its hifalutin ideals ever seemed to suggest.

For its part, Apple has taken considerable effort improve the factories that produce the gleaming iPhones and iPads we love. But if today’s New York Times story is correct, it’s clearly culpable in its seeming ambivalence about coming down hard on its suppliers exploiting workers.

Fact is, though, these companies get away with things we don’t like only because we let them. As powerful as Apple and Google seem, they both answer to customers and users. That would be us. And unlike politicians, they must answer to us every day–if we insist they do.

But we can’t do that just by bitching about them on blogs. You want Google to back off on personalized search and data-sharing? Opt for the plain results (click the Hide Personal Search button up there on the right), sign out of your Google account, or even delete it entirely. Or try Bing, or DuckDuckGo. Easier than blogging about it! And if enough of you do it, rest assured that Google’s data crunchers will notice, and if they’re as smart as they like to think, they’ll figure out how to change things.

You want Apple to fix its factory conditions? Don’t buy that next iPhone or iPad, and tell Apple why. If enough of you just say no, Apple will notice, and maybe start to use some of those unbelievable profits to change things.

Everything else is just talk. And there’s been quite enough of that already.

A Glimpse Into the Future of Television

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If there’s one thing that struck me while I was researching an article on the future of television for Technology Review, it was all the fake living rooms. Google has one. So does Roku. So do Logitech, Sezmi, and Intel (which I believe has several in different states). I’m sure I missed a dozen more. It’s a sign of how important television, the star of living rooms real and faux, is to tech companies as they look to tap into the technology and media riches of the last great mass medium.

They’re all trying to figure out how to meld the medium they know–the Internet–with the one they hope to revolutionize: television. Yet with little native knowledge of television, Silicon Valley firms must troop consumer after consumer into these cozy little corners of their corporations and observe how people watch television and how they respond to their many efforts to bring the Web to the screen watched on average five hours a day. Even now, these companies are still struggling. Google, for instance, just told several consumer electronics manufacturers to hold off on planned launches of Google TV products at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January.

At the same time, the television industry has a lot to learn, too. Like the music industry, they’re in many cases fighting to keep too many people from watching television entertainment online, because that could damage their lucrative business models. But while they may have more leverage against the Internet hordes than the music industry had, thanks to both those business models and the durability of the TV experience for viewers, they don’t know any more about the Internet than the tech companies know about TV. Ultimately they will need to give viewers more flexible ways to view their content, or someone else will.

At this point, honestly, it’s tough to know how this volatile mix of TV and Net will shake out. I know, because I asked a whole lot of experts in both, and it was kind of amazing how uncertain nearly all of them are about what will happen even a couple of years from now. I hope to have provided some insight into how things could play out, but the uncertainty about what’s coming next in television is what I find most interesting: Whatever comes of this clash of two great mediums is going to surprise us all.

Questions About the Google-AdMob Deal–and How the FTC Answered Them

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Today the Federal Trade Commission decided not to oppose Google’s proposed purchase of leading mobile ad firm AdMob, clearing the way for the $750 million deal to be closed. Given recent hints that the FTC’s staff might recommend the commission block the deal, the decision was something of a surprise. But as the FTC itself explained, “although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues,” there is in fact ample competition in what is after all still a nascent market.

The investigation raised several questions about not only the mobile ad market but the FTC’s stance on such deals in the Obama era. Here are some of those questions, and the apparent answers:

* Would the deal allow Google to dominate the mobile ad market?

Not at this time, the FTC said, but noted that that was a danger:

Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob necessitated close scrutiny because the transaction appeared likely to lead to a substantial lessening of competition in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Those companies generate the most revenue among mobile advertising networks, and both companies are particularly strong in one segment of the market, namely performance ad networks. The Commission’s six-month investigation yielded evidence that each of the merging parties viewed the other as its primary competitor, and that each firm made business decisions in direct response to this perceived competitive threat.

* Are mobile ads a separate market from other online ads?

I’m not sure why mobile ads, which after all are simply ads that happen to appear on mobile device screens, are really a market separate from other online ads. Marketers, after all, usually view them as potential additions or substitutes to display ads or even search ads, and they can in fact be either of those. And if they view them as separate markets now, it’s likely they won’t stay that way as ad technology firms increasingly offer them as a package to marketers. But it’s clear from the FTC press release that FTC considers the mobile ad market distinct–and furthermore that it doesn’t matter how new it is:

The Commission stressed that mergers in fast-growing new markets like mobile advertising should get the same level of antitrust scrutiny as those in other markets. The statement goes on to note that, “Though we have determined not to take action today, the Commission will continue to monitor the mobile marketplace to ensure a competitive environment and to protect the interests of consumers.”

Mobile ad networks, such as those provided by Google and AdMob, sell advertising space for mobile publishers, who create applications and content for websites configured for mobile devices, primarily Apple’s iPhone and devices that run Google’s Android operating system. By “monetizing” mobile publishers’ content through the sale of advertising space, mobile ad networks play a vital role in fueling the rapid expansion of mobile applications and Internet content.

* Did Apple help Google clear the deal?

Um, clearly. According to the commission’s statement:

The agency’s concerns [about the Google-AdMob deal] ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. – the maker of the iPhone – to launch its own, competing mobile ad network. … As a result of Apple’s entry (into the market), AdMob’s success to date on the iPhone platform is unlikely to be an accurate predictor of AdMob’s competitive significance going forward, whether AdMob is owned by Google or not.

* Should Apple be afraid of the FTC?

Very afraid. Or at least it should expect intense scrutiny, if the rather detailed description of Apple’s role in this market is any indication:

These concerns, however, were outweighed by recent evidence that Apple is poised to become a strong competitor in the mobile advertising market, the FTC’s statement says. Apple recently acquired Quattro Wireless and used it to launch its own iAd service. In addition, Apple can leverage its close relationships with application developers and users, its access to a large amount of proprietary user data, and its ownership of iPhone software development tools and control over the iPhone developers’ license agreement.

* Is Google off the regulatory hook now?

Not by a long shot. As the commission said:

Though we have determined not to take action today, the Commission will continue to monitor the mobile marketplace to ensure a competitive environment and to protect the interests of consumers.

Indeed, few experts believe that this decision will have much if any impact on other regulatory concerns about Google’s strength in search ads, its moves into other areas such as display ads, or the privacy implications of its vast data collection.

Fighting the Scourge of Malvertising

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Some 1.3 million malicious online ads are viewed every day, even on high-profile sites such as the New York Times and TechCrunch. This so-called malvertising–pop-up fake antivirus ads and seemingly standard ads that have malicious software code embedded in them in an attempt to steal data such as passwords or credit-card numbers–is often very difficult for Web publishers and ad networks, let alone consumers, to detect. Indeed, because these ads must be found manually, usually thanks to a user complaint, the average life of a malvertisement before it’s detected and taken down is more than seven days, according to the Web anti-malware service Dasient. That’s more than long enough to infect thousands of computers.

Including my wife’s PC a few months ago. That infection took more than a week to eradicate, and even then, the PC was never the same and she was forced to reinstall just about everything on it. So I have a personal interest in Dasient’s newest service, introduced this morning: what it claims is the first automated anti-malvertising service. It’s an addition, using some of the same technologies, to the 18-month-old startup’s anti-drive-by malware service. Some background from Dasient’s release:

Malicious advertising, also referred to as “malvertising,” is a relatively new attack vector for cyber criminals that is quickly on the rise. With malvertising, fake malicious ads are delivered (often via advertising networks) to well-known websites as a way to reach millions of users at once on websites they normally trust. Unlike typical spam or virus attacks, which rely on victims to click on a link in an email or accidentally download an infected program, malvertising attacks are presented on popular websites and can download malicious code directly onto a user’s computer when the victim views the compromised ad. By infiltrating an entire ad network, the criminal gains access to a broad number of syndicated websites that can spread malicious code even further.

Dasient cofounders Ameet Ranadive and Neil Daswani told me that the reason malvertising is on the rise is twofold. For one, ad networks are becoming more efficient at syndicating ads to and from each other, instantaneously, so malvertisements can spread fast. For another, advertisers increasingly are hosting their own ads, and they often don’t have the technical expertise or staff to handle bad ads–which is why you’re twice as likely to get served a bad ad on a weekend, when the creators know IT staffing is light.

Although malvertising is hardly a secret, most efforts to prevent it have focused on education and prevention. Dasient works with ad networks and publishers to analyze each ad in real time, detect changes that may mean a bad ad has been substituted for a regular one, and provide forensic trails to trace the source of the ads.

Dasient, which was founded by former Googlers Daswani and Shariq Rizvi and former McKinsey consultant Ranadive in October 2008, has raised about $2 million from investors including former Verisign CEO Stratton Sclavos, Twitter investor Mike Maples Jr. of Maples Investments, and former 3Com CEO Eric Benhamou, now CEO of Benhamou Global Ventures.