YouTube Launches Newswire Team to Curate Eyewitness Footage of News

Google's YouTube has, for better or worse, become a significant, primary news source. The ability of a person-in-the-street to provide in-the-moment video and post it on YouTube has changed information dissemination. For TV networks, the emergence of YouTube and its Newswire project would suggest a greater migration of eyeballs to the online world.

The fly in this ointment is its rawness. How could one trust the veracity of an amateur video? It's not as if an outsider video provider had any institutional connection that would bring ballast to the "must-see" moment. Well, to solve that issue, the folks at YouTube have announced the formation of "YouTube Newswire." This team's role will be the curation of the day's hot news videos. According to a story in theverge.com, the Google group will partner with Storyful, a social news outfit whose primary mission will be to vett the video content.

As Google itself pointed out, over five million hours of video are watched on YouTube every day. Not all of them are cute doggies, charming babies, and celebrity baloney. There's hard news. However, as Google knows, trust is a big world in the social media universe. The YouTube Newswire alliance with Storyful seems a small price to pay to maintain that trust.

Obama Nominates Former Google Attorney to Head US Patent Office

Once upon a time, the US Patent and Trademark Office was a quiet place where inventors big and small staked their claims to originality. Silicon Valley's inventive tumult, along with the insatiable commercial beast known as the pharmaceutical industry, transformed the feds' Sleepy Hollow into Ground Zero for intellectual property rights. Now the question is who could earn marketplace trust while maintaining a zeal to protect the public interest?

Michele Lee
(Image: fedscoop.com)

Well, when in doubt, President Obama taps his tech allies for someone who has the right stuff. In the Patent Office case, 44 considered his friends at Google and wondered whether they had a suitable candidate. Mountain View tapped Michele Lee as the chosen one. According to The Washington Post, Lee was appointed acting director in January, 2014. Now, BO would like to make Lee's coronation official. Apparently, she has sailed through Senate vetting.

The Post story points out that Lee's ascension is a big win for Silicon Valley firms. They typically have a perspective on intellectual content rights that essentially conflicts with Big Pharma's viewpoint on the issue. Keep in mind that Obama has characteristically gone out of his way to help Big Data firms, such as Amazon (thank you, CIA and Department of Defense contracts) and Google. While no one is disputing Lee's qualifications (electrical engineering and law backgrounds), some wonder what voodoo Big Data lays on the president of the United States.

Google Settles Over Unauthorized Cookies in Safari Browser

One irony of the Snowden-NSA revelations is how quickly Silicon Valley's data mining titans professed shock over the federal snoopers' lies. It's instructive to recall that the Valley's green giants (as in the color of money) have done their fair share of unauthorized collection of personal data. Today's edition of siliconvalley.com included an Associated Press story noting Google's quiet settlement of litigation alleging that the Mountain Valley firm conducted unwelcome data collection on Apple's Safari browser. This activity was in violation of Apple policy and Google's own statements of innocence in the matter. Google later claimed its actions were "inadvertent."

Uh-huh. This is the same company whose Google Maps crews routinely gathered data without permission. Meanwhile, Google has screamed and yelled about the NSA's volte-face on the feds' data mining. Googlers complained about how the NSA violated understandings and trust.

The question to ask Silicon Valley's repeat violators of personal privacy is the following one: how does it feel to be violated?

Speculation Rises About Google's Hush-Hush Barge Structures

The mystery barge
(Image: news.cnet.com)

What do the coast of Maine and San Francisco Bay have in common? Barges that may or may not belong to Google.

The story has unfolded over many months. As it happens, the boats have a corporate identity more in tune with intelligence operations than freight transportation. The listed owners are an outfit called By and Large, LLC. Who are the LLC's corporate officers? That's confidential.

The barges house four-story structures that have provoked some speculation regarding their purpose. Records suggest, without factually demonstrating, that Google has some involvement with the barges and By and Large, LLC.  A recent edition of siliconvalley.com reported this story, originally noted in CNET, and some of the guesswork about Google's intentions.

One hypothesis contends that the barges support server farms. I have no idea how close this assertion is an accurate one. However, Google would be very interested in establishing server farms in international waters. Those locations would form a considerable push back against NSA pressure to conform with surveillance "requests." I wonder if they could also become, literally speaking, "tax islands" free from any government entity's revenue demands.

Court Ruling Permits Major Privacy Case Against Google To Continue

Judge Jay Bybee
(Image: UNLV Law School)

In a day when Apple presented new iPhones the NSA can effortlessly monitor, a three-judge federal court panel allowed the continuation of a lawsuit alleging privacy violations by Google.

According to a story in today's technology section of The New York Times, the litigation involves Google's collection of personal data during its controversial Street View project. The court, the Times noted, "found little merit in Google's legal maneuverings, stating at one critical point that the company was basically inventing meanings in an effort to declare its actions legal."

One curiosity in the story is Judge Jay Bybee, who wrote the ruling. During the George W. Bush administration, Bybee was an assistant attorney general. His claim to fame? He signed the Torture Memos is 2002, which authorized "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

Uber Drivers Sue Over Company's Tipping Policy

This year, car-service firm Uber has become a darling of the tech/services crowd. The San Francisco-based enterprise, which recently received a $200-plus-million cash infusion from Google, features a unique selling proposition is its use of an application to arrange rides. Well, that sounds fine until one looks under the hood at who receives what cut of the passenger payment pie.

A lawsuit was recently filed alleging Uber is not paying tips that drivers believe they have earned. The story, initially reported by Bloomberg reporter Joshua Brustein, appeared in yesterday's sfgate.com. The plaintiffs assert that passengers in Uber's taxi service are charged a twenty percent tip. Somehow, according to the litigation, Uber drivers don't ever get the money; Uber pockets it. (The firm faces similar litigation in two other cities.)

Uber has dismissed the lawsuit as "frivolous." What's more interesting is Uber's use of the Amazon defense, i.e., their business is consumer friendly and bad guys are trying to "stifle innovation." Meanwhile, unregulated Uber is muscling into turf that is highly regulated and occupied by connected, entrenched interests. At the same time, Uber keeps the unregulated tips, thus improving margins as Amazon did by not charging state sales tax on transactions.

What's "frivolous" is Uber's claim that consumer friendliness is its business raison d'etre. Uber's assumption that "disruption" is an unqualified benefit is a spurious one. It's fine to compete: it's bullshit to drape ruthless competition in the falsely virtuous cloak of technological progress.

ICANN Nixes Google Quest for Dotless Domains

Slipping quietly under the radar on a dog day Friday was some interesting tech news. ICANN, a/k/a "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers," recently voted to turn down Google's request for "dotless domains" that the Mountain View company could introduce and own. The story was reported earlier today in theverge.com.

"Http://cloud" was one domain Google had requested. The intention, in this case, was to direct users to a "user-specified" cloud services platform.

Theverge.com story notes that other firms share Google's lust for control of selected top-level domain names. Amazon, for example, has made its interest known for control of ".book" and ".amazon". It doesn't seem far-fetched to envision famous enterprises such as the Yankees or entertainers such as Jay-Z requesting top-level domain names. Hey, dot-(name your religion), anyone?

Google Glasses Banned from Atlantic City Casinos

Image: techisdom.com

Casino operators, working hard to stay a step ahead of gambling's legion of aspiring and active cheaters, have targeted Google Glasses as verboten in their establishments. The latest casino oasis to ban the trend-setting specs is Atlantic City. According to a story that originally appeared in The Press of Atlantic City and picked up by siliconvalley.com, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement invoked the ban earlier this week. Why it took this collection of Captain Reynauds until now to discover Google Glasses' potential for unfair gambling advantage is something of a mystery.

Maybe someone put in a timely phone call to the faceless Trenton bureaucrats who represent New Jersey taxpayers. "'Even if (Google Glasses) had not been used for cheating," Gaming Enforcement Division director David Rebuck wrote in a memo to AC casinos, "...'their presence at a gaming table would lead to the perception that something untoward could be occurring, thereby undermining public confidence in the integrity of gaming."

Something "untoward"? In an Atlantic City casino? Perish the thought!

Google Case Judge Thwarts Class-Action Lawsuit Option for Copyright Holders

A federal district judge in New York recently ruled that copyright holders could not file a class-action suit against Google. The litigation involved files uploaded without the copyright holders' permission to Google-owned YouTube. According to a Reuters story picked up in today's siliconvalley.com, the judge in the case is the same jurist who dismissed Viacom's lawsuit against Google filed in 2007 for copyright infringement.

IRS Considers Taxing Perks At Iconic Silicon Valley Firms

Photo: applieddatalabs.com

The Mercury News reported today that the Internal Revenue Service is rumored to be considering a tax on free meals employees offered at major Silicon Valley firms. The story offers a revealing glimpse into the sense of entitlement employees at firms such as Google and Facebook embrace.

One former Google employee was quoted as maintaining the free food was not "compensation," but "a phenomenal convenience..." Apparently, that line of reasoning was sufficient to dodge the taxman. Meanwhile, the Mercury News article cited a story from the late, lamented Gourmet magazine raving about the Google dining room's sensational cuisine, including "'porcini-encrusted grass-fed beef.'" That's not exactly "convenience" food. Some of the Valley's employees and chefs claimed the high-quality dining was essential to a firm's culture, growth prospects, and hiring attractiveness.

The meals were for everyday employees, and not restricted to executive dining rooms. Somehow, the brains that turn out the secret sauce known as "proprietary algorithms" could not possibly function effectively without tax-free meals. The tech firms and their satellite dependencies would have one believe that instituting a government levy on corporate cafeterias would somehow diminish the appeal of working in the global epicenter of technological innovation. Sorry, I'm not buying it.

I admit I typically don't pay tax for my work lunches. Then again, I usually bring my own lunch from home. I manage.

Frommer Buys His "Name" Back From Google

Arthur Frommer and his daughter Pauline
(photo: Miami Herald)

Arthur Frommer, whose books, articles, and TV shows provided useful travel information for a couple of generations, recently purchased the rights to his brand from Google. The Associated Press' version of this transaction, picked up by siliconvalley.com, provides the nuts and bolts of the public side of this story. Why the search engine behemoth wanted to part ways with the Frommer "name" is not really clear. The deal's sketchy public details hint that Google retained access rights to some content. Notably, nothing in any story I read discussed data traffic, which is Google's lifeblood. (Ironically, an April 9th story in arstechnica.com spelled out Google's ruthless data mining of Frommer's social media communities to increase the contact universe for "Do No Evil's" Zagat Travel product.)

The story is something of a cautionary tale for the self-made, their brand management, and their acquisition anxiety. Over the decades, Frommer created an enterprise based on earned trust, knowledge of local conditions, and an understanding of middle-brow traveler needs. He actually cared about the average person, he respected their money, and he spoke to them rather than at them. It was something of a surprise when Frommer sold his "brand" some years ago. The publisher Wiley purchased the brand, then sold it to Google. The general sense was that Frommer provided "content" for Google. I have always supposed Google had a much bigger picture in mind, including linking Frommer's content to aggregated hotel and air listings in which Google would be either the middleman or the primary transaction agent. For a data-driven firm such as Google, such an arrangement would be a gold mine.

It's possible Frommer was upset that Google basically treated his hard-earned brand with indifference. In these days when "monetization" is touted as the best possible reason to create an enterprise, Frommer's tale is a reminder that there are other motivations besides profit to operate a business. Pride has a place, especially for independents such as Arthur Frommer. Sometimes, it's more important than the money.

Search Engine Rankings And Impact on Electoral Processes

Craig Timberg
(photo: Google Images)

An opinion piece by Washington Post technology writer Craig Timberg raised interesting, yet very troubling questions about our understanding of and relationship with information search engines.

Timberg used an experiment conducted by psychologist Robert Epstein as a context for his WaPo piece. Epstein's idea was to explore whether doctored search results would impact users' perceptions of political candidates, thus implicitly shaping how an election might result. In simplistic terms, a search engine firm motivated to promote a specific candidate or slate of candidates could place favorable items at the top of a specific search heap. Given that an increasing number of users obtain critical information from search results, rather than from, say, TV news, this finding has disturbing repercussions for a democratic society. The findings suggested that, in a world where ranking is king and "truth" does not compute, the search engine's choice had a decided advantage in the battlefield of influence. The search engine's preferred candidate or slate stood a far better chance of winning.

Neither Timberg nor Epstein accuse any search engine enterprise of cooking results for political gain. However, Epstein acknowledged he once had a public spat with Google, a fact noted in Timberg's story. Google, which Timberg contacted for comment on his WaPo story, strenuously asserted its "agnostic" approach to its algorithmic presentation of the "truth." One curious notion presented in the article was the concept that search results may be protected by the First Amendment. In a different industry, some Wall Street ratings firms hid behind the First Amendment when their outrageous AAA appraisals of subprime mortgage investment vehicles dissolved during the 2007-2008 financial disaster.

Image: slate.com

The assertion of "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" approach for search engine firms is a tricky area. Not so long ago, as Wired and other sources noted, Google navigated litigation that asserted the search firm provided search results that favored itself or its advertisers over firms that did not pony up for Google's advertising programs. While search engine firms advocate open access to information, they jealously guard their own proprietary secret sauces. Consumers and institutions simply have to take the word of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engine information providers that they know what's best for you. It is fair to say they work very hard at understanding what you might want. However, they're reluctant to share that knowledge in an open dialogue. It's the secrecy that breeds suspicion. Does that sound like a sound formula for a democratic society?

Tech, Pharma Firms Lead Overseas Cash Stash Race

Mitt Romney (upper right) and
an Offshore Island Haven for Large Bank Accounts
(photos: Vanity Fair)

The next time you use a smartphone or a laptop computer, think about where your payment for these gadgets lands. The corner bank? No. A regional financial services firm? Nah. One of the New York money center banks? Well, yes and no. The nyet part involves the domicile of the funds. Major tech firms, including Apple and Microsoft, are hoarding billions in overseas bank accounts, principally to avoid US taxation. The si, si answer comes from the banks that have corporate headquarters or a significant presence in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

According to a Reuters article picked up by siliconvalley.com, the five leading cash stashers include the two tech rivals already mentioned, along with Big Pharma stalwarts Merck and Pfizer and old pal Google. The situation gets me so upset that I want to call someone on my smartphone and....hmmm, that won't do. OK, I'll go to my laptop and I send an e-mail....oh, that's a problem, too. I've got it! I'll call some firm's corporate headquarters. Since I don't have those numbers in my speed dial (there's that pesky cell phone again!), I'll look them up in.....uhhhh, Google. Well, that won't do. The whole thing is so upsetting that I'm getting a headache. Dammit! All my relief meds are either made by one of the Big Pharma firms!

So then I decided to eat to forget my problems. I took out a frozen burger. As I looked at it, I realized the possibility of the patty including a percentage of horse meat gave me the heebie jeebies. I went to bed hungry, with a headache, and wondering if my gadgets were tracking my every move and my every move.

Call it a taxing situation.

Guess Who Dominates Upcoming "Dot Book" Domain Auction?

Once upon a time, the Internet was a place where paywalls did not exist, where activity tracking profoundly violated individual rights and online privacy, and where obtaining domain names required a brief registration and maybe a couple of bucks.

That "Internet Spring," with its enticing promise, is long gone. The Internet now increasingly functions as a "monetization" arena, with profit often characterized as the greatest possible good human activity can produce. A prime example of this degradation of the Internet is ICANN's (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) current auction of the "dot book" (.book) domain name.

According to a piece in mediabistro.com, the market for .book is sizzling. One contender for the domain is Amazon, which is bidding to own the entire domain. No sharing, which is in keeping with the Seattle firm's M.O. Another player is Google, which went to some lengths to obscure its interest in the auction. A surprise entry is Bowker, the firm that provides ISBN numbers and other data for the book biz.

For better or worse, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has publicly objected to Amazon's Darth Vader-style grasp for dominance. Apparently, AAP wasn't quite as concerned with the folks from Mountain Valley, California. The organization didn't seem to mind Bowker's desire to seize the domain day, either. Keep in mind publishers work closely with Bowker. The Big Five and the other members of publishing's solar system may not be so strongly motivated to challenge the provider of the industry's data lifeblood.

Amazon, for those of you keeping score at home, prefers to use its own data management system. They don't want Bowker, or anyone else, for that matter, to intrude on its data juggernaut. As in old movies in which secret police play a prominent role, Amazon only needs your information. Content may yearn to be free, but data cries out for control.

PS. A March 24, 2013 article in the Financial Times follows up on this topic and provides a brief summary of the stakes for trademark holders in the domain auction scenario.

Feds, Banks "Settle" Foreclosure Scandal; Obama Administration Lets Google Off the Hook

According to a report in today's online edition of The New York Times, federal negotiators and major American banks have reached a settlement in a probe of "foreclosure abuses by 14 major lenders." The banks will collectively pony up ten billion dollars; in exchange, the feds will stop its investigation. Essentially, very little will change, which is how major players want it.

One issue in the foreclosure scandal is that relatively few affected homeowners will gain anything from the deal. According to the Times, "Only 323,000 homeowners submitted claims for their files to be reviewed." Does that sound like the complete number of screwed homeowners across the country?

Of course, the corruption still runs deep, and across party lines. Some consumer advocates, the Times article noted, "have questioned whether the banks were getting off too easily because they selected and paid the consultants charged with examining their loans."

The banks were not the only powerful corporate juggernaut at which the Obama administration waved the matador's cape. Right out of the box in January, the FTC managed to conclude a lengthy investigation of Google's search engine placements and competitive tactics and determined the Mountain View company plays fair all the time. No violation of antitrust laws, no fine, no warning, no nothing.

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz
(photo: ftc.gov)

The FTC's explanation was a masterpiece of doubletalk. As reported in The Washington Post, FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz observed that "The American antitrust laws protect competition, not competitors." Unsurprisingly, Google itself echoed this ridiculous statement. Its chief legal officer "wrote that the FTC's actions affirm that Google's products  are 'good for users and good for competition.'" Google's competitors did not second this motion, and are now hoping for succor from the European Union.

Social Media Firms Unplug Their Telephone Customer Service

One aspect of the technology "revolution" is its nearly religious belief that greater efficiency leads to a greater good. This largely unquestioned perspective has created commercial drives in which individual users become data points rather than living, breathing human beings. When a tech firm's system doesn't work, does not adequately serve a user's legitimate expectations, or leaves a user puzzled, what happens?

Well, don't expect social media or search engine customer service over the phone, according to a story buried in slow-news Saturday editions of The New York Times, Reporter Amy O'Leary's useful article details how tech's titans disdain offering any telephone service at all. Instead, users are typically directed to a relevant website, where supposedly they will find succor from the service providers.

The delicious irony in the story is O'Leary's attempts to get firms to speak on the telephone for comment on her piece. "Officials at Facebook, Google and Twitter (all reached first by e-mail) say their users prefer to go online, finding it more pleasant and efficient than wading through a phone tree."

Ah, but social media business development is much more important than the "user experience." As Zendesk chief executive Mikkel Svane noted to O'Leary, the social media firms have "paved the way in large-scale customer service by keeping everything online." However, while social media and search engine firms' ambitions are certainly "large-scale," they have carefully considered how to "small scale" customer service expectation and interaction with a human being to its logical vanishing point.

Mikkel Svane
(photo from Twitter)

In tech's world view, absolutely nothing can be permitted to distract the enterprise from its focus. That includes interactions with human beings, who have an annoying tendency to act out of sync with algorithmically estimated probabilities of behavior. The Times story slyly makes this point by going inside the belly of the data-driven beast:

"In Foursquare's offices in New York, phone calls are considered a distraction to the developers and are conducted away from the main work area, in British-style red phone booths, the company's spokeswoman said, explaining that calls are not part of developer culture."

They aren't part of social media's arrogant perspective on service culture, either.

New York Times Lowers Great Paywall to Reach Chinese Readers

The New York Times announced in today's online edition that it will "introduce a beta version of a new Chinese-language edition" of the newspaper. The site launched in China today, according to the brief note. Some reports, though not the Times, noted the site would not have a paywall, as the Times' English-language site does. (Here's the link for the curious.)

The Times asserted its goal in presenting the Chinese-language web version of its newspaper was to bring "world-class journalism" to Chinese consumers. (The Times has never lacked for hubris.) Did the launch mean All The News That's Fit To Print had a moment of philosophical awakening that provided a sort of zeal for the media's mission? Well, no. Instead, one is informed of the Times' goal in its definition of the target demographic: "China's growing number of educated, affluent, global citizens..." This phrase is raw, red meat for advertisers. World-class brands can simply e-mail, text, or (heaven help us) call their Times ad rep and sign up for digital advertising packages.


Meanwhile, unstated was the role of censorship in the People's Republic of China, and how the Times intends to navigate that controversial area. "World-class journalism" and censorship just don't mix. If the Times needs a reminder of recent history, it can simply call its nemesis -- Google -- for a few pointers on the search engine firm's unpleasant experience with the Beijing government.

Dot-Brandname Sale Moving Ahead

ICANN, a/k/a the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will release its list of applications this week, according to a story in the Washington Post's online edition.

In the meantime, a Financial Times story notes that many firms, notably Google and Amazon, are trying to secure their own brand names as web address suffixes. In other words, dot-google, dot-kindle, and dot-youtube are coming to you soon.

This activity is for the cash flush, as the application fee is $185,000 per suffix. Some suffixes are just too long: I passed on dot-innerharbor. I didn't have the one-eight-five, either.

Search Volume on Google for "Bank Run" Hits Record High

Run on American financial institution
Indymac Bank in 2008. At the time, it was the
second largest bank failure in US history.

What's on people's minds? Well, if your answer is "bank run," you're on to something. According to a post in the financial blog zerohedge.com, Google's search engine results for "bank run" has surpassed its historic high. The searchers appear to have some reading and writing knowledge of English, with northern Europeans in the vanguard. Close behind in this grim horse race are the Chinese and those who call Singapore home.

Then again, according to most American mainstream media outlets, the recession ended years ago and everything is getting better. Those annoying foreclosures, workplace dropouts, student loan disasters, ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the widening gap between the have-a-lots and everyone else, are just mirages. Bank runs? Hey, don't you feel confident about Morgan Stanley (Facebook fiasco), JP Morgan Chase (risk management mess), Bank of America (broke), Citicorp (ditto), and Goldman Sachs (they're creepy and they're spooky, mysterious and ooky....)

Is Google Continuing to Move Its Offices Into Big-Time City Centers?

Chicago's Merchandise Mart,
one of the locations Google is reportedly
considering for Motorola Mobility offices.

A story in Crain's chicagobusiness.com reported that Google plans to move Motorola Mobility from suburban Chicago to the heart of the Windy City. The move, which Google did not confirm, follows a pattern new, and newly powerful, companies are following. Essentially, their young, ambitious, talented employees want and demand the vitality and excitement of big city life. It's more important to be closer to dance clubs than golf clubs. I noted this Google trend in a 2010 post addressing Google's acquisition of an office building that occupies a square block of New York's Chelsea neighborhood.

Now, if you were a business owner, would you locate in the suburbs or the city? You're welcome to reply, and note the size of your hypothetical or legit firm in your comments. I happen to think the city and the suburbs have business game; it's a matter of which one fits your firm's needs.