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Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

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Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#421
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a fake rate anyway and they only moved it around a little, what Jedi Blue did was far more criminal and egregious. The ad networks act with impunity, for example, they know when a user has installed an app with no connection to them and then they serve that user ads for the app and then attribute the install to themselves! out and out fraud but they'll just claim the algo is really complex and our ML/AI doesn'…

>It was a fake rate anyway It was my impression that everyone uses LIBOR, so even a tiny change has massive consequences.

Many rates were based on LIBOR, but LIBOR itself was used for nothing other than betting, no one was lending or borrowing at it.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone reading this on Chrome should switch their browser today. Get off of Gmail while you're at it. There is no perfect alternative, but all those reasons why you think you can't switch don't add up to anything a fraction as bad as what Google is doing.

What's a good alternative to gmail? Fastmail? Protonmail? Other? I don't mind paying a small subscription.

Migadu is very cheap and a great alternative. 20 dollars a year if you don't use email much

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#423
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was a fake rate anyway It was my impression that everyone uses LIBOR, so even a tiny change has massive consequences.

Many rates were based on LIBOR, but LIBOR itself was used for nothing other than betting, no one was lending or borrowing at it.

Which is exactly what I said?

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#424
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are right - That’s another practice is morally dubious (And imo should be outlawed!) Where this gets tricky is when a business has a name along the lines of [city name] [generic product category]. If this was outlawed, a competitor to a business named Foo-town Yard Care would be effectively blocked from advertising on Google.

Another interesting policy is that Google's Ad policy says "We don’t investigate or restrict trademarks as keywords.", however they will protect against ads on their own product search terms and trademarks. I work for a company where our competitors are paying for ads over our brandname, but try to do that for Google...

> Another interesting policy is that Google's Ad policy says "We don’t investigate or restrict trademarks as keywords.", however they will protect against ads on their own product search terms and trademarks.

Sounds like an anti-trust issue.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We agree that much of what Google does is bad, but your solution both doesn't seem like it gets to the core of the issue, and moreover I can't actually think of a company that meets your threshold - it would be stupid for a company to produce a product that nobody wants.

I disagree. Production is cheap, more so for digital services, you can very well make shit nobody wants and then use advertising and marketing to produce demand. And of course ‘wanting’ is ambiguous. There is a difference between impulsive desire and a cold-headed need. Heroin users also “want” the drug; gambling addicts “want” the gems in the f2p game’s store; people “want” the fantasy of beauty and success on socia…

So by "want" you mean what a central actor (or maybe just you?) decides is a legitimate want and what is not a real want that is worthy of satisfying?

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A world of B-corps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation Unfortunately, just like with non-profits, these designations just end up being gamed. You can't rule out evil because evil thwarts rules. Sometimes evil even makes rules to rule out good. It's a nice thought though.

> You can't rule out evil because evil thwarts rules. Nice turn of phrase! I'm stealing it.

Just remember, good needs to thwart rules too. Freedom is fought with blood, sweat, and tears. Evil creates rules, even those who mean well create rules that perpetuate evil. "Forgive them for they know not what they do." :-)

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#427
post #8

What can we as people in top 1% with 1) information about big tech abuses 2) skills to fix this do? Individually we can use browsers like firefox or brave and probably donate time or money to them, but I think it's not enough. I think we would need something like a movement against those abuses, but probably the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. Is this possible? Has a…

This movement is called open source. We should educate people about importance of privacy and show them open source, privacy respecting, self hosted alternatives to closed source, tracking, proprietary services. If all of us converted only one person, this would make a legion of conscious people.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Production is cheap, more so for digital services, you can very well make shit nobody wants and then use advertising and marketing to produce demand. And of course ‘wanting’ is ambiguous. There is a difference between impulsive desire and a cold-headed need. Heroin users also “want” the drug; gambling addicts “want” the gems in the f2p game’s store; people “want” the fantasy of beauty and success on socia…

So by "want" you mean what a central actor (or maybe just you?) decides is a legitimate want and what is not a real want that is worthy of satisfying?

You can do better.
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