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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

#131

Post by djsbs »

323 wrote: post #100
djsbs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with everything you say, but: “ They were the first "ethical" tech company,” What does that even mean? Unless you equate “ethical” with manipulating their dominant social position to shove a worldview you happen to agree with. Which is a very… narrow understanding of ethics. As well as convenient, and, historically, trite (socially advantaged person agrees w/ the worldview a social institution imposes that…

> What does that even mean? Read HN from 10 years ago. Posters were gushing about how cool and amazing Google is, how much good they are doing to the tech industry, how more companies should be like than and do ethical things like they do, for example support open standards and source instead of proprietary systems. They were saying that Google is a company run by techies who value hacking ethics ideals and not by bu…

I first joined HN ten years ago.

So that was sarcasm? Wow that went over my head. Makes sense though.

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

#132

Post by merrywhether »

phonebucket wrote: post #101
jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

Hello advertisers. You are being manipulated and abused just like the consumers you are targeting. There is very little evidence to show that invasive digital advertising is actually effective. When was the last time you clicked on one of these ads and actually made a purchase? Bad for consumers and bad for advertisers. Why continue with this opaque, profit sucking charade that mainly enriches those selling the ads?

> Hello advertisers. You are being manipulated and abused just like the consumers you are targeting. Do you have much evidence for this? Advertisers don’t spend big bucks blindly. Many companies have significant data science teams that keep an extremely close watch on ad spend return on investment.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t all being price-gouged (per the AG’s complaint) for instance. Paying protection to the mob also strongly correlates with your store not burning down in the middle of the night. We just don’t know how different things could be without this level of monopolistic distortion (which I admit could mean that without Google things _could_ be worse?)

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

#133

Post by cletus »

F Twitter threads. Seriously... just... stop.

It's worth noting with all the revelations in the last couple of days, that at least some of them aren't new. For example:

- "Jedi Blue: A Scandal That Highlights, Yet Again, The Need To Regulate Big Tech" (19 Jan 2021) [1]

- "Facebook and Google allegedly cut a deal that reduced ad competition" (17 Jan 2021) [2]

- "Google acknowledges it foresaw possibility of probe of 'Jedi Blue' advertising deal with Facebook" (7 Apr 2021) [3]

I mean this is all fruit of the same tree, the states' suit, but it seems there's some revisionism here. What is new is parts of the suit that were redacted were recently unredacted.

To be clear, these are fairly damning allegations and revelations.

Personally, I find the most troubling allegations to be about AMP and ad market price-fixing.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2021/01/19/jedi-blu...

[2]: https://www.engadget.com/facebook-google-jedi-blue-ad-deal-1...

[3]: https://mlexmarketinsight.com/news-hub/editors-picks/area-of...

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

#134

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

credittw2021 wrote: post #97
Digit-Al wrote: post #87

Does anyone else wonder if Page and Brin feel any pangs of guilt over how their company went from "Don't be evil" to such corrupt practises? It really is a classic case study in the journey from apparent idealism to a complete moral vacuum.

[flagged]

I'll second this. "Evil" is a subjective judgment, so using it clouds people's emotions.

The non-villain org I want to start is dedicated to "Meeting all needs while denying none." I'd love for people to parse it for hidden villainy.

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

#135

Post by slavik81 »

goldenkey wrote: post #118
slavik81 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother bought water bottles with cat ears that were advertised on Facebook. My wife bought a Mandalorian carpet advertised on Instagram. I bought custom-printed Canadian postage stamps advertised on Google in wedding card-related searches. They're sold directly from Canada Post.

Most of these products are leaded or toxic. I had a Mandalorian mug gifted to me by a dumb gen-Z friend of mine and it came with an Amazon return receipt showing it came from a 3rd party seller despite the availability of the same official LucasFilm mug being sold by Amazon.com. I don't trust products from random sellers so I scratched off some of the glaze and tested it for lead, and what do you know..it was leaded.…

I'm not a very trusting person. The custom stamps I purchased were ordered directly from the government's official website. I simply didn't know the product existed before I saw the advertisement.

The rug was from ruggable.com (which seems fine) and the water bottle was ZOQQ (which looks questionable no matter what store it's purchased from).

I can't control the behaviour of others, but it's somewhat beside the point. I was giving examples of when the advertising worked. Whether it should or not is a whole different topic.

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

#136

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

qnsi wrote: 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…

How about killing debt? Removing the gates we've built around resources for human needs? A computer virus to promote a culture of interdependence?

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

#137

Post by fartcannon »

notjustanymike wrote: post #111
aasasd wrote: post #43

> Re: forced Chrome logins. Don't need cookies if you own the browser! ( https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/145209451374118912... ) The swindle with FLOC was pretty obviously tied in this, but people still went in circles discussing whether it's private or not, and downvoting those who said FLOC is a trap. Let's consult the plan, nothing is even secret about this: - Google disables third-party cookies, crippli…

Well they dropped the "don't be evil" motto a while back.

This was actually an act of kindness. They removed the motto to let us know to abandon them. I believe it was a canary clause.

Of course most people don't care, so here we are.

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

#138

Post by coliveira »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #98

I sometimes wonder, what if there was a universal governing principle, that was simple to enforce, obvious, formulated in few words, so that everyone understands it. All those priveleges which every of theese corporations enjoy, some simple, like not publishing schematic for 1000$+ device, some complex, like making backroom deals harming millions of people in a some insignificant and obscure way daily, like showing c…

Of course this exists, it is called socialism. But our society is so deep into consumerist propaganda that it has lost the ways to evaluate anything that doesn't presume capitalism.

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

#139

Post by adriancr »

aasasd wrote: post #74
braveyellowtoad wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, so if a user is logged into chrome, Google has permission / is able to track all web activity for that user?

Frankly, I'm not sure about the current state of things, seeing as it likely has changed several times in the past few years. However, a) I'm not sure why Goog would want to bother with browser accounts otherwise, and b) my use of Chrome ceased soonish after I had the following experience in the early 2010s: - set up a new empty site, listed absolutely nowhere, on quite dedicated hosting. - open it in Chrome. - a cou…

This could also be via dns records if you published some they would get scanned

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

#140

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #98

I sometimes wonder, what if there was a universal governing principle, that was simple to enforce, obvious, formulated in few words, so that everyone understands it. All those priveleges which every of theese corporations enjoy, some simple, like not publishing schematic for 1000$+ device, some complex, like making backroom deals harming millions of people in a some insignificant and obscure way daily, like showing c…

Meets all needs while denying none.

Establish a category theory based foundation of human needs, which will necessarily include the environment and its needs, and all legislation must show how it meets the fundamental needs and all of their compositions, (eg. every need composes with the need for learning to result in the need to learn how to identify and meet any given need).

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