It's really sort of amazing how few years it took to go from "Do no evil" to "Don't even bother pretending not to."
this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
414 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
59606 readers
3754 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I get this is the go-to response now, for good reason, but there isn't really anything too shady going on with this particular case at least not from Google. This is more about them trying to keep SEOs from figuring out how they rank things so they can't pollute the search results even more.
Every comment is shitting on Google but here is the what the SEO expert said about the leak when it was presented to them:
This person’s sole aim appeared quite aligned with my own: to hold Google accountable for public statements that conflict with private conversations and leaked documentation, and to bring greater transparency to the field of search marketing. And they believed that, despite my years removed from SEO, I was the best person to share this publicly.
Just read through that blog. Look at the absolute indignity these SEO assholes have at the idea that the search engine wouldn't tell them exactly how to fuck it up with their garbage.
This is entirely about advertising. Hell, the leaker revealed their identity, and it's the guy that runs this company:
Companies like this and the assholes behind them are a cancer on the internet and they have been for a very long time. You cannot point the finger at Google and not also point the finger at them, they are the other half of the shit equation.
Next to upvoting, I'm just writing this to potentially get your comment ranked higher for this post.
Stuffing this comment with keywords in order to rank his comment higher. Upvoting, writing, ranking.
As I just noted on another response, mostly it was that I came up with a delicious turn of phrase and couldn't not post it. And yes, while broadly I think that Google deserves every bit of shit that's thrown their way and more - that they could vanish from the face of the Earth tomorrow and the internet could only benefit - this particular incident really isn't a good example.
Oh FFS. Hadn't realized that implication yet. I fucking hate SEO internet polluters.
I suppose on the bright side maybe, between this and the garbage showing from their AI search, they'll actually dedicate the necessary resources to make their search usable.
Forgive me for not reading all 2500 documents, but I haven't heard anything to suggest there was a bunch of sinister stuff in there -- and there's nothing implicitly evil about having docs leaked.
The main takeaway is that Google uses Chrome to collect data on what search results people click on and how long they spend on those pages. They then use that data to rank search results.
Ah, I see. That makes sense, but to be fair I think that was expected. I suspect they also pull the same data from every page where adsense is embedded regardless of browser, e.g., and every other company out there is aggregating the same sort of data every possible place they can get it from (shared sign ins, etc etc)
Edit: It's definitely a particularly bad look when there are several things in there that representatives for Google have apparently lied about over the years.
I have to admit that I was so pleased with that turn of phrase when it came to me that I went ahead and posted it in spite of the fact that this specific incident doesn't appear to be a good example.
That feels remarkably intellectually honest. I doubt if I would have replied again in that case, so I don't know why anyone was downvoting this
Now it would be bloody awesome if someone would leak how their data collection in Android works and how much of their privacy policy is actually not just for good PR.
Where are these docs? No one ever links to them or says where you can find them
Thousands of documents, which appear to come from Google’s internal Content API Warehouse, were released March 13 on Github by an automated bot called yoshi-code-bot.
God, I hate GitHub. It always gets stuck when there are many changes
t?
t!
O^t!^
Fr, just like when those game source codes leak or whatever. It's cool and people want to download it just because, just link them lmao
They were leaked specifically to "SEO experts" who shared portions of it. I don't know if it was leaked publicly.
I'm basically what happened is the leaker is an SEO guy, that runs an SEO company, and leaked the documents to another SEO guy.
I wonder if any are on Internet archive, and perhaps that’s why the ddos
Hidden way back behind a machine.
That'd not where they've been primarily located, no.
Could I get a google docs link?
RemindMe! 12h
Oye reminding you after 12hrs
Thanks!
A collection of 2,500 leaked internal documents from Google filled with details about data the company collects is authentic, the company confirmed today. Until now, Google had refused to comment on the materials.
The documents in question detail data that Google is keeping track of, some of which may be used in its closely guarded search ranking algorithm. The documents offer an unprecedented — though still murky — look under the hood of one of the most consequential systems shaping the web
Has anyone gone through the documents? Any interesting findings? Is it time to create a website?
Look, at this point Google could just drown puppies on live stream and it won’t matter. They’ll just keep on Googling anyway.
Its all about governments not protecting their citizens from the beginning, with things that are quite obvious. Even using these corporations in benefit for politicians. Corporations will always try to get the biggest beef at the lowest spending, there is no news here.
thank GOD the trump news broke or else this would've been major