Re How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Tilghman Lesher <tilghman () meg abyt es>
Date: Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google
Searches
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


Dr. Farber-

(for IP, if you choose)

There is a floor to how far down the average CPC will go.  On one of our
e-commerce sites, we advertise products on Google Shopping, with a maximum
CPC of one cent ($0.01).  Google offered to help us maximize our CTR
(click-through rate), but when they checked, it was already 3%, which is
beyond their normal goal of 1%.

If I could drop the CPC further down, to fractions of a penny, I would, but
for obvious reasons, Google is not motivated to allow that.

On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 1:44 PM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From:* Chuck McManis <chuck.mcmanis () gmail com>
> *Date:* January 2, 2018 at 2:01:27 PM EST
> *To:* Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> *Cc:* ip <ip () listbox com>, dewayne () warpspeed com
> *Subject:* *Re: [IP] How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google
> Searches*
>
> This article, and all of the DuckDuckGo 'Don't Bubble Me' collateral
> discuss the challenges of tailored information. This sort of effect is why
> publications, as recently as the the early 21st century, had a very strict
> wall between editorial and advertising. It compromises the integrity of
> journalism if the editorial staff can be driven by the advertisers. And
> Google exploited that tension and turned it into a business model.
>
> If you have an AdSense account (they are free and used to be the go to way
> for people to monetize their web site) you will periodically receive
> mailers from Google suggesting you use AdWords (another Google product of
> course) to 'get your message out there.' When people started using Google
> as an 'answer this question' machine, and then Google created a mechanism
> to show your answer first, the stage was set for what has become a gross
> perversion of 'reference' information.
>
> To put this in context,  consider the challenge of Google's eroding search
> advertising margins[1].  Google traditionally reported something called
> 'CPC' or (Cost Per Click) in their financial reports. This was the price
> that an advertiser paid Google when that advertiser's ad was 'clicked' on
> by a user. In a goods economy, it might equivalent to the 'average selling
> price' or ASP for the widget. But unlike a goods economy, Google could (and
> to date has) made up for this price erosion by increased ad volume. If you
> look at Google sites (web sites that are hosted on the google.com
> domains) there are more paid placements on those pages than there has ever
> been. On the search page, Google's bread and butter so to speak, for a
> 'highly contested' search (that is what search engine marketeers call a
> search query that can generate lucrative ad clicks) such as 'best credit
> card' or 'lowest home mortgage', there are many web browser window
> configurations that show few, if any organic search engine results at all!
> Google has scrambled to find an adjacent market, one that could not only
> generate enough revenue to pay for the infrastructure but also to generate
> a net income . Youtube, its biggest success outside of search, and the
> closest thing they have, has yet to do that after literally a decade of
> investment and effort. As a result Google has turned to the only tools it
> has that work,  it has reduced payments to its 'affiliate' sites (AdSense
> for content payments), then boosted the number of ad 'slots' on Google
> sites, and finally paying third parties to send search traffic
> preferentially to Google (this too hurts Google's overall search margin)
>
> The result is that you have a company which is painfully addicted to the
> high margins of search advertising, and is the defacto source of answers
> for a large chunk of the population, you put it into the position of
> choosing survival (sell the top search result slots to anyone who will pay)
> or integrity (return the best answer possible).  Nothing like having your
> fiduciary duty to the shareholders conflict with your moral obligations. In
> many ways it reminds me of the lawsuits against the cigarette makers. The
> cigarette makers certainly could not serve there shareholders by endorsing
> the view that their product was killing the customer, even if it was the
> morally correct thing to do. Google isn't "killing" people by giving out
> results that have been shaped by third parties but their rationalizations
> (both internally when I worked there, and externally) seem to echo the same
> themes that Phillip Morris espoused when they argued it was a person's
> choice if they wanted to smoke or not. Google will argue that their job is
> just to show you where things are on the Internet, and match up people who
> want to share with people searching for a particular topic. They (Google)
> cannot take responsibility for people who don't bother to check their
> sources (which they could even do on Google!).
>
> I have run a world wide, nationally accessible, English language index
> search engine, Blekko, and I know what they "could" do, but don't do with
> regard to misrepresented information and false narratives. I don't know
> what their motivations are, but I do know that there is a tremendous amount
> of money that gets spent keeping balancing information, or more accurate
> information, out of view. We know from lawsuits that people will pay much
> more to put an advertisement on a page where the user has just searched for
> their competitor, it is fairly intuitive that this would be the case, the
> upstart just wants a shot at convincing you they have a better product, the
> incumbent wants to be sure you never learn that there is an alternative
> choice. We also know that rounded to the nearest billion, none of
> Alphabet's businesses make money except search advertising. It isn't a
> stretch to guess that the tension to take the money might be overwhelming
> other forces inside of Google.
>
> --Chuck
>
> [1] The average price per click (CPC) of advertisements on Google sites
> has gone down for every year, and nearly every quarter, since 2009. At the
> same time Microsoft's Bing search engine CPCs have gone up. As the
> advantage of Google's search index is eroded by time and investment,
> primarily by Microsoft, advertisers have been shifting budget to be more of
> a blend between the two companies. The trend suggests that at some point in
> the not to distant future advertising margins for both engines will be
> equivalent.
>
> On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 3:12 AM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > *From:* Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > *Date:* January 2, 2018 at 4:41:12 AM EST
> > *To:* Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > *Subject:* *[Dewayne-Net] How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in
> > Google Searches*
> > *Reply-To:* dewayne-net () warpspeed com
> >
> > How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches
> > Groups that reject established climate science can use the search
> > engine’s advertising business to their advantage, gaming the system to find
> > a mass platform for false or misleading claims.
> > By HIROKO TABUCHI
> > Dec 29 2017
> > <
> > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/climate/google-search-climate-change.html
> > >
> >
> > Type the words “climate change” into Google and you could get an
> > unexpected result: advertisements that call global warming a hoax.
> >
> > “Scientists blast climate alarm,” said one that appeared at the top of
> > the search results page during a recent search, pointing to a website,
> > DefyCCC, that asserted: “Nothing has been studied better and found more
> > harmless than anthropogenic CO2release.”
> >
> > Another ad proclaimed: “The Global Warming Hoax — Why the Science Isn’t
> > Settled,” linking to a video containing unsupported assertions, including
> > that there is no correlation between rising levels of greenhouse gases and
> > higher global temperatures.
> >
> > (In reality, the harmful effects of carbon dioxide emissions linked to
> > human activity, like rising temperatures and melting sea ice, have been
> > acknowledged by every major scientific organization in the world.)
> >
> > America’s technology giants have come under fire for their role in the
> > spread of fake news during the 2016 presidential campaign, prompting
> > promises from Google and others to crack down on sites that spread
> > disinformation.
> >
> > Less scrutinized has been the way tech companies continue to provide a
> > mass platform for the most extreme sites among those that use false or
> > misleading science to reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on
> > climate change. Google’s search page has become an especially contentious
> > battleground between those who seek to educate the public on the
> > established climate science and those who reject it.
> >
> > Not everyone who uses Google will see climate denial ads in their search
> > results. Google’s algorithms use search history and other data to tailor
> > ads to the individual, something that is helping to create a highly
> > partisan internet.
> >
> > A recent search for “climate change” or “global warming” from a Google
> > account linked to a New York Times climate reporter did not return any
> > denial ads. The top results were ads from environmental groups like the
> > Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund.
> >
> > But when the same reporter searched for those terms using private
> > browsing mode, which helps mask identity information from Google’s
> > algorithms, the ad for DefyCCC popped up.
> >
> > “These are the info wars,” said Robert J. Brulle, a Drexel University
> > professor of sociology and environmental science who has studied climate
> > advocacy and misinformation. “It’s becoming harder and harder for the
> > individual to find unbiased information that they can trust, because
> > there’s so much other material trying to crowd that space.”
> >
> > After being contacted by The New York Times in mid-December, Google said
> > it had removed an ad from its climate search results, though it declined to
> > identify which one. An ad from DefyCCC was still turning up at the top of
> > searches days later. As of Wednesday, no ads at all were turning up for
> > Times reporters and editors running these searches.
> >
> > The climate denialist ads are an example of how contrarian groups can use
> > the internet’s largest automated advertising systems to their advantage,
> > gaming the system to find a mass platform for false or misleading claims.
> >
> > Google allows companies to bid on search terms, and displays paid content
> > at the top of its search results in the same blue font used for unpaid
> > content. (For example, a candy maker might bid on the term “Christmas
> > candy” so that its ads pop up when someone searches for those words.)
> > Google identifies ads in its search results with an icon below the link.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
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-- 
Tilghman



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