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

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

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
>
> This message was sent to the list address and trashed, but can be found online.



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