Criticism of Google LLC

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The article Criticism of Google LLC summarizes criticism of the company Google LLC .

Criticism of the company

Tax evasion

Google uses legal booking tricks like the Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich principle to avoid billions in tax payments. In 2012, Eric Schmidt , chairman of the group, stated that the company Google had a structure with which it hardly had to pay taxes in Europe. "This is called capitalism," he said. This practice is increasingly criticized.

In February 2016, Google reached an agreement with the UK government on a back tax payment of £ 130 million. 18 million pounds of the sum alone resulted from interest on the sums not paid. The sum did not include a fine. The agreement was heavily criticized by the opposition and parts of civil society. However, the then Chancellor George Osborne defended the agreement and the diverted profits tax introduced by him .

In February 2016, it became known that the French state was demanding a tax refund of 1.6 billion euros from Google. In May 2016, the company's Paris office was investigated by police forces.

Support from climate deniers

The Washington Post reported in late June 2013 that Google was the largest single sponsor of a fundraising event for the Competitive Enterprise Institute . The US think tank is known, among other things, for its denial of man-made global warming . In July 2013, Google itself hosted a fundraising event for Republican Senator Jim Inhofe , who denies global warming. The latter event led to criticism of Google in advance. a. by the scientists involved in the science dialogue initiated by Google. The event took place anyway. Google is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council . a. against the expansion of renewable energies, referring to the Heartland Institute . In addition, according to its own information, Google supports other climate denial organizations such as the Cato Institute , the Mercatus Center , and the Americans for Tax Reform .

At the end of September 2014, Google announced that membership of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) would end at the end of the year. Support from ALEC was a mistake. Climate change is a fact, and the company must not stand in line with climate skeptics, as these people are "literally lying".

Manipulation of search results

In August 2018, criticized President Trump that Google manipulated search results and the voices of conservatives suppress and oppress conservative news and information. This was rejected by Google. The allegation was seen in part in connection with an upcoming Google hearing before the Senate.

In internal emails that became public in September 2018, Google employees discussed how they could manipulate searches after President Trump's entry ban for citizens from seven countries in order to direct users to pro-migration sites and show them how to get there Can contact politicians and government agencies on the matter. Google denies that these ideas were implemented.

Poaching dispute

Google Inc. was a secret agreement with Adobe , Apple and Intel strongly criticized that it did not allow them workers among themselves poach . 64,000 employees have filed a class action lawsuit against the companies that prevented them from leaving one of the companies for a higher-paying job in one of the others. A $ 415 million settlement was reached in a court in San Jose . An email from Eric Schmidt to the late Apple founder Steve Jobs was also published, in which Schmidt promised to immediately fire an employee of the HR department who had tried to poach an Apple employee.

Cooperation with intelligence services

In early June 2013, a whistleblower announced that Google, together with eight other well-known Internet and software providers, would provide the NSA and other government agencies with user data upon request. A company spokesman commented on the revelations by stating that user data would be treated with great caution, inquiries from the authorities would be carefully checked and - provided that the legal provisions comply - data would be released manually. Inquiries from government agencies from 2009 to 2011 were published by the company, but none of them were authorized by FISA legislation , so the type and extent of NSA access to Google users' data remains unclear.

Discrimination

In August 2017, an employee's memorandum was published in which he attributed the non- equal representation of women in the company's technology and management to biological reasons. Even if the memo was initially unanimously perceived as sexist in the leading German media , the dismissal of the employee without notice met with broad criticism, as this would prevent the discussion on how to deal with diversity .

After Google dismissed its head of international relations, he reported in 2020: " Standing up for women, for the LGBT community, for colleagues with non-white skin color, and for human rights has cost me my career (at Google)".

Maven military project

Google has been participating in the US Department of Defense's Maven military project since 2017 . As part of the project, Google is developing AI technologies for the automatic evaluation of video recordings from military drones in order to increase the accuracy when combating targets. In an open letter to the top of the group, 3,100 Google employees protested against participation in the project. As a result of Google's involvement in the project, a number of employees have resigned for ethical reasons. To assist Google employees, some IT academics and ethicists wrote an open letter to the top of the company on May 16, 2018, which was signed by around 1,000 scientists from around the world. In this context, also note the article from the English language Wikipedia: Don't be evil . As a result, the head of the Google Cloud division, Diane Greene, announced on June 1, 2018 that the 18-month contract will not be extended in 2019.

Participation in armed conflicts

On March 22, 2016, it was announced that Google had apparently developed a tool in 2012 that was used to process information, but also to support the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad . Google employee Jared Cohen described this tool to then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an email.

Criticism of Google search and Android

Overall, media researchers now see Google's power of opinion as problematic. Google's expansion strategy is similar to that of Microsoft, only Google acts much faster.

Autocomplete

Search engines such as Google use the "auto-complete" function to lead the user to the term they are looking for as quickly as possible. Under certain circumstances, this can mean that the search engine can lead to legally questionable search results. For this reason, France sees search engines as an obligation to filter out search results for media content in connection with share hosts or data exchange platforms when they are auto-complete.

In France, four human rights organizations accused Google of “latent anti-Semitism” in its auto-completion function. People would be recorded and categorized according to ethnic criteria. When looking for celebrities, the term “Jew” is often the first option. Patrick Kluman, lawyer for SOS Racisme, sees this as a possible risk of stirring up anti-Semitic resentment. In Germany, Google proceeds differently: there is no autocompletion for terms like “Jude”. Some terms are partially filtered, for example the porn actor Rocco Siffredi is suppressed. On the other hand, Google refuses to intervene in the event of a violation of personal rights. It is not entirely understandable by what standards Google intervenes in auto-completion.

The function received a lot of media attention in September 2012 when Bettina Wulff filed a lawsuit against Google. Among other things, Wulff wanted to ensure that negative search completions (e.g. escort, prostitute) that appeared after their name are deleted because they would damage their public reputation. In November 2012, eight search results relating to Bettina Wulff were removed from the Google index. However, Wulff's lawyers had requested the removal of 3,000 results. The proposals were not touched either.

A study on automatic completion on Google at the end of September 2012 also showed that concerns about the negative effects of the proposals are well founded. According to the study, a third of all users remember negative suggestions about people and companies.

Criticism from publishers

In France, publishers demanded money from Google to have their articles listed in the US company's search services. The French government (since May 2012 under François Hollande ) had announced a corresponding law in the event that publishers and Google would not come to an agreement. On February 1, 2013, Hollande and Google's Chairman of the Board of Directors Eric Schmidt signed an agreement. Accordingly, Google is providing 60 million euros for new online news projects. A committee made up of representatives from Google, the publishers and the government will decide on the award. Google also wants to help publishers market their websites.

Quasi-monopoly position

Google recently had a market share of over 90% in search engine queries in Germany. Due to the monopoly position in the search engine market in many countries - including Germany - it is often criticized that Google can set the "rules of the game" itself.

Competition procedure of the EU Commission

The European Commission which imposed three fines on Google in 2017, 2018 and 2019

In 2010 the EU Commission initiated competition proceedings against Google. The EU competition authority is investigating whether the group could have abused its dominant position in online searches in order to place its own products and services ahead of those of other providers.

In early 2013, Google offered concessions to settle the case and avoid lengthy antitrust proceedings. At a press conference on July 17, 2013, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia stated that the suggestions sent by Google were not enough to overcome the concerns. Further negotiations at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014 also did not lead to an agreement with the EU Commission.

In April 2015, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and the EU Commission accused Google of unfair competition by abusing its dominant position. Google prefers its own specialized search services in its general search results. Other concerns included web scraping of web content by competing companies, exclusive advertising, and excessive restrictions on advertising companies. In addition, a separate antitrust investigation into Google's behavior with regard to the Android operating system was initiated.

On June 27, 2017, the EU Commission announced in a press release that a fine of 2.42 billion euros had been imposed on Google. The reason given was that Google had violated EU antitrust law by exploiting its dominant position as a search engine in order to gain an unlawful advantage through inadmissible preferential treatment of its own price comparison service. Google was asked to stop this practice within 90 days. Otherwise, fines of up to 5% of the average worldwide daily turnover from Google's parent company Alphabet were threatened as fines - corresponding to around US $ 14 million per day. Google dismissed the accusations as unjustified, arguing that companies like Amazon and eBay have comparatively more influence over buyer behavior. The company will likely appeal the decision.

On July 18, 2018, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager imposed a record fine of around 4.3 billion euros on Google for abusing its dominant position in the Android smartphone system and threatened further fines if Google did not act within 90 days change. Among other things, it was criticized that manufacturers of Android smartphones who want to integrate Google services always have to install a complete package of eleven apps. Vestager emphasized that the pre-installation of Google as a search engine in particular ensures that consumers use it instead of downloading competing offers.

Federal Trade Commission (USA) competition proceedings

On June 25, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (antitrust authority) opened an official investigation against Google in the USA. The point is that Google often integrates its own products into the results and thus enables fewer clicks to third-party providers. Google is also accused of manipulating search results in favor of its own services. Antitrust investigations are ongoing in Europe and the USA under this allegation. Google defended this approach in 2012 with a study that this self-preference was allowed by the right to free speech. The FTC proceedings were ended in 2013 in favor of Google. In March 2015, FTC investigation records were made public through a FOIA request that the FTC found that Google preferred its own services.

privacy

According to an interview with the Financial Times , which was conducted in 2007 with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt , Google plans to collect so much data from each individual user that it can even answer very personal questions, such as "What should I do tomorrow?" Or "Which job offer should I accept?" In 2010, Eric Schmidt reiterated this vision of the future several times, first in an interview with the Wall Street Journal : "I think most people (...) want Google to tell them what to do next." (...) "Say we, you are walking down a street. Based on the information that Google has gathered about you, we know roughly who you are, roughly what you are interested in, and roughly knowing who your friends are. Google also knows exactly where you are, down to a few meters. ”At a lecture at the IFA trade fair in Berlin 2010, Schmidt added the example of Google itself to remind a user to put on a rain jacket in bad weather . “We can make suggestions to people because we know what is important to them.” With this, Schmidt was alluding to possibilities such as serendipity , which can be evaluated with artificial intelligence .

Experts and the media warn of a further weakening of data protection and privacy by Google. In June 2007, in a study by the civil rights organization Privacy International (PI) , Google was the only one of 23 Internet service companies surveyed to be awarded the title “hostile to data protection”. The civil rights group Public Information Research nominated Google in 2003 for a " Big Brother Award " in the USA . In Germany it won one in 2013.

The Chaos Computer Club also criticizes the company: "Google is not primarily a search engine, but above all a data collector."

The Berlin Court of Appeal certified Google the use of 25 illegal contractual provisions.

The extent of the procedures known as data octopus is clear from the data protection declaration published by Google in March 2016: "We collect information about the services you use and the type of use you use, for example when you watch a video on YouTube, visit a website, on which our advertising services are used, or when you view and interact with our advertising and our content. "

In June 2020, the FAZ reported that Google would have to prepare for a possible class action lawsuit worth at least five billion dollars in America for disregarding privacy settings. According to the complaint filed in federal court in San Jose, California on June 2, the company is said to be collecting data from Internet users through Google Analytics , Google Ad Manager and other applications, as well as website plug-ins and smartphone apps, although these would have set the settings to "private". Google is not allowed to participate in the covert and unauthorized collection of data from virtually every American with a computer or telephone, the indictment said. According to the newspaper report, Google spokesman Jose Castaneda announced that the company would take vigorous action against the allegations.

Cookies

The first point of criticism was the allocation of individual cookies by the search engine to its users. Officially, these cookies are only used to save settings; Google does not want to clarify why a unique number that is valid for 30 years is automatically assigned for each browser, and this even if no settings have been made. Technically, it is undoubtedly easier to save the settings in the cookie instead of the identification number. In this context, it is interesting that the option to use personal settings without a cookie was turned off by Google shortly after it was discovered by Google Watch. However, there is the option of setting this unique number to 0. It is therefore assumed that this identification number is not only used for settings, but also for logging search queries from each user, at least to draw conclusions about areas of interest. Explanations in the own data protection guideline speak for it.

Access to Google search results, without Google, the search can associate, for example by using cookies to a user, for example, was by the Scroogle frontend possible that as a proxy acted and how Google Watch from the non-profit company Public Information Research Inc. is operated . After it was blocked by Google, it was turned off.

Especially since 2012, caused by the Panda Update , among other things , it has often been criticized that Google is penetrating areas in which other companies have been active for years due to the amount of data and increasingly due to the expansion of the semantic search. As a result, Google spreads into the long tail and reduces the usefulness of external portals.

See also

Individual evidence

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