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timosman
12-11-2018, 04:31 PM
Google’s Sundar Pichai was grilled on privacy, data collection, and China during congressional hearing
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-testifies-before-congress-on-bias-privacy.html


DEC 11 2018

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105621417-1544554475576gettyimages-1071800216.jpeg
Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, December 11, 2018.


It was Sundar Pichai’s turn in the congressional hot seat.

Google’s CEO testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for 3.5 hours while lawmakers grilled him on a wide range of issues, including potential political bias on the company’s platforms, its plans for a censored search app in China and its privacy practices.

This is the first time Pichai has appeared before Congress since Google declined to send him or Alphabet CEO Larry Page to a hearing on foreign election meddling earlier this year. That slight sparked anger among senators who portrayed Google as trying to skirt scrutiny.

Tuesday’s hearing culminated a tough year for big tech companies, as lawmakers and the public have become increasingly skeptical about Silicon Valley’s effects on democracy, misinformation and privacy. Despite some occasionally intense questioning, the soft-spoken Pichai remained cool and confident overall throughout the proceedings as he either defended Google or expertly dodged giving specific answers.

Accusations of manipulation
Tuesday’s hearing was titled “Transparency & Accountability: Examining Google and its Data Collection, Use, and Filtering Practices” and many representatives posed questions on whether or not Google’s search results were biased against conservative points of view.

This has been a consistent narrative over the past year, as Republican lawmakers — and even President Donald Trump — have accused Google and other tech platforms of suppressing conservative voices. Pichai echoed Google’s previous denials, and repeatedly responded that Google’s search algorithms did not favor any particular ideology, but instead surfaced the most relevant results, which could be affected by the time of a users’ search, as well as other factors like their location.

One particularly fiery take against that line of questioning came from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Ca.) who said that the queries on conservative bias “wasted time” given that private, profit-seeking companies like Google are protected by the First Amendment. Even if Google was biased, he said, that would be its right. However, he also used sample Google searches to show that Google would turn up positive search results about Republicans and negative search results about Democrats.

“If you want positive searches, do positive things,” Lieu said. “If you get bad press, don’t blame Google. Consider blaming yourself.”

Lieu has made similar points at past hearings that included Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet.

Several representatives brought up other kinds of bias.

Google is by far the most popular search engine in the world, with more than 90 percent market share, according to StatCounter, but the process of how exactly Google’s platforms surface search results are complicated and opaque. Regulators and competitors like Yelp have criticized Google for surfacing its own services, like maps, jobs postings, business reviews and travel information over information from other websites. Last year, the EU slapped Google with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine for its shopping results.

“I strongly support an open, decentralized internet that is free of powerful gatekeepers with the ability to discriminate against rivals, threaten innovation or harm consumers,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) said, and asked whether Google would commit to ending any discriminatory practices against competitors.

In response, Pichai said that Google “provides users with the best experience and the most relevant information,” and denied that the company used discriminatory practices in its search results. When Cicilline pushed him on whether Google would support some kind of antitrust legislation, Pichai vaguely answered that Google would be “happy to engage constructively on legislation in any of these areas.”

Pichai was evasive on China plans
Another topic that came up multiple times was Google’s plan to launch a censored search engine in China. The Intercept first reported details of the project over the summer, which would block search results for queries that the Chinese government deemed sensitive, like “human rights” and “student protest” and link users’ searches to their personal phone numbers.

One of the first specific questions about Google’s plans in China came from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tx.) who expressed concern that Google would aid in the oppression of Chinese people “looking for a lifeline of freedom and democracy.”

“Right now, we have no plans to launch search in China,” Pichai answered, adding that access to information is “an important human right.”

Pichai has said in the past that Google is “not close” to launching a censored search result in China, though Tuesday’s comments appear to further distance the company from those efforts. The Intercept reported in September that at one point Google employees working on the “Project Dragonfly” efforts were told to get it in “launch-ready state” to roll out upon approval from Beijing officials.

Pichai would not, however, go so far as to commit not to launch “a tool for surveillance and censorship in China,” as he was asked to do by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI).

“We always think it’s in our duty to explore possibilities to give users access to information,” Pichai said.

Human rights groups and Google’s own employees have spoken out publicly about this issue, with more than 730 recently signing an open letter calling on the company to cancel its efforts, and lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing made it clear that they, too, are extremely wary of any plans by Google to work with China’s oppressive regime.

https://twitter.com/issielapowsky/status/1072542779287453696
1072542779287453696

Data privacy and hate speech
A handful of representatives also asked Pichai about how transparent Google is when it comes to its data collection practices. The company came under fire earlier this year after The Associated Press revealed that contrary to what a user might reasonably assume, pausing “Location History” tracking on a Google account didn’t actually stop the search giant from storing time-stamped location data. Google ended up clarifying the language of its policy.

At the hearing, Pichai said that more than 160 million people had checked their Google privacy settings in the last month, but that Google wanted to make it even easier for “average users” to control their data.

“We always think that there is more to do,” Pichai said. “It’s an ongoing area of effort.”

In regards to data privacy, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tx.) got rather heated as he asked Pichai whether Google could track his movements if he moved from one side of the room or the other. When Pichai said that he’d need to check the phone’s settings to know, Poe interrupted to say that it wasn’t a “trick question.”

A New York Times investigation on Monday revealed that popular apps like WeatherBug and GasBuddy track users’ location with incredible detail and then either send or sell that data to advertisers and retailers, and that Google’s Android operating system has more apps that closely track users’ location than Apple’s iOS. While Poe’s line of interrogation didn’t quite hit the mark — he was asking specifically about his device, an iPhone, without specifying whether he had any of Google’s apps, like Maps, which logs location data, downloaded — his questions and others’ made it clear that representatives on both sides of the aisle are concerned about how Google collects and protects user data as well as frustrated by how the company explains its policies.

In that vein, Google’s social network snafu also came up multiple times during the testimony.

Google revealed Monday that a security bug allowed the profile information of 52.5 million Google Plus users to be viewable by developers, even if their profiles were set to private. This is the second Google Plus flaw of the year. In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google didn’t disclose its first one for months because it feared regulatory scrutiny and damage to its reputation.

Pichai acknowledged during his testimony that under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into effect in the European Union earlier this year, companies are required to disclose personal data breaches no later than 72 hours after the company is aware of them. However, Google has previously maintained that its Google Plus issues were not “breaches,” since it didn’t find evidence that any third parties had accessed or misused the data.

In response to a later question about GDPR, Pichai said that there was “some value for companies to have consistent global regulation,” and highlighted how Google published its own framework to guide data privacy legislation earlier this year.

Hate speech and misinformation were another thorny topic that came up several times. Rep Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in particular cited YouTube videos promoting a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and other politicians and celebrities were drinking children’s blood.

“We are constantly undertaking efforts to deal with misinformation,” Pichai said, adding that Google is looking to do more.

It’s a well-worn struggle for Google, as well as platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These platforms generally want to allow users to post a wide range of content, while curtailing hate speech through Community Guidelines that can be hard to enforce from both a technological and policy perspective.

What we didn’t hear
One topic that didn’t come up during the hearing was Google’s decision earlier this year not to renew a Pentagon contract for analyzing drone videos using artificial intelligence. Google dropped that project, called Maven, following employee protests through petitions and resignations. Pichai subsequently published an artificial intelligence ethics code that Google would work with the government and military on cybersecurity and training, but not on weapons or surveillance that violate “internationally accepted norms.”

In his prepared remarks ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Pichai emphasized Google’s patriotism, a stance that seemed aimed at appeasing critics who saw Google’s abandonment of Project Maven as turning its back on the Department of Defense.

However, lawmakers didn’t probe Google on Maven or its stance on working with the military more broadly.

Another thing that didn’t appear amid the partisan jabs was any real indication that Congress is on its way to making meaningful progress towards curbing Google and other tech giants’ power or passing legislation that protects consumer privacy.

You can watch a stream of the hearing in its entirety here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ENrcvPICow

timosman
12-13-2018, 04:53 PM
If they are looking for a scapegoat, here it is.

Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O. www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?513982-Sundar-Pichai-Should-Resign-as-Google%92s-C-E-O

timosman
12-13-2018, 05:11 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeE1cOgHM-c

DamianTV
12-13-2018, 06:17 PM
And nothing will change. Google makes money by selling its data to the govt, and govt loves not having to go thru that pesky thing called a Constitutional Right. This is the new story of your enslavement.

Brian4Liberty
12-13-2018, 10:21 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeE1cOgHM-c

Dems yesterday: “Regulate! Control! Bake the cake! Attend the wedding! Kiss the grooms! Do it or go to jail!”
Dems today: “First amendment! Free speech! Corporations are people too!”

DamianTV
12-14-2018, 02:20 AM
Because People are not people, not legally anyway, ONLY Corporations are People. Thus, only Corporations have Rights.

timosman
02-01-2019, 10:42 PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/google-talent-advantage-erodes-as-more-workers-doubt-ceo-vision

Vision? :D


February 1, 2019,

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ikHu3MZW06qE/v0/-1x-1.jpg

Alphabet Inc.’s Google became the most-profitable internet company by recruiting talented technologists and inspiring them enough to keep them around. That advantage may be slipping as some workers increasingly doubt the leadership and vision of Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, according to recent results from an employee survey.

The annual internal poll, known as Googlegeist, asked workers whether Pichai’s vision of what the company can achieve inspires them. In response, 78 percent indicated yes, down 10 percentage points from the previous year.

Another question asked if employees have confidence in Pichai and his management team to effectively lead Google in the future. Positive responses represented 74 percent of the total, an 18 point decline from a year earlier.

There were similar declines for questions about Pichai’s decisions and strategies, his commitment to diversity and inclusion, and the compensation the company pays, according the results, which were viewed by Bloomberg News. Google shares the results with all employees to make sure concerns are heard. This time, 89 percent of workers took the survey.

Wired reported some of the Googlegeist results earlier on Friday. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

While the survey findings are still mostly positive, the declines are a worrying shift for Google, which prides itself on high employee morale, luxurious working conditions and high pay. If these things are beginning to erode, the company could lose talent to other technology companies, undermining its ability to build new services that drive its profitable advertising business.

Last year, tension between the company and employees exploded into the public realm. Workers clashed with management on a range of issues, including a lack of benefits for contract staff and the ethical use of artificial intelligence. Thousands of Google staff staged a walkout after a report that the company gave large exit payments to executives accused of sexual harassment.

Google added new questions to the latest survey, highlighting potential management concerns. Employees were asked if Google responds quickly and consistently to verified cases of proven misconduct. 53 percent responded positively. Staff were also asked if they understand how their compensation is determined, and 56 percent indicated yes.

Still, most Googlers aren’t leaving any time soon, with 82 percent of survey respondents saying they plan to be working at Google one year from now. That was down just 1 percentage point from the previous year. And 86 percent said they would recommend the company as a place to work.

Here are some of the other results from the Googlegeist employee survey:


Pichai’s decisions and strategies help Google do excellent work -- 75 percent positive, down 13 percentage points from the previous year.
Pichai demonstrates a visible commitment to diversity and inclusion -- 79 percent positive, down 12 points.
Google has the right priorities -- 66 percent positive, down 13 points.
I’m excited about Google’s future -- 78 percent positive, down 11 points.
Overall, my total compensation is fair and equitable -- 59 percent positive, down 11 points.
My total compensation is competitive compared to compensation for similar jobs at other companies. 54 positive, down 11 points.
At the present time, I am not seriously considering leaving Google -- 74 positive, down 2 points.

Swordsmyth
02-01-2019, 10:48 PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/google-talent-advantage-erodes-as-more-workers-doubt-ceo-vision




Google added new questions to the latest survey, highlighting potential management concerns. Employees were asked if Google responds quickly and consistently to verified cases of proven misconduct. 53 percent responded positively. Staff were also asked if they understand how their compensation is determined, and 56 percent indicated yes.

Still, most Googlers aren’t leaving any time soon, with 82 percent of survey respondents saying they plan to be working at Google one year from now. That was down just 1 percentage point from the previous year. And 86 percent said they would recommend the company as a place to work.

Here are some of the other results from the Googlegeist employee survey:



Pichai’s decisions and strategies help Google do excellent work -- 75 percent positive, down 13 percentage points from the previous year.
Pichai demonstrates a visible commitment to diversity and inclusion -- 79 percent positive, down 12 points.
Google has the right priorities -- 66 percent positive, down 13 points.
I’m excited about Google’s future -- 78 percent positive, down 11 points.
Overall, my total compensation is fair and equitable -- 59 percent positive, down 11 points.
My total compensation is competitive compared to compensation for similar jobs at other companies. 54 positive, down 11 points.
At the present time, I am not seriously considering leaving Google -- 74 positive, down 2 points.




I'd be interested to know what percent of GOOLAGLE's workforce is here on an H-1B

Swordsmyth
02-02-2019, 04:15 PM
The LA Times recently revealed how Google’s workers are “sounding the alarm” on diversity at the company with the help of some activist shareholders. In an article titled “Google workers, shareholders ‘sounding the alarm’ on diversity,” the LA Times discusses how after already protesting over worker rights, military contracts (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/04/05/google-employees-protest-working-with-pentagon-to-make-drones-more-accurate/) and the handling of sexual misconduct allegations (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/11/01/thousands-of-google-employees-worldwide-join-walkout-protest-against-sexual-harassment/); Google workers are now aiming at fixing what they believe are issues related to racial and gender diversity at the company by asking the board to consider tying diversity-related metrics to executive bonuses.
The LA Times writes:



“The tech diversity crisis threatens worker safety, talent retention, product development, and customer service,” the shareholder resolution states. It also criticizes the treatment of contract staff and asks the company to address the displacement of poorer residents where it buys real estate.



“We believe executives are out to lunch on several key social risks facing the company,” said Pat Tomaino, director of socially responsible investing for Zevin Asset Management, who collaborated with the employees. His firm is the lead filer of the shareholder proposal. Talking to employees and community activists and following headlines about Google, he said, “it’s a picture of unmanaged risk.”




The latest protests claim that demands employees made in previous protests have not been fulfilled:

The resolution claims Alphabet “has not responded adequately to key demands” made by workers in a massive walkout in November, such as adding a worker representative to its board and ending forced arbitration for its entire workforce, rather than only for direct employees and only for cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault.


It also asks the board’s compensation committee to look into including “sustainability metrics”— such as executive diversity — into its bonus system or stock vesting protocols. Similar policies are in place at Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and other companies.






More at: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/02/01/la-times-google-employees-sounding-the-alarm-on-diversity/

timosman
02-03-2019, 12:34 AM
https://www.wired.com/story/google-employees-report-declining-confidence-leaders/


02.01.19

GOOGLE IS A data-obsessed company, but the recent cascade of employee activism can be hard to quantify. How do you take the temperature of a 90,000-person workforce? In November, employees gave Google’s senior leadership an undeniable signal when 20,000 workers walked out of their offices to protest sexual harassment policies. The results of Google’s latest annual survey on employee satisfaction, which were shared internally in January, offer another sign.

Asked whether they have confidence in CEO Sundar Pichai and his management team to “effectively lead in the future,” 74 percent of employees responded “positive,” as opposed to “neutral” or “negative,” in late 2018, down from 92 percent “positive” the year before. The 18-point drop left employee confidence at its lowest point in at least six years. The results of the survey, known internally as Googlegeist, also showed a decline in employees’ satisfaction with their compensation, with 54 percent saying they were satisfied, compared with 64 percent the prior year.

The drop in employee sentiment helps explain why internal debate around compensation, pay equity, and trust in executives has heated up in recent weeks—and why an HR presentation from 2016 went viral inside the company three years later.

The presentation, first reported by Bloomberg and reviewed by WIRED, dates from July 2016, about a year after Google started an internal effort to curb spending. In the slide deck, Google’s human-resources department presents potential ways to cut the company’s $20 billion compensation budget. Ideas include: promoting fewer people, hiring proportionately more low-level employees, and conducting an audit to make sure Google is paying benefits “(only) for the right people.” In some cases, HR suggested ways to implement changes while drawing little attention, or tips on how to sell the changes to Google employees. Some of the suggestions were implemented, like eliminating the annual employee holiday gift; most were not.

Another, more radical proposal floated inside the company around the same time didn’t appear in the deck. That suggested converting some full-time employees to contractors to save money. A person familiar with the situation said this proposal was not implemented. In July, Bloomberg reported that, for the first time, more than 50 percent of Google’s workforce were temps, contractors, and vendors.

The slide deck also includes suggestions for how Google might reinvest some of the savings from these cost cuts, including creating a stand-alone university building in the Bay Area called Google University, hiring more women and minorities, and giving new parents globally 16 weeks parental leave.

A Controversial Company-Wide Meeting
The 2016 presentation, which began circulating inside Google in mid-January, might not have made such an impact with workers if not for executive comments at a company-wide meeting a few days earlier that some employees considered tone-deaf. The meeting was to discuss the Googlegeist results, where managers attempted to put a positive spin on the decline in confidence. Prasad Setty, Google’s vice president of people operations, told the room that dissatisfaction around compensation came from employees who didn’t get promoted and don’t understand how compensation at Google works, according to people familiar with the matter.

The meeting sparked angry commentary about executives on Google’s internal message board for memes, according to employees. Some workers found management’s approach patronizing. One Google employee was frustrated with management’s evasiveness, but wondered if the employee backlash stemmed from the fact that executives were trying to explain individual compensation practices, when activist employees wanted answers to demands for pay equity for contractors, women, and others, first raised during the November walkout.

Once they saw the 2016 memo, employees zeroed in on the suggestion to reduce the number of people promoted by 2 percent—which meant that some qualified people might miss out on promotions because of a cost-cutting strategy they knew nothing about. “They have a deliberate and intentional, well-crafted narrative that they consistently rely on to continue taking advantage of people,” says a Google employee who requested anonymity. “The big lie is that the grueling interview process, performance review process, conversion process—that all of these things exist because we have a meritocratic system of rewards and the bar for excellence is really high.”

At another company-wide meeting a few days later to discuss compensation, Pichai and Setty sought to apologize for the memo and take a more candid approach with employees. Pichai said the document had never crossed his desk and that, if it had, he would have rejected the suggestion about promotions. Following the meeting, employees thanked Pichai for appearing and praised his candor on the internal meme message board.

High Pay, but New Questions
Google is consistently ranked as the best place to work in America. Median pay is $197,000, according to the most recent SEC filings; among the tech giants, only Facebook has a higher median pay. But recent media reports have given employees more information about how Google’s vast resources are allocated. A gender bias lawsuit filed in 2017 claims Google assigned new female hires to lower levels and denied them promotions.The November walkout was prompted by a New York Times report that Android founder Andy Rubin received a $90 million exit package, even after a sexual harassment complaint the company found credible.

The disclosure about contractors also rankled. Popular perception, even within Google, is that contractors are hired for service or nontechnical roles. But inside Alphabet, Google’s parent company, contractors work as engineers, recruiters, and even manage teams, Bloomberg reported. Anna, a contractor in Mountain View who requested to use only her first name, told WIRED that she doesn’t fit the image Google would like to project. She acts as a liaison between Google and outside vendors and says she is “paid really well.” Still, she does not have access to health care benefits or time off and she can’t attend parties for launches that she helped prepare. Perry, who conducted user research for Google in Seattle until his contract ended last week, said that managers may not know how much money contract workers are taking home.

Some of Google’s well-paid staffers, including organizers of the Google walkout, have been trying to draw more attention to practices they find exploitative, especially for a company that posted $21.8 billion in profit in the first nine months of last year. Their concerns echo the larger political movement around inequality, which has focused on tech titans and how their business practices have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few, even within their own companies.

The secrecy around compensation at Google has been a flashpoint before. In 2015, Erica Joy Baker, then an engineer at Google, started a spreadsheet for employees to share their salaries, as a way to combat the “chilling effect” that comes from discouraging employees to talk about their pay. Since the latest survey results were announced, employees have been adding their salaries to Baker’s spreadsheet, which is still active; meanwhile, contractors have been sharing their benefits and pay to compare agency practices.

Despite the overall good reviews, Pichai disappointed some employees by not addressing their questions about contractors. Asked why Google has workers struggling to live in the Bay Area while he himself makes hundreds of millions, Pichai said it was a cost of living issue beyond Google’s control.

“They could totally afford to pay people a living wage,” Stephanie Parker, who works in policy at YouTube, told WIRED. “They’ve said multiple times, ‘We’re leading the market, what we do other companies follow.’ OK, then pay your people. Other companies will follow.”