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Many folks have complained recently about Israel’s use of AI to pick targets in Gaza. I mean, what could go wrong? Well, apparently angst toward Israel may be misplaced. They probably got it from us, since the U.S. developed that technology first. The New York Times yesterday ran a remarkable, non-paywalled story headlined, “In Ukraine, New American Technology Won the Day. Until It Got Overwhelmed.” Actually, Google did it. For nine million dollars.

Here’s how the genesis of our robot overlords was described in the article:

Six years ago, the Silicon Valley giant signed a small, $9 million contract to put the skills of a few of its most innovative developers to the task of building an artificial intelligence tool that would help the military detect potential targets on the battlefield using drone footage.

They probably got it from us, since the U.S. developed that technology first.

But check out the conflict of interest statement, a screenshot of which you can see in the tweet below from Natalie Winters. It shows that Metabiota Inc. received funding from Google, one of the world's most powerful and corrupt corporate entities. ...

Keep in mind that Google, as Winters also points out, heavily censored the "lab leak" theory of COVID when it first started to circulate. Perhaps Google was trying to protect itself from being implicated in the bioweapon's development?

It turns out that Google has been a silent partner of Daszak and EcoHealth for the better part of 14 some-odd years at least. A 2010 study on bat flaviviruses lists both Daszak and EcoHealth vice president Jonathan Epstein as authors – and like the 2018 study mentioned above, this 2010 study thanks Google for funding it.

Yet another paper on henipavirus spillover that was published in 2014 shows the same authors and funding from Google, demonstrating a lengthy relationship between these entities. ...

"It's no secret that Google regularly collaborates with intelligence agencies," wrote another, referring to Jigsaw, Google's intelligence agency, citing a 2021 report from Zero Hedge.

"They are a known NSA subcontractor. They launched Google Earth using a CIA spy satellite network. Their executive suite's revolving door with DARPA is well known."

Rumble sues Google for $1 billion over digital ad 'monopoly'
Rumble argued Google "excludes competition by engaging in conduct unlawful under settled antitrust precedent."

Buried under the news from Google I/O this week is one of Google Cloud's biggest blunders ever: Google's Amazon Web Services competitor accidentally deleted a giant customer account for no reason. UniSuper, an Australian pension fund that manages $135 billion worth of funds and has 647,000 members, had its entire account wiped out at Google Cloud, including all its backups that were stored on the service. UniSuper thankfully had some backups with a different provider and was able to recover its data, but according to UniSuper's incident log, downtime started May 2, and a full restoration of services didn't happen until May 15.

https://www.sott.net/article/491590-Unprecedented-Google-Cloud-error-WIPES-customer-account-and-backups-for-no-reason

Buried under the news from Google I/O this week is one of Google Cloud's biggest blunders ever: Google's Amazon Web Services competitor accidentally deleted a giant customer account for no reason. UniSuper, an Australian pension fund that manages $135 billion worth of funds and has 647,000 members, had its entire account wiped out at Google Cloud, including all its backups that were stored on the service. UniSuper thankfully had some backups with a different provider and was able to recover its data, but according to UniSuper's incident log, downtime started May 2, and a full restoration of services didn't happen until May 15.

Search engine results on Google about the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump are coming up empty, leading the web giant open to accusations of election tampering.

Google has been accused by conservatives of interfering in elections dating back to 2008, with the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression in 2020 leading many on the right irate.

Now, those who enter the terms 'assassination attempt' into the system, the attempt on the life of Donald Trump just two weeks ago doesn't show up.

The news reached Donald Trump Jr. who issued a blistering statement on X regarding the omission.

He wrote: 'Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris. We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable.'

Search engine results on Google about the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump are coming up empty, leading the web giant open to accusations of election tampering.

In the most significant legal ruling against a major technology giant in more than two decades, a federal judge says Google illegally monopolized online search and advertising by paying companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to install Google as the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

By monopolizing search queries on smartphones and browsers, Google abused its dominance in the search market, throttling competition and harming consumers, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said in his 286-page decision. Google owes much of its more than $300 billion in annual revenue to search ads.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote.

In more terrific legal news, the Associated Press reported the shocking news yesterday that “Google illegally maintains monopoly over internet search, judge rules.” You don’t say.

The decision capped a years-old lawsuit filed by President Trump’s DOJ. In what AP called a “setback” for Google, Federal Judge Amit Mehta entered a whopping two hundred and seventy-five page ruling, longer than a normal novel, finding that Google has illegally monopolized search. Among many other things, Judge Mehta noted that Google spends almost $30 billion dollars a year to ensure its service is set as the default on nearly every device in the world.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote. Google “enjoys an 89.2% share of the market for general search services, which increases to 94.9% on mobile devices,” the ruling explained.

The order didn’t prescribe what happens next, such as whether Google should be broken up. (Yes, please.) But the court scheduled a follow-up hearing on September 6th to discuss the remedy. Google has vowed to appeal, a process that could tie things up for years.

But even better, commenters expect a whole new crop of class-action lawsuits citing the judge’s findings, arguing that advertisers were gouged by Google’s monopolistic pricing.

One wonders. Had Google not abandoned its original motto of “Don’t Be Evil,” might it have avoided the DOJ’s crosshairs? Once again, we see the example of a big corporation that decides to dabble in politics and then discovers what happens next. (Ahem, Disney.)

As a libertarian-minded conservative, I generally object to government meddling in markets. But there is a place for anti-trust laws, and I can’t think of a more deserving target of scrutiny than this particular search giant. Thus, it’s progress.

Google is an illegal monopoly according to a US Federal Judge. The thrust of the case — which began 4 years ago — is that Google has a monopoly in the search market (90% of US searches; 95% of mobile US searches). The judge says that Google initially created that monopoly through ingenuity, a better product and superior business skills. But it has since maintained that monopoly position with “a major, largely unseen advantage over its rivals: default distribution”.

Google does this by paying browsers (Mozilla), smartphone makers (Samsung) and telecom companies — usually through revenue share agreements — to be the default search option, which drives its massive digital ad business. These type of payments are deemed anticompetitive and now total $26B a year, with the largest chunk ($20B) going to Apple to be the default search option in the Safari browser.