April 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The revolution need not be automated | World Economic Forum
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 16, 2019

April 16, 2019

03 Apr 2019 Daron Acemoglu Professor of Applied Economics, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Pascual Restrepo Postdoctoral fellow, Cowles Foundation, Yale University For centuries after the Industrial Revolution, automation did not hinder wage and employment growth, because it was accompanied by new technologies geared toward maintaining the role of human labor in value creation. But in the era of artificial intelligence, it will be up to policymakers to ensure that the pattern continues. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ai-automation-labor-productivi… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Programming for the Expression of Ideas
by Giacomo Tesio April 16, 2019

April 16, 2019

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Expression-of-Ideas The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think and in the way we express what we think.

1 0

Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years
by Giacomo Tesio April 16, 2019

April 16, 2019

https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-fire… Johnathan Nightingale, a former General Manager and Vice President of the Firefox group at Mozilla, described these issues as "oopses." "When I started at Mozilla in 2007 there was no Google Chrome, and most folks we spoke with inside [Google] were Firefox fans," Nightingale recollected in a Twitter thread on Saturday. "When Chrome launched things got complicated, but not in the way you might expect. They had a competing product now, but they didn't cut ties, break our search deal - nothing like that. In fact, the story we kept hearing was, 'We're on the same side. We want the same things'," the former Mozilla exec said. "I think our friends inside Google genuinely believed that. At the individual level, their engineers cared about most of the same things we did. Their product and design folks made many decisions very similarly, and we learned from watching each other. "But Google as a whole is very different than individual googlers," Nightingale said. "Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible'," he said. "All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.' "Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe?" "I'm all for 'don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence' but I don't believe Google is that incompetent. I think they were running out the clock. We lost users during every oops. And we spent effort and frustration every clock tick on that instead of improving our product. We got outfoxed for a while and by the time we started calling it what it was, a lot of damage had been done," Nightingale said. [...] In July 2018, Mozilla Program Manager Chris Peterson accused Google of intentionally slowing down YouTube performance on Firefox. He revealed that both Firefox and Edge were superior when loading YouTube content when compared to Chrome, and in order to counteract this performance issue, Google switched to using a JavaScript library for YouTube that they knew wasn't supported by Firefox.

1 0

Amazon Workers Are Listening In on Amazon Echo Users - The Atlantic
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 16, 2019

April 16, 2019

Behind Every Robot Is a Human Why Amazon workers sometimes listen in on users’ conversations with Alexa, and what it tells us about the technology that powers “smart” devices SIDNEY FUSSELL APR 15, 2019 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/amazon-workers-eaves… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

“Ethics” and Ethics
by Giacomo Tesio April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

https://ia.net/topics/ethics-and-ethics Facebook fishing for our email passwords, Roomba is hovering up all the data on our homes, Amazon is listening to our conversations for laughs, Tik-Tok spying on our kids. And that we see so much dirt on the surface makes it likely that under the surface it’s even worse. The solution for all of this: “Ethics”. Design ethics! Tech ethics! Business ethics! Ethics for AI! [...] The discussion around “ethics” in technology is mostly smoke. The rest is mirrors. There is this expectation of a specialist coming in, the ethicist, the tech ethicist, the AI ethicist, or the design ethicist, that will tell these companies how to be better. The ethicist will solve their ethical dilemmas, logically, with a set of algorithmic rules, and then the corporations will be able to decide which rules their code or “AI” should follow—or not. The idea that ethical specialist can save tech is preposterous. It unveils a complete ignorance of what ethics is, what can and should do. So let’s look at “ethics” and then look at ethics. [...] There is no point discussing “ethics”, if, in the end, all you believe in is cash and power, if everything you are motivated to do is geared towards increasing your user base and your ROI. There is no point other than bullshitting the public. It’s a theatre. [...] It is not an accident that in our time and specifically in the tech industry prefers the word “ethics” over morals so much. [...] Ethics without quotes are the opposite. They’re serious, morally concerned, and they resist technical instrumentalization. Philosophical ethics discusses the morality of human action, it doesn’t provide rules to program self-driving cars. They require to feel and think and understand. As a philosophical discipline, ethics is trying to know what it doesn’t know, it’s aiming at wisdom, not code. [...] We need an informed discussion in parliament, not a clump of aunts and uncles trying to figure out on the fly how the Internet works, or how to make websites, in a time when nobody is talking about “the Internet” or how to make “websites” anymore. We need well-meaning technologists working closely with informed lawmakers, trying to find how to deal with a situation that evolves very quickly. The law needs to protect those who tried to improve the industry from within. Whistleblowers, protestors, those who have the civic courage to disobey. To change the industry from within requires a culture of awareness and resistance inside the companies; we’ve seen clear impact of employee resistance in the last couple of months at Google and Microsoft where employees said no to working on weapon systems, or on search engine for China, or an ethics board with an ethically dubious board. When expensive tech workers take a stand in unity, when systemically relevant employees protest and threaten to shut the machines down, then things move quickly.

1 0

Sarà l'Europa ad arginare lo strapotere degli algoritmi? | F. Barca
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

https://www.lavoce.info/archives/58576/strapotere-degli-algoritmi-che-fare/ (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Why the Moral Machine is a monster
by Giacomo Tesio April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

https://robots.law.miami.edu/2019/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MoralMachineMo… The Moral Machine is a good-faith effort to help us think about how autonomous vehicles should be programmed. But unfortunately it's also deeply unhelpful, all the moreso because it received the imprimatur of Nature and then went viral, so that it now drives the discussion about the ethics of AVs. If we want to get the discourse back on track, we may well need not just a way of framing the question that avoids the Moral Machine's methodological errors, but also one that shares the Moral Machine's clickbaity features. Can we make a gamified interface for the structural questions?

1 0

Safeguards for human studies can’t cope with big data
by antonio.vetro＠polito.it April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

A 40 anni dal report Belmont, le comunità scientifiche riconoscono l'esigenza di un "report Belmont 2.0" che tenga conto della c.d. rivoluzione digitale https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01164-z == Sent from my wireless device ==

1 0

Il testo della proposta "Algorithmic Accountability Act"
by Antonio Vetro' April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

Non credo sia passata in lista -e se sì- me ne scuso. Il testo della Algorithmic Accountability Act proposto qualche giorno fa in Senato USA: "To direct the Federal Trade Commission to require entities that use, store, or share personal information to conduct automated decision system impact assessments and data protection impact assessments. “ […] https://www.scribd.com/document/405802106/Algorithmic-Accountability-Act-of… <https://www.scribd.com/document/405802106/Algorithmic-Accountability-Act-of…> av

1 0

Microsoft reveals hackers accessed some Outlook.com accounts for months
by Giacomo April 15, 2019

April 15, 2019

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/13/18309192/microsoft-outlook-email-account… Microsoft has started notifying some Outlook.com users that a hacker was able to access accounts for months earlier this year. The software giant discovered that a support agent’s credentials were compromised for its web mail service, allowing unauthorized access to some accounts between January 1st and March 28th, 2019. Microsoft says the hackers could have viewed account email addresses, folder names, and subject lines of emails, but not the content of emails or attachments.

1 0

Legal Design seminars e Tavola rotonda sui "dark patterns"
by Rossana Ducato April 14, 2019

April 14, 2019

Cari tutti, sperando di fare cosa gradita, segnalo due iniziative che si terranno prossimamente a Bruxelles nell'ambito del corso "European IT Law by Design" della UCLouvain (www.eitlab.eu) Il corso è supportato dal Programma Jean Monnet dell'Unione europea. *26-27 Aprile e 3 Maggio 2019 | Bruxelles* *Legal Design Seminars.* Un ciclo di seminari per discutere le sfide del legal design e l'importanza di questo metodo per uno studente di giurisprudenza. Lecturers e visiting professors: Helena Haapio (Vaasa University), Margaret Hagan (Stanford University), Monica Palmirani (Università di Bologna), Stefania Passera (University of Helsinki), Arianna Rossi (University of Luxembourg). Organizzazione scientifica: Rossana Ducato and Alain Strowel. Programma e locandina disponibile al seguente link: http://eitlab.eu/888-2/ *27 Aprile 2019 | 14.00 | Bruxelles* *Legal Design Roundtable "Dark Patterns in Data Protection: Law, Nudging, Design and the role of Technology".* What are dark patterns? How they can affect the decision-making process of data subjects and consumers? What are the legal remedies available? Can we use legal design to correct such deceiving practices? We are going to discuss these issues in a dynamic symposium with: EDPS, Antonia Fokkema (DG JUST), Margaret Hagan (Stanford), Helena Haapio (Vaasa University/ Lexpert), Stefania Passera (Helsinki University), Arianna Rossi (University of Luxembourg), Anne-Lise Sibony (UCLouvain), Sari Depreeuw (Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles), Dariusz Kloza (VUB), Christopher Schmon (BEUC), Peggy Valcke (KULeuven), Rossana Ducato (UCLouvain and Université Saint-Louis), Alain Strowel (UCLouvain, Université Saint-Louis, KULeuven, Munich IP Centre). Program and registration: http://eitlab.eu/legal-design-roundtable2019/ La partecipazione è gratuita. La registrazione è necessaria per la tavola rotonda. Un saluto cordiale, Rossana Ducato *--* Postdoctoral Researcher Ph.D. in Comparative and European Legal Studies *Institut pour la recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences juridiques* Place Montesquieu, 2 bte L2.07.01, B-1348 Louvain-La-Neuve

1 0

chiarimento sulle responsabilità legate al software delle macchine auto-guidate
by Enrico Nardelli April 14, 2019

April 14, 2019

Spero che qualche giurista possa essermi d'aiuto. Stavo cercando di capire qual era la situazione relativa alla responsabilità, in Europa, di un produttore di software. Mi è chiaro che la situazione è abbastanza complessa perché spesso il software non è venduto come prodotto ma è un servizio per il quale si paga una licenza, e in questi casi si pone al di fuori della direttiva Europea sulla "Product Liability". Però poi mi sono imbattuto in una discussione che sostiene che qualora il software faccia parte di un prodotto fisico, per esempio una macchina auto-guidata, allora il venditore della macchina è responsabile per i danni provocati anche nel caso la responsabilità sia da attribuire ad un malfunzionamento software. Volevo quindi se possibile una conferma o confutazione (o dei riferimenti a dove ulteriormente approfondire la questione) se quest'ultima interpretazione sia corretta. Grazie in anticipo Enrico -- EN ===================================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Dipartimento di Matematica - Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/ http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ ===================================================================== --

1 0

Alibaba founder defends overtime work culture as 'huge blessing'
by Giacomo April 14, 2019

April 14, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech-labour/alibaba-founder-defend… "I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing,” he said in remarks posted on the company’s WeChat account. “Many companies and many people don’t have the opportunity to work 996,” Ma said. “If you don’t work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?” [...] “In this world, everyone wants success, wants a nice life, wants to be respected,” Ma said. “Let me ask everyone, if you don’t put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?” [...] This month activists on Microsoft’s GitHub, the online code repository site, launched a project titled “996.ICU” where tech workers listed Alibaba among the companies ranked as having some of the worst working conditions.

1 0

How We Measure Standards (and why it’s sort of a problem)
by Giacomo April 14, 2019

April 14, 2019

Bel esempio di quanto profondamente politica sia la tecnologia e quanto sia fondamentale una profonda comprensione della stessa per poterla dirigere o regolamentare. Programmare è sempre un atto politico, ma qui non si parla neppure di feature, piattaforme o architettura del software... ma di test. Test. https://medium.com/@thejohnjansen/how-we-measure-standards-and-why-its-sort… I’ve been working on the web platform since 2010. I moved over to the Internet Explorer team from SharePoint Designer to help with IE9, and I’ve been here ever since. At that time, Chrome had only barely shipped. Chrome version 4.0 (still based on webkit at the time) and Firefox version 3.6 (running Gecko) both released about the same day I started on IE. But to be clear: we were not much concerned with Chrome. It was certainly cute and seemed fast, but the real competition was Firefox. Mozilla strongly argued that they were the “Standard-bearer” of Standards (competing directly with Opera for that role), and we decided to compete against them in the standards arena. [...] In order to accomplish a standards mode, Microsoft engineers wrote a lot of tests. A lot. And we made some of them public by donating them to the W3C. [...] It turns out that it really does require experts in the code to write good tests of that code. [...] Well, as stated above: writing tests requires expertise. It is also very time-consuming. It is therefore very expensive. For all new features coming through the W3C, Microsoft was submitting tests that showed we were passing nearly 100% in Standards, and also that Firefox was passing only 90% or so (interestingly, and in hind-sight a really really important fact: Chrome was also at about the 100% mark on new features, and when I would try to demonstrate they were not following standards it was very difficult to do). So most of the tests that were publicly consumed were written by Microsoft and they were mostly concerned with only new features. [...] What I learned from all of this is that he who controls the tests begins to control the perception. And our game theory was correct: Firefox had to dedicate engineers to fix public test failures. They had to dedicate engineers to write tests so that Microsoft would not control the entire narrative. [..] However [...] While we were focused on Mozilla and their limited engineering resources, Google was choosing to throw as many bodies as necessary at the problem. And they did a really (really, (really)) good job [...] In 2017, Chrome enabled two-way sync between the Chromium source and Web Platform Tests. [..] And that is a good thing. (But) New features in Chromium must include tests. If those tests fail, the merge will likely be rejected. Those tests then sync automatically with the Web Platform Tests. Adding any additional tests that Chromium might fail requires expertise from another feature expert. [...] And so it falls again to Mozilla. [...] You can see from the current dashboard (wpt.fyi, written primarily by Google), that Chrome passes more tests than any other engine. And they will continue to submit tests for new features that will also pass 100% of the tests. And the only way that Mozilla will change that is if they submit tests at the same rate as Chrome. You may be thinking, “Whoa John, hold on. Firefox also has two-way sync so aren’t they just doing the same thing?” Well, they could, except they have to spend so much time fixing bugs as seen on wpt.fyi, they really cannot play game theory here. [..] The industry measures standards compliance via test suites that are not necessarily testing things we care about as web developers in ways that they may never be used by real code and do not show a complete picture of implementation status.

1 0

Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police
by gianluca quaglia April 14, 2019

April 14, 2019

Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police The tech giant records people’s locations worldwide. Now, investigators are using it to find suspects and witnesses near crimes, running the risk of snaring the innocent. By JENNIFER VALENTINO-DeVRIES APRIL 13, 2019 [..] continua qui https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-…

1 0

‘A Convenient Life and a Good Life May Not Be the Same Thing’
by Giacomo April 13, 2019

April 13, 2019

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/franklin-foer-interviews-… If it’s your algorithm, it’s your responsibility. This is the only way that we can sort of sustain a world where we know who is responsible for what.

1 0

Pasquale: Quantifying Love | Boston Review
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 13, 2019

April 13, 2019

http://bostonreview.net/print-issues-politics/frank-pasquale-quantifying-lo… Quantifying Love Reputational currency, like China's Social Credit Score, rebrands repression as rational nudging. And these algorithmic governance models are spreading. FRANK PASQUALE (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Opinion | How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 13, 2019

April 13, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sunday/privacy-capitalism.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

How Germany's anti-trust watchdog could change the way Facebook works - The Listener
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 13, 2019

April 13, 2019

https://www.noted.co.nz/tech/germany-anti-trust-watchdog-could-change-way-f… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Safari link tracking can no longer be disabled
by Giacomo Tesio April 12, 2019

April 12, 2019

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/Safari-link-tracking.html HTML5 added a "feature" to the web called hyperlink auditing. You can read the specification from the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). Hyperlink auditing is added to a web page via the ping attribute on an HTML anchor element (<a>), i.e., a link. [...] Notice that when you hover over the "Ping Me" link, you only see the href URL, you don't see the ping URL, so you don't even know that the attribute exists unless you look at the HTML page source. When you click the link, it loads the page http://lapcatsoftware.com/ as expected. But it also sends an HTTP POST request to http://underpassapp.com/ without any visible indication to the user. You can only see it if you do a packet trace. It should come as no surprise that the primary usage of hyperlink auditing is for tracking of link clicks. [...] Firefox disables hyperlink auditing by default, as explained in a knowledge base article. You can see this if you open about:config and look at browser:send_pings. [...] Prior to Safari 12.1, you could disable hyperlink auditing with a hidden preference: ``` defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2HyperlinkAuditingEnabled -bool false ``` Unfortunately, this no longer works in Safari 12.1. [...] I've been informed that chrome://flags#disable-hyperlink-auditing is now missing from the Google Chrome betas, even though it still exists in the current non-beta version. The flag was removed from the source code a little over a month ago. ___ E' interessante come anche prima della rimozione, per disabilitare questo tracciamento dovevi A) sapere che c'era B) usare tool "avanzati". E tanto via JS il server può fare lo stesso. Si chiama "Insecurity through Obscurity". Ed è uno standard! Potremmo chiedere un parere alla commissione etica del WHATWG! Se solo uno dei membri sapesse di cosa si parla! :-D Giacomo

2 1

Matrix.org: We have discovered and addressed a security breach.
by Giacomo Tesio April 12, 2019

April 12, 2019

Matrix è (era?) un bel progetto open source. Al di là dei problemi di sicurezza del loro sistema che hanno permesso la compromissione, il fatto che abbiano rimosso le issue create su GitHub dall'hacker che li ha bucati (che spiegava come ha fatto e suggeriva correzioni al sistema) rappresenta uno splendido esempio di come NON gestire un breach di sicurezza. Ora matrixnotorg è stato rimosso da GitHub ma potete dare un occhiata sulla WaybackMachine https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145208/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145145/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145122/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145058/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145035/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145008/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145008/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145008/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… https://web.archive.org/web/20190412145008/https://github.com/matrix-org/ma… Segue un estratto dalla disclosure su https://matrix.org/blog/2019/04/11/security-incident/ TL;DR: An attacker gained access to the servers hosting Matrix.org. The intruder had access to the production databases, potentially giving them access to unencrypted message data, password hashes and access tokens. As a precaution, if you're a matrix.org user you should change your password now. [...] # The security breach is not a Matrix issue. The hacker exploited a vulnerability in our production infrastructure (specifically a slightly outdated version of Jenkins). Homeservers other than matrix.org are unaffected. [...] # What user data has been accessed? Forensics are ongoing; so far we've found no evidence of large quantities of data being downloaded. The attacker did have access to the production database, so unencrypted content (including private messages, password hashes and access tokens) may be compromised. [...] # Update 2019-04-12 The rebuilt infrastructure itself is secure, however, and the DNS issue has been solved without further abuse. If you have already changed your password, you do not need to do so again. [...] The attacker has also posted github issues detailing some of their actions and suggested remediations at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix.org/issues/created_by/matrixnotorg. This confirms that GPG keys used for signing packages were compromised.

1 1

[nexa] https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/mark-zuckerberg-elizabeth-warren-and-the-case-for-regulating-big-tech
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 12, 2019

April 12, 2019

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/mark-zuckerberg-elizabe… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

3 2

BBC:"US lawmakers to probe algorithm bias"
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 12, 2019

April 12, 2019

*US lawmakers to probe algorithm bias* 11 April 2019 Computer algorithms must show they are free of race, gender and other biases before they are deployed, US politicians have proposed. Lawmakers have drafted a bill that would require tech firms to test prototype algorithms for bias. Many organisations rely on coded instructions or algorithms for tasks such as showing users relevant ads, analysing behaviour or sorting data. Critics said the bill could limit the benefits of machine intelligence. [...] continua qui: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47894492

1 0

A German court forced us to remove part of a Wikipedia article’s ‘history.’ Here’s what that means.
by Giacomo Tesio April 12, 2019

April 12, 2019

Brutto precedente. Estremamente pericoloso. Non solo si rimuove il contenuto diffamatorio, ma si riscrive la sua storia. Si cerca di cancellare la memoria invece di arricchirla di una nuova informazione (la constatazione di un tribunale che il contenuto offensivo era falso e dunque diffamatorio). https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/04/11/a-german-court-forced-us-to-remo… Three months ago, a German court ruled that part of a Wikipedia article—found to be defamatory in a previous court decision—had to be removed from both the article and its associated revision tracker, known as a “history” page. (History pages allow anyone to see how a Wikipedia article has developed since they were created, in some cases going back all the way to 2001. We have a desktop-based tutorial on using these history pages in both English and German.) A German court ruled in September of last year that the content was in fact defamatory, largely because the source in question had been taken offline—what we call “link rot.” German volunteers quickly removed the text in question from the article but the article’s corresponding history page retained the statements. This is a common practice on Wikimedia projects. [...] Article histories are a useful tool for contributors, readers, and staff—even courts, on occasion— to see how an article has evolved over time. [...] In a case like this, deleting the article history may in fact inspire more curiosity, leading visitors to search for more information about the controversy. [...] Note that the issue in this case is distinct from the right to be forgotten. Here, the claim was that something in the article was false in the first place, that a source had made a mistake, and that the information harmed the individual’s reputation.

1 0

Google AMP lowered our page speed, and there's no choice but to use it
by Giacomo Tesio April 11, 2019

April 11, 2019

https://unlikekinds.com/article/google-amp-page-speed For those that don’t know, a very quick primer. AMP is a set of rules that publishers (typically news and analysis content providers) must abide by in order to appear in the “Top Stories” section of Google’s search results, a lucrative position at the top of the page. It’s also required for your content to appear as a “rich” result, meaning emphasized links with images, which can receive a lot more attention from users. AMP must be implemented by the publisher on their site, and it’s not trivial. Google puts the onus on publishers to, effectively, rejig large tracts of their websites layout, content, and functionality, in return for preferential treatment. [...] We didn’t really want to; our site is already fast because we made it fast, largely with a combination of clever caching and minimal code. But hey, maybe AMP would speed things up. Maybe Google’s new future is bright. It isn’t. [...] But Google already ranks websites by speed. [...] So you’d imagine that Google’s existing page speed ranking could easily be used to limit which sites appear in the carousel. Anything with a performance score below an 80 could appear as a performance issue in Google Search Console, and the site demoted. But no, Google insists you build your website with their technology. [...] # AMP isn’t about speed. It’s about control. AMP is an open source project. That evokes images of open, honest, collaboration amongst equals. But that’s not what’s happening. For a start, anyone contributing to AMP is required to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) for their code to be accepted into the project. The CLA requires that you “grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license”. There’s also a clause for much the same regarding any patents. Note, you don’t grant these rights to the AMP Project, you grant them to Google. Google owns the code and patents. The issues on AMP’s GitHub page is littered with revolts. Most notorious was Google’s attempt to co-opt email itself. The issue is full of non-Google developers in open revolt against Google’s power-grab, with users describing it as misguided and user-hostile, complete with frequent use of the thumbs-down emoji. Google’s response? They’ve labeled the issue Priority 2: “Soon” and “INTENT TO IMPLEMENT”, and are powering ahead regardless. [...] This is the core of the problem. If you’re trying to build a brand with something unique or distinctive, Google forbids you. And let’s not forget, it’ll be served from a Google domain, further diminishing your brand. [...] Google’s in an incredible position of power. According to the Wall Street Journal: Publishers who are critical of AMP were reluctant to speak publicly about their frustrations, or to remove their AMP content. One executive said he would not comment on the record for fear that Google might “turn some knob that hurts the company.” Sure, there’s a technical steering committee. 3/7 of them are Google employees, and the others are platforms: Microsoft, Twitter, Pinterest, and Pantheon (a web host, for some reason) - not the people actually making the content. Not the publishers like the New York Times, just the gatekeepers. # Why can Google do this? Because they own the web. [...]

1 0