**The Dark Side of Google: Exposing Misleading Marketing Practices**

It's heartbreaking to discover that Google has been putting out misleading information about its products and services. The revelation is particularly disturbing, given the company's reputation for innovation and trustworthiness. As a consumer, it's natural to expect accuracy and transparency from a tech giant like Google.

One of the most egregious examples of this misdeception is the use of a fictional slide in internal communications. This misleading information was allegedly shared with advertisers and journalists, creating a false narrative about Google's intentions. The fact that this deception went unchallenged by Google's PR team raises serious questions about the company's commitment to honesty.

The impact of this kind of misinformation can be devastating, particularly for consumers who rely on Google for search results. As one user lamented, "I couldn't find a string time conversion function for Pearl... I should have gone to chat GP... it took me 5 minutes searching on Google to find a result that didn't actually exist." This experience highlights the problem of muddled search results and the need for more effective quality control measures.

Google's reliance on advertisers creates a clear conflict of interest, which can lead to biased search results. As stated in the original page rank paper published 23 years ago, "we can't sell ads because that would poison our well... it would poison the search results." This warning still rings true today, as Google's dominance has led to concerns about the company's influence over online content.

The implications of this deception are far-reaching, with potential consequences for the future of how Google interacts with its users. In the trial against the FTC, the company's actions may be seen as a clear breach of trust. While it's impossible to say for certain whether the misleading information was intentional or simply an oversight, the damage has been done.

The situation serves as a reminder that even the most well-intentioned companies can fall victim to their own success. As Google continues to grow and expand its influence, it's essential to hold the company accountable for its actions. By examining the root causes of this deception, we may uncover more instances of similar malpractice in the future.

**The Role of Confirmation Bias**

In the wake of this revelation, it's worth considering the role of confirmation bias in perpetuating misinformation. According to Megan Gray, "if they're not doing this there must have been strong internal pressure to do this." This sentiment is echoed by Danny Sullivan, who noted that Google's actions are often driven by a desire to achieve its goals rather than a genuine commitment to transparency.

The fact that Google's PR team failed to correct the misleading information highlights the need for greater scrutiny and accountability. As one expert observed, "Google's already sort of terrible and so if they're doing this... yeah I think that's all we have to say is uh just objectively the results on Google search aren't as good as they used to be." This sentiment reflects a broader perception among consumers that Google has compromised its commitment to delivering accurate and reliable search results.

**The Importance of Transparency**

In light of these revelations, it's essential for companies like Google to prioritize transparency and honesty in their marketing practices. By doing so, they can restore trust with their users and demonstrate a genuine commitment to fairness and integrity.

For consumers, this means being more vigilant than ever when using search engines like Google. It's essential to critically evaluate the information presented and verify its accuracy through multiple sources before accepting it as true.

Ultimately, the story of Google's misleading marketing practices serves as a reminder that even the most influential companies can fall victim to their own success. By holding them accountable for their actions and promoting transparency, we can work towards creating a more honest and trustworthy online environment.

**The Impact on Search Results**

The experience of one user highlights the problem with muddled search results: "I was trying to find the most technical thing I needed to find a string time conversion function for Pearl... I forgot how to use it... it took me five minutes searching on Google to find a result that didn't actually exist." This anecdote underscores the need for improved quality control measures in search engines.

For many users, this experience is all too familiar. With so much information competing for attention online, it's easy to get lost in a sea of irrelevant results. The reliance on advertisers creates a clear conflict of interest, which can lead to biased search results. As one expert noted, "Google's already sort of terrible and so if they're doing this... yeah I think that's all we have to say is uh just objectively the results on Google search aren't as good as they used to be."

The impact of this deception extends beyond individual users, affecting the broader online community. As a result, it's essential for companies like Google to prioritize transparency and honesty in their marketing practices.

**The Role of Club Twit**

In light of these revelations, it's worth considering the role that subscription-based platforms like Club Twit can play in promoting accountability and transparency. By offering access to exclusive content, behind-the-scenes insights, and expert analysis, Club Twit can help consumers make more informed decisions about their online interactions.

For users, this means being more mindful of the sources they trust and verifying information through multiple channels before accepting it as true. By promoting critical thinking and media literacy, platforms like Club Twit can empower users to navigate the complexities of online content with confidence.

Ultimately, the story of Google's misleading marketing practices serves as a reminder that even the most influential companies can fall victim to their own success. By holding them accountable for their actions and promoting transparency, we can work towards creating a more honest and trustworthy online environment.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is Twi uh the Google versus doj trial is going on right now and Cory has a piece in his on his blog pluralistic Donnet uh the talking about the memos Google did not want the exhibits the trial exhibits made public they asked the judge not because it was proprietary business information but because it was embarrassing it was embarrassing the judge said well no I think the public has a right to know and a lot of this is online but there's one I've been searching through it you can actually go and look at uh some admittedly embarrassing uh slideshows from Google and so forth including many memos but there's a little controversy we were talking about this before the show I want to make sure you guys were were up to speed on this uh there is a a woman who used to be an executive at Duck ducko she was uh at the Federal Trade Commission uh Megan gray and she was at the trial and saw a slide that uh asserted something pretty serious uh for a long time google has called it semantic matching and they've admitted to this where when you enter in a search result on Google it will amend it behind the scenes you don't even see it it doesn't show up in the Box before it sends it off to the Search tool so if you type Cory points out if you type the word Weds Weds it figures oh you're talking Wednesday and we'll actually add Wednesday to the search term you don't see that it gives you better search results that seems like a good idea Megan uh wrote an editorial on wired.com in which she said this slide finally admitted something I've thought for many of us have thought for a long time that Google is also adding advertisers names to the search term hidden behind the scenes so when you do a query like children's clothing Google secretly adds the brand name of a kids clothing manufacturer to the query this has two Financial benefits to Google one uh you're going to see that advertiser's entry in the search results cuz you put the name in except you didn't two there's another side benefit the way Google works people buy negative ad with an ad auction people might buy a competitor's name to make sure the ad goes their ad goes next to the competitors so it's you know profit all around everybody uh you know they get a lot more money and you get a lot more ads so she says she saw this in the slide many people have suspected Corey thought so too wire just pulled the story down redacted it with this note from w ired leadership after careful review of the oped how Google Alters search queries to get at your wallet and relevant material provided to us following its publication who do you think that material might have come from wired's editorial leadership has determined the story does not meet our standards it has been removed now I asked Corey because Corey's referred to this article and he wrote about it I asked Corey uh and he said he's just on Mastadon he said I'm told Megan is is about to post more detail so I'd be very curious what the author of that oped thinks obviously coni n the owners of wire didn't want to uh get sued for liel um we don't know if it happens it wouldn't surprise me uh if it happens to me if it does this is the Smoking Gun I looked through all the trial materials I could not find that slide so it may have been redacted it may not be yet on the website but I couldn't find that slide what do you guys think I mean there's definitely a lot of material that has been redacted from uh yeah if you look at it even the stuff that's in public has big redacted all over it yeah right so it's it's entirely possible that you know you may never find it or at least not not until after the trial's over uh yeah and I think it's I mean W's got EXC me wired is a very credible organization of course I think they've demonstrated their commitment to holding people's feet to the fire a bunch but I find it as a little tricky because they're saying we remove this because it doesn't meet our editorial standards based on information we can't share with you which is which I understand why you would both want to remove it and also state that but then I feel like there has to be an obligation to the reader and the larger community that you say at a future point will be able to explain this further which they're not offering maybe they can't um but it does seem to now look like see it looks like a conspiracy even if it doesn't because it smells like a voice was silenced even if the silencing was because information was unintentionally presented in a you I'm not I'm not suggesting us I it's not a retraction it's not a retra if it's a retraction they would say we've received word from Google they do not do this it's not true we're retracting it it's not that editorial standards is weird what was not the yeah so that's tricky and then we have uh you of course uh Danny Sullivan formerly of search engine watch for many many years joined the Beast he's inside Google and posts on X Twitter as search leison leison for Google and um you know he his response to this without citing the wired pieces no longer up is essentially saying we don't do this as the state editorial said just flat out deletes queries and replace them one with monetized better we don't and he provided some information and links and so forth and he's an incredibly credible chap uh before and after joining Google but he's within a machine that spits that what it needs to I I could I would find it uh heartbreaking to ever discover that he was putting out something misleading I would think he would quit rather than do that there's a there's a there's a very strong possibility that he doesn't know the answer I mean there's so much of this is so bar deep within so many of the teams that work at Google Google's products are so enormous now and I mean it's it's really hard to know you know it's quite possible that one team is working on this while another has no idea or or actively denies that it exists right they do that intentionally right cuz Danny said we don't which is definitive but then later it may be oh you know it turns out there's an Area 51 that nobody except Sergey Sergey sorry Sergey knows about or Larry and uh in fact they were doing this it was inserted into the code and nobody else the company was aware for plausible deniability it's also possible that you know the you know we don't know what the slide was that the gray saw we might it let me let me push put this up and you can add this this is Adam kovich who used to work at Google uh says I asked Google PR for a copy the slide the wired piece referred to here's what they sent uh advertisers benefit via closing recall gaps yeah I couldn't remember the name of Nikolai kid do we have any other context around this slide well that's the problem because because what what I was getting at was that it may be that this was a you know from the mountains of Discovery material that they're presenting this may have been part of a a deck that they were presenting to advertisers that as an idea here's something we could do it's possible that they never actually implemented it or never deployed it so you know I'm not you I'm not trying to you know let Google off the hook here but just trying to give some context that you know this single slide out of all this other data AG it's out of cont we don't know we don't know what the context was yeah and you could see how Megan gray might see this and because it was leld belief both at FTC and duck Dugo that Google was doing this that this confirmed you know confirmation bias something she already believed maybe it doesn't uh so I'm not going to say for one way or the other I do hope though that if this is the case this will come out at trial uh if it is the case I think the FTC has a open and shut case against Google um you know even in the original page rank paper that Larry and Sergey published 23 years ago it said we can't sell ads because that would poison our well it would poison the search results I mean it's clearly a conflict of interest that all of the revenue for Google search comes from advertisers there's got to be if they're not doing this there must have been strong internal pressure to do this and if they resisted if they did not be evil I hope that's the case uh you can read search lays on Danny Sullivan's long rebuttal although as you said he doesn't mentioned wired or Megan gray I mean Google you know maybe we can all agree I don't know if we can all agree on this uh Google search results are terrible I can hardly find anything on the site uh anymore I I was trying to find the most technical thing I needed to find a string time conversion function for Pearl I forgotten how to use it it took me five minutes I should have gone to chat GP it took me 5 minutes of searching on Google to find a result that didn't that actually was accurate and wasn't just one of those regurgitated things so you know Google's already sort of terrible and so if they're doing this yes there is a distinct consequence for the trial obviously and for the future of how they interact but it's also they have they have ruined search for themselves regardless of what they're doing monetarily yeah I mean I think that's all we have to say is uh just objectively the results on Google search aren't as good as they used to be they're they're muddied um yeah and that's too bad hey folks I'm mant PR and I have a question for you how do you think you're hardworking team with a club twit corporate subscription plan of course show your appreciation and reward your Tech team with a subscription to Club twit keep everyone informed and entertained with podcasts covering the latest in Tech with the club twitch subscription they get access to all of our podcasts ad free and they also get access to our Members Only Discord uh access to exclusive outakes and behind the scenes footage and special content like the Fireside Chats that I enjoy hosting plus they also get shows like hands on Mac hands on Windows and the Untitled Linux show so go to twit.tv Club twit and look for corporate plans for complete details athis is Twi uh the Google versus doj trial is going on right now and Cory has a piece in his on his blog pluralistic Donnet uh the talking about the memos Google did not want the exhibits the trial exhibits made public they asked the judge not because it was proprietary business information but because it was embarrassing it was embarrassing the judge said well no I think the public has a right to know and a lot of this is online but there's one I've been searching through it you can actually go and look at uh some admittedly embarrassing uh slideshows from Google and so forth including many memos but there's a little controversy we were talking about this before the show I want to make sure you guys were were up to speed on this uh there is a a woman who used to be an executive at Duck ducko she was uh at the Federal Trade Commission uh Megan gray and she was at the trial and saw a slide that uh asserted something pretty serious uh for a long time google has called it semantic matching and they've admitted to this where when you enter in a search result on Google it will amend it behind the scenes you don't even see it it doesn't show up in the Box before it sends it off to the Search tool so if you type Cory points out if you type the word Weds Weds it figures oh you're talking Wednesday and we'll actually add Wednesday to the search term you don't see that it gives you better search results that seems like a good idea Megan uh wrote an editorial on wired.com in which she said this slide finally admitted something I've thought for many of us have thought for a long time that Google is also adding advertisers names to the search term hidden behind the scenes so when you do a query like children's clothing Google secretly adds the brand name of a kids clothing manufacturer to the query this has two Financial benefits to Google one uh you're going to see that advertiser's entry in the search results cuz you put the name in except you didn't two there's another side benefit the way Google works people buy negative ad with an ad auction people might buy a competitor's name to make sure the ad goes their ad goes next to the competitors so it's you know profit all around everybody uh you know they get a lot more money and you get a lot more ads so she says she saw this in the slide many people have suspected Corey thought so too wire just pulled the story down redacted it with this note from w ired leadership after careful review of the oped how Google Alters search queries to get at your wallet and relevant material provided to us following its publication who do you think that material might have come from wired's editorial leadership has determined the story does not meet our standards it has been removed now I asked Corey because Corey's referred to this article and he wrote about it I asked Corey uh and he said he's just on Mastadon he said I'm told Megan is is about to post more detail so I'd be very curious what the author of that oped thinks obviously coni n the owners of wire didn't want to uh get sued for liel um we don't know if it happens it wouldn't surprise me uh if it happens to me if it does this is the Smoking Gun I looked through all the trial materials I could not find that slide so it may have been redacted it may not be yet on the website but I couldn't find that slide what do you guys think I mean there's definitely a lot of material that has been redacted from uh yeah if you look at it even the stuff that's in public has big redacted all over it yeah right so it's it's entirely possible that you know you may never find it or at least not not until after the trial's over uh yeah and I think it's I mean W's got EXC me wired is a very credible organization of course I think they've demonstrated their commitment to holding people's feet to the fire a bunch but I find it as a little tricky because they're saying we remove this because it doesn't meet our editorial standards based on information we can't share with you which is which I understand why you would both want to remove it and also state that but then I feel like there has to be an obligation to the reader and the larger community that you say at a future point will be able to explain this further which they're not offering maybe they can't um but it does seem to now look like see it looks like a conspiracy even if it doesn't because it smells like a voice was silenced even if the silencing was because information was unintentionally presented in a you I'm not I'm not suggesting us I it's not a retraction it's not a retra if it's a retraction they would say we've received word from Google they do not do this it's not true we're retracting it it's not that editorial standards is weird what was not the yeah so that's tricky and then we have uh you of course uh Danny Sullivan formerly of search engine watch for many many years joined the Beast he's inside Google and posts on X Twitter as search leison leison for Google and um you know he his response to this without citing the wired pieces no longer up is essentially saying we don't do this as the state editorial said just flat out deletes queries and replace them one with monetized better we don't and he provided some information and links and so forth and he's an incredibly credible chap uh before and after joining Google but he's within a machine that spits that what it needs to I I could I would find it uh heartbreaking to ever discover that he was putting out something misleading I would think he would quit rather than do that there's a there's a there's a very strong possibility that he doesn't know the answer I mean there's so much of this is so bar deep within so many of the teams that work at Google Google's products are so enormous now and I mean it's it's really hard to know you know it's quite possible that one team is working on this while another has no idea or or actively denies that it exists right they do that intentionally right cuz Danny said we don't which is definitive but then later it may be oh you know it turns out there's an Area 51 that nobody except Sergey Sergey sorry Sergey knows about or Larry and uh in fact they were doing this it was inserted into the code and nobody else the company was aware for plausible deniability it's also possible that you know the you know we don't know what the slide was that the gray saw we might it let me let me push put this up and you can add this this is Adam kovich who used to work at Google uh says I asked Google PR for a copy the slide the wired piece referred to here's what they sent uh advertisers benefit via closing recall gaps yeah I couldn't remember the name of Nikolai kid do we have any other context around this slide well that's the problem because because what what I was getting at was that it may be that this was a you know from the mountains of Discovery material that they're presenting this may have been part of a a deck that they were presenting to advertisers that as an idea here's something we could do it's possible that they never actually implemented it or never deployed it so you know I'm not you I'm not trying to you know let Google off the hook here but just trying to give some context that you know this single slide out of all this other data AG it's out of cont we don't know we don't know what the context was yeah and you could see how Megan gray might see this and because it was leld belief both at FTC and duck Dugo that Google was doing this that this confirmed you know confirmation bias something she already believed maybe it doesn't uh so I'm not going to say for one way or the other I do hope though that if this is the case this will come out at trial uh if it is the case I think the FTC has a open and shut case against Google um you know even in the original page rank paper that Larry and Sergey published 23 years ago it said we can't sell ads because that would poison our well it would poison the search results I mean it's clearly a conflict of interest that all of the revenue for Google search comes from advertisers there's got to be if they're not doing this there must have been strong internal pressure to do this and if they resisted if they did not be evil I hope that's the case uh you can read search lays on Danny Sullivan's long rebuttal although as you said he doesn't mentioned wired or Megan gray I mean Google you know maybe we can all agree I don't know if we can all agree on this uh Google search results are terrible I can hardly find anything on the site uh anymore I I was trying to find the most technical thing I needed to find a string time conversion function for Pearl I forgotten how to use it it took me five minutes I should have gone to chat GP it took me 5 minutes of searching on Google to find a result that didn't that actually was accurate and wasn't just one of those regurgitated things so you know Google's already sort of terrible and so if they're doing this yes there is a distinct consequence for the trial obviously and for the future of how they interact but it's also they have they have ruined search for themselves regardless of what they're doing monetarily yeah I mean I think that's all we have to say is uh just objectively the results on Google search aren't as good as they used to be they're they're muddied um yeah and that's too bad hey folks I'm mant PR and I have a question for you how do you think you're hardworking team with a club twit corporate subscription plan of course show your appreciation and reward your Tech team with a subscription to Club twit keep everyone informed and entertained with podcasts covering the latest in Tech with the club twitch subscription they get access to all of our podcasts ad free and they also get access to our Members Only Discord uh access to exclusive outakes and behind the scenes footage and special content like the Fireside Chats that I enjoy hosting plus they also get shows like hands on Mac hands on Windows and the Untitled Linux show so go to twit.tv Club twit and look for corporate plans for complete details a\n"