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Google has clearly reneged on that bargain. A company experiencing the dramatic security failures and declining quality should be pouring everything it has to righting the ship. Instead, Google repeatedly blew tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks while doing mass layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Those layoffs have now reached the company's "core" teams, even as its core services continue to decay:

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

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Google is laying off hundreds as it moves 'Core' jobs abroad

The layoffs come as Google reports soaring profits and goes all-in on generative AI

^{Laura Bratton (Quartz)}

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(Google's antitrust trial was shrouded in secrecy, thanks to the judge's deference to the company's insistence on confidentiality. The case is moving along though, and warrants your continued attention:)

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-2-trillion-secret-trial-against

Google wormed its way into so many corners of our lives that its enshittification keeps erupting in odd places, like ordering takeout food:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

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The $2 Trillion Secret Trial Against Google Returns Tomorrow

It's been a long Winter, but the antitrust trial of the century (thus far) returns. The judge continues to keep it too secret, which is why you haven't heard about it. But there's now an audio line.

^{Matt Stoller (BIG by Matt Stoller)}

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Back in February, Housefresh - a rigorous review site for home air purifiers - published a viral, damning account of how Google had allowed itself to be overrun by spammers who purport to provide reviews of air purifiers, but who do little to no testing and often employ AI chatbots to write automated garbage:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

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How Google is killing independent sites like ours - HouseFresh

And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.

^{Gisele Navarro (HouseFresh)}

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In the months since, Housefresh's Gisele Navarro has continued to fight for the survival of her high-quality air purifier review site, and has received many tips from insiders at the spam-farms and Google, all of which she recounts in a followup essay:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

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HouseFresh disappeared from Google Search results. Now what?

Two months ago, we sounded the alarm about independent publishers being demoted on Google to give way to big media sites. This is what happened next.

^{Gisele Navarro (HouseFresh)}

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There's a name for this: "site reputation abuse." That's when a site perverts its current - or past - practice of publishing high-quality materials to trick Google into giving the site a high ranking. Think of how Deadspin's private equity grifter owners turned it into a site full of casino affiliate spam:

https://www.404media.co/who-owns-deadspin-now-lineup-publishing/

The same thing happened to the venerable *Money* magazine:

https://moneygroup.pr/

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Deadspin Is Becoming a Gambling Referral Site

"We aim to be able to support delivery of this via partnerships within the sports betting industry."

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

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*Money* is one of the many sites whose air purifier reviews Google gives preference to, despite the fact that they do no testing. According to Google, Money is also a reliable source of information on reprogramming your garage-door opener, buying a paint-sprayer, etc:

https://money.com/best-paint-sprayer/

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The Best Paint Sprayers for Your Money

Is it better to buy a paint sprayer or rent? If you have enough home improvement projects, here are the best paint sprayers for every job.

^{Fernando García Delgado (Money)}

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All of this is made ten million times worse by AI, which can spray out superficially plausible botshit in superhuman quantities, letting spammers produce thousands of variations on their shitty reviews, flooding the zone with bullshit in classic Steve Bannon style:

https://escapecollective.com/commerce-content-is-breaking-product-reviews/

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Commerce content is breaking product reviews - Escape Collective

Black Friday and the AI kerfuffle at Sports Illustrated show how affiliate marketing is corrupting a core area of service journalism.

^{Joe Lindsey (Escape Collective)}

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