Category Archives: google

Google Cloud Partners With Mayo Clinic To Use AI In Health Care

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Google’s cloud business is expanding its use of new artificial intelligence technologies in health care, giving medical professionals at Mayo Clinic the ability to quickly find patient information using the types of tools powering the latest chatbots, CNBC reported.

On Wednesday, Google Cloud said Mayo Clinic is testing a new service called Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder, which was introduced Tuesday. The tool effectively lets clients create their own chatbots using Google’s technology to scour mounds of disparate internal data.

In health care, CNBC reported, that means workers can interpret data such as a patients’ medical history, imaging records, genomics or labs more quickly and with a simple query, even if the information is stored across different formats and locations. Mayo Clinic, one of the top hospital systems in the U.S. with dozens of locations, is an early adopter of the technology of Google, which is trying to bolster the use of generative AI in the medical system.

Mayo Clinic will test out different use cases for the search tool in the coming months, and Vish Anantraman, chief technology officer at Mayo Clinic, said that it has already been “very fulfilling” for helping clinicians with administrative tasks that often contribute to burnout.

According to CNBC, generative AI has been the hottest topic in tech since late 2022, when Microsoft backed OpenAI released the chatbot ChatGPT to the public. Google raced to catch up, rolling out its Bard AI chat service earlier this year and pushing to embed the underlying technology into as many products as possible. Health care is a particularly challenging industry, because there’s less room for incorrect answers or hallucinations, which occur when AI models fabricate information entirely.

Recently, Google posted on The Prompt: “Let’s talk about recent AI missteps”. From the article:

…By now, most of us have heard about “hallucinations,” which are when a generative AI model outputs nonsense or invented information in response to a prompt. You’ve probably also heard about companies accidentally exposing proprietary information to AI assistance without first verifying that interactions won’t be used to further train models. This oversight could potentially expose private information to anyone in the world using the assistance, as we discussed in earlier editions of “The Prompt”…

Google also wrote a blog post titled: “Bringing Generative AI to search experiences”. From the article:

…For example, building search by breaking long documents into chunks and feeding each segment into an AI assistant typically isn’t scalable and doesn’t effectively provide insights across multiple sources. Likewise, many solutions are limited in the data types they can handle, prone to errors, and susceptible to data leakage…. Even when organizations make these efforts, the resulting solutions tend to lack feature completeness and reliability, with significant investments of time and resources required to achieve high quality results…

Google also points out that their Gen App Builder lets developers create search engines that help ground outputs in specific data sources for accuracy and relevance, can handle multimodal data such as images, and include controls over how answer summaries are generated. Google also indicates that multi-turn conversations are supported so that users can ask follow up questions as they peruse outputs, and customers have control over their data – including the ability to support HIPAA compliance for healthcare cases.

Personally, I would prefer to talk to an actual human being about whatever questions I might have about my health care needs. Giving this over to an generative AI, that could easily make mistakes or have “hallucinations”, sounds like a gimmick that could potentially cause harm to patients.

Google Is Updating Its Inactive Account Policies

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Google’s VP, Product Management, Ruth Kricheli, posted on The Keyword about “Updating our inactive account policies” From the post:

People want the products and services they use online to be safe and secure. Which is why we have invested in technology and tools to protect our users from security threats, like spam, phishing scams, and account hijacking.

Even with these protections, if an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it is more likely to be compromised. This is because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user.

Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up. Meaning, these accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam.

To reduce this risk we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products. Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos.

The policy only applies to personal Google Accounts, and will not effect accounts for organizations like schools or businesses. This update aligns with our policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information.

The blog post provided the following information:

While the policy takes effect today, it will not immediately impact users with an inactive account – the earliest we will begin deleting accounts is December 2023.

We will take a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again.

Before deleting an account, we will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided).

Google says the simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign-in at least once every 2 years. If you have signed into your Google Account or any of our services recently, your account is considered active and will not be deleted.

Things you can do to keep your account active include: Reading or sending an email; Using Google Drive; Watching a YouTube video; Downloading an app on the Google Play Store; Using Google Search; Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service.

Personally, I put two-factor authentication on everything I can. It makes it much harder for some random person to hack into your accounts and take them over.

As far as I can tell, the post on Google’s Keyword blog is the only place where this information has been placed. I think there will be people who never look at The Keyword, and who may be unfortunately surprised when Google decides to delete their account (in December of 2023).

Android Developers Blog Gives Users Control Of Their Data

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The Android Developers Blog posted “Giving Users More Transparency and Control Over Account Data”. It was posted by Bethel Otuteye, Senior Director, Product Management, Android App Safety. From the blog post:

Google Play has launched a number of recent initiatives to help developers build consumer trust by showcasing their apps’ privacy and security practices in a way that is simple and easy to understand. Today we’re building on this work with a new data deletion policy that aims to empower users with greater clarity and control over their in-app data.

For apps that enable app account creation, developers will soon need to provide an option to initiate account and data deletion from within the app and online. This web requirement, which you will link in your Data Safety Form, is especially important so that a user can request account and data deletion without having to reinstall an app.

While Play’s Data safety section already lets developers highlight their data deletion options, we know that users want an easier and more consistent way to request them. By creating a more intuitive experience with this policy. We hope to better educate our shared users on the data controls available to them and create greater trust in your apps and Google Play more broadly.

As the new policy states, when you fulfill a request to delete an account, you must also delete the data associated with that account. The feature also gives developers a way to provide more choice: users who may not want to delete their account entirely can choose to delete other data only where applicable (such as activity history, images, or videos). For developers that need to retain certain data for legitimate reasons such as security, fraud prevention, or regulatory compliance, you must clearly disclose those data retention practices…

…As a first step we’re asking developers to submit answers to new Data deletion questions in your app’s Data Safety form by December 7. Early next year, Google Play users will begin to see reflected changes in your app’s store listing, including the refreshed data deletion badge in the Data safety section and the new Data deletion area.

9to5 Google reported that Google specifies that Play developers must “delete the user data associated with that app account”. 

Temporary account deactivation, disabling, or “freezing” the app account does not qualify as account deletion. If you need to retain certain data for legitimate reasons such as security, fraud protection, or regulatory compliance, you must clearly inform users about your data retention practices (for example, within your privacy policy.

TechCrunch reported that Google announced a new account deletion policy for Android apps, which means that apps that offer account creation must have an easy way to delete the account as well. 

According to TechCrunch, the company said it would start enforcing this policy sometime early next year. This move follows Apple, which implemented a similar policy on June 30, 2022, for apps on the App Store.

Personally, I think that requesting that your data be removed from an app is an excellent idea. This is especially important for people who have decided they no longer want to use a particular app.

RNC Sues Google Claiming Spam Filter Blocks Email

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The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a lawsuit against Google in a U.S. district court in California for allegedly putting its campaign emails in the spam folders of its millions of users, Axios reported.

The lawsuit alleges that Google “has relegated millions of RNC emails in masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building.”

Axios explains that last month, Google launched a pilot program to keep campaign emails out of spam. But the RNC has been criticizing the program, arguing it doesn’t help enough with political email filtering. Axios first reported that Google was launching the program in June. It was later approved by the Federal Election Commission and launched last month.

In that article, Axios reported that Google asked the Federal Election Commission if a program that would let campaigns emails bypass spam filters, instead of giving users the option to move them to spam first, would be legal under campaign finance laws. According to Axios, despite hundreds of negative comments submitted to the FEC arguing against it, the FEC approved the program in August. Eligible committees, abiding by security requirements and best practices as outlined by Google, could register to participate.

In the current article, Axios posted a quite from Google spokesperson José Castañeda:

“Gmail’s spam filter reflects users’ actions. We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

According to Axios, the RNC argues in the lawsuit that despite discussing the email issue with Google for more than nine months, it remains unresolved, alleging Google is sending emails to spam on purpose due to political bias. Axios reported that the RNC is not enrolled in Google’s email pilot program meant to alleviate these issues (per a source familiar with the situation.)

The Verge reported that the RNC’s lawsuit was filed in California’s Eastern District Court, and that the RNC accuses Google of “throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views.”

According to The Verge, to address the RNC’s concerns, Google rolled out a pilot program in September that was supposed to help prevent political emails from getting marked as spam. However, according to The Verge’s Makena Kelly, Republicans haven’t been taking advantage of the program which would have required it to follow security requirements and best practices standards when sending out emails in bulk.

As noted by the lawsuit, the RNC claims Google has continued to send RNC emails “en masse” to users’ spam folders during “pivotal points” for gaining supporters and fundraising for the upcoming midterm elections. It goes on to state that Google’s alleged filtering occurs “at approximately the same time at the end of each month,” and that the end of October is one of the most crucial fundraising periods for Republicans, who have been struggling to meet their fundraising goals in the months leading up to the midterm elections, The Verge reported.

In my opinion, it sounds like the RNC could have avoided having its political emails sent to people’s spam folders simply by choosing to join Google’s program. If they had done that, this entire problem could potentially have been avoided. That said, if you are a person who wants to donate to Republican candidates – you might find those emails in your spam folder.

Texas Sues Google Over Use Of Facial Recognition

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The Texas attorney general sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google on Thursday, alleging the search giant violated state laws by collecting biometric data on face and voice features without seeking the full consent of users, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Texas alleged Google’s data-collection practices stretched back to 2015 and afflicted millions of the state’s residents, according to a complaint filed in the state district court in Midland Country, Texas.

The case follows a similar suit Texas brought against Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. in February. Meta, which discontinued use of facial-recognition technology last year, said the claims were without merit.

In the latest complaint, Texas alleged Google had used features in Google Photos and Google Assistant, as well as its Nest smart-home products, to collect and store facial-and voice recognition data without obtaining proper consent.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Texas is leading a coalition of states suing Google for allegedly anticompetitive behavior in online advertising markets. Google has fought the claims and called some of them misleading. A federal judge last month denied the bulk of Google’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The New York Times reported that the Texas attorney general filed a privacy lawsuit against Google on Thursday, accusing the internet company of collecting Texans’ facial and voice recognition information without their explicit consent.

According to The New York Times, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said Google had violated a state consumer protection law that requires companies to inform citizens and get their consent before capturing their biometric identifiers, including fingerprints, voiceprints, and a “record of hand or face geometry.”

Violators of the law face fines of up to $25,000 per violation. Mr. Paxton said Google had millions of users in Texas who were potentially affected.

José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement to The New York Times that Mr. Paxton “is once again mischaracterizing our products in another breathless lawsuit.” He added, “We will set the record straight in court.”

The New York Times also reported that the complaint targets the Google Photos app, which allows people to search for photos they took of a particular person; Google’s Nest camera, which can send alerts when it recognizes (or fails to recognize) a visitor at the door; and the voice-activated Google Assistant, which can learn to recognize up to six users’ voices to give them personalized answers to their questions.

Mr. Paxton said the products violated the rights of both users and nonusers, whose faces and voices were scanned or processed without their understanding or consent.

This whole thing stems from a Texas biometric privacy law that was passed in 2009, with Illinois and Washington passing similar laws around that time. Illinois’ law allows individuals to sue companies directly, but Texas must sue companies on consumers’ behalf.

Personally, I’m not a fan of most of the legislation that comes from Texas. However, I feel like there is something important about having the right to opt-out of being tracked or recorded by the products of big companies. I haven’t read the Texas law, and have no idea how a judge will decide the outcome of this case.

ACCC Fines Google $60 Million For Misleading Representations

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In a Media Release, posted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), it announced that it was requiring Google LLC to pay $60 million for misleading representations. In short the ACCC found that Google mislead Android users by making them think that the company was not tracking them.

Here are some key parts of the Media Release:

The Federal Court has ordered Google LLC to pay $60 million in penalties for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones between January 2017 and December 2018, following court action by the ACCC.

The Court previously found that Google LLC and Google Australia Pty Ltd. (together, Google) had breached the Australian Consumer Law by representing to some Android users that the setting titled “Location History” was the only Google account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept and used personally identifiable data about their location.

In fact, another Google account setting titled “Web & App Activity” also enabled by Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data when it was turned on, and that setting was turned on by default.

The Media release continues: The ACCC’s best estimate, based on available data, is that the users of 1.3 million Google accounts in Australia may have viewed a screen found by the Court to have breached the Australian Consumer Law.

Google took remedial steps and had addressed all of the contravening conduct by 20 December 2018, meaning that users were no longer shown the misleading screens.

ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said, “This is the first public enforcement outcome arising out of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.”

In addition, the Media Release makes it clear that consumers can access the “Web & App Activity” and “Location History” settings through their Google Account. Consumers can also delete personal data that Google has already collected about them through their Google account.

The Guardian reported that in April of last year, the federal court found Google breached consumer laws by misleading local users into thinking the company was not collecting personal data about their location via mobile devices with Android operating systems.

According to The Guardian, the case revolved around whether it was sufficiently clear Google would still collect and access location data when a user’s location history was set to “off” but their web and app activity was “on” and one of its apps was used.

In my opinion, any company that thinks it is acceptable to trick consumers into let it secretly collect location (and other types of) data, is in the wrong. It is time for these companies to find a much more ethical way to earn revenue.

Legislation Could Force Breakup of Google’s Ad Business

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A bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced legislation that would take aim at conflicts of interest in the advertising industry and force Google to break up its dominant online-ad business, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Senators Amy Klobachar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are cosponsors of this legislation.

The bill is titled “The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act”. The purpose of this bill is “to prevent conflicts of interest and promote competition in the sale and purchase of digital advertising.” According to The Wall Street Journal, it would prohibit companies processing more than $20 billion in digital ad transactions annually from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising ecosystem.

Senator Lee commented about the legislation: “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the internet economy, It supports most of the free content and services Americans have come to rely upon, including local journalism, and it allows businesses of every size to reach their customers quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, online advertising is also suffering under the thumb of trillion-dollar ad companies.

“Companies like Google and Facebook have been able to export their unprecedented troves of detailed user data to obtain vice grip-like control over digital advertising, amassing power on every side of the market and using it to block completion and take advantage of their customers. The conflicts of interest are so glaring that one Google employee described Google’s ad business as being like ‘if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.”…

The Wall Street Journal also reported that similar legislation is to be introduced in the House of Representatives by Republican Ken Buck of Colorado and Democrat Pramilla Jayapal of Washington. If the legislation becomes a law, companies would have a year from the enactment of the legislation to comply with new rules.

The Verge reported that Google spokesperson Julie Tarallo McAlister said the proposed law would ultimately hurt users.

“Advertising tools from Google and many competitors help American websites and apps fund their content, help businesses grow, and help protect users from privacy risks and misleading ads,” said Julie Tarallo McAlister. “Breaking those tools would hurt publishers and advertisers, lower ad quality, and create new privacy risks. And, at a time of heightened inflation, it would handicap small businesses looking for easy and effective ways to grow online.”

According to The Verge, the bill could require Google to divest majorities of its digital advertising business. Google’s advertising marketplace rakes in billions each quarter for the company, pulling in $54 billion across Search, YouTube, and its ad networks in the first quarter of this year alone. Meta (Facebook’s parent company) could also be similarly affected by this legislation.

Personally, I don’t think it is a terrible idea to have reasonable legislation that regulates the amount of money big companies can take in from selling ads. It would also be nice to have more transparency about the pricing of ads. That information could be really significant for a business to fully understand if the price Google gives them for an ad is too high.

Overall, though, I don’t think it was ever a good idea for Google (or Meta) to choose to rely so heavily on the money that it takes in from selling ads. It is not reasonable to presume that their ad systems would be able to sustain them forever.