Charlie says... adverts next to YouTube clips of pyromoronic US teenagers launching petrol filled Coke cans into orbit?
Gov.UK pulls plug on its YouTube ads amid extremism concerns
The British government has suspended its ads from YouTube amid concerns the content is appearing against "inappropriate" material. A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: “We have placed a temporary restriction on our YouTube advertising pending reassurances from Google that government messages can be delivered in a safe and …
COMMENTS
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Friday 17th March 2017 12:48 GMT Flocke Kroes
When mud is in the air, I like to look at who threw it
Labour MP Chuka Umunna quoted the operating profit for the whole of Google and compared it to the reward for 1000 views on youtube. I tried to find figures for youtube's gross income, expenses and payouts to contributors. I could not find anything definitive. Sensible guesses are about 50% of revenue goes back to contributors and 25% for infrastructure. Take your pick:
Chuka Umunna did some proper research and selected the figures that sounded worst.
Chuka Umunna is so clueless he did not even notice he was comparing air craft carriers to oranges.
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Friday 17th March 2017 12:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: When mud is in the air, I like to look at who threw it
"he did not even notice he was comparing air craft carriers to oranges"
Another way to look at is Google makes $B's, it should spend more money checking up on how their systems are used, rather than ignoring the uncomfortable truth and paying the cash out in shareholder profits.
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Friday 17th March 2017 13:47 GMT Flocke Kroes
What uncomfortable truth?
We have some words from a politician determined to portray himself as either clueless or malicious. A politician's job involves making unfounded allegations, finding no problem then taking the credit for fixing it. People who were not born yesterday will remember FAST telling us that pirate DVDs fund terrorism. They had a duty to turn over evidence of terrorist funding to the police, but they provided absolutely nothing. In real life, DVD pirates had paper thin margins because they had a piracy problem. If there is real evidence of Google funding terrorism, send it to the police so it can be dealt with.
Part of my pension fund is invested in Google. The same is probably true of millions of others in the UK. I think Google should concentrate on paying cash out in shareholder profits. Part of doing that is rewarding youtube contributors - which they do - so they will create more cat videos and provide hours of entertainment for hundreds of millions of people.
I can see why the government would want to put a stop to that.
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Friday 17th March 2017 14:58 GMT Mage
Re: Part of my pension fund is invested in Google
Suggest they should make ethical investments.
Comparing Google with FAST is a red herring.
It's not about Google funding terrorism, but being prepared to make money for adverts, anywhere, with any partner for anything unless there are loud objections.
Taking down after the fact or dropping partners after the fact shows that Google is more interested in making money than proper governance of their operations.
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Friday 17th March 2017 13:21 GMT Mage
So bigger question?
Why does Google do ANY adverts on dubious websites?
Why does Google serve ads for illegal products and scams on "ordinary" web sites?
For a start, ban them from ads on Search and rigging their search.
They are NOT primarily a Search or Tech company but an Advertising agency + billboard company that's unregulated compared to roadside billboards.
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Sunday 19th March 2017 18:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So bigger question?
Why does Google do ANY adverts on dubious websites?
The dubious website in question is Google itself or to be more exact GooTube.
Why is Google allowing hate content on it is a different story.
The party line is that hate content may be acceptable in some jurisdictions - definitions for both freedom of speech and hate speech vary wildly worldwide.
IMHO that party line equates to a complete lack of moral fiber of any shape or form.
Once again, if it is not amorphous it may suddenly become liable in some jurisdictions - f.e. American law openly promotes and encourages the complete lack of moral fiber. They just have pretty excuses like "common carrier" and "platform" for it.
So all in all, the whole subject is way more complex than people think. IMHO I am surprised it took so long for this to happen. I would have expected this to become an issue long ago.
In any case, it is time to get a BIG bag of popcorn and see how will Google juggle its neutrality/platform/sp/common carrier position and the potential liability if it develops moral fiber versus its financial stimuli. It will be like watching the proverbial Pavlov's dog amids a chaos of rings and electric shocks from all directions.
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Friday 17th March 2017 14:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Efficient" use of government resources?
Come again? They are using government resources to advertise, whereas it has already been shown that adblocking is on the rise because of the security risk (and intrusion) problems it exposes users to.
So, as far as I can tell they merely want to wave some money Google's way because they want to be SEEN to spread a message. Not very "efficient" IMHO, it's more an effort to appear up to date on Internet use..
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Sunday 19th March 2017 10:54 GMT Doctor Syntax
"In fact any entity that uses tax avoidance should be banned from supplying any government department right down to councils."
You mean they shouldn't award contracts to companies that have pension schemes because pension schemes avoid tax that would otherwise be paid on the contributions?
Please go away and learn the difference between avoidance and evasion.
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Saturday 18th March 2017 04:46 GMT The Nazz
A much better solution?
Have i read the article correctly? The whole gist of Googles comments are that they will remove, maybe pre-edit, bad adverts etc from appearing besides Objectionable, Hating, nay downright Illegal content.
Surely the point is, remove the vile shit that Google et al publish, and attach the Gov ads to the remaining decent content.
It's long overdue that the "execs" and "managers" of such as Google, Twatter, Facefucked and so on face ( no pun) jail time, serious jail time, for publishing vile content.
On a side note, re comments above, in the UK, has anyone tried reporting important issues to the Police lately? WASTE OF TIME.
Ring the Action Fraud Line and they openly state we are not taking calls and we will cut this call off. And they do.
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Monday 20th March 2017 22:59 GMT Camilla Smythe
Re: M&S and some UK Banks have followed...
Well Done. Applause....
http://www.marksandspencer.com/
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490045342881
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490045342881
Google DoubleClick
http://personal.rbs.co.uk/personal/
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490045607219
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490045607219
Seems 'Clean'
http://www.lloydsbank.com
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490046227431
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490046227431
Google DoubleClick
http://www.hsbc.co.uk
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490046138709
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490046138709
Seems 'Clean'.
What, may one ask, is the point of, some of, these companies blarting on about removing their advertising from Google when they smear DoubleClick, the advertising arm of Google, all over their web pages thereby allowing Google to profile their visitors and make advertising coin out of them... possibly even sell them services from a competitor...?
"We're not going to advertise with you any more."
"Fine, we'll just sell the profiles generated via your sites on to someone else."
And whilst I am on my 'Soap Box'.
https://www.planforbritain.gov.uk/
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490047407618
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490047407618
Make of that what you will but I would mention that the sum...
(.gov.uk hosting Google)/∞ = 1
is a useful approximation.
And last, but not least,
http://www.nhs.uk/Search/?query=gonorrhoea
http://urlquery.net/report.php?id=1490047597191
http://urlquery.net/domain_graph.php?id=1490047597191
Get your Gonorrhoea tracking pixel here...
https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/r/collect?t=dc&aip=1&_r=3&v=1&_v=j49&tid=UA-9510975-1&cid=1852212808.1489854328&jid=1388115122&_u=AGAAgAQ~&z=2112274143
Google DoubleClick
The basic premise being that as a result of .gov.uk, and nhs.uk, and their insistence of smearing Google, and of course Facebook and Twitter, tracking devices all over their websites means that The Populace has been pwnd by said companies.
Do not forget that these are US companies as well and whilst Mr Trump Trumps about surveillance conspiracy theories as gifted to him by Russians I think I might have more substantial concerns about 'our' data being gifted to the US by .gov.uk
Of course in as much as Mr Trumps Mind is not Deep his destruction of healthcare, such as it is, in the US appears to mirror our Governments attitude towards the NHS and then...
https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/842845306031034368
Google has a Deep, and abusive, Mind.
Just in case I have not been clear about this, as a general rule I am not known for clear expression of thought... I do not care if Government adverts appear alongside dodgy stuff on You Tube. Naturally I block ads so I do not see it anyway and otherwise "ISIS Chopping Heads Off" is not a search term I might use on a regular basis... unless, as a result of recent events, I was looking for Government adverts on You Tube.
What I do care about is that Government is arbitrarily, without thought and without the informed knowledge of The Populace gifting all of this tracking information to Google and the rest, burning tax payers money for the privilege whilst not recovering tax and when 'Targeted Advertising' goes wrong the best they can do is moan a bit rather than going hardcore and stripping all of Googles, and the other companies, tracking rubbish out of their websites.
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Thursday 23rd March 2017 10:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bit late to this party, but …
Why hasn't Google been charged with financing terrorism? A variety of jurisdictions have sentenced individuals to years to decades inside for such conduct, and banks have been fined for having inadequate controls to prevent funds from reaching proscribed groups. "Inadequate controls" seems to describe Google's set-up rather well.