{"id":8787,"date":"2023-01-29T06:38:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T05:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/29\/why-has-alphabet-hit-the-panic-button-only-google-can-answer-that-question-john-naughton\/"},"modified":"2023-01-29T06:38:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T05:38:11","slug":"why-has-alphabet-hit-the-panic-button-only-google-can-answer-that-question-john-naughton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/29\/why-has-alphabet-hit-the-panic-button-only-google-can-answer-that-question-john-naughton\/","title":{"rendered":"Why has Alphabet hit the panic button? Only Google can answer that question | John Naughton"},"content":{"rendered":"

The economic downturn, US lawsuits and the fear of rising tech rivals could be reasons for the firm\u2019s \u201ccode red\u201d alert, but it still has an AI ace up its sleeve<\/p>\n

In a strange way, the best thing that could have happened to Google (now masquerading as Alphabet<\/a>, its parent company) was Facebook. Why? Because although Google invented surveillance capitalism<\/a>, arguably the most toxic business model since the opium trade, it was Facebook that got into the most trouble for its abuses of it. The result was that Google enjoyed an easier ride. Naturally, it had the odd bit of unpleasantness with the EU, with annoying fines<\/a> and long drawn out legal wrangles. But it was the Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> \u2013 not Google\u2019s Larry Page, Sergey Brin and their adult supervisor Eric Schmidt \u2013 who was awarded the title of evil emperor of the online world.<\/p>\n

This sometimes enabled Google to fly below the regulatory radar and avoid public criticism. Its relative immunity may also have been fostered by credulity induced by its \u201cDon\u2019t be evil\u201d<\/a> motto. What may also have helped is the way that, over the years, it fumbled quite a few things<\/a> \u2013 Google+, Google Wave, Google Glass, Knol and Google Reader, to name just five. On the other hand, it also managed to create useful and successful products \u2013 Gmail, for example, plus Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google Earth and Google Books. And, of course, it made inspired acquisitions of YouTube in 2006<\/a> and of artificial intelligence startup DeepMind in 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nThe economic downturn, US lawsuits and the fear of rising tech rivals could be reasons for the firm\u2019s \u201ccode red\u201d alert, but it still has an AI ace up its sleeve
\nIn a strange way, the best thing that could have happened to Google (now masquerading as Alphabet, its parent company) was Facebook. Why? Because although Google invented surveillance capitalism, arguably the most toxic business model since the opium trade, it was Facebook that got into the most trouble for its abuses of it. The result was that Google enjoyed an easier ride. Naturally, it had the odd bit of unpleasantness with the EU, with annoying fines and long drawn out legal wrangles. But it was the Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg \u2013 not Google\u2019s Larry Page, Sergey Brin and their adult supervisor Eric Schmidt \u2013 who was awarded the title of evil emperor of the online world.
\nThis sometimes enabled Google to fly below the regulatory radar and avoid public criticism. Its relative immunity may also have been fostered by credulity induced by its \u201cDon\u2019t be evil\u201d motto. What may also have helped is the way that, over the years, it fumbled quite a few things \u2013 Google+, Google Wave, Google Glass, Knol and Google Reader, to name just five. On the other hand, it also managed to create useful and successful products \u2013 Gmail, for example, plus Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google Earth and Google Books. And, of course, it made inspired acquisitions of YouTube in 2006 and of artificial intelligence startup DeepMind in 2014. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The economic downturn, US lawsuits and the fear of rising tech rivals could be reasons for the firm\u2019s \u201ccode red\u201d alert, but it still has an AI ace up its sleeve In a strange way, the best thing that could have happened to Google (now masquerading as Alphabet, its parent company) was Facebook. Why? Because …<\/p>\n

Why has Alphabet hit the panic button? Only Google can answer that question | John Naughton<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}