This Article examines Google's dominance of the browser market, highlighting how Google's Chrome browser plays a critical role in reinforcing Google's dominance in other markets. While Google portrays Chrome as a neutral platform built on open-source technologies, this Article shows that Chrome is instrumental in Google's strategy to reinforce its dominance in the online advertising, publishing, and browser markets. The examination of Google's strategic acquisitions, anticompetitive practices, and implementation of so-called "privacy controls" underlines that Chrome is far from a neutral gateway to the web. Rather, it serves as a key tool for Google to maintain and extend its market power, often to the detriment of competition and innovation in the digital economy. This Article illustrates how Chrome not only bolsters Google's position in online advertising and publishing through practices such as coercion and self-preferencing, but also leverages its advertising clout to engage in a "pay-to-play" paradigm--the cornerstone of Google's larger strategy of market control. It also outlines potential regulatory interventions and remedies by drawing on historical antitrust precedents. La
Is Google Search a monopoly with gatekeeping power? Regulators from the US, UK, and Europe have argued that it is based on the assumption that Google Search dominates the market for horizontal (a.k.a. "general") web search. Google disputes this, claiming that competition extends to all vertical (a.k.a. "specialized") search engines, and that under this market definition it does not have monopoly power. In this study we present the first analysis of Google Search's market share under both horizontal and vertical segmentation of online search. We leverage observational trace data collected from a panel of US residents that includes their web browsing history and copies of the Google Search Engine Result Pages they were shown. We observe that Google Search receives 71.8% of participants' queries when compared to other horizontal search engines, and that participants' search sessions begin at Google greater than 50% of the time in 24 out of 30 vertical market segments (which comprise almost all of our participants' searches). Our results inform the consequential and ongoing debates about the market power of Google Search and the conceptualization of online markets in general.
This study was aimed at finding out if journalists in South East Nigeria have knowledge of Google Translate Application and also utilise it. It adopted a survey design with a sample size of 320 which was determined using Krejcie & Morgan (1970). Its objectives were to ascertain the extent journalists in South East Nigeria know about Google Translate Application, assess the utilisation of Google Translate Application among journalists in South East Nigeria, and identify the challenges affecting the journalists in South East Nigeria while using Google Translate Application. The theoretical underpin was Knowledge Attitude and Practise Model (KAP). The findings showed that journalists in South East Nigeria have knowledge of Google Translate Application but apply it mostly outside the region. It concludes that journalists in South East Nigeria have the knowledge of the App. but apply it outside the zone. The study recommends increased usage of the App. within South East Nigeria.
This paper presents striking new data about the scale of Google's involvement in the global digital and corporate landscape, head and shoulders above the other big tech firms. While public attention and some antitrust scrutiny has focused on these firms' mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities, Google has also been amassing an empire of more than 6,000 companies which it has acquired, supported or invested in, across the digital economy and beyond. The power of Google over the digital markets infrastructure and dynamics is likely greater than previously documented. We also trace the antitrust failures that have led to this state of affairs. In particular, we explore the role of neoclassical economics practiced both inside the regulatory authorities and by consultants on the outside. Their unduly narrow approach has obscured harms from vertical and conglomerate concentrations of market power and erected ever higher hurdles for enforcement action, as we demonstrate using examples of the failure to intervene in the Google/DoubleClick and Google/Fitbit mergers. Our lessons from the past failures can inform the current approach towards one of the biggest ever big tech M&A deal
Since the Google Spain judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Europeans have, under certain conditions, the right to have search results for their name delisted. This paper examines how the Google Spain judgment has been applied in the Netherlands. Since the Google Spain judgment, Dutch courts have decided on two cases regarding delisting requests. In both cases, the Dutch courts considered freedom of expression aspects of delisting more thoroughly than the Court of Justice. However, the effect of the Google Spain judgment on freedom of expression is difficult to assess, as search engine operators decide about most delisting requests without disclosing much about their decisions.
On July 14th, 2022, the Danish Data Protection Authority issued a reprimand against Helsingor Municipality. It imposed a general ban on using Google Chromebooks and Google Workspace for education in primary schools in the Municipality. The Danish DPA banned such processing and suspended any related data transfers to the United States (U.S.) until it is brought in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The suspension took effect immediately, and the Municipality had until August 3rd, 2022, to withdraw and terminate the processing, as well as delete data already transferred. Finally, in a new decision on August 18th, 2022, the Danish DPA has ratified the ban to the use of Google Chromebooks and Workspace. In the eyes of the Danish DPA, the Municipality failed for example to document that they have assessed and reduced the relevant risks to the rights and freedoms of the pupils. This article is structured as follows: section II provides the background concerning the unfolding events after the Schrems II ruling. Section III discusses the origins and facts of the Danish DPA case. Section IV examines the reasoning and critical findings of the Danish DPA decision. Finall
Quantum computers stand at the forefront of technological innovation, offering exponential computational speed-ups that challenge classical computing capabilities. At the cutting edge of this transformation is Google Quantum AI, a leader in driving forward the development of practical quantum computers. This article provides a comprehensive review of Google Quantum AI's pivotal role in the quantum computing landscape over the past decade, emphasizing their significant strides towards achieving quantum computational supremacy. By exploring their advancements and contributions in quantum hardware, quantum software, error correction, and quantum algorithms, this study highlights the transformative impact of Google Quantum AI's initiatives in shaping the future of quantum computing technology.
The evolution of information-seeking processes, driven by search engines like Google, has transformed the access to information people have. This paper investigates how individuals' preexisting attitudes influence the modern information-seeking process, specifically the results presented by Google Search. Through a comprehensive study involving surveys and information-seeking tasks focusing on the topic of abortion, the paper provides four crucial insights: 1) Individuals with opposing attitudes on abortion receive different search results. 2) Individuals express their beliefs in their choice of vocabulary used in formulating the search queries, shaping the outcome of the search. 3) Additionally, the user's search history contributes to divergent results among those with opposing attitudes. 4) Google Search engine reinforces preexisting beliefs in search results. Overall, this study provides insights into the interplay between human biases and algorithmic processes, highlighting the potential for information polarization in modern information-seeking processes.
Citations are widely considered in scientists' evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts. While previous literature has examined self-citations and citation cartels, it remains unclear whether scientists can purchase citations. Here, we compile a dataset of ~1.6 million profiles on Google Scholar to examine instances of citation fraud on the platform. We survey faculty at highly-ranked universities, and confirm that Google Scholar is widely used when evaluating scientists. Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. These findings provide conclusive evidence that citations can be bought in bulk, and highlight the need to look beyond citation counts.
Unlike other academic bibliographic databases, Google Scholar intentionally operates in a way that does not maintain coverage stability: documents that stop being available to Google Scholar's crawlers are removed from the system. This can also affect Google Scholar's citation graph (citation counts can decrease). Furthermore, because Google Scholar is not transparent about its coverage, the only way to directly observe coverage loss is through regular monitorization of Google Scholar data. Because of this, few studies have empirically documented this phenomenon. This study analyses a large decrease in coverage of documents in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics that took place in 2019 and its subsequent recovery, using longitudinal data from previous analyses and a new dataset extracted in 2020. Documents from most of the larger publishers in the field disappeared from Google Scholar despite continuing to be available on the Web, which suggests an error on Google Scholar's side. Disappeared documents did not reappear until the following index-wide update, many months after the problem was discovered. The slowness with which Google Scholar is currently able to resolve indexing
Since repositories are a key tool in making scholarly knowledge open access, determining their presence and impact on the Web is essential, particularly in Google (search engine par excellence) and Google Scholar (a tool increasingly used by researchers to search for academic information). The few studies conducted so far have been limited to very specific geographic areas (USA), which makes it necessary to find out what is happening in other regions that are not part of mainstream academia, and where repositories play a decisive role in the visibility of scholarly production. The main objective of this study is to ascertain the presence and visibility of Latin American repositories in Google and Google Scholar through the application of page count and visibility indicators. For a sample of 137 repositories, the results indicate that the indexing ratio is low in Google, and virtually nonexistent in Google Scholar; they also indicate a complete lack of correspondence between the repository records and the data produced by these two search tools. These results are mainly attributable to limitations arising from the use of description schemas that are incompatible with Google Scholar
Providing computer science (CS) offerings in the K-12 education system is often limited by the lack of experienced teachers, especially in small or rural underserved school districts. By helping teachers in underserved areas develop CS curriculum and helping them become certified to teach CS courses, more young people in underserved areas are aware of IT-career opportunities, and prepared for CS education at the university level, which ultimately helps tackle the IT workforce deficit in the United States. This paper discusses a successful implementation of a Google CS4HS grant to a rural underserved area, as well as lessons learned through the implementation of the program. Key elements in the implementation included a face-to-face hands-on workshop, followed by a seven week graduate-level online summer course for the teachers to learn and develop curriculum that covers the CS concepts they will be teaching. The teachers were supported with an online community of practice for the year as they implemented the curriculum.
Google Scholar has been well received by the research community. Its promises of free, universal and easy access to scientific literature as well as the perception that it covers better than other traditional multidisciplinary databases the areas of the Social Sciences and the Humanities have contributed to the quick expansion of Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics: two new bibliometric products that offer citation data at the individual level and at journal level. In this paper we show the results of a experiment undertaken to analyze Google Scholar's capacity to detect citation counting manipulation. For this, six documents were uploaded to an institutional web domain authored by a false researcher and referencing all the publications of the members of the EC3 research group at the University of Granada. The detection of Google Scholar of these papers outburst the citations included in the Google Scholar Citations profiles of the authors. We discuss the effects of such outburst and how it could affect the future development of such products not only at individual level but also at journal level, especially if Google Scholar persists with its lack of transparency.
Tourism data is one of the strategic data in Indonesia. In addition, tourism is one of the ten priority programs of national development planning in Indonesia. BPS-Statistics Indonesia has collected data related to tourism demand in Indonesia, but these data have different time period. Several data can be provided monthly, while the other data can be provided annually. However, accurate and real time tourism data are needed for effective policy making. In this era, all of information about tourism destination or accommodation can be gotten easily through internet, especially information from Google search engine, such as information about tourism places, flights, hotels, and ticket for tourism attractions. Since 2004, Google has provided the information of user behavior through Google Trends tool. This paper aims to analyze and compare the patterns of tourism demand in Indonesia from Google Trends data with tourism statistics from BPS-Statistics Indonesia. In order to understand tourism demand in Indonesia, we used Google Trends data on a set of queries related to tourism. This paper shows that the search intensity of related queries provides the pattern of predicted tourism demand
The Google's frugal Cardboard solution for immersive Virtual Reality experiences has come a long way in the VR market. The Google Cardboard VR applications will support us in the fields such as education, virtual tourism, entertainment, gaming, design etc. Recently, Qualcomm's Vuforia SDK has introduced support for developing mixed reality applications for Google Cardboard which can combine Virtual and Augmented Reality to develop exciting and immersive experiences. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of Google Cardboard for AR and also highlight its technical and subjective limitations by conducting a feasibility study through the inspection of a Desktop computer use-case. Additionally, we recommend the future avenues for the Google Cardboard in AR. This work also serves as a guide for Android/iOS developers as there are no published scholarly articles or well documented studies exclusively on Google Cardboard with both user and developer's experience captured at one place.
The launch of Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics may provoke a revolution in the research evaluation field as it places within every researchers reach tools that allow bibliometric measuring. In order to alert the research community over how easily one can manipulate the data and bibliometric indicators offered by Google s products we present an experiment in which we manipulate the Google Citations profiles of a research group through the creation of false documents that cite their documents, and consequently, the journals in which they have published modifying their H index. For this purpose we created six documents authored by a faked author and we uploaded them to a researcher s personal website under the University of Granadas domain. The result of the experiment meant an increase of 774 citations in 129 papers (six citations per paper) increasing the authors and journals H index. We analyse the malicious effect this type of practices can cause to Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics. Finally, we conclude with several deliberations over the effects these malpractices may have and the lack of control tools these tools offer
The launch of Google Scholar back in 2004 meant a revolution not only in the scientific information search market but also in research evaluation processes. Its dynamism, unparalleled coverage, and uncontrolled indexing make of Google Scholar an unusual product, especially when compared to traditional bibliographic databases. Conceived primarily as a discovery tool for academic information, it presents a number of limitations as a bibliometric tool. The main objective of this chapter is to show how Google Scholar operates and how its core database may be used for bibliometric purposes. To do this, the general features of the search engine (in terms of document typologies, disciplines, and coverage) are analysed. Lastly, several bibliometric tools based on Google Scholar data, both official (Google Scholar Metrics, Google Scholar Citations), and some developed by third parties (H Index Scholar, Publishers Scholar Metrics, Proceedings Scholar Metrics, Journal Scholar Metrics, Scholar Mirrors), as well as software to collect and process data from this source (Publish or Perish, Scholarometer) are introduced, aiming to illustrate the potential bibliometric uses of this source.
In the last decade, the advertisement market spread significantly in the web and mobile app system. Its effectiveness is also due thanks to the possibility to target the advertisement on the specific interests of the actual user, other than on the content of the website hosting the advertisement. In this scenario, became of great value services that collect and hence can provide information about the browsing user, like Facebook and Google. In this paper, we show how to maliciously exploit the Google Targeted Advertising system to infer personal information in Google user profiles. In particular, the attack we consider is external from Google and relies on combining data from Google AdWords with other data collected from a website of the Google Display Network. We validate the effectiveness of our proposed attack, also discussing possible application scenarios. The result of our research shows a significant practical privacy issue behind such type of targeted advertising service, and call for further investigation and the design of more privacy-aware solutions, possibly without impeding the current business model involved in online advertisement.
The aim of this paper is to review the features, benefits and limitations of the new scientific evaluation products derived from Google Scholar; Google Scholar Metrics and Google Scholar Citations, as well as the h-index which is the standard bibliometric indicator adopted by these services. It also outlines the potential of this new database as a source for studies in Biomedicine and compares the h-index obtained by the most relevant journals and researchers in the field of Intensive Care Medicine, by means of data extracted from Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. Results show that, although average h-index values in Google Scholar are almost 30% higher than those obtained in Web of Science and about 15% higher than those collected by Scopus, there are no substantive changes in the rankings generated from either data source. Despite some technical problems, it is concluded that Google Scholar is a valid tool for researchers in Health Sciences, both for purposes of information retrieval and computation of bibliometric indicators
Google Trends is a tool that allows researchers to analyze the popularity of Google search queries across time and space. In a single request, users can obtain time series for up to 5 queries on a common scale, normalized to the range from 0 to 100 and rounded to integer precision. Despite the overall value of Google Trends, rounding causes major problems, to the extent that entirely uninformative, all-zero time series may be returned for unpopular queries when requested together with more popular queries. We address this issue by proposing Google Trends Anchor Bank (G-TAB), an efficient solution for the calibration of Google Trends data. Our method expresses the popularity of an arbitrary number of queries on a common scale without being compromised by rounding errors. The method proceeds in two phases. In the offline preprocessing phase, an "anchor bank" is constructed, a set of queries spanning the full spectrum of popularity, all calibrated against a common reference query by carefully chaining together multiple Google Trends requests. In the online deployment phase, any given search query is calibrated by performing an efficient binary search in the anchor bank. Each search st