Data is Plural: “The MIT Media Lab’s Alex Berke et al. have compiled “a first-of-its-kind dataset containing detailed purchase histories from 5027 U.S. Amazon.com consumers, spanning 2018 through 2022, with more than 1.8 million purchases […] crowdsourced through an online survey and shared with participants’ informed consent.” The published data include “order date, product code,… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Commerce
Even if you think AI search could be good, it won’t be good
Pluralistic: “The big news in search this week is that Google is continuing its transition to “AI search” – instead of typing in search terms and getting links to websites, you’ll ask Google a question and an AI will compose an answer based on things it finds on the web: https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/ – Google bills this as… Continue Reading
Google now offers ‘web’ search and an AI opt-out button
The Verge: “This is not a joke: Google will now let you perform a “web” search. It’s rolling out “web” searches now, and in my early tests on desktop, it’s looking like it could be an incredibly popular change to Google’s search engine. The optional setting filters out almost all the other blocks of content… Continue Reading
Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers
Washington Post [read free via MSN]: “As the tech giant gears up for Google I/O, its annual developer conference, this week, creators like Matherne are worried about the expanding reach of its new search tool that incorporates artificial intelligence. The product, dubbed “Search Generative Experience,” or SGE, directly answers queries with complex, multi-paragraph replies that… Continue Reading
How to Block Companies From Tracking You Online
Lifehacker: “…Currently, there are two major methods of data-tracking online: The first, cookies, is on the way out, but pixel trackers are a bit more complicated. You’ve probably heard the term cookies before. These are little packets of information that allow websites to store data like your password, so you don’t need to log in… Continue Reading
AI-generated images have become the latest form of social media spam
Nieman Lab: “…Our team of researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory and Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology investigated over 100 Facebook pages that posted high volumes of AI-generated content. We published the results in March 2024 as a preprint paper, meaning the findings have not yet gone through peer review. We explored patterns of images,… Continue Reading
The Man Who Killed Google Search
Where’s Your Ed Act via Metafilter – “Edward Zitron has been reading all of google’s internal emails that have been released as evidence in the DOJ’s antitrust case against google. Zitron concludes that Google Search died on February 5th, 2019. It was on that date at Google’s HQ evil lair an emergency meeting, aka a… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 20, 2024
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 20, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the… Continue Reading
Inside Amazon’s Secret Operation to Gather Intel on Rivals
WSJ via MSN: “For nearly a decade, workers in a warehouse in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood have shipped boxes of shoes, beach chairs, Marvel T-shirts and other items to online retail customers across the U.S. The operation, called Big River Services International, sells around $1 million a year of goods through e-commerce marketplaces including eBay,… Continue Reading
Amazon is filled with garbage ebooks. Here’s how they get made.
Vox: “…It’s so difficult for most authors to make a living from their writing that we sometimes lose track of how much money there is to be made from books, if only we could save costs on the laborious, time-consuming process of writing them. The internet, though, has always been a safe harbor for those… Continue Reading
96% of US hospital websites share visitor info with Meta, Google, data brokers
The Register: “Hospitals – despite being places where people implicitly expect to have their personal details kept private – frequently use tracking technologies on their websites to share user information with Google, Meta, data brokers, and other third parties, according to research published today. Academics at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed a nationally representative sample… Continue Reading
Automated Large-Scale Analysis of Cookie Notice Compliance
USENIX Association Report (PDF) Analysing Cookie Notice Compliance – We show that 56.7% of cookie notices do not include an option to opt out of consent, that more than 65.4% of websites with an opt-out option collect users’ data despite explicit negative consent, and that 73.4% of websites do so even when users do not… Continue Reading
