Hub-ba hub-ba

As the Google trial nears, our resource hub grows ever larger: Trial documents! Explainers! A glossary! If you’ve got a question, there’s an excellent chance your answer can be found there. And if it’s not, drop me a line at [email protected] and we’ll figure it out.

Speaking of explainers, we just published part two of our series to get you ready for the trial, this time digging in to the demand side of advertising, and how Google controls it.

WATCH: Rachel Gilmore gives the explainer the ol’ TikTok treatment.

Kill bill (with a check)  

Google saying it will chip in to help California journalism sounds like a good thing — until you realize they’re once again cutting a check to weasel out of actually doing something meaningful.

Sarah Kay Wiley, our director of policy, and Meetali Jain, the director of the Tech Justice Law Project, lay it all out in an op-ed for Tech Policy Press: 

“If you compare Google’s $15 million a year contribution from this deal to the $500m it would have to pay under SB1327, it’s clear Google is trying to cut a spectacular deal that lets tech companies off the hook for most of the damage they have caused to local journalism.”

Yup.

Find someone who loves you like Google loves monetizing disinformation in India 

A few months back, we reported how Google was sticking ads on articles that spread hate and Islamophobia in India. Turns out, it’s still happening. Bellingcat found more examples across even more sites.

Why even have policies if you’re not going to enforce them? The eternal question for Google we’d love to have answered. 

That’s all from us for this week. Take care, and see you on the other side!

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