Going back to Cali

WHEW! OK, we’re back and we’ve got a bone to pick with you people!

And by bone I mean “legal complaint” and by “you people” I mean the State Bar of California.

To be specific, we and our partners the American Economic Liberties Project and the Tech Oversight Project filed a complaint to the State Bar of California, urging it to investigate one of its members: Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs.

See, it seems Walker coached Google employees to engage in widespread and illegal suppression of evidence relevant to multiple ongoing federal trials. (Director of Policy Sarah, who is also a member of the California bar, wouldn't dream of doing what Kent Walker did.)

It all comes back to a 2008 memo. Walker referenced several “significant legal and regulatory matters” Google was facing at the time as the rationale for a new policy that employees should change their default chat settings so their chat history is deleted.

Google has dismissed concerns about this, saying the memo was written over a decade before the Department of Justice opened its monopoly case against it, and that it tells employees to save relevant Chat messages if they’re subject to a litigation hold.

But in our joint letter, we point out — with receipts — that Google employees sure seemed to take this memo as a warning to shroud stuff that could be discoverable at trial.

If adtech could stop profiting while the world is burning that’d be great, thanks  

Last week we, 9 of our partners, and over 40,000 others sent a petition to Google demanding it stop putting profits over the future of the planet.

Examples of Google not seeming to give a damn about monetizing climate change are many:

• Our report that showed it monetized sites that regularly publish climate misinformation.
• A Global Witness report that estimated Google has monetized The Epoch Times, a climate denier outlet, to the tune of $1.5 million in combined revenue over the last 12 months.
• Media Matters for America proved that despite Google’s alleged demonetization of Heartland Institute, YouTube has continued to run Heartland videos with ads, as well exposing four more egregious climate deniers – Tony Heller, PragerU, Jordan Petersen, and John Stossel, who are still being monetized on the platform.

And there are even more examples in the letter, which is also signed by our pals at Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Center for Countering Digital Hate, and the Tech Oversight Project (again!), and others.

We’re requesting a meeting with Google’s trust and safety team to discuss these issues, and are asking for a written explanation of how they plan to enforce their demonetization policy, since it really doesn’t look like they’re doing that now.

What else we’re excited about  

😏 Nandini was named as one of the AdWeek50 for being a real brand safety warrior. “We’re a small team that gets a lot done — in no small part because our community champions us, too.”

📹 A video of Claire’s appearance talking about disinfo on Latvia’s Black on White podcast is up (which is great, because audio cannot capture the majesty of Uldis Elksnītis' mustache).

🤖 Intelligence Director Arielle took the time to point out that it doesn’t matter how good adtech’s AI tools are if brands can’t audit where their ads are running.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween and managed to pilfer their favorites from their kids’ hauls. Have a great weekend!

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