Greetings from the Tech Policy Institute’s annual conference in Aspen, Colo., where the attire is “resort casual” — whatever that means. Send your best guesses and news tips to: cristiano.lima@washpost.com.
Below: NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson says that the agency is preparing to weigh in on privacy and competition, and some Amazon workers walked out on Monday. First:
Google still failing to clamp down on ad ‘scams,’ senator says
Digital advertising behemoth Google is “routinely” failing to curtail fraudulent ads, despite having policies in place prohibiting them, according to one top Democrat.
In a new letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai shared exclusively with The Technology 202, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.Conn.) wrote that the tech giant has demonstrated a “troubling record of inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.”
While Google has faced antitrust allegations that it’s harming consumers by stifling competition in the digital ads market, the missive is part of a growing battlefront over whether tech companies are violating rules against deceiving users.
The letter cites a May 2021 investigation by my colleague Jeremy Merrill finding that advertisers impersonated government websites in Google ads, despite a ban on the practice. While Google had said it took down the ads, a new review by Blumenthal’s office found that “a search for the exact keywords in the article once again returns the same deceptive ads.”
Blumenthal also indicated that his staff had found Google ads for misleading health treatments, including for “weight loss teas” and “detox teas,” despite being restricted by the company.
Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate’s consumer protection panel, said the examples suggest Google’s policies against scammy ads “often appear to be dead letter law.”
He added, “I am deeply concerned that Google appears unwilling to protect consumers and small businesses on Google Ads, and has demonstrated inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.”
The Democratic lawmaker is calling on Google to announce changes to “prevent misleading or fraudulent ads from appearing to consumers” by Sept. 2. It includes a slew of questions about what research the company has done into how users interact with Google ads.
Google spokesperson Davis Thompson said in a statement that the company is reviewing the letter and intends to offer a “full response.”
Thompson added that Google has “strict policies in place to protect people and advertisers alike from abuse,” and that “Search ads are also clearly labeled.”
At the time, Google told Jeremy that it removed the ads mimicking government websites and that the company bans ads “that mislead users by implying an affiliation with a government agency.” But the company didn’t say why the ads were able to circumvent Google’s rules.
It’s an issue that could draw attention from federal regulators, who have zeroed in on how digital platforms can amplify scams and enable fraud.
The Federal Trade Commission released a report in January calling social media a “gold mine” for scammers. The agency said it found that in 2021 more than 95,000 people reported roughly $770 million in losses to fraud that began on social media, up from a reported $258 million in 2020.
The report went on to warn that “scammers could easily use the tools available to advertisers on social media platforms to systematically target people with bogus ads based on personal details such as their age, interests, or past purchases.”
An earlier FTC analysis also found that social media scams skyrocketed during the pandemic, including via digital advertising. The agency said it issued over 400 letters to companies demanding that they halt their actions in response.
“Strikingly, about half of the advertisers who received letters made problematic claims on one or more of the four largest social media platforms,” Samuel Levine, head of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau, wrote in November.
It’s an area of bipartisan concern, and some lawmakers including Blumenthal have proposed legislation to expand the federal government’s crackdown on consumer protection violations that take place online, such as price gouging.
The missive could also serve as a precursor to heightened oversight on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have repeatedly hauled the companies in to testify about their practices.
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NTIA to wade in on privacy and competition, top official says
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is planning to take on a larger role in digital privacy policy, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson told me at the TPI Aspen Forum. The agency has hosted a listening session on the issue and is “about to put out soon” a request for comment on it, Davidson said.
NTIA’s interest in privacy comes as talks over a bipartisan privacy bill heat up on Capitol Hill. The long-stalled bill faces some opposition as written from Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), however.
Davidson declined to weigh in on the legislation because the Biden administration hasn’t weighed in on different privacy proposals. But Davison did advocate for strong privacy rules. “If you’re interested in using data for good, you should also be a supporter of strong privacy legislation and making sure that we have good rules of the road because we are not in a good, sustainable place right now and we can do a lot better,” Davidson told an audience member in response to a question.
A long-awaited report on competition in the mobile app ecosystem is also being finalized, Davidson said. President Biden requested that report as part of a competition-focused executive order last year. The report is being reviewed by the Biden administration, Davidson said.
Internet regulator gets details about 30 algorithms from Chinese tech firms
Chinese tech firms like Tencent and ByteDance gave the Cyberspace Administration of China information about their algorithms for the first time, Bloomberg News’s Jane Zhang reports. It comes after new regulations about algorithm disclosures went into effect in China.
“Tech industry algorithms are jealously guarded and have been at the heart of political controversies around the world,” Zhang writes. “That disclosure requirement sets China apart from countries like the U.S., where Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. have argued successfully that algorithms are business secrets, even as lawmakers and activists seek to better understand how they curate content and manage data.”
Workers in Amazon’s growing airfreight division walk off the job
The independently organized employees demanded higher pay and safety improvements, Lauren Kaori Gurley and Caroline O’Donovan report. More than 150 workers walked out on Monday, organizers said. That’s a fraction of the 1,500 employees who work at the company’s San Bernardino, Calif., air hub.
“Monday’s walkout is the latest sign that pro-union sentiment is spreading throughout Amazon’s ranks — this time at a uniquely vulnerable point in its logistics network,” Lauren and Caroline wrote. Amazon depends heavily on a small number of air hubs to keep millions of packages moving every day, which means the impact of a strike or work stoppage at any of those facilities would have a greater impact than a similar action at a regional warehouse.”
Meanwhile, online influencers are rallying in support of the upstart Amazon Labor Union, Taylor Lorenz and Caroline report. A group of 70 TikTok creators, who have a combined following of over 51 million people, say they’re shutting down storefronts and halting new partnerships with Amazon until it meets the ALU’s demands, like a $30 minimum wage and ending what they say amounts to “union busting.”
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Rant and rave
WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann’s real estate firm Flow got a $350 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz. Start-up founder and investor Janine Sickmeyer:
Our colleague Will Oremus:
so what do you call this system where women and black founders get almost no VC money but adam neumann gets unlimited funding for life?
VCs: [“the aristocrats” voice] the meritocracy! https://t.co/bg29M1DJut
— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) August 15, 2022
Editor Myles Udland:
Workforce report
Inside the industry
Agency scanner
- Scott Blake Harris has joined NTIA as a senior spectrum adviser.
- Jan-Anders Mansson, Haley Oliver and Cristina Farmus have joined the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue as senior fellows.
- Affirm chief executive Max Levchin, who co-founded PayPal, speaks at a Washington Post Live event today at 2:15 p.m.
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