back to article Google's stock rating downgraded as YouTube ad boycott contagion goes global

Google has responded to a contagious YouTube advertising boycott which yesterday prompted a downgrade on Wall Street. Pivotal Research Group downgraded Alphabet shares from "Buy" to "Hold" based on its response to the boycott, which now includes more than 200 big brands, as well as public sector ad spending. Marks & Spencer …

  1. James 51
    Devil

    Companies always seem to have the same calculation. Will it cost us one penny more to do something or do nothing? As doing nothing is normally cheaper, nothing is done. I am just surprised that anyone was was surprised hurting their bottom line is what it took to get Google into even first gear. Don't be evil was left behind a long time ago. I do wonder if in the years to come Google will be remembered for these videos the way IBM is remembered for the machines it sold to Nazi Germany.

    1. BillG
      Devil

      Google's motto in 2004: "Do No Evil"

      Google's motto in 2017: "MUAH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA!!!"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "virulently antisemitic" videos on YouTube last week but Google ignored the notifications, and left two up even after the newspaper had contacted it again"

      Taking down possibly valid religious criticism (and who should judge what is valid?!) is surely censorship? This is a difficult position for Google. Otherwise perhaps next people will object to content from say religious cults? - you know - organisations that typically want your money / commitment, brainwash you via regular indoctrination meetings, usually have some moral code by which you must live and often have someone on Earth that says he directly represents their god. The Catholic Church is a good example...

      Criticising for instance the actions of Israel - which is often what is meant by "antisemitic" really isn't much different from criticising say ISIS. Both have been referred to as terrorist states (Israel by at least a couple of Amnesty International annual reports) and both have been criticised for human right abuses...

      Personally I think Google should refuse to remove all content except that ordered by a court of law / law of the target country - and then only from the territory in question.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        A private company telling you to go be a prick in someone else's back yard is not censorship.

      2. iRadiate

        I don't think anyone is asking for content to be removed. They just don't want their ads next to a video of a jihadist lunatic because the odd click on those ads generates a bit of revenue for those nutters.

        It's not about censorship. It's about not wanting to be associated with those pricks.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Possibly valid religious criticism"

        I haven't seen the videos in question, but whatever. Maybe it is a video talking about the difficulties the Catholic church have had with kiddie fiddling priests, or something else that will cause really hard feelings in some segment of the population one way or the other. Not just depending on the subject itself, but the slant of the video. Why shouldn't a paying advertising customer be able to simply say "I don't want to be associated with anything remotely controversial".

        If you want to pay to advertise your business on YouTube, you probably don't want to do it on a "Trump should be impeached" or "lock her up" political video, either. You don't want your brand associated with things that upset people. You want your ad on cat videos, or little kids doing funny little kid stuff, or TED talks, or ... you know, all the stuff YouTube used to be about before it went all commercial.

        Now maybe if you are advertising "TrumpSingles" you would want to put it on a video about Trump, but unless their algorithm for determining the content of the video is flawless (it won't be) you would rather not take the chance that your business is advertised on a "Trump should be impeached" video as it 1) won't reach the intended target audience based on who is likely to watch that video and 2) if your intended target audience watches the video, they'll think you support that video's message and boycott your business. So either your advertising money is completely wasted, or is actually hurting your business. As Trump would say "bad (or sad)!"

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Are you serious? Other people posting arguably offensive videos to a public content share = the Holocaust?

  2. deadlockvictim

    Draining the Swamp

    I'm new to U.S. English, but it seems to me that when someone Drains a Swamp, it usually involves giving those in Big Business more power and influence. Maybe they know more about swamps and drains and, are, therefore, the best informed to do it.

    1. BillG
      Devil

      Re: Draining the Swamp

      I'm new to U.S. English, but it seems to me that when someone Drains a Swamp, it usually involves giving those in Big Business more power and influence.

      No, it's the opposite. Foreign & domestic Big Business is all up in the U.S. government because unless you are a billionaire, you need big business' money to get elected. When elected, you owe those businesses, big time.

      The corruption is institutionalized; it is treated as normal. Think of the "criminal mentality". Criminals believe that they are allowed to get away with corruption, and that any attempt to stop the corruption is wrong. Same mentality as strippers.

      Think of the big bad boss you used to work for. You'd show them the right thing to do, and to your surprise they'd ignore it in favor of the blatantly selfish thing to do, with the arrogant attitude that they are entitled to do it. If you fight against them, they accuse you. Think of Uber.

      When you try to eliminate institutionalized corruption, they rebel. The swamp always fights back.

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Stop

    Liking to a paywalled Times article?

    No, I'm not going to line Murdoch's pockets to read it.

  4. DrXym

    Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

    I am quite certain Google has the means to identify the majority of viewed content that promotes hate speech, terrorism, misogyny etc. and starve it of advertising. Look at the comment activity, the channel's posting history, the playlists it links to, the transcripts of the content etc. Then apply a weighting and for extreme content disable ads and bury it so low in the search results that it bothers nobody.

    Why should the tens of thousands of advertisers have to control this setting to opt-out of it? Why is Google rewarding people who upload this content with ad revenues any way?

    I realise there is a grey area of content that promotes a controversial but legal / defensible view point but one that advertisers might wish to opt-out. Likewise there might be content providers who wish to opt-out of certain ads appearing over their content for similar reasons. The tools to do that are also necessary but even here I'm sure Google could take a fair stab at recommending some settings.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

      I am quite certain Google has the means to identify

      What makes you think that? Can't see the upside for Google in this. But this also looks like some attention grabbing PR for the investment company.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

        "What makes you think that? Can't see the upside for Google in this. But this also looks like some attention grabbing PR for the investment company."

        Google manages to give relevant search results, to recommend videos to me, tell me that it's 3 days until my flight, that my parcel is due soon, that I may know certain people and do I want to link etc.

        The do all these things because they are an analytics company. It it is not a stretch to imagine that they could weight content based on who watches it, who comments on it, who posted it, who reports it, it's similarity to other uploads, which sites link to the video (and which links are in the video or its description), what the transcript / wording contains, what similar videos people watch etc.

        They already categorize and restrict content so this is just an extension of what they already do.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

        "What makes you think that?"

        Because they've got tools that can detect a few seconds worth of nintendo's content in any one of the tens of hours of video uploaded every minute, automatically allocating ownership of the entire video to nintendo. They've got tools that can automatically transcribe videos. They've got the tools to build an individual profile of every internet user on the planet and everyone they interact with.

        I think they can manage a little bit of brand-management risk scoring.

    2. BillG
      Coat

      Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

      @DrXym wrote: I am quite certain Google has the means to identify the majority of viewed content that promotes hate speech, terrorism, misogyny etc.

      Don't they already do something like that for China for all Google content?

    3. JimC

      Re: the means to identify the majority

      For sure, but you can bet that if governments tell them to do it it will be technically impossible, but that if advertisers stop spending money with them... well suddenly and utterly coincidentally there will be a great leap forward in the state of the art and it will become possible after all...

    4. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

      " am quite certain Google has the means to identify the majority of viewed content that promotes hate speech, terrorism, misogyny etc."

      using "political correctness" definitions? Or *REALISTIC* definitions?

      Remember, "political correctness" definitions of RACISM include disagreeing with Obaka, and definitions of MISOGYNY included NOT voting for Mrs. Clinton.

      Do you REALLY want P.C. to take over on internet sites that would NORMALLY just let you spew whatever vomitous speech you want to [and look like an idiot while doing it, so that it becomes obvious to everyone]?

      We don't need POLITICAL CORRECTNESS in ANY form, and ad-boycott-driven CENSORSHIP won't stop with jihadists and racism...

      1. DrXym

        Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

        "using "political correctness" definitions? Or *REALISTIC* definitions?"

        Realistic definitions. Obviously.

        Secondly, where did I say remove that content? I didn't. However there is no reason a site should give it undue prominence, or reward the creators with views, ad impressions or even a static link for that matter.

      2. MrDamage Silver badge

        Re: Why should it be the advertiser's responsibility to fix this

        *patpat*

        There, there. Go take your dried frog pills and have a lay down.

        I'd suggest that in future, you get the definitions of words from an actual dictionary, and not from Breitbart.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bill Hicks had the right idea about people in Advertising....

    Satan's Spawn

  6. toffer99

    Logic would dictate that these many advertisers would also boycott the Daily Mail and the Express which are at least as good at spreading hate as Google.

    1. Gordon Pryra

      Logic?

      Sadly, while Google can technically pretend to not know the content, the Daily Mail and the Express contributors know full well the drivel they post.

      At least Google doesn't (seem) have a political agenda unlike the Daily Mail whose sole job is to push Brexit to allow the UK to continue as a banking piracy haven.

      (ps I laughed out loud when I wrote "Google has no political agenda" but as we are talking about the Mail, I can ignore actual truth and just spout nonsense :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Logic?

        "to push Brexit to allow the UK to continue as a banking piracy haven."

        We have one of the lowest corruption ratings on the planet, and some of the strictest financial regulations.

        I for one hope that Brexit and ditching some of those EU rules will allow us to better compete with some of the more "flexible" offshore locations...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Logic?

          We have one of the lowest corruption ratings on the planet, and some of the strictest financial regulations.

          Then why did The Laundromat use EXCLUSIVELY BRITISH REGISTERED companies to create fake "debts" between these companies to justify at least 10Bn £ of money laundry in four years (if not more)? Why they did not use German, French, Spanish Irish or even Dutch?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Huh?

    So is Pivotal one of these stock-market grading companies like Standard&Poors or Goldman-Sachs? If so, why would they change their recommendation concerning the stock of a company for something that's not directly related to the market forces acting on the stock? Just to join an activist social cause and promote a boycott? I mean, what does that say about Pivotal's objectivity and why would anybody put 2-cents worth of trust in their opinion, when that opinion might be biased for reasons that have nothing to do with the stock market itself?

    I'm not a stock-market person, don't do any investing myself, just as I was reading the article I found it strange that a company that's supposed to research and give opinions on stocks would change their rating in an effort to push one of the companies to make changes in how they do business. Nothing to do with Google, per se, as I can't say I'm a huge fan.

    1. MD Rackham

      Re: Huh?

      The article points out that advertising makes up most of Google's revenue, so if this boycott starts to affect ad revenue it will show up quite clearly in their bottom line revenue and profits.

      Reduced revenue and profits tends to negatively affect share price. I'd say both count as "market forces."

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Logical conclusion of Google devolving

    It is a logical conclusion of increasing the "personalization" versus "content".

    The Old Google from 10 years ago would have never served this sh1t because it served RELEVANT adverts based on page content. Today's DoubleClick (that is the right name for this company) is serving shit 100% based on personalization as it sees it. It has long stopped analyzing the content of the web and it shows - the quality of search has tanked too. It is worse than Altavista when it was just about to die.

  9. cd / && rm -rf *

    My heart bleeds for Google.

    Honestly. Really. Hand on heart.

    /sarcasm

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  12. PhilipN Silver badge

    Youtube has ads?

    Oh - you mean those things that disappear when I click on the 'x'?

    And those pretty coloured boxes on the side? Who'da thought?

    Blowed if I can remember what was being sold by any of 'em.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: Youtube has ads?

      Blowed if I can remember what was being sold by any of 'em.
      A bit hard to remember what was being sold when one has a policy of never purchasing anything so advertised :-)

  13. Milton

    Never seen by sentient organisms

    "Inappropriate matching isn't the only mortal threat to Alphabet's cash cow. By the company's own research, 52 per cent of its ads are never seen by humans."

    And presumably, where YouTube is concerned, only 2% of ads are seen by humans with an IQ greater than 85, falling to 0.0001% of ads actually resulting in a purchase.

    Because no one, surely, can have failed to notice that the vast majority of internet ads are cheap, crass, annoying trash?

    Personally, I dare to hope that internet advertising continues to slowly commit suicide, destroying the malign influence of parasitic entities like Google and Facebook which do little more than repeat or link to others' content, and we end up having to pay for the content we actually deem worth paying for. Because "free" clearly means "sh1t".

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