A look into Corporate fraud in Australia, Stranglehold of Monopolies, Telecom's Oppression, Biased Law System, Corporate influence in politics, Industrial Relations disadvantaging workers, Outsourcing Australian Jobs, Offshore Banking, Petrochemical company domination, Invisibly Visible.
It's not what you see, it's what goes on behind the scenes. Australia, the warrantless colony.
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The entrance to an office listed as belonging to Quadream is seen in a
high rise building in Ramat Gan, Israel, January 25, 2022. REUTERS/Nir
Elias
April
11 (Reuters) - An Israeli firm's hacking tools have been used against
journalists, opposition figures and advocacy organizations across at
least 10 countries - including people in North America and Europe -
according to new research published Tuesday by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and the internet watchdog Citizen Lab.
Citizen Lab said in its report
that it had been able to identify a handful of civil society victims
whose iPhones had been hacked using surveillance software developed by
the Israeli company, QuaDream Ltd - a lower-profile competitor to the
Israeli spyware company NSO Group, which has been blacklisted by the
U.S. government over allegations of abuse.
In its report
published at the same time, Microsoft said it believed with "high
confidence" that the spyware was "strongly linked to QuaDream."
In
a statement, Microsoft Associate General Counsel Amy Hogan-Burney said
that mercenary hacking groups like QuaDream "thrive in the shadows" and
that publicly outing them was "essential to stopping this activity."
Israeli
lawyer Vibeke Dank, whose email was listed on QuaDream's corporate
registration form, did not return a message seeking comment. Repeated
attempts by Reuters to reach QuaDream over the past year - including a
visit to the company’s office outside Tel Aviv - have been unsuccessful.
Reuters reported in 2022
that QuaDream had previously developed a no-interaction-needed hacking
tool similar to the programs deployed by NSO. Such hacking tools, known
as "zero-click," are particularly prized by cybercriminals, spies, and
law enforcement because they can remotely compromise devices without an
owner needing to open a malicious link or download a tainted attachment.
NSO did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Neither
Citizen Lab nor Microsoft identified the targets of QuaDream's
software, but the allegation could still be damaging for the firm.
The
reports come on the heels of an announced crackdown on the
international spyware industry by U.S. President Joe Biden. Last month,
the White House announced an executive order
intended to curb the purchase of surveillance software by U.S. agencies
if the programs are also being used by repressive governments abroad.
The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Unlike
NSO, which regularly briefed journalists amid allegations of abuse,
QuaDream has kept a lower profile. The company has no website touting
its business and employees have been told to keep any reference to their
employer off social media, Reuters has previously reported.
As a result of Defending the Republic’s
(DTR) successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we are excited to announce that
we are releasing nearly 15,000 pages of documents relating to testing
and adverse events associated with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine
“Spikevax.”
DTR filed its FOIA lawsuit after the FDA denied the expedited
production of Moderna COVID-19 records, stating there was no compelling
need or urgency for the public to review this information. This spring,
DTR reached an agreement with the FDA for the production of
approximately 24,000 pages of some of the most important records
submitted by Moderna in support of its Biologics License Application
(BLA). This is the first part of that production. Later this year the
FDA will produce approximately 8,000 more pages of Moderna documents.
These documents are the first significant release of data from
Moderna’s COVID-19 clinical trials. They reveal the causes of deaths,
serious adverse events, and instances of neurological disorders (such as
Bell’s Palsy and Shingles) potentially associated with Moderna’s
COVID-19 vaccine.
Importantly, these records also demonstrate the utter lack of
thoroughness of these studies. Many of those who died after receiving
the Moderna vaccine were not given an autopsy. According to one study,
16 individuals died after being administered the Moderna vaccine. The
study’s authors indicated that out of those 16 deaths, only two autopsies were performed, five of the dead were not autopsied, and the autopsy status of nine of the dead was “unknown”.
Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads for the past three years?
This report finds that advertisers including Fortune 500 brands, the US federal government, and many small businesses may have been misled for years about Google’s proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads. This misalignment may have cost media buyers up to billions of digital ad dollars, which were ultimately spent on small, muted, out-stream, auto-playing or interstitial video ad units running on independent websites and mobile apps.
TrueView is Google's “proprietary cost-per-view, choice-based ad format that serves on YouTube, millions of apps, and across the web.” With TrueView, advertisers only pay “for actual views of their ads, rather than impressions.” TrueView asks users if they want to skip the video ad after 5 seconds with a visual prompt. Google’s policies state that TrueView ads must be skippable, audible, and playing of the video (and ad) cannot be solely initiated by passive user scrolling.
However, this research report finds that for years, significant quantities of TrueView skippable in-stream ads, purchased by many different brands and media agencies, appear to have been served on hundreds of thousands of websites and apps in which the consumer experience did not meet Google’s stated quality standards. For example, many TrueView in-stream ads were served muted and auto-playing as out-stream video or as obscured video players on independent sites. Often, there was little to no organic video media content between ads, the video units simply played ads only.
For a major infrastructure brand, only ~16% of their TrueView skippable in-stream video ad budget was spent on YouTube.com or YouTube’s apps. The majority of their budget was spent on tens of thousands of different websites or mobile apps which make up the Google Video Partner (GVP) network. The majority of those GVP mobile apps and websites served the TrueView skippable in-stream video ads in outstream, muted, auto-playing, interstitial, and/or non-visible ad slots - which are inconsistent with the TrueView or skippable in-stream ad format.
Adalytics shared examples of these TrueView skippable in-stream placements with advertisers and media buyers. Several dozen marketers stated that they would not have purchased this TrueView skippable in-stream inventory running on 3rd party environments, if this fact was clearly explained to them in advance. Marketers also shared that they did not expect or want video ads to be run muted, and doing so was contrary to their understanding of TrueView.
Critically, Youtube and Google’s own policies state that TrueView in-stream ads must be skippable, audible, and initiated by viewer action. TrueView in-stream ad placement reports from brands and advertisers - including Fortune 500 brands - showed that in some ad campaigns, between 42 to 75% of TrueView in-stream ad spend was allocated to GVP sites and apps which did not meet Google’s standards.
Many media buyers were surprised to learn that the majority of their ad budgets against a so-called “walled garden” environment was spent on muted, auto-playing video ads on third party websites such as lebanonfiles.com and freewebnovel.com, or on foreign-developed Android mobile gaming apps for toddlers.
Screenshot of a YouTube TrueView ad for americanexpress.com, served in a muted, out-stream, auto-playing video player on a 3rd party website.
Many TrueView skippable “in-stream” ads that Adalytics reviewed were delivered on sites and apps in which the ads were rendered in a method that violates Google’s own definitions of in-stream. Specifically, ads were placed on pages with such characteristics as
in small, out-stream video players in the corner or side of the consumer’s device viewport
in a fully muted video player
with little to no video content in between consecutive TrueView ads
where the video ads auto-play without any viewer interaction or initiation
the ads played continuously, on a loop
One digital advertising professional who was shown an advanced copy of this report said “repackaging shitty, brand-unsafe outstream as instream is a big problem.” The professional further stated “that seems like a fraud”.
In some instances, multiple TrueView skippable in-stream ads were rendered on a consumer’s device at the same time. Other examples include TrueView skippable in-stream ads that were served “stacked” on top of another “in-stream” ad. Furthermore, in some instances, the “Skip” button from the video ad was hidden or obscured outside the user’s viewport, making it impossible for the consumer to “choose to skip” the video ads after 5 seconds, forcing the user to experience the ad – a direct violation of Google’s quality standards for TrueView ads. This may have artificially inflated TrueView skippable in-stream ad video completion rates, possibly resulting in higher costs for Google’s advertisers.
Screenshot of a JPMorgan Chase TrueView skippable in-stream video ad serving on a 3rd party website, in a muted, auto-play, partially obscured video player that is covered by another ad.
Multiple Kayak.de TrueView skippable in-stream video ads being served on dostor.org, with both video ads playing in a muted, auto-play state.
Another media buyer who received an advanced copy of this research told Adalytics:
“Nobody goes to walled gardens like YouTube to run on audience networks which all have the same crappy inventory. This is a method for YouTube and Google to extract more budget and manufacture scale in a way that is palatable to the advertiser because they don’t fully understand it.”
Brands that may have purchased muted, auto-playing, mis-declared TrueView skippable in-stream inventory include:
The Wall Street Journal (owned by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp)
The United States federal government, including the Department of Health & Human Services (Medicare, Army, Social Security Administration)
The European Parliament
Johnson & Johnson
The New York City municipal government (nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor)
HP
Ernst & Young
Bayer
Newark, Delaware Police Department (joinnewarkpd.com)
The Dutch military cyber defense forces (werkenbijdefensie.nl/burgermedewerker/ict)
JPMorgan Chase Bank
American Express
Public Service Alliance of Canada
Alberta New Democratic Party
National Volunteer Fire Council
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) (edf.giftplans.org)
National Harbor (nationalharbor.com) - from the Maryland Office of Tourism (visitmaryland.org)
Ebay
Klaviyo
Okta
Zillow
St. George’s University
Cisco
Hyundai
Mazda
Notion (notion.so)
Subaru
Consumer Cellular
Fandango (fandango.com)
Michigan Economic Development Corporation (michigan.org)
Tourism Nova Scotia (planyournovascotia.com)
Kayak.com
etoro.com
Royal Dutch Gazelle bikes
Terminix Pest Control & Termite Treatment
Canadaisthesolution.com (Canadian Energy Centre Ltd)
FreeTaxUsa.com
Squarespace.com
hotjar.com
Carrefour
Olt.com
Netgear
The Federalist Society
Quirion AG
MyFundedFX
Scholastic Corporation
Adobe
Miele (domestic appliances)
Hertz
Bosch
Vimeo
Plaid
Hollister
TikTok
United Wholesale Mortgage
Indeed.com (jobs website)
Bellroy (Australian accessories brand)
Fiverr
Tommy John
Micro Focus International Plc
NewRelic
sitechange.com
vda-global.lilisi.com
Comarch
Circa Resort & Casino Las Vegas (circalasvegas.com)
Dyson
Beliani
Semrush
McCain Foods
Expedia, Vrbo, and hotels.com
kodiakcakes.com
tablethotels.com
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PAN)
Grammarly
GrubHub
Allbirds
Bristol Myers Squibb
Pfizer
Haleon (formerly GSK Consumer Healthcare)
Athletic Greens
Fever-Tree
KitchenAid (American home appliance brand owned by Whirlpool Corporation)
Doptelet (AkaRx, Inc)
The list of media agencies and media buying companies that appeared to have transacted muted, auto-playing, out-stream TrueView ads include:
Interpublic Group (Matterkind, Initiative, Mediabrands)
Dentsu (Amnet)
Publicis (Audience on Demand, Precision)
Omnicom (Accuen)
WPP (Xaxis, Headlight, Essence)
Havas (Affiperf)
Jellyfish
Brain Labs Digital
Horizon Media (Canvas WorldWide)
MiQ
This mis-declared TrueView in-stream inventory has been observed going back as far as 2020.
Google was observed serving brands’ TrueView ads on websites that have had tens of thousands of copyright violation takedown requests filed against them (potential “piracy sites”), raising possible brand safety concerns and questions about the validity of Google’s TAG Certification and MRC Brand Safety accreditation.
According to Google’s stated policies, Google complies with valid copyright requests and frequently delists content as a result of copyright infringements. However, it appears Google permits repeated infringement offenders to continue monetizing their content through TrueView ads.
Furthermore, Google was observed delivering thousands of TrueView ads to declared bots running out of Google Cloud data center servers. YouTube has not allowed independent 3rd party measurement and verification tags to be applied to its ad inventory since 2016.
Fortune 500 brands’ TrueView skippable in-stream ads were reported as being delivered on Russian websites, including “pravda.ru” - a website which has been characterized as “being a tool of the Russian state” and has been cited by NewsGuard as “publishing false, pro-Russian disinformation, including false claims related to the invasion of Ukraine.”
Ad campaign placement reports regarding TrueView skippable in-stream ads include references to mobile apps and websites which either do not currently exist, or do not contain any ads whatsoever, raising the possibility that either Google’s placement reporting tools have software bugs or are susceptible to deception by invalid ad traffic.
Lastly, in some instances, TrueView skippable in-stream ads from brands were reported as serving on delisted or side-loaded Android apps that are not allowed on the Google app Play Store. Some of these delisted or side-loaded apps are developed and maintained by software vendors based in US Treasury OFAC sanctioned countries such as Iran, which raises the question of whether Google’s advertisers are inadvertently sending funds to Treasury sanctioned entities.
Adalytics shared an advanced copy of this report with Ebiquity, a major marketing and media consultancy which helps brands audit their ad buys. Ruben Schreurs, the Chief Product Office of Ebiquity noted:
"The research report by Adalytics is highly incriminating. Based on the findings and allegations represented within, I see this as a structural misrepresentation of advertising products at best, and downright fraudulent misleading practices at worst. If true, this will have major repercussions in the industry and lead to a significant negative impact on Google's perceived quality and reliability. Ebiquity works for over 75 of the top 100 brands, nearly all listed in this report as possibly being exposed, and we will initiate a large-scale review of this immediately. We thank Adalytics for their hard work in this and previous cases, and look forward to a detailed reply from Google."
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in Brussels - Paul Tang, also said:
"Google deliberately makes itself the play doll of dictators, also dragging the European Parliament through the mud. The same Parliament that declared the Russian Federation in November 2022 a state sponsor of terrorism, advertises on Russian propaganda websites like Pravda because of Youtube's scandalous system. Exposing once again the AdTech duopoly of Google and Facebook is a highly opaque game of billions which threatens democracy."
Apple's consolidation of its third party iPhone, Mac, and iPad resellers to Amazon has induced Spain's antitrust agency to levy a $218 million fine in total on the pair.
Spain's Comision Nacional De Los Mercados Y La Competencia (CNMC) announced in July 2021
that it was investigating if Apple and Amazon have unfairly colluded to
"reduce competition in the Internet retail market for electronic
products."
Specifically, the group was looking
for proof of any deals that the pair made limiting sale of Apple
products to Amazon itself. Two years later, it appears to have found the
proof it was looking for, and has fined the pair 194.1 million euros in
total.
"We reject the suggestion made by
CNMC that Amazon benefits from excluding sellers from its market place,
as our business model hinges precisely on the success of the companies
selling through Amazon," Amazon said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday morning.
Both
Apple and Amazon have stated that the deal benefits consumers, protects
buyers from fake products, and increases the number and magnitude of
discounts offered to customers.
Of the 194.1 million euro fine,
Apple was hit with 143.6 million, and Amazon 50.5 million euro. Both
companies have already said that they will appeal the matter, and they
have two months to do so.
Apple selling directly in Amazon began at the
same time almost worldwide. The deal, which applied to the United
States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, and Spain
started in November 2018.
Prior to the deal, the products were
either not available or only sold through the third-party marketplace.
This process led to products being offered to Amazon customers at
varying price points, and not necessarily in perfect condition.
In the US, terms of the Apple-Amazon
agreement mean that resellers must either be authorized by Apple, or
buy at least $2.5 million in refurbished inventory every 90 days. The
latter must come directly from Apple or through a third party with over
$5 billion in annual sales, typically meaning carriers and national
retailers. It's not clear if the terms in Spain are the same.
Third-party vendors not meeting those purchase thresholds were prevented from selling Apple products on the Amazon store in January 2019.
In the United States, most of the
Specialists in the country doing Apple resale have closed, with the rate
accelerating in the last few years. The first wave started and
continues with Apple's retail store expansion, and the Amazon deal was
and is another nail in the coffin.
It has been stated that the renewable energy business in Austalia is vital to the government's "economy", where it's primary obective is about the money and not the environment.
