Shining a light on Google's data is never easy - except when it suits them

Google tells us news is commercially worthless to them. Whyever would they say such a terrible thing?

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 14:49, 27 March 2025

You may find this difficult to believe, but the world of high power flashlights is rife with questionable data, dubious claims, and technical specifications verging on dishonest. It's time to shed some light on the soft science of selective data.

Ever since Lumens became the most common performance indicator for flashlights, manufacturers and brands have sought to be able to publicise a headline Lumen figure which puts their competitors to shame. Consequently, many brands now make the most extravagant product claims of supernova lighting power at matchstick price points.

It's almost all rubbish of course. Any independent testing of such flashlights usually shows them falling well shy of their claimed performance, or only able to reach it for a lightning flash moment before power is spent or it's dialled back to prevent overheating. 

Products which meet or exceed their claimed performance do of course exist, but - unsurprisingly - there are no bargain basement options, because the engineering quality required to produce and maintain such performance doesn't come cheaply.

The broad lesson from this small (but well illuminated) corner of global manufacture and trade is that any and all data published with a specific commercial intent must always be viewed through a lens of utmost scepticism and never quite at face value. Everything from the claimed breaking strain of a fishing line to the alleged density of a blemish concealer is subject to this lesson. 

The navigation of capitalism requires vigilance - it's how they tire us out.

The bigger they are

The undisputed worldwide champions of tiring us out emerged again this week, brandishing research data so skewed towards their beneficial claims that even the most brazen of back-market Lumen power hackers - the kind happy with "doesn't catch fire much" as a data point - would blush under their uncertified gas mask.

We speak of course of Google, who politely informed us that news is worth less to them than second-hand gutter water. Second-grade, second-hand gutter water at that.

The most thorough refutation of the claims and test data is here, by the industry champions Press Gazette, but to quote its reporting, "The randomised control trial removed some 13,000 news websites from search, Google Discover and Google News for one per cent of users in eight EU countries and observed a negligible drop in daily active users and ad revenue among those in the trial compared with a control group."

So, they took a load of news sites off search without telling anyone, and no one noticed and neither did they, and that's their foundation for the claim "news is of zero value".

This is one of those situations that, while it's important to directly and forensically question the construction and methodology of a such a test, it's more important to glance at the horizon for direction of travel. 

By sheer coincidence, Google is currently trying to manoeuvre out of paying EU-based news sites for content under the European Copyright Directive, and is absolutely determined to find the data to back its cause.

Now, I don't know if some local administrators at Google offshoots worldwide are assuming the new US administration will do its bidding to sweep aside any blocker the company faces, or if this is a knee-jerk reaction by a company that thinks it's is about to be broken up. But, it certainly looks as if Mountain View thinks the age of confrontational mercantilism is upon us and a fight with the EU is worth it. 

It appears to believe it has little to gain by compliance, except maybe goodwill, and - like Meta - seems not to believe Europe is worth special treatment or adherence to silly things like local laws. 

Also of note was the confrontational language Google used in response to criticism of their "research" - criticism which was generally very well argued and from people who are not prone to rants. 

As reported by Press Gazette, the company adopted the old "Well, they would say that" defence, by saying, "It is not surprising that some publishers choose to share false statements because they don’t like the outcome of this experiment."

False statements? That, my friends, indicates a distinct hardening of position. It's not quite North Korean news reader, but it's not far off. 

Personally, I don't think this is connected at all with current events in Washington. US companies have operated successfully in Europe since forever; Ford Europe is as close to a European vehicle business as it's possible to be without being called Volkswagen, for example. 

It's the borderless nature of a business such as Google which is both its strength and its weakness. 

It has none of the sensibility to the European market that Ford have absorbed, probably because, with no genuine competition, it hasn't needed it. It expects everyone else, including governments, to adapt, not the other way around. I think this is also how it sees the Whitehouse.

If however we are entering a more protectionist phase, then Google may need to rely on its US legal identity more and more, and if the international temperature is raised over other matters, then its lack of flexibility may become a liability.

We could dream of a world in which Google opened up its data repositories for independent scrutiny, so finally we can see exactly where their thumb sits on the scales, but it won't happen.

Wouldn't all publishers love more data from Google? Wouldn't everyone? Think of how much your revenue streams rely on data which only Google can give you, and which similarly places them as beneficiary of any ups and downs. Such double dealing is at the heart of why it faces break up by US courts, let's not forget.