Google Responds to Transparency Barbs
The internet giant has launched a central hub that collects existing resources and policies in the form of a repository for users
Over the years, Google has continually faced barbs about its lack of transparency – be it how the company ranks search queries to how and where an aggrieved user can file a complaint. This opaqueness also resulted in billions of dollars going as antitrust fines. All of which now seems to have resulted in the launch of a new Transparency Center.
It appears that Google indeed wants to throw open some of its windows and let others peek into how things are managed at the company. For, the transparency center provides users with its product policies and other resources that they may find tough to locate. Now, Google has brought all of it on to a central location called the Transparency Center.
“Our mission to make information universally accessible and useful starts with making our products safe. Explore our Transparency Center to understand the policies that keep users safe from harm and abuse, as well as information about how we develop and enforce those policies,” Google says in a note on the new website.
Google has placed all eggs in one basket
In a blog post penned by David Graff, VP of Trust and Safety at Google, the company says the new hub has collected existing resources and policies that are designed to provide easy access to information for the users on policies that are made and enforced. It showcases the policy development process across each product and service, reporting and appeal tools, transparency reports as well as Google’s principles around privacy and artificial intelligence.
The last mentioned is of immediate interest given Google had joined hands in July with Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic to create the Frontier Model Forum, an industry body that claims it would focus on ensuring safe and responsible development of frontier AI models. With an increasing number of enterprises blocking ChatGPT4 at their workplaces, we wonder if Google is moving in to show that their Bard (GenAI tool) can sing a better song!
Readers would recall that amidst the concerns over generative AI around safety and security, Google launched a Secure AI Framework (SAIF) that, it claims, is designed to make all future AI models secure by default. If one were to believe Google, this could well be the magic bullet that triggers AI towards humanity’s good.
How transparent is the transparency?
Meanwhile Graff claims in his post that with the changing threat landscape, Google’s policies are also evolving to help prevent abuse of their platforms. “And since the uses of our products differ, we tailor our policies to each platform, aiming to create a safe and positive experience for everyone. With the Transparency Center, you can learn about our policy development process, how we enforce our policies, and view each policy by product and service,” he says.
The blog as well as the Transparency Center homepage waxes eloquent about Google’s transparency reports that have been coming out each year and sharing their perspective of how government policies across the world impacts access to information. Now these reports are available off-the-shelf on the Transparency Center, which also has a dedicated page to help users to understand and report harmful content and appeal to Google’s services.
In addition to the above, the Center also provides data around the action Google has taken to ensure safety. There’s a live dashboard that tells us that Google has blocked 5.2 million bad ads, and 11 million YouTube videos in addition to de-indexing more than 0.43 million pages that related to CSAM (child abuse).
“By providing increased transparency about how we handle access to information, moderation across our platforms and some of our key safety practices, we hope you’ll find it useful and easy to find helpful information,” says Graff while concluding the post. It remains to be seen whether Google’s effort towards transparency is itself transparent or just another eye-wash.
