I’ll never forget the caller on my national radio show asking me for guidance because her brother was scammed out of $450,000. He trusted the wrong person, and he’s far from alone. People simply don’t realize they’re being taken for a ride until it’s too late.

Then clues pop up. Maybe you sent a bunch of gift card codes, or there are emails you didn’t write in your outbox. Or worse, you get a notice about a loan in your name. Pro-tip: That’s why you need to get your free credit report every year.

It’s also the reason to check your Google account’s security. It only takes a minute and will reveal who has access to your account. Fingers crossed, it’s just you.

EXPOSED: UNCOVER THE TRACKING SECRETS OF APPLE AND MICROSOFT WHILE YOU WORK ON YOUR MAC OR PC

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60-second safety check

I’m going to show you how to find digital clues a hacker got into your account, but that’s not all. This tip also works for spotting snoops. Is a friend or family member poking around your Google or Gmail account? Let’s sniff them out.

• Go to google.com/devices. Sign in if you aren’t already.
• Here, you’ll see a list of devices — the computers, smartphones and tablets you’re signed into or have been signed into within the last 28 days.

You can click each one to see which browser was used. That might be a tip-off someone else has logged in, say you see Chrome, but you only use Safari. 

Don’t panic if you see the same device multiple times. Each session (or instance you logged in) is recorded. 

You may also see devices that have been inactive for a long time, like an old phone or computer you don’t use anymore. It’s wise to sign these devices out remotely.

• Click the one you want, then Sign out. This will remove access to your Google account from the device entirely.

You should also take that step for any devices you once used to access your account, like a friend’s tablet or a work computer.

I sent smart security tips via email almost every day. Get my free newsletter here.

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFO AFTER A DATA BREACH

Here’s the red flag

What happens if you see a computer, phone, tablet, or device you don’t recognize? That might be a bad sign but don’t panic right away.

You could have signed in through a VPN or you were on vacation, hence a different city. Or you borrowed a device from someone else.

If you don’t remember, or you’re sure it wasn’t you, do this:

• Click the device and choose Don’t recognize something? or Sign out. Again, this will sign the device out remotely.

Inbox a mess?Here’s the surefire way to keep your email in check

Now it’s time to protect your account

When it comes to cybersecurity, take the conservative approach. Maybe it was you, but there’s a chance someone else got into your account.

That means it’s time to change your password to be sure whoever logged in can’t do so again. Don’t reuse an old password or choose something easy to guess.

Bonus tip: Take a walk down your Google memory lane

Google’s Timeline feature shows you a summary of everywhere you’ve gone — down to the travel time, route you took and even the pictures you took when you arrived. It’s really worth checking out if you never have.

• Go to timeline.google.com
• Search for a date or click one of the blue bars below the date field. There you can see places you’ve visited, your route, pictures you took and timestamps for everything.
• At the bottom, there’s a red box with the number of places Google has tracked. Click that to see where you’ve been most. 

If that whole exercise gave you the creeps, click the blue button at the bottom to Manage Location History. 

• From here, you can select Turn off or Turn off and delete activity.
• You’ll also see checkboxes for each device tied to your account with access to location history.

The more you know!

Keep your tech-know going 

My popular podcast is called "Kim Komando Today." It’s a solid 30 minutes of tech news, tips, and callers with tech questions like you from all over the country. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. For your convenience, hit the link below for a recent episode.

PODCAST PICK: Hiring a hitman online, AI lifeguard & fake travel guides

Plus, concerned about ChatGPT scraping your data? I'll show you how to stop it. Also, people are finding creative ways to earn money by renting out their Starlink satellites. Don't miss Google's latest gadgets, opportunities to earn money with your car, and tech travel tips you'll use repeatedly.

My popular podcast is called "Kim Komando Today." It’s a solid 30 minutes of tech news, tips, and callers with tech questions like you from all over the country. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. For your convenience, hit the link below for a recent episode.

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The U.S. government’s antitrust lawsuit against Google goes to trial in September in what could be one of the biggest antitrust trials of the century.

The government’s case claims Google has gained a monopoly in internet search, not by building a better mousetrap but by pushing competitors to the sidelines. Government attorneys no doubt will ask how Google’s dominant position has helped serve consumers, answering their own question by suggesting it hasn’t. 

Does Google no longer deserve to be your go-to? 

The case coincides with arguments by critics and many consumers that Google's search results have gotten less helpful to consumers in recent years, even as it still dominates the search field.

Dominic Chorafakis, P.Eng, CISSP and principal at Akouto, a technology firm, believes some of the dissatisfaction with the search engine stems from how Google monetizes its business, putting paid placement in the mix with non-paid search results.

“From a usability perspective, it can be argued that results have gotten worse over time since Google put ads in line with search results and made them look very similar to non-paid search results,” he said.

In addition, said Chorafakis, internet content as a whole has gotten worse, driving down the quality of search results.  “There's a whole industry that has sprung up around search engine optimization which employs a number of tricks to try and get Google and other search engines to rank the importance of a page to be higher than it might be in reality,” Chorafakis said.

And consumer use of smartphones could explain some of the perception that Google has gotten worse, suggests Joe Karasin, CMO & founder at Karasin PPC. He says consumers used to be more direct and exact with their search queries, but in recent years, typing on their phones, they have come to rely more on the algorithm to figure things out. 

“They don't want to type in long-tail queries, which is often the way to get the best search result possible,” he said. 

“For example, if I need to hire a lawyer, I will usually type in 'best criminal defense attorney near me' and I will get pretty relevant results. If I just type 'best lawyer' my results won't be as relevant. The latter is how most consumers search these days due to the cumbersome nature of typing on their phones rather than a keyboard.”

Google earned its advantage initially

Experts we spoke to were quick to credit Google’s ascension to dominance to the company’s technology. 

“Google figured out how to do two things very well – return accurate search results via a more advanced algorithm than their competitors and monetize the search engine business model," said Karasin, who has worked in the search engine marketing field for the past 12 years and has watched Google's ascent.  “Between these two innovations, Google was able to become the top search engine for consumers.”

Chorafaki believes Google won by focusing on building its own platform rather than relying on off-the-shelf technology.

“Solving fundamental problems with processing large amounts of data allowed Google to scale faster and more cost-effectively than their competitors,” Chorafakis told us.

“The second factor was the advantage of Google's algorithms over those of their competitors for ranking the importance of web pages. This allowed Google to produce much more relevant search results than their competitors which quickly made them the search engine of choice.”

How well are users served?

The case will flesh out two complex, interrelated questions: Has Google violated antitrust laws by competing unfairly, and has Google simply grown too large for other competitors to enter or survive in the space?

The U.S. Justice Department complaint alleges that Google monopolizes key digital advertising technologies, collectively referred to as the “ad tech stack,” that website publishers depend on to sell ads and that advertisers rely on to buy ads and reach potential customers. 

The complaint also alleges that over the past 15 years, Google has engaged in anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct that consisted of neutralizing or eliminating ad tech competitors through acquisitions. 

It also accuses the company of wielding its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products and make it harder to use competing products. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco says ad tech businesses have been harmed financially. Consumers, she says, have been harmed by the lack of competition in search.

Potential result

Nothing may happen very quickly. The trial is likely to be lengthy and if the court rules against Google, the tech giant can be expected to appeal. But should the government ultimately prevail, what might the result look like?

Karasin thinks Google may have to allow other search engines to be used as the default on Android devices, similar to what Microsoft had to do with Internet Explorer at the turn of the century. 

Chorafakis says the outcome is difficult to predict but agrees the court could force Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to divest some of its assets related to search. For instance, Google’s YouTube is also considered a search engine. The government could argue it should have separate ownership.

“More likely scenarios would be requiring Alphabet to provide competitors with access to APIs (automated programming interface) that allow them to integrate their services and offer compelling alternatives, impose price regulations to allow smaller rivals to compete, or prohibit Alphabet from tying or bundling one service with the other,” he said.

For consumers, the result could be a return to the late 1990s when there was no dominant search engine. Consumers of a certain age may remember when Yahoo was a major player in search, along with smaller players such as Lycos and Excite.

Google has responded to safety concerns regarding its Performance Max product.

The search engine came under fire after its platform YouTube was accused of improperly tracking children for targeted advertising purposes in a study conducted by Adalytics.

Brands using its PMax product may have inadvertently violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as a result, according to the research.

However, Google has denied the claims, suggesting there has been a misunderstanding.

Why we care. If brands are found to be in violation of COPPA, they may have to pay a significant financial penalty just as YouTube did in 2019 when it spent a record $170 million to settle similar charges.

What has Google said? Ginny Marvin, the Google’s Ads product liaison officer, said:

• “There’s been some confusion about brand safety controls and reporting supported in PMax. So I want to share a rundown of important levers available to help you control the types of content your PMax ads can appear next to in Search, Shopping, Display & Video inventory.”
• “First up, Search and Shopping suitability controls. New PMax campaign-level brand exclusions prevent your ads from serving for specific brand queries in Search and Shopping – Account-level negative keywords prevent your ads from showing for those queries in Search & Shopping.”
• “Next up, Display and Video suitability controls PMax supports *all* of your account-level content suitability settings – available from the Tools icon in Google Ads:
  • Content labels allow you to narrow the maturity level of YouTube & GDN content your ads can show on or next to. This is where you’ll find the one-click “content suitable for families” option, for example.
  • Inventory type – expanded, standard, limited – allows you to quickly choose the type of content best suited to your brand on YouTube & GDN. – Content type exclusions prevent ads from showing on certain areas of video content such as live streaming or embedded YouTube video.
  • Sensitive content categories allow you to exclude certain types of GDN content such as tragedy and conflict. – Exclude up to 1000 content keywords to prevent ads from showing on YouTube & GDN content related to those exact words.
  • Placement exclusions prevent your ads from showing on specific YouTube and GDN content. PMax respects account- and MCC-level placement exclusions. For more on content suitability controls see
• “PMax placement reports show the sites & apps where your ads appeared and are built expressly for GDN brand safety tools. They can be found in the Reports editor in Google Ads.”
• “Hope that’s helpful & please share any questions! Also worth noting YouTube & publisher content must meet Google’s content guidelines to be eligible for monetization. And YouTube has MRC brand safety accreditation for in-stream video ads.”

The fallout: In response to the findings, IPG Mediabrands conducted its own investigation. The company reportedly found that at least one of its clients, which was running an adult-targeted campaign, had its ad feature on a “made for kids” channel. If a child had clicked on the ad, tracking pixels from the brand’s website would have gathered data from the child as well as their associated ID. This data would then have been shared with Google’s PMax.

IPG Mediabrands, which manages $40 billion in marketing investment worldwide, reportedly concluded that a full investigation was needed to identify the full extent of the impact on its clients. However, in the meantime, it issued a “privacy alert” email to clients, advising them to temporarily pause campaigns using Google’s PMax.

Were any laws been broken? Under COPPA, online services must get parental consent before collecting data for targeted advertising purposes from children under the age of 13.

Adalytics researchers claim they identified the platform serving personalized ads from more than 300 brands on “made for kids” videos, which if true, would be in violation of privacy laws. When viewers clicked on these campaigns, they were redirected to the brand’s website, which sometimes resulted in dropping cookies on the user’s browser.

What is COPPA? Under US federal law, COPPA regulates the online collection and use of personal information from minors under the age of 13. It is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. The rules apply to commercial websites and digital services that either:

• Are directed to children under 13 years of age.
• Know they are collecting personal data online from children under 13 years of age.

What has IPG Mediabrands said? A spokesperson for IPG Mediabrands told Search Engine Land that the email was an "early, unapproved draft of an internal-only note that was not reflective of our broader organizational POV. This was retracted. This was not sent to clients.”

The email in question – which was obtained by Business Insider – read:

• "Because placement reporting is not available for PMAX, we recommend that clients temporarily pause PMAX until the efficacy of the above controls are validated on non-PMAX campaigns where placement reporting is available."
• "Clients should consult with their legal, privacy/infosec, website, and data teams to consider potential exposure, and determine the appropriate process for identifying and removing data potentially collected from children.
  For example, advertisers may assess data in their CDPs that originated from YouTube as a traffic source."
• "These recommendations are being made on the basis of the probability of FTC scrutiny, as well as in light of the evidence of waste in advertising investment against unintended audiences."

Deep dive. Read Adalytics' YouTube study in full for more information on its research. Read Google's official documentation on how ads work on YouTube for supervised accounts for more information.

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GOOGLE'S AI search has been under hot water for listing Adolf Hitler as a great leader.

The discovery was made by Lily Ray, senior director of SEO and head of organic research at Amsive Digital.

1

Ray shared screenshots in a LinkedIn post of Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bard listing leaders.

Specifically, we see historical figures like Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong being hailed as "some of the greatest world leaders."

Helter places in third, just under Napoleon Bonaparte, while Zedong is seen fourth on the SGE list.

Underneath Hitler's icon, SGE describes the historical figure as "the Austrian-German dictator who instigated World War II in Europe."

In the Google Bard list, Hilter placed sixth as an "effective" leader, underneath the likes of Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela.

In that screenshot, Hitler is described as "one of the most famous world leaders," who "started World War II and sent millions of Jewish people to die in concentration camps."

"This is outrageously offensive," Ray said with regard to the Bard screenshot.

"This is why I’ve been telling Google for months that “best human” results should NOT show ranked lists - Knowledge Graph, SGE, or otherwise," she added.

"That is very bad, but I am assuming this is one of the reasons why they are still testing and improving it," one LinkedIn user commented in response.

"Google can you explain why the madman who killed my grandfather is number 3 on that list? #Google you are moving way too fast implementing AI in the real world without realizing the damaging impact it has on your users," a second user remarked.

Launched in March 2023, Google's Bard AI is a powerful language model and a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Both chatbots can do things like answer your questions in an informative way, write essays, and even generate code

While this technology has been praised for its sophistication and rapid learning models, experts have expressed concerns.

One of their biggest issues is inaccuracy – most AI chatbots sometimes supply users biased or wrong information.

In an attempt to counter this, Google hopes to implement new extensions into Bard.

FREE digital training events for businesses are taking place in York this spring.