Google Search Console will stop reporting on the product search results within the Performance reports in Search Console and the Search Console API starting in January 2024. Those websites that have product pages will soon no longer be able to click on the search appearance filter and see the product results option.

Announcement. Google posted this news at around 3:45 am ET on X, saying, “Earlier this year, Search Console split the Product results search appearance into two: Merchant listings and Product snippets. As a result, in January 2024 we’ll stop reporting the Product results search appearance, both in the Performance report and the API.”

Here is that post:

More details. Google is referring to back in March when Google Search Console broke out Merchant listings and Product snippets appearances. The then new Merchant listings and Product snippets search appearances can be viewed in two places in Search Console:

• Merchant listings and product snippets reports as an overlay on top of the report charts
• Performance report in the search appearance tab or through a filter

Why they care. If you use the product results search appearance filter within the performance reports in Google Search Console, you need to get ready for it to go away.

Less data is never good but Google will be removing that filter in about a month. However, you should be able to access this data in the merchant center reports in Search Console.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.

Google has reached a deal in a class-action lawsuit accusing it of making an Orwellian grab of “potentially embarrassing” data from tens of millions of people using the company’s “Incognito mode” and other private browsing, according to a court filing.

The three Californians and two others who sued the Mountain View digital-advertising giant on behalf of themselves and legions of other internet users in 2020 claimed the firm captured the data despite saying it would not.

Google, in a bid last year to get the case thrown out, argued in a court filing that it “never made any such promise.”

The plaintiffs were seeking for themselves and other affected internet users the return of what they claim are billions of dollars in profits Google made from the browsing data, plus unspecified damages of more than $5,000 for each plaintiff and affected user. In December 2022, a judge denied the plaintiffs’ attempt to entitle tens of millions of users to receive damages in the case.

The terms of the settlement, which must be approved by a judge, were not revealed in the joint court filing last week by both sides informing the court about the deal. Two days after the filing, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers cancelled the trial planned for Jan. 29.

The lawsuit filed in Oakland U.S. District Court alleged that Google’s data practices gave it and its employees “power to learn intimate details about individuals’ lives, interests, and internet usage.” The company, the lawsuit claimed, “knows who your friends are, what your hobbies are, what you like to eat, what movies you watch, where and when you like to shop, what your favorite vacation destinations are, what your favorite color is and even the most intimate and potentially embarrassing things you browse on the internet — regardless of whether you follow Google’s advice to keep your activities ‘private.’”

“Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it.”

In August, Gonzalez Rogers issued an order agreeing with the plaintiffs that anyone using Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser could reasonably deduce from the opening screen that Google would not take their data. The company’s “Search & Browse Privately” help page — for users of Chrome and other browsers including Safari — said, “you’re in control of what information you share with Google when you search,” the judge noted.

Although Google had represented publicly since mid-2016 that it would not collect user information during purportedly private browsing, Gonzalez Rogers wrote that the firm “did so anyway, collecting, aggregating, and selling plaintiffs’ private browsing data without their consent.”

Even when people used private modes or Incognito in other companies’ browsers, when they visited a website using Google services, the company’s software directed the user’s browser “to send a separate communication to Google,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in her August order.

Google and the plaintiffs — Chasom Brown, Christopher Castillo and Monique Trujillo of California, William Byatt of Florida and Jeremy Davis of Arkansas — earlier agreed that the class of people using private browsing modes since mid-2016 numbers in the tens of millions, the judge noted in an earlier order.

The plaintiffs claimed that Google linked users’ private browsing history to the user profiles the company builds for targeted advertising. Google denied making those connections, Gonzalez Rogers said.

Evidence submitted by the plaintiffs included internal Google communications stating that Google stores users’ regular and private browsing data in the same logs, uses those “mixed logs” to send users personalized ads, and that even if individual data points are anonymous on their own, that Google could aggregate them to identify specific users with a high probability of accuracy, the judge wrote.

Google in a court filing last year argued that its privacy policy “expressly disclosed” the ways data would be collected and used, and that the plaintiffs agreed to it.

In a statement to this news organization last year, Google said it strongly disputed the lawsuit’s claims. The firm said Incognito in Chrome gave users “the choice to browse the internet without (their) activity being saved to (their) browser or device,” but declined to address the claims that the company could identify users by mixing private and ordinary browsing data.

Gonzalez Rogers in a December 2022 ruling cited evidence introduced by Google indicating users’ awareness of the company’s private-browsing data harvesting varied widely. The judge declined to allow tens of millions of users to be certified as a class for the purpose of receiving any damages payments. But Gonzalez Rogers did certify those users as a class regarding the plaintiffs’ demand for a court order barring Google from “intercepting, tracking, or collecting” data from users’ private browsing.

The joint court filing last week said Google and the plaintiffs reached the deal through mediation, and that they expected to present the settlement agreement for court approval by late February.

Google recently released Gemini, its most powerful AI model to date, in the tech giant’s latest effort to catch up to Microsoft-backed rival OpenAI in the burgeoning AI education arms race.

Unlike OpenAI’s GPT technology, which is trained on text, images, etc. separately, Gemini was trained simultaneously on text, video, audio, and code, which Google believes will provide its new AI the upper hand when it comes to working with images, audio, video etc.

However, like so much with the rapid development of AI, exactly what Gemini is, how you can use it, and how all of this will impact education, is still a bit murky.

To help sift through some of that, I’ve been experimenting with a version of Gemini and think it’s an impressive new model but not yet any kind of game-changer for educators. On the positive side, it does seem to have more resistance to cheating than ChatGPT (it repeatedly refused to write a paper for me when prompted).

Here’s everything educators need to know about Gemini, Google’s new AI model, Gemini.

What is Google's Gemini?

Gemini is the latest and greatest AI model from Google, and if Google’s PR efforts are to be believed, a revolutionary piece of technology.

Ultimately, the model will have three versions: Gemini Pro, which is already powering many Google tools, including its integrated chatbot Bard; Gemini Nano, which is designed to run off-line on Android devices; and Gemini Ultra, the most-powerful-but-yet-to-be-released version of Gemini.

In Google’s tests, Gemini Ultra outperformed GPT-4 on standard AI benchmarks in 30 of 32 categories, including tests on subjects such as physics and professional law. However, some analysts point out this performance is not quite the slam dunk Google is billing it as. On many of the tests, Gemini Ultra only scored a little bit higher, and GPT-4 is currently available to the public while Gemini Ultra is not.

As Bloomberg columnist Parmy Olson puts it: “In other words, Google’s top AI model has only made narrow improvements on something that OpenAI completed work on at least a year ago.”

How Can I Use Gemini to Teach?

Gemini is now powering Bard. So if you already have access to Bard, you’re all set.

To get access to Bard visit bard.google.com from a personal Google account and you’ll be prompted to sign up. To use the tool you need to be over 18, and if you’re using a work Google account, access needs to be approved by an administrator.

How Will Gemini Impact Education?

As I said at the top, it’s not exactly a game-changer in the way ChatGPT was when it was released at the end of 2022. But to my eyes, Gemini-powered Bard is a clear improvement over the previous version. GPT-4 used to easily outshine Bard for my uses but now the two models are very close, and Bard might even be a little better.

For example, I tried to get Bard to write a short discussion board post for me that was based on a prompt from one of my introductory composition classes. I wrote:  “My teacher has asked me to write an essay about a character from a movie that inspired me. Can you write about how Luke Skywalker inspired me?”

When Bard responded with suggestions and a potential outline, I wrote back, “Can’t you just write it for me?” Bard responded: “While I can definitely help you brainstorm and structure your essay, I wouldn't feel comfortable writing it entirely for you. The purpose of an essay is not only to showcase your understanding of a topic, but also to express your own unique voice and perspective.”

Bard then offered to help as my “writing coach” and offered some solid, if basic, suggestions about how I might write the essay myself when prompted.

“Identify specific qualities or moments in Luke's journey that resonated deeply with you,” Bard suggested. “Was it his initial yearning for adventure, his struggles with doubt and fear, his unwavering belief in the good within himself and others, or his eventual triumph over darkness? Think about how these qualities or moments have impacted your own life.”

Overall, the proliferation of AI tools means the technology is ever more accessible to students and, at this point, almost hard to avoid. That makes it even more incumbent on us as teachers to work on teaching responsible AI use and exploring with students what exactly this should look like. Teachers and their students should also explore how AI can be helpful and detrimental as a study aid.

Many of us are exploring these questions and having these conversations with colleagues — let’s remember to make students part of the conversation.

Google is wrapping its head around the idea of being a generative AI company. The "code red" called in response to ChatGPT has had Googlers scrambling to come up with AI features and ideas. Once all the dust settles on that work, Google might turn inward and try to "optimize" the company with some of its new AI capabilities. With artificial intelligence being the hot new thing, how much of Google's, uh, natural intelligence needs to be there?

A report at The Information says that AI might already be taking people's jobs at Google. The report cites people briefed on the plans and says Google intends to "consolidate staff, including through possible layoffs, by reassigning employees at its large customer sales unit who oversee relationships with major advertisers." According to the report, the jobs are being vacated because Google's new AI tools have automated them. The report says a future restructuring was apparently already announced at a department-wide Google Ads meeting last week.

Google announced a "new era of AI-powered ads" in May, featuring a "natural-language conversational experience within Google Ads, designed to jump-start campaign creation and simplify Search ads." Google said its new AI could scan your website and "generate relevant and effective keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and other assets," making the Google Ads chatbot one part designer and one part sales expert.

One ad tool, Google's Performance Max (or "PMax" for short), got a generative AI boost after May's announcement and can now "create custom assets and scale them in a few clicks." First, it helps advertisers decide if an ad should be in places like YouTube, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps, or banner ads on third-party sites. Then, it can just make the ad content, thanks to generative AI that can scan your website for material. (A human advertiser is still in the loop approving content—for now.) It's called "Performance Max" because variations of your ad are still left up to the machines, which can constantly remix your ads in real time using click-through rates as feedback. Google's official description is that "Assets are automatically mixed and matched to find the top performing combinations based on which Google Ads channel your ad is appearing on."