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Google Threatened Tech Influencers Unless They 'Preferred' the Pixel 66
An anonymous reader shares a report: The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company's invite-only Team Pixel program -- which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability -- stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked out of the program. For those hoping to break into the world of tech reviews, the new terms meant having to choose between keeping access or keeping their integrity.
The Verge has independently confirmed screenshots of the clause in this year's Team Pixel agreement for the new Pixel phones, which various influencers began posting on X and Threads last night. The agreement tells participants they're "expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices." It also notes that "if it appears other brands are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator." The link to the form appears to have since been shut down.
The Verge has independently confirmed screenshots of the clause in this year's Team Pixel agreement for the new Pixel phones, which various influencers began posting on X and Threads last night. The agreement tells participants they're "expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices." It also notes that "if it appears other brands are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator." The link to the form appears to have since been shut down.
Taking to heart (Score:5, Funny)
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The removal of "don't be evil".
We're supposed to have forgotten that ever existed by now...
Re:Taking to heart (Score:5, Funny)
They kept 2/3 of it.
Re: Taking to heart (Score:2)
Re: Taking to heart (Score:5, Insightful)
This. My perception is that influencers want to have it both ways: they want money and gifts flowing, which clearly comes with strings attached, but they also want to keep the appearance of integrity, which means everyone has to pretend that they have integrity. Google stopped pretending so influencers are upset, not because they have integrity and feel insulted, but because this means they cannot pretend any more.
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Their new slogan candidates:
"Be Evil Faster!"
"Move Fast and Break Trust"
"Move Fast And Break People" (bot-cars)
"But MS And Musk Are Slightly Worse"
"Quality is Blowjob One"
"Fry the Friendly Skies"
"Sue Different" (oh wait, that's Oracle)
"Just Do It, Regardless"
"Wanker Lickin' Good"
"The Crappiest Place On Earth"
"A Diamond Is Forever, Our Apps Til Tuesday"
"The Ultimate Driving Mad"
"The Ultimate Crashing Machine"
"You're In Everybody's Hands With Google"
"Can You Fear Me Now?"
"The Breakfast Of Chumpians"
"Have It O
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The removal of "don't be evil".
It wasn't removed. So much ado about moving a sentence from one part of the employee handbook to another.
As for this story... yeah, some overenthusiastic lawyer screwed up, and Google immediately walked it back. If that's your definition of "evil", you must live in a much nicer world than the rest of us.
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today is one of the few days i wish for mod points +1 Underrated
Technofascism (Score:1)
Re: Technofascism (Score:1)
It's a big corporation operating under market economy, meaning it's forced to maximize profits in global competition. What do people expect to come out of that?
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It's a big corporation operating under market economy, meaning it's forced to maximize profits in global competition. What do people expect to come out of that?
But but but those who say "globalism is bad" are constantly derided here! Slashdot cannot be wrong, can it!
Of course globalism is a bad thing. But given the chance to make Moar Money Faster, people will double-down on stupid to make it happen.
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It's a big corporation operating under market economy, meaning it's forced to maximize profits in global competition. What do people expect to come out of that?
We expect evil to come out of it, as did Google when they announced their slogan "Don't be evil."
So they cynically contradicted their slogan and trashed whatever good will they had earned.
It's all about the shameful hypocrisy and shameless lying that people hate.
They've earned the animosity.
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Current slogan is "be good" IIRC.
It's the total inversion of the previous one. Previous one was an injunction against actions. Current one is encouragement to do actions. "Good" and "evil" have also been redefined to polar opposites of what they used to be.
It matches the change in political climate in US sadly, where they went from "let people live their lives the way they please" internally to "we must force people to act in accordance to our morals.
2000s was a really interesting time, when christian right
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2000s was a really interesting time, when christian right fell off the cliff, and woke left hadn't taken over the vacuum of power yet.
Obsessive-compulsive orthodoxy on either side of the political spectrum isn't a zero-sum game. It is evergreen and continues in parallel.
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Human tendencies are zero sum though, and line between authoritarianism and libertarianism goes through the soul of each human. And it maps poorly onto which side of the king you were sitting on over two centuries ago.
Good (Score:2, Troll)
Maybe people will stop caring what "Influencers" think.
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I for one never buy ANYTHING without checking on the opinion of a 20 something year old influencer first!
That goes double for relationship advice. :-)
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Maybe people will stop caring what "Influencers" think.
Some of us never cared in the first place.
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Maybe the word "influencers" is used incorrectly here.
There are (few) tech reviewers which maintain integrity above else, to the point they make choices that risk hurting their own business. Amazingly, this brings them more fame and followers. On the other hand, they are not as famous as those who step all over integrity, but that's society in a nutshell.
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I still don't believe it's a thing. I mean, I know it is, but it seems so stupid I just haven't been able to accept it.
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"Influencer" is just a stupid new word for "celebrity" and unfortunately people have always cared what celebrities think for some reason.
Being an old Gen-X'er who grew up before Ellen had a talk show, let alone was cancelled, there was this period where there was some cultural distinction between "famous" and "Internet famous." Us old timers felt like unless you were featured on traditional broadcast media that it didn't really count.
But at some point in time, the viewership numbers that "influencers" were
Great PR (Score:5, Interesting)
Now every review of a Goolgle-owned product is suspect, and professional reviewers will likely want to put out a statement that they were never forced to agree to such terms (silence being evidence they were and did).
If this story catches, it won't quiet down in a single news cycle. It probably also won't help the next time Google's in court over their business practices.
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I distrusted Google since the time they were hellbent on being a competitor to Facebook, and force-merged different accounts from their various services to create One Big Portal, using email address as the common key. My work stuff got mashed into my personal stuff, creating embarrassing situations.
No wonder they tossed their slogan "Don't Be Evil".
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No, not every review. Just the ones by people that benefit financially from reviewing stuff. That is why even with all the fake ones, reviews by consumers are more reliable than 'professional' reviews.
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No it's not. This is pretty normal for industry reveal events. The only thing suspect about these are influencer product reviews of unreleased products, and they always have been suspect, ... from any company. There's literally no such thing as an unbiased review of a "review copy".
If the product isn't out you know your influencer has been properly "looked after". Seriously go pick any soon to be released product and check out influencer reviews, half the time it's like they are reading from a script.
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Only reviews that *like* the Pixel are going to be suspect. Google really made a stupid move here.
Team Pixel (Score:2)
I mean, if they're on "Team Pixel" that means they're part of product marketing.
So this doesn't seem crazy and who is forced to join the marketing team?
YouTube giving an unaffiliated channel a hate speech strike for an unfavorable review is entirely different.
I wonder if FTC plans on breaks up Google and YouTube.
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Actually, it's "here is a free phone, and goodies! Just be sure and tell everyone we're better than the competition."
I suspect they got tired of givng away stuff but not getting a return on investment.
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They may "internally" treat them as "marketing team" but externally these folks appear as unaffiliated independent reviewers.
Basically they want to extend marketing reach to people in a "grass roots" looking way without paying but instead giving people free devices.
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Influencers != reviewers (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw this story before, and at first i was also outraged, until it was specified this is not about reviewers. Reviewers can get a review sample, and give their opinion. This is for a program for online influencers getting a free pixel to just use and show to their followers. And if they don't use the Pixel after getting it for free, i can understand that Google wants it back.
Of course, the entire influencer thing is completely ridiculous, but the way google handles it here seems fair. If you provide something free to someone with the only reason to give it to them is so they use it so their followers can see them using it, then if they don't use it... yeah, return it to Google. Duh.
Afaik there are no such restrictions for reviewers, but people writing this are conflating influencers and reviewers, and that's just not correct.
Re:Influencers != reviewers (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's marked as sponsored content, then it's fine that they add conditions on how the device can be presented. Even if there is no money paid, these are expensive devices, so something of value was transferred.
If it's not marked as sponsored content, the device should be considered a gift and the receiver should be able to do with it as they see fit. I don't think it matters much whether the receiver is a reviewer or influencer.
It seems to me that Google is trying to have their cake and eat it: use influencers to reach potential customers in a way that feels more spontaneous and trustworthy than advertising, but without accepting that the company is then no longer in control of the message, even though the former is caused by the latter.
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If the person doesn't want to accept the terms, then they don't get the free device.
How is this bad or wrong?
Google is just trying to avoid repeats of the countless snafus they have had where their "ambassadors" were caught using iPhones.
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Someone else in this discussion made the parallel to sports star, how they're sponsored by brands and will then only wear that breand. Does that also have to always be marked as sponsored content? Any interview with them must mention "sponsored by Nike" if they're wearing their Nike outfit?
Because that's what this is about. Google gives them a free Pixel under the condition that from then on their daily phone is that Pixel, and if they start using another phone, the Pixel gets returned to google.
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If it's not marked as sponsored content, the device should be considered a gift
Wrong tree.
If it's not marked as sponsored content, the influencer is lying to you. There, fixed that.
Google makes the expectations it has explicit. That means you can not stipulate this is a gift just because the influencer "forgot" to correctly mark the content (s)he creates. It's the responsibility of the influencer, not Google, to let you know that they got it for free and what the conditions for that were.
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They've already been penalized by the FTC... (Score:2)
...over a similar case of deceptive marketing (this was for the Pixel 4), back in February of 2023: https://www.ftc.gov/news-event... [ftc.gov]
You'd think the author of TFA might have mentioned this, but such is the state of journalism today, I guess.
Free Speech absolutist? (Score:2)
Verge has independently confirmed screenshots of the clause ... which various influencers began posting on X ... The link to the form appears to have since been shut down.
"I'm a Free Speech absolutist".
A Lesson from the Minister of Propaganda, the beauty of the Big Lie is that the more you repeat it the more sensible people will deny it, and the more the general audience will tire of hearing the denials.
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Apparently respecting the law and due process didn't enter the picture when it came to Turkey.
will they try to use the DMCA to take down bad rev (Score:2)
will they try to use the DMCA to take down bad reviews?
Not quite beyond the pale (Score:2)
Abusing a dominant market position you say? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the way home from the movies last night the gf asks, "What does Google being antitrusted mean?" and I got to go on a little history lesson about Standard Oil, Ma' Bell, Microsoft, what a monopoly position is, what a trust is, and how trust busting works.
The breakthrough for her understanding was when she started bitching about Amazon, and how they seem to be getting away with it, and my explaining how Monopolies (and near monopolies) are allowed to exist in our system, but the BLATANT abuse of such a Mon
Re:Abusing a dominant market position you say? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not market abuse. It's not about reviews. It's about influencers (aka self-employed marketers) who got the phone for free for the purposes of marketing. Doesn't matter if the company was from some mother's basement. It's a business deal with rules to follow, and the phone IS the payment. You don't think Nike had stipulations for Michael Jordan to not wear competitor's shoes back when he was a spokesperson for them?
Influencers need to stop being entitled, whiny babies, grow up, and get real jobs.
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Influencers need to stop being entitled, whiny babies, grow up, and get real jobs.
With what qualification? Looking good on Snapchat isn't in the job description of any real job I'm aware of.
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If they were any good, they can get hired into the marketing department of many businesses. If not, they can still work at McDonalds.
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If not, they can still work at McDonalds.
Please not. Some people I know eat at McDonalds from time to time and I'd prefer their food is prepared by professionals.
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Ok, so *insert other crappy minimum wage job here*. The place doesn't really matter.
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I got you. I was being sarcastic. Anyway, this is dragging out a joke too far. Thanks for playing.
If you believe "influencers" (Score:1)
Influencers == losers (Score:2)
Whenever I hear the term "influencer" I think underemployed self-important loser with a liberal arts degree. Yeah I know someone that is an "influencer" and the influence seems to be mostly imagined.
Does anyone (Score:2)
and ? (Score:2)
They're called "influencers" for a reason.
Unless you are braindead, you'll assume that anyone with a YouTube channel who tells you that X is the greatest thing since sliced bread has received a kickback, a free product or some other benefit to tell you that.
And honestly, you must be braindead to assume you can sign up to a "get a free product and before it's officially launched, too" program without some strings attached.
I completely fail to see where the story is here.