Google asks users to help spot spam in Search
San Francisco, June 10 : Google took action on nearly 90,000 user reports of spam in its Search in 2017 and has now asked more users to come forward and help the tech giant spot and squash spam.
According to Juan Felipe Rincon, Global Search Outreach Lead at Google, the automated Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems are constantly working to detect and block spam.
"Still, we always welcome hearing from you when something seems fishy. Reporting spam, malware and other issues you find helps us protect the site owner and other searchers from this abuse," Rincon said in a blog post.
"You can file a spam report, a phishing report or a malware report. You can also alert us to any issue with Google search by clicking on the 'Send feedback' link at the bottom of the search results page," he added.
Last year, Google sent over 45 million notifications to registered website owners, alerting them to possible problems with their websites which could affect their appearance in search.
"Just as Gmail fights email spam and keeps it out of your inbox, our search spam fighting systems work to keep your search results clean," Rincon said.
In 2017, Google conducted over 250 webmaster meetups and office hours around the world reaching more than 220,000 website owners.
"Last year, we sent 6 million manual action messages to webmasters about practices we identified that were against our guidelines, along with information on how to resolve the issue," the Google executive said.
With AI-based systems, Google was able to detect and remove more than 80 per cent of compromised sites from search results last year.
"We're also working closely with many providers of popular content management systems like WordPress and Joomla to help them fight spammers that abuse forums and comment sections," the blog post said.
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UN: India calls on international community to act together against ISIS, Al Qaeda
United Nations (PTI): India has called on the international community to act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies, underlining that terrorism is an “existential threat” to international peace and security.
“Terrorism is an existential threat to international peace and security. It knows no borders, nationality, or race, and is a challenge that the international community must combat collectively,” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Raghoo Puri said on Wednesday.
In remarks to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) annual ambassadorial level briefing to Member States, Puri recalled the April 2025 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, carried out by The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN listed terror organisation. The terror attack led to the loss of lives of 26 tourists.
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“We must act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies,” he said, adding that as a country which itself has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for the past nearly three decades, “India is acutely aware of the socio-economic and human cost of terrorism, especially for its victims.”
India added its voice in stressing on the importance of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) as a central instrument for multilateral cooperation.
Puri said India will remain steadfast and engaged in the consultations for the 9th review of the GCTS, assuring full cooperation to co-facilitators Finland and Morocco during negotiations in the process.
Puri also highlighted that as Chair of the Counter Terrorism Committee in 2022, India has striven to bring these principles into the counter-terrorism architecture of the UN and into the debate on terrorism at the United Nations.
“Our follow up initiatives both in New York and around the world stand testimony to our commitment,” including the ‘Delhi Declaration’ - a landmark document to deal with the issue of countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes, an issue Puri said is of acute importance for several Member States.
In October 2022, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), chaired by India that year, had organised a special meeting in New Delhi and Mumbai on the overarching theme of ‘Countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes’.
As an outcome of the special meeting, the committee had adopted the ‘Delhi Declaration’ on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.
India continues to work closely with the UN via its various entities to build capacity and make its partners future ready to take on the ever-evolving scourge of terrorism, he said.
