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Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

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Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#231

Post by [deleted] »

kllrnohj wrote: post #196
WalterGR wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This year old article is a bit bogus though. As other pointed out, the hit on SEO came from changing from .ch to .com Could you point to a source for this? I'm curious, because the article says: "After that public exchange, ProtonMail was apparently informed within a few days that Google had 'fixed something' — and after that it was able to see immediately positive results" Switching to a different domain shouldn't _…

> Switching to a different domain shouldn't _delist_ a site from Google's SERPs as long as the switch is done properly... Is there any reason to believe ProtonMail did the switch properly? Maybe Google's fix was just to manually correct for ProtonMail botching the switch?

[deleted]

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#232

Post by Barrin92 »

zakk wrote: post #75
fastball wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... I'll rag on Google's poor support as much as the next guy, but only when it's warranted. ProtonMail and anyone else that gets delisted / what-have-you is not Google's client and shouldn't expect first-class support for things like this.

> It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... Yes you have. If Google is not representing competitors fairly in search results, that's abuse of dominant position.

correct, as seen by the successful anti competitive lawsuits against Google in the European Union.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#233

Post by wfo »

msla wrote: post #228
wfo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If anti-trust is your concern, make Google smaller. Regulate what % of marketshare they are allowed to control. Don't allow them to purchase any more competitors. This is one method, but the massive natural monopoly over search and 'gateway to the Internet' isn't something that is particularly well served by market competition, as we can see here. If we break up google, another monopoly will develop. If we prevent m…

> Require that companies that provide these public goods be run democratically, transparently by their workers as a public co-op. In addition to everything else wrong with this, what do you do when the workers decide that your niche interest is terrible, horrible, and shouldn't ought to be available to anyone at all? Using a competing product isn't an option because, in your world, there would be no competition, just…

You use a different co-op, naturally. You are conflating two solutions I offered, they are distinct and incompatible. A market but with worker controlled firms OR nationalized search. In one case you pick a different firm exactly like today, in the other you vote or petition the government.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#234

Post by dreamcompiler »

drdaeman wrote: post #185
dreamcompiler wrote: post #156

Search is now as vital to the Internet as DNS. As such, having it be run by an unregulated, for-profit monopoly is looking less and less acceptable. As a minimum remedy, Google should probably establish a defined email address or web site where complaints like this are answered within 24 hours by a human. It's not like they can't afford it, and it might hold off full-on regulation of their activities a while longer.

By saying "full-on regulation of their activities" do you suggest that it's some (which exactly?) government or committee is who would decide on search ranking algorithms and what shows up in the results and what doesn't? Or is it something else?

I'm suggesting that, in an effort to ensure fairness of opportunity and no anticompetitive practices are taking place, governments might begin to see Google as the public utility monopoly that it has de facto become, and start treating it like one. Google might want to get out in front of this by being a bit more transparent and responsive to its users.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#235

Post by tedunangst »

msla wrote: post #227
fastball wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you should address the root of the problem, not all the little symptoms. The issue isn't "Google has the power and occasional reason to remove search results"... the issue is "Google is so big/dominant that when they remove a single result it can have a huge impact". If anti-trust is your concern, make Google smaller. Regulate what % of marketshare they are allowed to control. Don't allow them to purchase an…

> If anti-trust is your concern, make Google smaller. Regulate what % of marketshare they are allowed to control. How? Because this... > Don't allow them to purchase any more competitors. ...doesn't achieve that end. Google could have a thousand competitors and 99% of the marketshare, because just because a competitor exists doesn't compel, or even slightly persuade, anyone to use it. I'm all for antitrust laws. I ju…

Obvious solution: quotas. If there are 10 billion searches per month, we limit each company to 25% of that. After Google performs 2.5 billion searches in one month, they have to shut down until the end of the month. Easy peasy. What could go wrong?

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#236

Post by tedunangst »

coldtea wrote: post #91
fastball wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Because that seems to be what you're gunning for.

> So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Forced (inter-)nationalization of Google under the control of the UN. > Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Pretty much yes. Charges should be bared by the Global Federation of Essential Services.

So what happens when another company makes a search engine that's better than UN Search and users switch to that? Does the UN just eat them up too? Round and round? Or do we make everybody sign a Search Antiproliferation Treaty that bans private search engines?

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#237

Post by tyingq »

merb wrote: post #217
tyingq wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines" Or, Google can get around that by repeatedly tweaking the algorithm on purpose to demote specific types of sites. http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/ . (long read, but comparison shopping sites didn't violate any guidelines) Ther…

> but comparison shopping sites didn't violate any guidelines most comparsion shopping sites were anoying and did get ranked for everything I wanted to buy. I.e. "buy television" gave you 1. amazon, 2-6. comparsion sites. If I wanted to compare televisions I would've entered "compare televisions pricing", etc.

If you follow the FTC link above, though, the human testers Google used liked them.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#238

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

z3t4 wrote: post #12

Don't depend on search for people to find your product. Just like you do not include vesting when comparing salaries between startups.

So I do what? Printout flyers with a link to my unmonetized blog and put them on subway stations? Talk about completely impractical advice.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#239

Post by Tyrannosaur »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #175
mark_l_watson wrote: post #114

There are many major actors, both corporate and governmental, that don’t like privacy enhancing services like ProtonMail. No conspiracy theory, just large actors acting ruthlessly in their own self interest. This year old article is a bit bogus though. As other pointed out, the hit on SEO came from changing from .ch to .com ProtonMail, and other similar services, deserve to be supported in my opinion. I have recommen…

Is ProtonMail still free? If so, I dislike that greatly. I switched to FastMail a while back and while reviewing options, I wanted to use ProtonMail.. but a free option seems far too unreliable for something as important as email. I need to know how they're paying the bills, basically. I prefer their incentives to be perfectly inline with mine, because I am paying their bills for my portion of usage.

https://protonmail.com/pricing

They have several tiers, including a free tier. The free tier is pretty limited; I wonder what percentage of their userbase stays there.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#240

Post by staunch »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #149
DeusExMachina wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that every discussion about Google, Facebook and the like doing something that is not good always ends with the “it’s a private company” wildcard. As if this excuses any kind of behavior. Specifically, in this case there are in many countries antitrust laws, which target public and private companies alike.

We are not talking about "any kind of behavior". We are talking about whether a private company whose business model is to provide internet search results should have the right to decide whether to exclude certain content from those results. You can make an argument that entities like Google and Facebook have too much power, but I don't see the argument that compels such companies to include X in their service based…

> I don't see the argument that compels such companies to include X in their service based on whether its "fair" or not.

If our system worked, Google would almost certainly broken up and most of their databases (full of people's private information) couldn't exist legally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_business_practices

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law#United_States_...

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