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Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

theverge.com

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Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#31

Post by lambda »

pedalpete wrote: post #7

I'm going to play devils advocate here and say this is a good change. If google was scaping the text of sites and only displaying that, would we think that was ok? Just like google search, this is about giving you a preview, then go to the source. If you want the image, we all know how to find it, get it. How big of an annoyance is this?

This is a huge annoyance.

A lot of times I am looking for images which are in the public domain, and for which if I go to the page in question, I have to then sort through dozens of images to find the one I had been looking at already in the search.

Here's an example. I've just done a search, found an image that I want to view larger, the image is long since in the public domain, but when I click on "visit" I get a page with a list of text links that I now have to sort through to find the full image:

https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kee...

Edit to add:

Now that I look closer, I notice that Google is actually embedding the original image, instead of a preview (they load a low-res preview, and then replace that with a hotlinked image), so you can just right click and choose "view image" now to work around this.

I guess that's OK for people who are technically inclined enough to know that you can do that.

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#32

Post by techaddict009 »

pedalpete wrote: post #7

I'm going to play devils advocate here and say this is a good change. If google was scaping the text of sites and only displaying that, would we think that was ok? Just like google search, this is about giving you a preview, then go to the source. If you want the image, we all know how to find it, get it. How big of an annoyance is this?

Google does it partially. Its called rich snippet.

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#33

Post by prepend »

So it’s ok for google to scrape and save images and display them without compensating photographers (which I’m cool with), but not users? This is bizarre, anti user functionality.

By default if the image is available on the web, it is meant to be seen. This is going to make high school PowerPoint users spend more time, and result in zero extra revenue and zero drop in copyright infringement.

The more interesting question is why google is doing this.

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#35

Post by throwaway2048 »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #20
shiado wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a feeling the internet copyright fun police had to be involved somewhere. No way Google decides to cripple their product that badly without some kind of legal pressure. It would be funny albeit highly abusive of their position for Google to completely delist Getty from their services, not to damage their business but to prevent copyright infringement of course.

This morning everyone hated Google for hosting news pages on their AMP cache, tonight everyone hates Google for NOT hosting images on their image cache.

The view image button took you to the image hosted on the non-google webserver, it had nothing to do with an image cache (which is still there, its what google shows you in the results).

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#36

Post by ericd »

lambda wrote: post #29
ax0ar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't they just introduce a change that would only affect certain websites such as getty? That would be more logical than completely destroying how image search is meant to be.

No, because Getty is in the business of licensing their images to other sites. If an image appears on a news article, it could be from Getty. If it's on a blog post, it could be from Getty. You could have some protocol by which sites indicated that it can't be linked; but then everyone who embeds a Getty image would have to change their site to adopt that, and that would probably involve Getty having to change their…

That all sounds like a Getty problem.

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#37

Post by jenthoven »

lovelearning wrote: post #27
ax0ar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't they just introduce a change that would only affect certain websites such as getty? That would be more logical than completely destroying how image search is meant to be.

Since the change is motivated by legal reasons, I expect logic didn't have much of a voice in the decision.

Right. I was a PM on Google Image Search and, from what I experienced on the team, would assume this is related to the Getty Relationship, not for users’ benefit

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#38

Post by tritium »

Wow, Google. Inconvenient as fuck. Put it back right away. I don’t even want to use image search anymore. Seriously fucking shitty, shitty, shitty idea.

EDIT: This is the result of litigation with Getty Images? Guess who I’m boycotting. This isn’t the first time they’ve had their fingerprints on bad news.

Re: Google removes ‘view image’ button from search results

#39

Post by huntermeyer »

malwrar wrote: post #6

You can still get to the original image from the results without an extension. If you select an image in the search results and right click on it, you can (in chrome at least) select "Open image in new tab" to get to the full image.

Does not work on mobile.
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