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The world needs more search engines

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Re: The world needs more search engines

#161

Post by rbinv »

detaro wrote: post #156
dewey wrote: post #140

Was looking at that Cliqz company out of curiosity and while browsing their job page ( https://cliqz.com/en/about/careers/campaign-manager ) saw this: "MyOffrz is opening a brand new marketing discipline: Browser Based Performance Marketing. This innovative technology makes it possible to show users discounts, special offers and valuable information with true added value within the browser. As a 100% subsidiary of Cl…

Their entire premise is that they can do an ad-financed product with less invasive tracking. Obviously, that involves advertising people.

Tracking and targeting are just two possible reasons why people dislike ads. Invasiveness is another one - think popups, popunders, layers, interstitials, pre-/postrolls etc.

So even if they don't do "tracking", injecting ads surely isn't something the average user "signed up for" when downloading the browser.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#163

Post by lucb1e »

bogwog wrote: post #158
jefftk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Google Search still knows who you are when you search in Incognito mode? (Or, in Firefox, if you open a private browsing window.) How would it know? There are advertising companies that use fingerprinting for ad targeting, but Google doesn't. (Disclosure: I work at Google on ads, speaking only for myself)

So you're confirming that Google tracks you without using fingerprinting methods? That's not really surprising considering how much they data have on people. It's also a good example of their monopoly position; Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, advertising and analytics code on almost every website, ownership of multiple of the most popular websites and services on the internet puts them in a unique position that no one co…

> So you're confirming that Google tracks you without using fingerprinting methods?

That's literally the opposite of what s/he just said. The person you're responding asked "How would it know?", implying that they (while being on the Google ads team) think there is no way to know without fingerprinting (or cookies from non-incognito mode).

Re: The world needs more search engines

#164

Post by pythux »

weinzierl wrote: post #153
tpllaha wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an autosuggest feature in the browser which shows search results as you type. Goes without saying that this requires a request per keystroke. If each request contained a unique user id, that would be concerning, but that is not the case. that the search query itself goes to their servers is just common sense, but those requests are anonymized. (Disclaimer: I'm a former employee)

Oh, the requests contained much more than the keystrokes and I looked into the anonymization claims as well. I'd have to dig out my Wireshark traces to tell you exactly what was transmitted, but I'm pretty sure it was enough to id the user. And by the way Cliqz never claimed that the anonymization happens at the endpoint, from what I remember they were very proud of their proprietary anonymization technology in the b…

Thanks for the feedback, if you find something fishy in the requests then that's like a bug and we will gladly fix it ASAP.

Disclaimer: I work at Cliqz.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#165

Post by antepodius »

kuschku wrote: post #133
keepper wrote: post #71

It’s really sad to see the anti-success rhetoric. I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. This “romantization” of this ideal state, devoid of historical context or acknowledgement of the world we live in is extremwly counter productive. Should google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple do better? Absofuckinglutely!!! Regulate them…

> Even worse, likely in a country that won’t match your same values of “freedom” For many people in the world, the US already is a country that matches this exact description - what with toothless antitrust laws, anti-union actions being tolerated, and what the ICE camps look like is something we don't even have to talk about. Sure, China would be worse, but you should strive for more than just "the second worst deve…

The US is far less restricted than europe for freedom of speech, the major principle that matters when you're talking about information technology.

In the case of search engine balkanisation (I'd be in favour of it), I'd think that eurosearch would, on average, be more censorious than amerifind.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#166

Post by icotyl »

arrosenberg wrote: post #112

How do you design regulation that holds the giants accountable, doesn't impair smaller companies' ability to enter/innovate in the space, and isn't quickly corruptible by the (well-resourced) companies you are trying to control? We're better served by breaking them up and enforcing and strengthening the pro-competition laws on the books. The government has a pretty mixed record with regulating industry, and a far mor…

What is the corporate abuse here that necessitates a breakup?

Re: The world needs more search engines

#167

Post by tanilama »

shadowgovt wrote: post #13
tanilama wrote: post #8

Nah, two or more search engines all being the product of US big techs won't solve the problem. EU should have its own search engine. They should subsidize this effort and have Google pay for it.

I've heard that rhetoric somewhere else, and I expect having Google pay for it will go about as well as having Mexico fund a wall across the border with the US. But the European taxpayer should absolutely pay for it.

EU can just fine Google and use that money as a foundation to build competitors.

Need not to be more complicated than that. It is not like Google is the same darling it once was at home either. The public now has an appetite to go after US big techs not vice versa.

And Google won't have a valid defense against it, unless the US government comes to play

Re: The world needs more search engines

#168

Post by axaxs »

keepper wrote: post #71

It’s really sad to see the anti-success rhetoric. I was around during the “search wars”, and what’s usually forgotten is that well, they were by far the best behaved as a corporate entity. This “romantization” of this ideal state, devoid of historical context or acknowledgement of the world we live in is extremwly counter productive. Should google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple do better? Absofuckinglutely!!! Regulate them…

If Google were still as well behaved after success, I don't think posts like this would exist.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#169

Post by noncoml »

bko wrote: post #73

Google's dominance is almost entirely due to the fact that its by far the best at search. I use ddg, but I use google search via !g about 25-50% of the time after a failed attempts. And 9 times out of 10 Google gives me exactly what I'm looking for. For instance: "the actor that plays the news guy in spiderman" ddg: Tom Holland (side bar) Spider-Man Homecoming (imdb) Tom Holland (wiki) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Ver…

Don’t use incognito mode, use the tor browser.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#170

Post by detaro »

rbinv wrote: post #161
detaro wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their entire premise is that they can do an ad-financed product with less invasive tracking. Obviously, that involves advertising people.

Tracking and targeting are just two possible reasons why people dislike ads. Invasiveness is another one - think popups, popunders, layers, interstitials, pre-/postrolls etc. So even if they don't do "tracking", injecting ads surely isn't something the average user "signed up for" when downloading the browser.

Sure, I totally agree. Doesn't change that that's the business Cliqz is trying to build. They're promising to be better on the privacy front than other ad-based products (we'll see how they actually do, I'm somewhat skeptical), not to be "distraction-free" or "non-targeted". That might not be the product you, I or many other people want.
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