Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#221

Post by dumbfounder » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #81

teddyh wrote: post #41

The primary case here made against Google might be questionable behavior from Google, but might not be illegal, since simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted, and AFAIK there is no other legal impediment to Google doing what they did (IANAL). What looks far more inculpatory to me is this, on the last page: […] Because it controls essentially the entire internet, Google has endless levers at its dispo…

Taking someone else's copy written content and presenting it as your own can be seen as content theft. Imagine if a book author did that to a chapter of a book. When the one doing it can essential present the case that they should be allowed to do it or they will destroy your business then it's an abuse of power. When they are in a position to actually do it because they have so much of the power in the space it can…

It's much less clear in this case. What about displaying the title of the website, is that ok? Just about everyone would say yes. What about the first few sentences of the page? Ok, I think we are good here, probably ok. What about an intelligent snippet of the website that highlights your search terms? Well, ok we are starting to get a bit gray, because now for some searches we don't need to go to the website anymore. But is it wrong or illegal? Well what about formatting that in a nice way that prominently displays the answer to your query? Well now we have an issue, but how big of a leap was it to get there? But is it wrong because they targeted the website and built parsers specifically for it, or because it is done at all? I don't know. But I think it was a slippery slope that got them there.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#222

Post by andrekandre » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

techntoke wrote: post #197

perseusmandate wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a valid comparison since those are core products of both companies. Google hasn't and never will open source Search.

Android is one of Google's core products, as well as web (including Chromium).

chromium is open source because webkit (khtml) was open source

many useful parts of android are closed, and open source versions of most apps are languishing (calendar, contacts, dialer etc)

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#223

Post by MaximumYComb » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #41

The primary case here made against Google might be questionable behavior from Google, but might not be illegal, since simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted, and AFAIK there is no other legal impediment to Google doing what they did (IANAL). What looks far more inculpatory to me is this, on the last page: […] Because it controls essentially the entire internet, Google has endless levers at its dispo…

Can ficticious characters be copyrighted? Google stole those from home too.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#224

Post by WalterGR » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #206

WalterGR wrote: post #113

Google is incredibly shady. There’s been a manual penalty in place against my website The Online Slang Dictionary ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com ) for the better part of a decade. I know this because the data suggested it - and then a Google employee confirmed it. It would be easy to explain it away because Aaron Peckham, owner of Urban Dictionary, worked at Google when Matt Cutts was head of the Web Spam team, a…

> I do know that when I confronted Cutts about the penalty here on HN he lied about it That's an extreme thing to say and crosses into personal attack. The thread you seem to be referring to ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418864 ) doesn't seem to support what you've said here. At a minimum, you're breaking the site guideline which says: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someo…

I understand. Feel free to kill this thread.

please don't let that boil over into accusations against specific people unless you can strictly demonstrate what you're saying.

I realized that I’m using stronger verbiage here than in the article on my website. I haven’t updated the article in some time. If I recall correctly, it doesn’t contain any evidence/proof that explicitly contradicts specifically what he told me in the linked HN thread. I will update the article, and keep in mind the contents of your comment. Out of legitimate curiosity, at what level in the org chart is it okay to say that someone lied? We can say that the CEO lied. Matt was a senior employee who was also very public: he was the face of Google’s ranking algorithms.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#225

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #189

mthoms wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we agree. If the numbers required actual research they should be copyright-able.

If each entry was individually researched by a person that made judgements by weighing various sources of information against each other to arrive at an estimate, then yes I think they'd have a pretty strong legal argument.

Amusingly, the reality that their net worth figures are (for the most part) made up works to their advantage here.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#226

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #219

WalterGR wrote: post #113

Google is incredibly shady. There’s been a manual penalty in place against my website The Online Slang Dictionary ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com ) for the better part of a decade. I know this because the data suggested it - and then a Google employee confirmed it. It would be easy to explain it away because Aaron Peckham, owner of Urban Dictionary, worked at Google when Matt Cutts was head of the Web Spam team, a…

I have 20+ years of SEO experience, going back before it was commonly called SEO, before Google even existed. I cut my SEO teeth figuring out how to manipulate AltaVista rankings. Here, I've marked up a typical content page of yours, showing what's wrong very blatantly. It took about 30 seconds to diagnose the whole site based on the repeating content farm structures and thin content problems. https://i.imgur.com/k5b…

[deleted]

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#227

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 8:54 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #71

teddyh wrote: post #41

The primary case here made against Google might be questionable behavior from Google, but might not be illegal, since simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted, and AFAIK there is no other legal impediment to Google doing what they did (IANAL). What looks far more inculpatory to me is this, on the last page: […] Because it controls essentially the entire internet, Google has endless levers at its dispo…

>> but might not be illegal, since simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted, and AFAIK there is no other legal impediment to Google doing what they did (IANAL). Forbes for one spends a LOT of money hiring people to try to estimate the net-worth. So it is a number--but one that someone paid a lot of money to get it. Illegal? Maybe. Not-ethical? Very much so IMO

How do you know how much money they spend?

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#228

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #110

wombatmobile wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on, Jeff8. And when Teddyh says "simple numbers like a dollar amount can’t be copyrighted" he's ignoring the fact that google isn't just copying dollar amounts. Google's copying a data set which establishes a dollar amount as a net worth of a particular person. That's a database. The only difficulty for CNW will be coming up with the money, time, and emotional energy to achieve a result in court over as many ye…

The mere fact that he compiled the database isn't sufficient to qualify for copyright protection. He'll have to show that he used a sufficient level of creativity to arrive at the numbers he displayed. Based on his testimony, I suspect he'd have a reasonable case to argue, but he'd have to show that his researchers carefully weighed different sources and made other judgements for each individual celebrity rather than…

Why would that be necessary? Google copied celebrities the CNW founder invented out of thin air. Not just their net worth, but their very existence.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#229

Post by WalterGR » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #219

WalterGR wrote: post #113

Google is incredibly shady. There’s been a manual penalty in place against my website The Online Slang Dictionary ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com ) for the better part of a decade. I know this because the data suggested it - and then a Google employee confirmed it. It would be easy to explain it away because Aaron Peckham, owner of Urban Dictionary, worked at Google when Matt Cutts was head of the Web Spam team, a…

I have 20+ years of SEO experience, going back before it was commonly called SEO, before Google even existed. I cut my SEO teeth figuring out how to manipulate AltaVista rankings. Here, I've marked up a typical content page of yours, showing what's wrong very blatantly. It took about 30 seconds to diagnose the whole site based on the repeating content farm structures and thin content problems. https://i.imgur.com/k5b…

Thanks for your feedback. It’s quite similar to other feedback I’ve gotten, from non-employees on Google’s webmaster forums.

My site is the only site on the web with legitimate definitions of slang terms and citations of their use and other data. My site offensivest.com is the only large-scale analysis of the vulgarity of text works - using data from the site. Until a couple years ago, it was the only slang thesaurus available without payment on the web. I invite you to check out similar sites to calibrate your sense of whether it’s low or high quality. For example, you could compare my site’s content, ads, and ranking to internetslang.com. https://internetslang.com/DBA-meaning-definition.asp Is representative of the site.

I don’t understand your saying that my site is a content farm. Almost every definition has been hand-edited by me. The citations are all blacked out. In terms of calibration, https://urbanthesaurus.org/ is another good site to look at. It takes its definitions directly from Urban Dictionary.

But fundamentally it boils down to: a Google employee looked it up and told me that there’s a manual penalty against my site.

Re: Statement on Google’s conduct by founder of CelebrityNetWorth.com (2019) [pdf]

#230

Post by adventured » Mon, Aug 10, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #229

adventured wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 20+ years of SEO experience, going back before it was commonly called SEO, before Google even existed. I cut my SEO teeth figuring out how to manipulate AltaVista rankings. Here, I've marked up a typical content page of yours, showing what's wrong very blatantly. It took about 30 seconds to diagnose the whole site based on the repeating content farm structures and thin content problems. https://i.imgur.com/k5b…

Thanks for your feedback. It’s quite similar to other feedback I’ve gotten, from non-employees on Google’s webmaster forums. My site is the only site on the web with legitimate definitions of slang terms and citations of their use and other data. My site offensivest.com is the only large-scale analysis of the vulgarity of text works - using data from the site. Until a couple years ago, it was the only slang thesaurus…

> It’s quite similar to other feedback I’ve gotten, from volunteers on Google’s webmaster forums.

Then why haven't you corrected the thin content problem? Your site is drowning in content farm structures and thin content.

> My site is the only site on the web with legitimate definitions of slang terms and citations of their use and other data.

What you're saying has nothing to do with the problem. Your pages do not have enough original content on them, they're suffering from an extreme shallow content penalty. If only 5-10% of the words on your pages are original, quality content and the rest is content farm structured words, you are going to get massively penalized for that.

> Almost every definition has been hand-edited by me. The citations are all blacked out. I don’t understand your saying that my site is a content farm.

I'm saying that Google has judged it to be a content farm based on how they rank content and how they look for mass repeating structures on a site's pages vs how much high quality original content is on each page. This isn't complex SEO, this is very, very simple to diagnose. I wasn't joking when I said it took all of 30 seconds to figure out the problem with your site.

If all you have on a given page is 30 to 50 words of original text (text you wrote by hand so to speak), you will not rank, you will not get much traffic. That's SEO 101. Most of your topic page layout consists of repeating structures, such as: the header, the footer, the map, share / tweet / email section, related words, how common is this slang, how vulgar is this slang, link to this slang. That's all of zero or negative value.

One more time: ~95% of your page structure is of zero value for SEO purposes, and the only value on the pages is a few dozen words of original text. It's not enough; it's not even remotely close to being enough. That needs to be hundreds of words ideally, at a minimum.

> But fundamentally it boils down to: a Google employee looked it up and told me that there’s a manual penalty against my site.

That's very clearly not the problem with your site. It's the extremely shallow/thin content stacked against the repeating content farm structures on every page.