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The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

rankscience.com

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Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#321

Post by a1369209993 »

jeffbee wrote: post #231
wz1000 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the NSA have a bunch of massive datacenters? Regardless of that, the datacenter can be appropriated by the government too.

No, the NSA has one facility that would be a small/medium datacenter in the big league, but only if you assume that the NSA is as efficient as Google, which is a bit of a stretch. NSA Utah: 65 MW Google Pryor, Oklahoma: 340 MW

Megawatts are indicative of compute load, not storage load. I can definitely believe that Google is doing more compute than NSA, but that sounds more like a difference of need, not of ability.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#322

Post by fuzxi »

pb7 wrote: post #184
fuzxi wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like asking for directions to a restaurant and getting directions to a different restaurant.

It's really not. You're asking for a seafood restaurant and are given directions to various seafood restaurants. You are not shown directions to one (a link) and when you show up there, it's another (link was fake).

I disagree. We're not talking about an instance where you search for "search engine" and the first result is Google. We're talking about searching for "Bing" and the first result is Google.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#323

Post by topicseed »

pb7 wrote: post #124
topicseed wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, because it is not always perceived as an Ad. Looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and Google has it #1, so it must be my duck. So in principle, you're right, but in my opinion, it's a lot more powerful than a billboard (clear ad) next to a real storefront.

That's the cost of directing customers to your website even if they misspell your brand name or don't remember if you're a .com or .net or many other things. After all, if they knew to go to topicseed.com, why didn't they type that URL in and go directly there? I certainly don't search for Hacker News or Apple.com or Twitter on Google each time I go there, do you?

Most people going to a specific store do Not know its address. You just know where to find it. You trust that the storefront you're roughly familiar with belongs to the actual shop you're wanting to get into.

You are right but in practice it's just not the same as street stores and restaurants.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#324

Post by wz1000 »

jeffbee wrote: post #318
wz1000 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably that Google data center does a lot of compute intensive, non search related stuff - like GCP for one.

Another thing that people persistently misunderstand is the scale relationship between GCP and the rest of Google.

Even if all you say is true and it is truly impossible for the government to replicate any of what Google does, the point is moot. If the government is going to appropriate Google's index, might as well appropriate the datacenters too. Really, whats Google going to do with them once search is gone? According to you, it is the only thing they have have running there.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#325

Post by komali2 »

Shared404 wrote: post #227
komali2 wrote: post #63

I'm not entirely clear why the answer is "regulate google" and not "the government builds and provides an internet search mechanism for its people." I.e., an actual utility from the start.

I would not trust search provided from the gov, and I suspect most people in the US would feel the same. I can't speak for anywhere else though.

But you do trust search from Google?

If Google decides that it wants the Libertarian party to supplant the Republican party, and begins aggressively tailoring results to that end, what consequences are there? Why wouldn't they do that if they could get away with it? We didn't elect google executives, we have no recourse beyond political theater like the recent congressional hearings.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#326

Post by ALittleLight »

xnx wrote: post #20
ALittleLight wrote: post #11

One Google quirk I've been thinking about lately is the times when you search for something and the thing you want is the top advertised and organic result. Seems like a waste of money. An example, if you search for "heroku" then you get an ad for heroku, which, yeah, is what I was searching for, but heroku is also the top result and obviously what I was looking for. Heroku is paying Google to provide Google with the…

It's also the best way to get accurate data on how many searches for "heroku" there are. Without an ad running, you only get estimates.

That's an interesting idea. I just looked up "heroku" on Google's keyword planner and the max cost per click is 3.00. Is it really worth three dollars a click to know the ratio of people who click heroku over people who search it?

Seems like a crazy loss of money to me.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#327

Post by pydry »

post_below wrote: post #310
pydry wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But as mentioned index and ranking are inextricably tied together. I'm pretty sure they're quite extricably tied together. I'm almost certain google's engine weights the different ranking variables (e.g. page speed) differently depending upon context. Why not expose those variables to other search engines? Well, it would kill google's search engine dominance - if you're concerned with that... Unbundling isn't techni…

Bing's index and algos are not available to DDG, there's no comparison there. DDG uses Bing's results, they can't see how they're produced. Incidentally, Google offers a similar API. > Actually it's probably a LOT easier Can you support that claim? Just the scale alone is mind boggling when it comes to search. Then throw in natural language processing, contextual signals, hubs and authorities, content categorization…

"Search is hard" deliberately misses the point. This isn't about whether search is hard it's about whether decoupling search engine from search index is hard - whether the APIs used by one could be used by others.

This trick you're echoing is, incidentally, used every single time a government comes looking at unbundling opporunities. I remember distinctly how Microsoft claimed it was "too hard" to decouple office from windows. The banks in the UK made the same claim. They were all equally ridiculous and all equally self serving. There is a lot of precedent here.

Google will pretend that it is "impossibly hard" to expose their internal APIs as well, just as every other company did. It would be surprising if they didn't.

Search is hard, yes. A lot harder than exposing APIs, isn't it?

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#328

Post by joe_the_user »

theplague42 wrote: post #277
badRNG wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far . Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization. However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue…

So when Facebook has a monopoly on social media and allows misinformation to spread about _those exact three topics_, what would you suggest we do about it?

If Facebook didn't have a monopoly on social media, would competitive pressure make it stop what you consider misinformation? Of course not. You can find a stream of misinformation in more marginal press outlets. Only larger outlets that have a relative monopoly (NYtimes say), can afford to be relatively free of crude misinformation (but even here they have their very definite spin as does everything).

The only reason people are talking about forcing Facebook to impose some restrictions on communication is because Facebook has somewhat of a monopoly on some communication.

Which is to say that talk of Facebook and regulation winds up being "Facebook is big and powerful and we want the state to have that power instead, damn it". Without liking Facebook's approach all that much, I'm less of a fan of this.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#329

Post by Shared404 »

komali2 wrote: post #325
Shared404 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not trust search provided from the gov, and I suspect most people in the US would feel the same. I can't speak for anywhere else though.

But you do trust search from Google? If Google decides that it wants the Libertarian party to supplant the Republican party, and begins aggressively tailoring results to that end, what consequences are there? Why wouldn't they do that if they could get away with it? We didn't elect google executives, we have no recourse beyond political theater like the recent congressional hearings.

To be honest, I don't trust either. However, I think I trust government less, if only slightly.

I also don't use Google.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#330

Post by Nasrudith »

tehjoker wrote: post #273
badRNG wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far . Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization. However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue…

Those issues are all interrelated. We can't solve them because of corporate domination of the political system and the buying off of the American intelligensia.

Where did that assumption come from? Just because people disagree doesn't mean they are bought off. Citation definitetly needed to even remotely approach a pattern like "bought off" let alone a proof.
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