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

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

#371

Post by Const-me »

Shared404 wrote: post #364
Const-me wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not even limited to now-obsolete hardware That's not correct, it is limited. The primary reason being GPU drivers, Vista switched to hardware compositor, as a side effect they reworked kernel API of GPU drivers. I don't think Intel, NVidia or AMD ship drivers for WinXP x64, or Server 2003, for their current generations of products. To lesser extent, same applies to the rest of the hardware: I don't expect it's…

Isn't there a fallback driver that almost all graphics cards support? It seems like if anyone wrote a single implementation of that it would work.

Depends on your definition of “work”.

The driver is called “basic display adapter” or something like that. Modern Windows is barely usable without 3D GPU acceleration. Too many pixels to render and doing that on CPU is too slow, especially so on laptops. Vast majority of modern software, web browsers included, normally use a 3D GPU to render. And since Vista, windows desktop compositor, dwm.exe, uses a 3D GPU to compose windows into desktop.

Old Win32 apps working on XP will be OK, though. WinXP shell didn’t require nor use a 3D GPU, and very few apps of the era were using GPUs. Unless you have too many pixels in the display, or the app in question renders 3D graphics of any sort, the performance probably gonna be adequate.

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

#372

Post by joshuamorton »

Const-me wrote: post #370
joshuamorton wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you've subtly changed the discussion from "here's why Google should be a public utility" to "here's what personally perturbs me about Google, and why I dislike it". > Google’s “Ad” is barely noticeable, DDG’s “Ad” has very noticeable outline. Google doesn’t show URL, DDG does. This is personal preference (and possibly subject to experiments), but when I searched "android phone", I found it easier to differe…

> here's why Google should be a public utility I don’t think it’s too important. What’s important is enforceable regulations. There’re many industries that aren’t public utilities but are heavily regulated for safety reasons, e.g. food production and air transportation. > This is personal preference (and possibly subject to experiments) http://const.me/tmp/web-search/g1.png Just two “Ad” letters with no other visual…

> No URLs anywhere. Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something.

What? "www.techradar.com" is a URL.

> Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something.

No it doesn't, unless you try to copy the link to an advertisement, in which case it uses a link tracker, in the same way that DDG does (try it!).

> Just two “Ad” letters with no other visual cues.

But, unlike DDG, those are the first things you see, which means I can visually filter away ads if I don't want them, while on DDG I have to read the entire result name before I can see whether or not something is an ad.

> Note the initial portion of the result URL is visible, not just the domain.

No actually I have no clue what you're talking about. The URLs look the same to me, unless you mean "https://" being visible which doesn't matter unless you're expecting a result accessible via gopher.

I'm honestly confused now. Your statements disagree with your own screenshots.

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

#373

Post by [deleted] »

pydry wrote: post #327
post_below wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

[deleted]

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

#374

Post by rosstex »

ALittleLight wrote: post #326
xnx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe Heroku gets a deal by virtue of being Heroku?

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

#375

Post by Const-me »

joshuamorton wrote: post #372
Const-me wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here's why Google should be a public utility I don’t think it’s too important. What’s important is enforceable regulations. There’re many industries that aren’t public utilities but are heavily regulated for safety reasons, e.g. food production and air transportation. > This is personal preference (and possibly subject to experiments) http://const.me/tmp/web-search/g1.png Just two “Ad” letters with no other visual…

> No URLs anywhere. Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something. What? "www.techradar.com" is a URL. > Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something. No it doesn't, unless you try to copy the link to an advertisement , in which case it uses a link tracker, in the same way that DDG does (try it!). > Just two “Ad” letters with no other visual cues. But,…

> www.techradar.com is a URL.

The result URL is much longer than www.techradar.com. Here’s more information on the syntax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier#Ge...

> No it doesn't, unless you try to copy the link to an advertisement, in which case it uses a link tracker

Yes, it does. The only difference, URLs from ads start with google.com/aclk as opposed to google.com/url for fair search results.

> unlike DDG, those are the first things you see

That just 2 letters, not even uppercase. And these 2 letters are the only thing to distinguish ads from fair search.

I understand their business is more profitable this way, but as a user I don’t like their design and I’d like them to fix that, despite they gonna lose money doing so. Essentially, they only implemented absolute minimum to comply with the regulations: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/nat... Nothing inherently bad with the approach, most businesses all over the world do that all the time. The right way to fix that is not public shaming, but adjusting the regulations. Classifying them as a public utility might be a big step in the right direction.

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

#377

Post by joshuamorton »

Const-me wrote: post #375
joshuamorton wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No URLs anywhere. Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something. What? "www.techradar.com" is a URL. > Right click / copy link is broken as well, copies “google.com/url?” something. No it doesn't, unless you try to copy the link to an advertisement , in which case it uses a link tracker, in the same way that DDG does (try it!). > Just two “Ad” letters with no other visual cues. But,…

> www.techradar.com is a URL. The result URL is much longer than www.techradar.com. Here’s more information on the syntax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier#Ge... > No it doesn't, unless you try to copy the link to an advertisement, in which case it uses a link tracker Yes, it does. The only difference, URLs from ads start with google.com/aclk as opposed to google.com/url for fair search resul…

When right click and copy the URL, I get "https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-web-hosting-servi.... So I'm not sure what you're doing, but I can't reproduce that behavior.

> And these 2 letters are the only thing to distinguish ads from fair search.

Like I said, "This is personal preference". You can have a different preference, but you aren't correct. Much like your definition of "fairness" isn't objective. A bold prefix marking something as an ad is pretty clear. For me it was easier to distinguish ads on Google than on DDG. You may have a different subjective experience. That's okay, but we shouldn't base legislation on your subjective experience.

> Here’s more information on the syntax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier#Ge....

I'm going to leave it at that and disengage.

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

#378

Post by beders »

s3r3nity wrote: post #83
beders wrote: post #15

Google is a private corporation that runs various free services, i.e. you are the product. You agreed to their terms and services. If you don't like that, you can use a competitor. As long as there's an open internet infrastructure, there's no anti-competitive behavior. Everyone can be a google competitor of one of its services. Case in point, DuckDuckGo etc. If you want to regulate something, start with the ISPs and…

> As long as there's an open internet infrastructure, there's no anti-competitive behavior. While I _really_ want to agree with you here, in all due respect this is a naive view on antitrust theory. Elasticity of demand - the ease at which you as a consumer can switch to competitive offerings if price were to suddenly skyrocket - is only one factor of the calculus regarding whether or not Google is anti-competitive.…

Yeah, but following your argument, no one can ever build a better car...

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

#379

Post by ewzimm »

Supermancho wrote: post #236
marta_morena_25 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway, there are bigger problems in the world than Google. While I am not sure payment processing is more urgent that regulating Google, there are many other things that are orders of magnitudes more important to tackle than regulating Google.

"Anyway", talking about the relative morality of the discussion is a derail from the ostensible topic.

Anyway, on the topic, none of the reasons presented in the article seem compelling. Government regulation should step in when consumers have no choice but to use something that has achieved a monopoly, and the payment networks mentioned do make a more compelling case.

It seems inappropriate for regulation to step in when something happens to be popular but there are equal or better alternatives easily available, and changing to a different search engine is about the easiest change a person could make in their life.

In the case of mitigating any bad behavior by Google, there's a very easy alternative solution for the problem, which is to convince people to use other search engines. I haven't used Google as mine for over 15 years and I don't believe I've suffered at all for it. I've found DuckDuckGo to perfectly suit my needs. Google run as a public utility could potentially hurt all the other search engines that many would consider to be superior solutions already.

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

#380

Post by a1369209993 »

Const-me wrote: post #371
Shared404 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a fallback driver that almost all graphics cards support? It seems like if anyone wrote a single implementation of that it would work.

Depends on your definition of “work”. The driver is called “basic display adapter” or something like that. Modern Windows is barely usable without 3D GPU acceleration. Too many pixels to render and doing that on CPU is too slow, especially so on laptops. Vast majority of modern software, web browsers included, normally use a 3D GPU to render. And since Vista, windows desktop compositor, dwm.exe, uses a 3D GPU to comp…

> Modern Windows is barely usable without 3D GPU acceleration.

That is a specific example (admittedly only one) of why Windows XP is better than Windows 10, so I'm not sure why you're citing that as if it supports your point.

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