I think, the best solution here will be for Google to sell all its assets and business in Australia to a company to be named by the Australian prime minister.
If they wish to continue to offer search there that is.
Google: Open Letter to Australians
31–40 of 437 posts
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#32Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…
As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.
I've actually preferred it on Google services. I seem to get the same recommended videos on YT otherwise and I like how unlikely I am to click on an ad if I ever see one.
What personalization products do you work on? Just curious if there are other services/situations where it's a better experience.
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#33Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…
As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.
I get more relevant results from DuckDuckGo. Who doesn't do the personalisation to begin with.
I have found personalisation doesn't work for any search product. YouTube's ranking engine won't get me what I'm looking for. Google's personalised search doesn't get me what I'm looking for, and the de-personalised whilst better, only gets me halfway there because it still tries to geo-bubble me.
I am aware that what I search for makes me slightly outside the norm. All attempts to bubble me fail because of that, and turn your product into nothing more than an exercise in frustration as I try to escape the narrow roads you expect me to walk.
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#34I'd probably trust the Australian govt to protect my data better than Google or even worse Facebook. The way the article has twisted the words in Google's favour is commendable though. Marketing really is everything.
I feel less comfortable handing my data over to an entity that has a monopoly on violence but that’s just me.
[deleted]
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#35404. Got a copy?
It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs. Here is the HTML they serve to me: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/skissane/05bac6c78d99e359... Text: Open letter to Australians We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube. A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse G…
It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs.
I wonder how that conversation goes...
Middle manager: We have a message that we want an entire continent to see. But only that continent. Nobody else.
Webdev: OK, but why?
Middle manager: Because if people outside of that continent see what's happening on that continent, they might want the same thing.
Webdev: That feels weird and icky.
Middle manager: Here, have some stock options and office toys.
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.
I can confidently assure you that I've had that feature off for ages and could not possibly be happier about it.
It's definitely possible to have a good experience without personalization. Depending on how much you inherently value google not storing data about you, it may be the only way for you to be happy.
But it's very unlikely the actual product experience would be worse with personalization enabled, measured by probability that a search includes something relevant near the top.
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.
I've actually preferred it on Google services. I seem to get the same recommended videos on YT otherwise and I like how unlikely I am to click on an ad if I ever see one. What personalization products do you work on? Just curious if there are other services/situations where it's a better experience.
I work on a lot of different products, usually trying to answer the related question "how much better on average is the personalized experience". Often I look at the more relevant but less profitable question, "what percent of users would have had a better experience without personalization". It's always been <1%.
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK you're missing a crucial point - they're trying to require G/FB to pay out billions to old (read: dying) media publications, which will crush small publications. On the Open Web, ABC News should get the exact same treatment at JoeBloggsYT2020.
That's my main problem with it. Extend those minimum standards for everyone regardless of revenue and other selective filters. Can someone explain what this means? > providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. Is it saying google or facebook need to tell news publication about when/which users are accessing thier conten…
This reads to me more as if though G/FB have to tell news organizations what data is being collected, rather than disclosing the actual data.
A quote from the Q&A seems to clarify:
> give news media businesses clear information about the nature and availability of user data collected through users’ interactions with news on their services;
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#39I think, the best solution here will be for Google to sell all its assets and business in Australia to a company to be named by the Australian prime minister. If they wish to continue to offer search there that is.
and give google 45 or 90 days to comply
Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.
I can confidently assure you that I've had that feature off for ages and could not possibly be happier about it.
as another person who worked on personalization I can assure you that way over 90% of users prefer personalization. Decades of A/B tests have proven that.
And yes, some people, myself included turn it OFF because of privacy concerns. But we are in a really small minority.