Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress • Hacker News Board

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#111

Post by sigmaxipi » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 4:21 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #110

rmrm wrote: post #32

I think Google would be well served if Schmidt had a little more Steve Jobs in him. Not a lot, as I think Jobs might get so frustrated he'd melt down, but a little. Eric makes everything sound somehow slightly sinister, even when it isn't. When asked about something like maps and places the correct answer is: We realized that is what people wanted in response to their queries. We looked around, and the other map prod…

Disagree. Eric Schmidt is being very careful and respectful, knowing that his quotes will be taken apart later, and it's hard when you have congressmen some of which with their own agendas who want to show their constituents that they are asking Google the tough questions and are not afraid to take action. Whenever I see a person and think, "man, that would be really hard for me to do, and I am a CEO!" I think they a…

Eric Schmidt is no longer a programmer, but he was one of the authors of lex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#112

Post by shadowfox » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 4:22 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #110

rmrm wrote: post #32

I think Google would be well served if Schmidt had a little more Steve Jobs in him. Not a lot, as I think Jobs might get so frustrated he'd melt down, but a little. Eric makes everything sound somehow slightly sinister, even when it isn't. When asked about something like maps and places the correct answer is: We realized that is what people wanted in response to their queries. We looked around, and the other map prod…

Disagree. Eric Schmidt is being very careful and respectful, knowing that his quotes will be taken apart later, and it's hard when you have congressmen some of which with their own agendas who want to show their constituents that they are asking Google the tough questions and are not afraid to take action. Whenever I see a person and think, "man, that would be really hard for me to do, and I am a CEO!" I think they a…

> Even though he's not one, as far as I know. :)

He is one of the authors of Lex if that helps :)

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#113

Post by itsnotvalid » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 4:31 AM UTC

They still haven't open sourced Android 3.0, in which they said they would never release that part of Apache licensed code to the public.

So there could then be a possibility, again be hidden APIs so that their tablet app offerings could be better than others.

I personally think that, if you claim open source, some should be able to obtain the code if they are using the software itself. I clearly don't think a normal android tablet user would reasonably grab a copy of that source code.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#114

Post by zem » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 4:59 AM UTC

rmrm wrote: post #98

martincmartin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're asking if we favor our own maps properties, damn right we do. That sound bite would be taken out of context, and the game would be over for Google.

Isn't the fact that Google Maps appear at the top of any results page that might be location related the smoking gun evidence? It's an obvious truth. I understand the need for diplomacy, but acknowledging the obvious and then explaining A) Why you do it, and B) Why you're entitled to do it just seems like the right answer. Or at least more right than saying you don't do it, and acting kind of ashamed about it. Obviou…

no, the google maps thing isn't a ranked search result, it's a onebox result

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-onebox-resul...

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#115

Post by myko » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 5:10 AM UTC

itsnotvalid wrote: post #113

They still haven't open sourced Android 3.0, in which they said they would never release that part of Apache licensed code to the public. So there could then be a possibility, again be hidden APIs so that their tablet app offerings could be better than others. I personally think that, if you claim open source, some should be able to obtain the code if they are using the software itself. I clearly don't think a normal…

Do you have a reason to believe the source code will not be released for Ice Cream Sandwich?

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#116

Post by myko » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 5:12 AM UTC

martingordon wrote: post #66

Last I checked it wasn't possible to switch the default search engine on Android phones (whether it was set to Google or otherwise). Is this still the case? I couldn't find anything conclusive in my searching.

I think generally this is a very simple thing to do, by installing a widget for another search engine for instance. Also once you install Chrome on the desktop you get a choice of Google, Bing, or Yahoo as your default.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#117

Post by kamaal » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 5:39 AM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #35

MikeCapone wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, but one is comparing the consumer tech market as a whole and the other is just in the search market, so this isn't apples to apples (so to speak), no?

Really? Microsoft does: Bing -- second largest search engine XBox -- one of the largest gaming platforms, including Indie games. Windows -- most popular consumer OS Halo -- one of the most popular game franchises ever Kinect -- hottest selling consumer electronics gadget ever Windows Live Messenger -- most popular IM platform in the world Hotmail -- one of the largest email sites in the world IE -- one of the most po…

I guess that's the whole problem, Microsoft wants to be everything to everybody.

Now just compare the same with Apple. They don't have 1/10th the product line as Microsoft and are still more successful.

Focus is important here, when you do so many things and none of them properly you are ultimately in a situation where all your products are weak quality wise. There are always better alternatives in the market and people will feel compelled to switch to them. Imagine this happening with most of your products. Ultimately the whole ecosystem gets weaker.

Even though your numbers may be looking good due to volume, that doesn't tell the whole story. Slowly your competitors one by one will drive you out of the market.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#118

Post by nolliesnom » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 5:42 AM UTC

dmpayton wrote: post #94

Something that kind of irked me about Jeremy Stoppelman's testimony: He failed to mention that Yelp provides an API and, in essence, gives away their data. If Google was consuming their API (vs. scraping content directly from their site), would this even be an issue? Let's assume, hypothetically, that Google used the API provided by Yelp to enhance their search results. If Yelp said, "We don't like what you're doing,…

Agree; this strikes me as a kind of anti-trust theater, with two companies that didn't have the foresight to build their own independent branding strategy (nextag) or actually innovate in local search (yelp) complaining about how they are suffering from their own bad business decisions. They put all their eggs in one basket. Whose fault is that? Not Google's!!

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#119

Post by ashishgandhi » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 5:52 AM UTC

> "Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp and also a witness at today's hearing, said otherwise. He said Google demanded that Yelp comply with Google demands to be included in Google's search engine, including providing its content to Google."

Is that quoted out of context? If not, that sounds worrying.

Re: Eric Schmidt Testifies Before Congress

#120

Post by ybot » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 6:09 AM UTC

ashishgandhi wrote: post #119

> "Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp and also a witness at today's hearing, said otherwise. He said Google demanded that Yelp comply with Google demands to be included in Google's search engine, including providing its content to Google." Is that quoted out of context? If not, that sounds worrying.

From Jeremy Stoppelman's written testimony, as posted on Yelp's blog (here: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2011/09/seeking-a-level-playing...):

"In 2010, Google began incorporating the content that it indexed from its competitors into Google Local without permission. Although Google had previously acknowledged that it needed a license to use Yelp’s content, it was now using it without permission to prop up its own, less effective product. In some instances, Google even presented this content to its users as if it were its own. [See Exhibit C]

Google’s Offers a False Choice

In response to our objections, Google informed us that it would cease the practice only if we agreed to be removed from Google’s web search index, thereby preventing Yelp from appearing anywhere in Google web search results. This, of course, was a false choice. Google’s dominant position in the market prevents services like Yelp from exercising any sort of meaningful choice in the matter: it is a choice between allowing Google to co-opt one’s content and not competing at all."