Google is FUBAR

Cletus: The outrage is from people who feel they were lied to and instead of apologizing google seems to be defending their actions.

You said: As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. This is something you can opt out of (to some extent with privacy controls, otherwise with logging out).

This is not true.

Example 1: Search for cars while "opted" out of G+ results. Ferarri's G+ page is on top on the right, but no link to Ferrari's actual website or their FB page. So if this was focused on relevancy wouldn't the Ferrari link be to Ferrari's home page? Not that I think Ferrari is the most relevant result period, but wouldn't that make sense? Not only that, in your main results Ferrari.com isn't listed in the top 100. So how could they be relevant? This gives pageviews to G+ where the user should be going elsewhere. This isn't just about Twitter/Facebook. Google is driving users to its content over other publishers. This is an ADVERTISEMENT for Google+. 100% Which is against your policies not to mark them clearly as ads. http://www.google.com/competition/howgoogleadswork.html

Example 2: I searched for NFC Championship Game in Google while being opted in. I got a status update from MG Siegler stating he was going to the game in the top 5 results. MG Siegler is not in my circles. Wouldn't an article on the game be 100X better than this result. So you are driving users to your irrelevant content in replace of ESPN. That makes no sense.

Example 3. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-plus-your-world/ - Cutts did a search for werewolf. Was he looking for a picture of himself? Does anyone here find that useful? Most of the comments on his post didn't. I would like to know honestly. Would that be useful to you? Also, in the future, when I search for cars will I see my friends driving their cars as the 2nd result? I would personally rather see some info about how to buy a car or research a car or car prices.

Example 4: You can't opt out 100%. That is disingenuous to say you can.

Example 5: Google was supposed to be "Do No Evil" and you have squashed that. It is worse to be screwed by someone who claims to be trustworthy than someone you know is not. For example, we all knew Microsoft was shady from the beginning so we didn't expect much. But you guys said it was all about relevancy, the user, do no evil, etc. Look at this way, if a girl married Gene Simmons could she honestly be pissed if he was cheating on her? But if a girl married a guy like Donnie Osmond and he cheated she would be devastated. She was probably only with him in the first place because he was trustworthy. You are Donnie Osmond. :)

Anyway, if you guys came clean and said that you are trying to promote your network then maybe people wouldn't be so pissed. As of right now, it looks like you are trying to drive traffic to your own irrelevant content over legitimate content businesses. Since you have a dominant position in search and hundreds of thousands of companies/sites depend on your traffic, they are scared. Google is rapidly getting into the content game and people can only assume you will put your new content above everyone else's. That is bad for business and bad for startups which are country needs so badly right now.

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I bet most users go about their daily lives like this is happening already. I for one, assumed that this sharing was happening already (really, it'd be silly for Google not to do it) and went about my daily life without being affected by it. Most of the 153 million Americans using Google wouldn't give a damn. At least Google is being open an honest about it, unlike other companies who change TOS without really letting the user know. FUBAR indeed.

People love Google services, but they don't like the very things that make those services great. Without knowing who you are and what you're about, they can't accurately filter spam or show you relevant results/ads. There are other spam filters, but they don't work as well because they don't know you.

Yes, Chrome sends information back to Google just like Google Search does: it tracks what searches you make through the Omnibar. Firefox does the same thing when you make Google searches in their search box.

Thank you. I start to feel cold and lonely whenever I go more than a day without seeing somebody trot out the old Father Niemuller quote for something wildly mundane and less important than the Holocaust, and I think in this case it had been two.

We're talking about Picasa having access to your address book (or whatever). Get a freaking grip.

I agree. I was just chatting with some Software Engineers work mates and we are all at a loss to know why the Whine-o-sphere are up in arms about this.

How hard is clicking the option to exclude SPYW results? If you had no opt-out I'd think they had a tiny shred of an issue, but given that you can opt out, this whole issue is a giant WTF???? for me.