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Google is FUBAR

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Re: Google is FUBAR

#191

Post by mattmanser »

redthrowaway wrote: post #168
mattmanser wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think MS's actions didn't have serious consequences? Broken companies, destroyed dreams, lack of progress? We're 5 or 6 years behind where we should have been with the web because of them. And I still buy their stuff. Good Guy Gates is a disturbing meme in my book, the greatest trick and all that. But on to my point, you must have an extremely short attention span, do you not even remember what happen…

I'm not talking about MS being evil, I'm talking about the routine bitching about things as minor as this. The same bitching people do about Facebook's UI changes. Buzz was a serious fuckup on Google's part, and they learned their lesson. Case closed. It has precisely zero relevance to the "issue" at hand, which is that Google is going to start doing what everyone assumed they did anyway and use your behaviour across…

The case obviously isn't closed or minor or we wouldn't be here. This wouldn't have climbed the rankings on HN. This isn't Reddit or Digg.

The reality is some people think linking search to social to surfing habits is a fundamentally scary thought. It gives someone a massive insight into who you are. And that's far more important and complex than [generic celebrity couple]s breakup.

You really have to open your eyes a little, YouTube isn't even Google branded for example, what % of users even knew it was owned by Google till they switched the sign in? I bet a large % wouldn't even realise anyway and think it's like facebook connect.

And stop telling people to stop using services they value and have invested their time and effort in. That's what being sanctimonious is actually about, that's what it actually means. You actually couldn't care either way, the feigned piety is yours, not mine. I'm sincere in my beliefs.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#192

Post by mattmanser »

hyperbovine wrote: post #148
mattmanser wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think MS's actions didn't have serious consequences? Broken companies, destroyed dreams, lack of progress? We're 5 or 6 years behind where we should have been with the web because of them. And I still buy their stuff. Good Guy Gates is a disturbing meme in my book, the greatest trick and all that. But on to my point, you must have an extremely short attention span, do you not even remember what happen…

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.

If by 'address book' you mean your searches, your email, your political leaning, where you go, what you read, what time you're in the house, your location, your sexual preferences, what you find funny, what you hate, who you're fucking, who you hang out with, who you don't like, whether you do drugs and everyone you've ever talked to then we have very different definitions of address books.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#193

Post by freehunter »

mkup wrote: post #162
freehunter wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Filtering spam has nothing to do with my search queries. It's all about finding duplicate or nearly duplicate messages sent to many people at once, all one needs is a large sample database.

Which is when you get false positives, about the worst thing a spam filter can do. Millions of legitimate organizations send billions of duplicate messages per week. And what's spam for you might not be spam in my eyes. Or maybe it's just a case of needing to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Maybe there's a phishing message and a legitimate message coming in at the same time. Your spam filter needs to know which one is which, it needs to be quick to react to new developments, and it needs to know what you want to see and what you don't.

Spam filtering is hard. Gmail got popular because of their space and their nearly bullet-proof spam detection. If it was easy, someone else would have done it.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#194

Post by azylman »

fred_nada wrote: post #142
cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

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…

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/you-call-that-evil/

Re: Google is FUBAR

#195

Post by freehunter »

DanBC wrote: post #175
zmj wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as an objectively "accurate" search result. It's all relative to the question in your head.

That's fine. I used poor wording. By gathering more information about me, and making more guesses about what I want, Google is making a stronger bubble. Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly. For many people this is great and exactly what they want. Sometimes it's what I want; sometimes Google's stemming or synonyms gets me a result that I would have struggled to find. But, sometimes, I want Go…

>Sometimes they guess well. Sometimes they guess really badly.

How do you know this will happen? They haven't turned their new algorithm on yet. You're claiming an idea hasn't worked in the past, but the idea has never been tried before.

The reason they're changing their search results is because their search results are starting to suck more. They're trying to fix your complaint. Want the same shitty search full of SEO spam? Sign out. Otherwise you're just bitching.

>(But I'm really grateful to Google for tweaking those down, and allowing me to block content from certain domains)

THIS IS WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO DO. If you don't like content farms chances are no one else does either. And yet you complain.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#196

Post by fred_nada »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #169
fred_nada wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. S…

ex1: it's an ad for google for google products no? It's not relevant like Cleetus said.

ex2: In 99% of searches I would never want to see that, but I just searched for sales and he is #3... some blurb about kindle fire sales. A. I don't need a status update on sales. B. He is linking out to an article about the kindle fire sales. Shouldn't the result go to the actual story? Isn't that more relevant? Not to mention that he has this on his twitter page too which Google HAS crawled. The twitter result is nowhere in the top 100. I barely use Google as it is, but I am definitely opting out of g+ results.

ex4: All of the stuff on the right hand side and the auto-suggestions are there whether you opt-out or not. Test it.

ex5: no comment

See http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html - I just think it is funny.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#197

Post by pessimist »

fred_nada wrote: post #142
cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

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…

Googler here - thanks for the real example query. Could you confirm if the query [nfc championship game] is still showing the MG Siegler post, or if it appeared only for a short while during the game. Thanks!

Re: Google is FUBAR

#198

Post by fred_nada »

jmcmoto wrote: post #130

this argument is RETARDED. Just log out if you dont want personalized results. All these people writing articles are paid PR Shills for FB or Twitter or someone.

Yes, I use Bing and starting to use DDG for tech queries... You are wrong about fb/twitter are the only ones who care.

Look at all of the comments on the blogs... Here is one for an example. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-plus-your-world/

This doesn't just effect twitter/fb

Re: Google is FUBAR

#199

Post by mark_integerdsv »

rodion_89 wrote: post #137
DanBC wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't want relevant search results. I want accurate search results. I hate being limited by the bubble; I hate having to cut away rubbish related to what a search engine thinks I want.

How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if…

...three weeks before your birthday, your girlfriend - frantically searching for a Python book to surprise you with, wades through hundreds of results pertaining to snakes, eventually gives up in exasperation and decides to head to the nearest Borders and... Oh wait.

I see your point in the post above but disagree. People should control their search results based on what they are searching for, relevance is objective to ones personality, not subject to it.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#200

Post by fred_nada »

Ihadtocomment wrote: post #95
cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

Wow, your post is wrong on so many levels. So for users Google+ is most relevant in social? Not even one link from Facebook or Twitter? Just like Google Local is best for the users when showing 100% Google links. Please do not insult people's intelligence. Google is doing this for a few reasons and plastering more ads is the main one. With Google+ a lote users get to stay on Google+ due to placement not go to our sit…

A little over the top, but to your point. See this search for cars I just did... 2 real results on the entire page.

http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s62a9k.jpg

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