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What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#71

Post by 3pt14159 »

mrich wrote: post #13
3pt14159 wrote: post #10

Not sure it would be legal, but I would put a significant amount of devs onto predicting stocks. A blog goes more silent or people start Googling for "what is fraud, exactly?" from IPs known to contain lots of IBM workers (that would be more on the illegal end for sure). Obviously a lawyer would need to review every input, but they have access to machine learning and data so much so that they could rock the exchanges…

I recall Eric Schmidt saying they thought about this, but the lawyers told them it would be illegal so they didn't explore it further.

At what point does it become illegal though. Surely if Goldman can trade then there must be some aggregation that they are allowed to trade at. "Debt consolidation" search trends for example. If it spikes in a certain country then they would be able to make decisions on that.

Seems like so much untapped potential.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#72

Post by mindslight »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #69
mindslight wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's occurred to me that the ultimate answer is embodied by the classic Feynman chapter title "You just ask them". You've got Facebook raising money at over $50 per user based on the promise of futureperfect GMO (ie trying to imitate organic) targeted advertising. Google is so worried, they're gutting their core strength and namesake to become more 'social' by facilitating pop culture, as if it were hard to find. Cle…

Exactly. Advertising works least well when it's spam, slightly better when it's targeted, and best of all when it's a personal endorsement from someone you trust. When Alton Brown tells you to buy Shun knives or when Penny Arcade tells you to play SW:TOR that has a lot more impact than a random ad for wicker furniture or what-have-you. That's something that google and facebook are working towards but perhaps they are…

But the whole financial sell of Facebook is that they're purporting to work towards something better than targeted advertising. Due to increase in volume of communication between people, targeted advertising is going to be eclipsed by social recommendations. But Pinterest could never have been Facebook/Pin, because half of the second N in Metcalfe's law doesn't want to see dresses and shoes.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#73

Post by pnathan »

jrockway wrote: post #58
abraham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is already predicting flu trends. I imagine that could be modified for stocks or just about anything else. http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Using search data to predict public health issues is legal and good PR. Using search data to trade on insider information is illegal and bad PR. That's why we do the flu thing and not the stock thing :)

Question. How is it illegal if its publicly scrapable information?

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#74

Post by herval »

jrockway wrote: post #58
abraham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is already predicting flu trends. I imagine that could be modified for stocks or just about anything else. http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Using search data to predict public health issues is legal and good PR. Using search data to trade on insider information is illegal and bad PR. That's why we do the flu thing and not the stock thing :)

why is using search data to trade illegal?

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#75

Post by jrockway »

herval wrote: post #74
jrockway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using search data to predict public health issues is legal and good PR. Using search data to trade on insider information is illegal and bad PR. That's why we do the flu thing and not the stock thing :)

why is using search data to trade illegal?

Why is using material non-public information to trade illegal? I don't know, I didn't write the law.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#76

Post by jiggy2011 »

pnathan wrote: post #73
jrockway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using search data to predict public health issues is legal and good PR. Using search data to trade on insider information is illegal and bad PR. That's why we do the flu thing and not the stock thing :)

Question. How is it illegal if its publicly scrapable information?

It wouldn't be public information they would be using their own server logs which of course no one else has access to.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#77

Post by kragen »

mrich wrote: post #13
3pt14159 wrote: post #10

Not sure it would be legal, but I would put a significant amount of devs onto predicting stocks. A blog goes more silent or people start Googling for "what is fraud, exactly?" from IPs known to contain lots of IBM workers (that would be more on the illegal end for sure). Obviously a lawyer would need to review every input, but they have access to machine learning and data so much so that they could rock the exchanges…

I recall Eric Schmidt saying they thought about this, but the lawyers told them it would be illegal so they didn't explore it further.

I recall a friend of mine who left Google, fully vested, for the early days of Facebook, who said they thought about this but decided insider trading would be evil, so they didn't do it. I'd be really surprised if they had to talk to lawyers to figure that out.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#79

Post by moe »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #76
pnathan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question. How is it illegal if its publicly scrapable information?

It wouldn't be public information they would be using their own server logs which of course no one else has access to.

The information was public already before google scraped it.

Re: What you could do if you were Google and had their databases

#80

Post by moe »

jrockway wrote: post #75
herval wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is using search data to trade illegal?

Why is using material non-public information to trade illegal? I don't know, I didn't write the law.

But everything in google's search-index is public?
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