111–120 of 164 posts
It's quite important that SERPs are scrapeable, because they keep advertising scams like ETA/ESTA sites: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56886957
It's interesting to imagine how the world would be different, if internet advertising giants were partially liable for scams/malware that they facilitate.
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It's interesting to imagine how the world would be different, if internet advertising giants were partially liable for scams/malware that they facilitate.
Ironically it's only really people who heavily ad-block/privacy-protect that get these scam/malware ads. When Google has no profile on you, your view is virtually worthless, so it's only bottom feeders that bid on those views. Average users get Coke and Tide ads. Its usually the most technically adept that get the worst ads, and usually they just turn their ad block back on.
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Aren't the giants closer to the mob than a police force? I suppose those things are not terribly different in practice, but Google, Facebook, et al make money from leaving the scams on their ad networks.
Either way works - I'd still prefer the scammers to be liable and persecuted for their scamming than demanding that platforms enact censorship and policeing control.
1. Takes money from the scammer
2. Tells the scammer how to target people
3. Serves the scam to the consumer, ensuring they see it
4. Takes a cut of the action when the scam is successful
5. Tells the scammer how to optimize their campaign
6. Continues working with scammers after they're reported
The scammer has a fairly small part in the overall operation. The platform is doing almost all of the actual work perpetrating the scam. They're not remotely innocent here.
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Sure, go ahead and ask the LLM who won the 2026 World Cup. Or nearby BBQ places open now. Even assuming no hallucinations, an LLM can replace some use cases for search but not all.
I tried both and it’s not even close which interface is better when it comes to answering a question. Google gives you stuff to sift through and interpret. AI just gives the answer. Imagine you’re in the car or hands free or disabled and you just want the question answered. https://ibb.co/whYmZWxs https://ibb.co/JFkQbmJf
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Aren't the giants closer to the mob than a police force? I suppose those things are not terribly different in practice, but Google, Facebook, et al make money from leaving the scams on their ad networks.
Either way works - I'd still prefer the scammers to be liable and persecuted for their scamming than demanding that platforms enact censorship and policeing control.
You are also free to call it censorship, but I am not aware of any jurisdiction where fraud is considered protected speech, so as far as I'm concerned, censor away baby.
“You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly."
Google crawling respects robots.txt and doesn't break capcha. It is easy to tell Google to piss off. SerpAPI fully relies on end-user proxies distributed like malware (in LG tv apps for instance), it has no other way it could function because it exclusively ingests data from sources that tell it to stop. If you wanted to scrape a bot friendly site, you wouldn't need SerpApi
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I tried both and it’s not even close which interface is better when it comes to answering a question. Google gives you stuff to sift through and interpret. AI just gives the answer. Imagine you’re in the car or hands free or disabled and you just want the question answered. https://ibb.co/whYmZWxs https://ibb.co/JFkQbmJf
Do you have a free or paid ChatGPT license?
I'd be more OK with this if Google had a good API for their search results. But they've deprecated it, and now there is no alternative. So I'll continue to use 3rd parties that scrape Google results, until they change their mind.
I wonder how this changes things (EU forces to share search data): https://abcnews.com/Technology/wireStory/eu-forces-google-sh...
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I stopped using Google once it started requiring JS for search. That was the day the open web truly died.
EMCAScript has an open standard that anyone can implement.
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Ironically it's only really people who heavily ad-block/privacy-protect that get these scam/malware ads. When Google has no profile on you, your view is virtually worthless, so it's only bottom feeders that bid on those views. Average users get Coke and Tide ads. Its usually the most technically adept that get the worst ads, and usually they just turn their ad block back on.
From where did you come to conclusion that adblock users get malware ads? This is the first time I am hearing this thing.
But when they turn off ad-block, to "see what it's like", they are not getting an accurate view. It's usually all crypto and other scammy/vices type ads.
Go look at your mom's browser. Her Google ads are going to be clothes, tissues, and cookware.
Nigerian prince scams cannot outbid Kleenex without breaking the economics of the scam. But they can get loaded when Kleenex no-bids because they don't know who the viewer is.
Trust me, ad-tech is far far beyond 2004 when ad block showed up.
(I'll add that of course there are other less legitimate ad networks, and I'm not counting "snake oil" products, which are essentially scams but customers still swear by them)