Most of what Google does (beta or released) these days is sending me to other options.
Thank you DuckDuckGo for taking a stand for users.
Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
121–130 of 211 posts
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#122It's arguable that queries like [southwest airlines] are even a search. The vast majority of instances are probably URL-illiterate users merely trying to get to Southwest Airlines' web site. (And Google must know rather precisely just how many.) For these users, search is really operating as a natural-language alternative to DNS so such a clickable banner will help them get there. More than just advertising, this rep…
DNS is also a search, it's just handled by a standardized, multiparty system instead of a single for-profit corporation.
Google also runs actual DNS servers at 8.8.8.8. Would it be ok for them to inject ads there as well?
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#123Google (and possibly many human's) principle over time..
Don't be Evil (2005) >>
Don't be Evil over short period of time (2013) >>
Oh screw it, now we are Evil enough. Let us plunder the hell (2021).
Now they will show ads for the key word, South West Airlines. Next it will be a whole flashy ad when you search flight, then it will when you start to think about flying or your girlfriend sends an email about flying for someone's funeral. But these profits too will dwindle after a point. Then they will start selling your profiles, what you read, what you think.
For a corporation privacy and trust, or any other values are only as important as the profit it can bring. Its only a matter of time before you will erode your own values, when profits are what we are maximizing. This is all the more likely when you are ambitious.
And then you repent it, and the cycle is complete.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Exchange" is the critical word. A single promise is extraordinarily different, in the legal world, from a contract.
Ok, let's try with another wikipedia article: [1] "A contract is a legally enforceable promise or undertaking that something will or will not occur. * The word promise can be used as a legal synonym for contract *,[2] although care is required as a promise may not have the full standing of a contract, as when it is an agreement without consideration" Emphasis is mine :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law
Whoever wrote that is wrong. Click the "[2]" citation, and you'll see that it in no way backs up the claim.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://imgur.com/ddGJeaI Most of keywords with any commercial potential looks similar. Unfortunately, I tried using other search engines, but for technical questions Google still provide superior experience.
What 10 links would a hypothetically perfect search engine return for that query? Edit: Judging from the replies, many of you seem to think my question was "how many ads would a perfect search engine show?" Please note that this is not what I asked.
Perfect would have just one ad. However, I can live happily if there are at least as many organic results as ads above the fold.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#126The full quote is still true. "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." -Marissa Mayer That "banner" is not a "crazy, flashy, graphical doodad". That is pretty much the company's logo.
They're separate clauses.
If I say "I won't hurt you. I won't sneak in in the night and smack you with a fish. Ever" and then I punch you in the face I've broken my promise. If I'd snuck in at night and hit you with a fish then I'd have broken two promises.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
It walks like a duck but it doesn't quack like a duck. It shows up upon your specific input of the company name. I'm not sure what to call it, but 'advertisement' seems ill-fitting. Now if it showed up when you typed a generic term like 'airline' I would agree it was an ad. But does it?
It will.
Source for that? I'd prefer to hang on to my outrage until it's actually justified.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Exchange" is the critical word. A single promise is extraordinarily different, in the legal world, from a contract.
Ok, let's try with another wikipedia article: [1] "A contract is a legally enforceable promise or undertaking that something will or will not occur. * The word promise can be used as a legal synonym for contract *,[2] although care is required as a promise may not have the full standing of a contract, as when it is an agreement without consideration" Emphasis is mine :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law
That article is wrong (and the cited source for that claim, if you follow it, leads back to a thesaurus-like entry that is, unlike the other definitions on the page, itself unsourced though the source appears to be itself a tertiary source.) A promise is not a "legal synonym" for a contract. A promise is a necessary but not sufficient element of a contract.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#129I love how people continue to attach emotional investment to an arbitrary thing like a corporation. Apologists, fanboys, and people with a child-like innocence. Do you really expect a for-profit company will stick to a promise like it means something? The entire point behind a capitalist corporation is to make more profit, year after year. That is the entire idea behind the stock market. To think that they'd evade ev…
But there are plenty of companies that make a lot of money specifically because they 'stick to a promise'. Whole Foods, Chipotle, REI, Patagonia all spring to mind as companies that I will happily pay a premium to shop at because of things they do that fall outside of the ruthless race to the bottom to cut costs. They make a profit off of me specifically because they stick to promises like "don't put antibiotics in c…
Companies which have a niche market do depend on their customers continuing to invest in that niche market, but this is like any other company that sells a product. If people no longer want that product, they go out of business.
In the companies you cite, the product you're buying (primarily) is peace of mind. You feel better when you buy their products, vs others. If you stopped feeling good about it, you'd buy somewhere else, and they'd go out of business.
Here's another case of customer intent: CBS Fantasy Sports. For years they've been charging people to use their fantasy sports websites, while Yahoo, ESPN, and others gave theirs away for free. Year after year, people paid money for the CBS product, and they actually got more customers than the free providers. Why? Superior niche product. If the product wasn't as good as the free providers (and if they provided all the same features) people would have left in droves.
A "promise" is not a business model. A product is. Google's product is not banner-ad-free search, it's just search. If in the future there's an equally-good search product that uses no ads at all, Google will have an inferior product, and people will leave - eventually.
Re: Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results
#130What a sensationalist headline. The guardian really seems to have learned the need to go sensationalist from the Snowden affair.
"Google breaks promise" followed by "Google is testing banner ads" in the first paragraph. So umm, "breaks" is the wrong verb, more like "thinking of breaking"
The reality is, Google runs hundreds, perhaps thousands of experiments all the time and only a few make it.