Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#1

Post by dpw » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?
andreasgal.com

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#2

Post by wmf » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

So does Mozilla's contract with Yahoo allow Mozilla to track query data and maybe feed it to underdog search engines like DDG or Blekko (oops)?

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#3

Post by rockdoe » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #2

So does Mozilla's contract with Yahoo allow Mozilla to track query data and maybe feed it to underdog search engines like DDG or Blekko (oops)?

I think the point is more that the contract with Yahoo in the USA doesn't prevent Mozilla from making deals with smaller[1] players elsewhere (which they've been doing).

[1] Smaller than Google. The search box isn't given away for free.

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#4

Post by sanxiyn » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

In South Korea, Google's market share is below 5%, and Naver gets more than 80% of search queries. I think this is the reason why Google's search results for Korean contents are not as good as contents in other languages.

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#5

Post by pcl » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

Interesting. I wonder to what extent this reasoning was behind executive support of the Chrome project, and whether it was a factor from the onset or something that Google stumbled upon after developing a browser.

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#6

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

It makes you wonder how many changes were made for "privacy" and how many changes were made for "protecting our business".

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#7

Post by sanxiyn » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

pcl wrote: post #5

Interesting. I wonder to what extent this reasoning was behind executive support of the Chrome project, and whether it was a factor from the onset or something that Google stumbled upon after developing a browser.

I am 100% sure this is the reason Chrome was funded. (I don't doubt Chrome developers' goal was to develop the best web browser in the world, but business case for doing so is different matter.)

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#8

Post by rockdoe » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #7

pcl wrote: post #5

Interesting. I wonder to what extent this reasoning was behind executive support of the Chrome project, and whether it was a factor from the onset or something that Google stumbled upon after developing a browser.

I am 100% sure this is the reason Chrome was funded. (I don't doubt Chrome developers' goal was to develop the best web browser in the world, but business case for doing so is different matter.)

Chrome was also an insurance policy. You can't buy away Google being the default search engine in Chrome. Imagine pre-Chrome browser marketshares and imagine the impact the Firefox-Yahoo deal would have had.

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#9

Post by minthd » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #2

So does Mozilla's contract with Yahoo allow Mozilla to track query data and maybe feed it to underdog search engines like DDG or Blekko (oops)?

AFAIK ,the deal with yahoo was about putting yahoo search in the front. If it was about tracking Google search data - mozilla should have at least let people known, especially with their claim at protecting privacy. And if they lie ,they risk a very strong response, especially from developers they depend on.

Also ,if such changes we're to be made, there's a decent likelihood that someone would have noticed that data leakage and told us about it.

So since mozilla is a pretty decent company, we should currently give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?

#10

Post by jjoe » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

So the whole push for SSL/https from Google has been opportunistic rather than good practice. I mean why would a search engine go as far as to make SSL a ranking signal?