Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

Post by kingmanaz » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 2:27 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #86

coldtea wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... It should be, though. It's not 1776. A website like Google is more than a company, it's a public service with immense power of manipulation and influence over countless industries. The law shouldn't be written like we live in the stone age.

So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Because that seems to be what you're gunning for.

Post by chapium » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 2:32 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #73

fastball wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... I'll rag on Google's poor support as much as the next guy, but only when it's warranted. ProtonMail and anyone else that gets delisted / what-have-you is not Google's client and shouldn't expect first-class support for things like this.

> It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... It should be, though. It's not 1776. A website like Google is more than a company, it's a public service with immense power of manipulation and influence over countless industries. The law shouldn't be written like we live in the stone age.

Post by rusk » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 2:33 PM UTC

cjcole wrote: post #113

fastball wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Because that seems to be what you're gunning for.

When they, by virtue of their overwhelming market share, nuke a competitor's product off the face of the internet, whether algorithmically or intentionally, it feels reasonable to me to compel them to provide more detail than "we fixed the glitch". Google does not have the right to avoid being regulated in the public interest.

Post by StreamBright » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

soundwave106 wrote: post #124

StreamBright wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in your country can you look stuff up about China and Tiananmen Square? Well you can't in China. This is censorship coming from the state. Now go on Youtube and look for PagerU videos. I understand that conservative views are not popular in Google but filtering legitimate content is just bad. https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1406441&st... What about Dave Rubin? Does he fall into the same category…

On much of this, it's not Google's political agenda here from what I see... it's advertisers in general. You are aware that Youtube faced a huge backlash earlier this year from large scale advertisers over "hate videos" and "extremist content": https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/24/15053990/google-youtube-a... Defining what a "hate video" and is "extremist" can be vague, so it's not surprising that some strong political…

Post by MikkoFinell » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 2:42 PM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #131

pc86 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawman garbage aside, Google is a private company (in the sense that it is not owned by the government), and you objectively do not have any right to appear in their search results. If you can make an argument to the contrary that doesn't revolve around "it's not 1776!" I'd love to hear it, but I seriously doubt that it would be in line with any US law. I don't think there's anything "stone age" about not requiring…

It seems that every discussion about Google, Facebook and the like doing something that is not good always ends with the “it’s a private company” wildcard. As if this excuses any kind of behavior. Specifically, in this case there are in many countries antitrust laws, which target public and private companies alike.