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To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

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Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#21

Post by judge2020 »

mc32 wrote: post #8
peteretep wrote: post #3

I don’t want to break Google’s monopoly on search. Google’s search is fantastic. It’s their advertising business knowing too much about me I care about.

Google treads on censorship as it regards political discourse. I’m not referring to things beyond the pale. I mean they will censor seemingly small things like bury a politician’s peccadilloes or surface something that stains an opponent. That’s dangerous. One obvious search query string is: reddit + candidate and see some surfaced and some less so.

I know it's hard to get definite proof, but what really makes you think Google employees (only a subset of whom have production access) would go out of their way to censor websites or results? If I search for [any US candidate] I always get both a news carousel and their official website. Maybe this happens in other countries where Google can throw their weight around without anyone noticing?

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#22

Post by mbrumlow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
iainmerrick wrote: post #7

I don’t see any mention in this article of what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses. (Edit to add: although maybe the effect would end up being similar, if API users serve their own ads but without access to Google’s ad infrastructure.) That obviously wouldn’t be a simple job, of course, and maybe there are some interesting reasons why it wouldn’t work well.

> what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses Given the complexity of (a) Google's search and ad integrations and (b) the adtech landscape as a whole, this would be difficult to do legislatively. That leaves settlement with the DoJ, a costly and time-consuming path. The author's suggestion is not exclusive against a break-up of Google. Its moderation and basis in…

Microsoft said the same thing about internet exploror and it's operating system..

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#23

Post by arch-ninja »

No sure if relevant but I've hated google's search for a unique reason: I find it horribly slow, especially compared to what it used to be. It's so slow, I've designed + partially implemented an alternative for my own use: https://github.com/Jeffrey-P-McAteer/dindex

I've only tested with 1000 records, but the query times are all <200ms.

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mbrumlow wrote: post #22
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses Given the complexity of (a) Google's search and ad integrations and (b) the adtech landscape as a whole, this would be difficult to do legislatively. That leaves settlement with the DoJ, a costly and time-consuming path. The author's suggestion is not exclusive against a break-up of Google. Its moderation and basis in…

Microsoft said the same thing about internet exploror and it's operating system..

> Microsoft said the same thing about internet exploror and it's operating system

And breaking Microsoft's attempted browser monopoly required the DoJ.

To be clear, I believe we will eventually have to break apart--at the very least--Google and Facebook. But there are advantages to the author's proposed tactic of making the index public. It's a cleaner, cheaper, and quicker solution and doesn't harm the odds of a future break-up.

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

linuxftw wrote: post #18

This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property, it's never going to happen in the US. If you want to enforce anti-trust actions against google's app store policies, I'm all for that. But forcing them to give away property is insane.

> This idea is a pipe dream. It would be nationalizing property

The author references precedent in the 1956 consent decree with Bell Labs [1]. If anything, that was more extreme. AT&T developed those patents.

The author's proposal doesn't involve Google surrendering its algorithm. Just the index it compiled from public resources using a publicly-subsidized Internet infrastructure. All without content owners' permission.

[1] https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust...

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#26

Post by rpiguy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
iainmerrick wrote: post #7

I don’t see any mention in this article of what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses. (Edit to add: although maybe the effect would end up being similar, if API users serve their own ads but without access to Google’s ad infrastructure.) That obviously wouldn’t be a simple job, of course, and maybe there are some interesting reasons why it wouldn’t work well.

> what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses Given the complexity of (a) Google's search and ad integrations and (b) the adtech landscape as a whole, this would be difficult to do legislatively. That leaves settlement with the DoJ, a costly and time-consuming path. The author's suggestion is not exclusive against a break-up of Google. Its moderation and basis in…

It is actually very easy to do legislatively (laws tell the companies what to do, not necessarily how to do it). The technical challenges fall on Google.

Re: To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public

#29

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rpiguy wrote: post #26
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what seems like the most obvious way to split up Google, separating their search and ad businesses Given the complexity of (a) Google's search and ad integrations and (b) the adtech landscape as a whole, this would be difficult to do legislatively. That leaves settlement with the DoJ, a costly and time-consuming path. The author's suggestion is not exclusive against a break-up of Google. Its moderation and basis in…

It is actually very easy to do legislatively (laws tell the companies what to do, not necessarily how to do it). The technical challenges fall on Google.

> It is actually very easy to do legislatively

It would be easy to write a law, not to pass one. Generally speaking, when a law is unpredictably disruptive it becomes (a) difficult to pass and (b) time-consuming and costly to defend in court.

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