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Google turned me into a serial killer

hristo-georgiev.com

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Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#261

Post by esolyt »

da_chicken wrote: post #145
judge2020 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are updating their website but not updating that (or checking their email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrec…

That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Making it sound like the business's fault for not using Google's other service is just reinforcing the idea that Google's information is the only information that's real. This is the problem with the web search and scaping provider also trying to be a thousand other services at the same time. It's a constant conflict…

In the hypothetical example, they are providing wrong information to Google. If they provided no information, it would be a different story.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#262

Post by retrac »

astrange wrote: post #124
paulpauper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not a typical large corp though. They will spend millions on top lawyers for even small cases even if settling costs far less, just to make a point that they do not lose. If a company shows a willingness to settle or they they lose easily, then that makes them vulnerable to future litigation. Contingency lawyers will not take on companies that do not lose or settle.

You're replying to a comment that says "in small claims" and lawyers don't appear in small claims court. Though I don't know about winning vs Google there, just that it's worked against Uber.

I should have probably have noted that in most places, slander is not handled in small claims anyway. And lawyers can and do appear in small claims. If you sue a larger company, large enough to have a legal department, then someone from their legal department will probably show up to defend. You can consult or bring your own lawyer, too. A well-designed small claims court system keeps matters of law questions to a minimum, which usually makes it straightforward enough you can't drown it in paperwork. Here, there's a limit on how much you can spend on costs, for example. So no massive team of lawyers seeking depositions and hired expert witnesses. And as always, if it gets appealed, then who knows?

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#263

Post by Huwyt_Nashi046 »

sophacles wrote: post #243
rcoveson wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...he can basically be considered white for purposes of discussing his privilege. This is a distraction, and a confusing one. Calling that out is not an "attempt to quash any discussion". Let's discuss race when race is relevant, and the other 90% of the time let's discuss economic privilege.

I started my carreer with no debt for education. My family isn't rich but they aren't poor - just somewhere in the middle - above median income but not in the top tax bracket. They were able to provide help and I worked a bit to make up the difference. It's a pretty good leg-up for me, and I'm glad for it - it has made my adulthood much better than if I had to pay for loans and such. This can directly be traced to th…

Are you jewish?

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#264

Post by nyhc99 »

judge2020 wrote: post #138
_etyf wrote: post #132

Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store, driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website. I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the wrong symptoms or describing easily-tr…

> . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are updating their website but not updating that (or checking their email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrec…

Google recently changed the hours of operation on my business' Google My Business listing to an hour later than I had it set to. I have no idea why; I certainly didn't tell them to. We found out when we got some angry calls from customers who showed up after we were closed. It's hard to explain to someone that we don't own our own listing on Google, and that we're at their mercy to approve the changes we submit and hope they don't make their own arbitrary updates.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#265

Post by unishark »

gitgud wrote: post #238
cwkoss wrote: post #185

You should seriously consider suing for defamation if this isn't fixed within a few days. This is an egregious error, especially if it was done by an automated system (and this could be a systemic issue affecting many others). I think you have a decent chance of getting a five figure+ settlement from this. Talk to a lawyer about your options. EDIT: When I search "Hristo Georgiev" (from US IP) there is no longer an im…

In a sitcom like "Silicon Valley" I can imagine Google having to defend their algorithm in court, and prove he actually is a serial killer ...

then the surprise twist during credits, while walking home after narrowly winning the suit against Google due to an impassioned statement on the stand, he murders someone!

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#266

Post by eitland »

News at 11: Google search results are now almost as bad as what they replaced, sometimes worse.

I've said some time ago already that there is a multi billion niche waiting for whoever wants to do what Google used to do:

- input field in middle of page

- user types text into field

- software shows list of pages that contain said text. Modifiers can be used to influence exactly how exactly the matching will be

- the company is nice and reliable and goes out of their way not to be evil

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#267

Post by eitland »

martyvis wrote: post #143
runawaybottle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol what? They have customer service process? News to me, how to reach them?

I found a Google One subscription is helpful for that. It's only a few dollars a month, which in fact I fund for free using Google Rewards dollars. You then get to speak to a real live person that actually respond properly, even with handwritten emails.

This happens? Can anyone else confirm it?

The only time I have seen actual people in the loop was on two rather large GCP users and even then it was sometimes just "have you tried restarting it?"-level of support half the time.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#268

Post by eitland »

tgbugs wrote: post #252
murphyslab wrote: post #241

I recently encountered the same underlying problem with Google's knowledge graph. I do a lot of scientific image analysis using an ancient (but reliable!) piece of software called ImageJ [0]. There's a more recent distro of the same called FIJI [1]. So when I tried looking for how to extract EXIF data for GPS coordinates using ImageJ (not even mentioning FIJI), Google returned an info box about the Fiji-the-nation an…

Glorious. False positives on the synonym match gone wild. This is the kind of thing that deep learning was supposed to solve. The fact that it is failing from specific (imagej) to general (fiji) is beyond the wildest dreams of anyone doing quality assurance. I'm guessing the neural nets have been slacking by trying to do pure substitution matches and the devs have been rewarding them at the worst possible time. Wow.…

This started going downhill about a decade ago. I wrote about it 8 years ago and I am fairly sure I had seen it going on for a while already at that time: https://techinorg.blogspot.com/2013/03/?m=0

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#269

Post by eitland »

DevKoala wrote: post #19

When solving problems at scale with a 0.0000001% error rate ends up destroying someone’s life.

The error rate is so high that I see errors on a weekly or even daily basis when I fall back to Google and I only do 2 - 40 searches a day on Google these days.

I'm not searching a lot of Bulgarian names but I do search for npm packages and the like and despite my best efforts they frequently show me something completely different than what I searched for.

The saddest thing however is that DDG is just as bad, I use it just because I don't like Google and because it is easier to get from DDG to Google than the other way around.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#270

Post by Clewza313 »

nyhc99 wrote: post #264
judge2020 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are updating their website but not updating that (or checking their email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrec…

Google recently changed the hours of operation on my business' Google My Business listing to an hour later than I had it set to. I have no idea why; I certainly didn't tell them to. We found out when we got some angry calls from customers who showed up after we were closed. It's hard to explain to someone that we don't own our own listing on Google, and that we're at their mercy to approve the changes we submit and h…

Are you saying you've claimed your listing, meaning Google has set you as the owner, and it was still possible for some rando to make changes?
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