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

andreasgal.com

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

#31

Post by minthd »

asuffield wrote: post #27
minthd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe i'm reading this wrong, but this sounds like Google gets your browsing history: "If you sign in to Chrome browser, Chrome OS or an Android device that includes Chrome as a preinstalled application with your Google Account, this will enable the synchronization feature. Google will store certain information, such as HISTORY, bookmarked URLs as well as an image and a sample of text from the bookmarked page, passwo…

Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!). Obviously in order to perform cross-device synchronisation, it's necessary to send this information. I'm not free to discuss the details of how these systems work, but consider this: if both the statements "Google will store this information" and "the fact that you are using Chrome does not cause Google to receive any special or additional personally identi…

>> Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!)

This isn't true , according to this post in google product forums(and others like it who complain about unwanted sharing and how stop it) :

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/hOk8r9...

And personally i've tried it , and that's false - the default is history sharing.

I don't want to be rude, but are you some kind of a troll, or just enjoying spreading lies ?

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

#32

Post by ntakasaki »

>In 2011, Google famously accused Microsoft’s Bing search engine of doing exactly that: logging Google search traffic in Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer browser in order to improve the quality of Bing results.

MS didn't do that from IE, they did for users who installed the Bing bar, a huge difference.

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

#33

Post by ntakasaki »

pain wrote: post #28
bobajeff wrote: post #21

I think a problem that is happening here is that there is no competition in search just like there is no competition in social networks and operating systems. Not like there are for things like automobiles, electronics and clothing. Computers introduce a means to lock people in that don't exist in other markets. In software products there are often ecosystems that tie directly in to the product/service which are not…

"Jobs did great harm to the world with his iThings: computers designed to be jails for their users. His genius was to find the way to make these jails desirable so that millions would clamor to be locked up." —Richard Stallman

What is more open, a Chromebook or a Windows laptop or a Macbook?

I would think a Windows laptop or a Macbook because the users and developers can install or develop any application, yet we have everyone singing the praises of heavily DRM'ed and locked up Chromebooks and iPads. Sometimes I feel it's more about Microsoft hate than about a free computing environment. At least RMS is consistent and is less prone to company fanboyism than the tech crowd.

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

#34

Post by ntakasaki »

ekr wrote: post #30

So that's why Google created the Chrome browser.

Not just created, but bundled and installed with default by Java and Flash updates some of which also install the Google toolbar into IE. Many folks that I had converted to Firefox from IE back in the day use Chrome now and have no idea how it ended up on their computer. This explains the steady rise of Chrome, not the few percentage of tech geeks that installed it by choice.

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

#35

Post by rockdoe »

asuffield wrote: post #22

(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion, not my employers. Not representing anybody else. I work at Google, not on search quality) This article makes a number of bold claims about the contents of data and code which its author hasn't seen, and is written by a company that is receiving a large amount of money from Yahoo. I would encourage people not to forget these details.

So just point out where it's wrong, instead of making a fairly disingenuous appeal to non-authority or however you want to call it?

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

#36

Post by castratikron »

ntakasaki wrote: post #33
pain wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs did great harm to the world with his iThings: computers designed to be jails for their users. His genius was to find the way to make these jails desirable so that millions would clamor to be locked up." —Richard Stallman

What is more open, a Chromebook or a Windows laptop or a Macbook? I would think a Windows laptop or a Macbook because the users and developers can install or develop any application, yet we have everyone singing the praises of heavily DRM'ed and locked up Chromebooks and iPads. Sometimes I feel it's more about Microsoft hate than about a free computing environment. At least RMS is consistent and is less prone to comp…

Chromebooks are locked up now? I thought you could install your own Linux on them. Don't some even use coreboot?

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

#38

Post by jfuhrman »

>In Germany, for example, where Google has over 95% market share, competing search engines don’t have access to adequate past search data to deliver search results that are as relevant as Google’s. And, because their search results aren’t as relevant as Google’s, it’s difficult for them to attract new users. You could call it a vicious circle.

This is interesting because of the browser choice enforced by the EU on Windows. IE whose default is Bing lost share to other browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Opera which all had Google as the default. So an attempt to fix the browser market totally distorted the Web Search market. I wonder why MS didn't request to the EU that the alternate browsers in the browser choice screen had to have Bing as the default search.

I wonder if the EU will mandate that search relevancy data must be shared by Google with rival search engines like DDG just like they mandated that SMB shares and Office formats must be documented by MS and released to developers.

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

#39

Post by joosters »

castratikron wrote: post #36
ntakasaki wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is more open, a Chromebook or a Windows laptop or a Macbook? I would think a Windows laptop or a Macbook because the users and developers can install or develop any application, yet we have everyone singing the praises of heavily DRM'ed and locked up Chromebooks and iPads. Sometimes I feel it's more about Microsoft hate than about a free computing environment. At least RMS is consistent and is less prone to comp…

Chromebooks are locked up now? I thought you could install your own Linux on them. Don't some even use coreboot?

Unfortunately you can only install Linux on some of them.

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

#40

Post by asuffield »

minthd wrote: post #31
asuffield wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!). Obviously in order to perform cross-device synchronisation, it's necessary to send this information. I'm not free to discuss the details of how these systems work, but consider this: if both the statements "Google will store this information" and "the fact that you are using Chrome does not cause Google to receive any special or additional personally identi…

>> Notice that this is a feature you have to turn on (try it!) This isn't true , according to this post in google product forums(and others like it who complain about unwanted sharing and how stop it) : https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/hOk8r9... And personally i've tried it , and that's false - the default is history sharing. I don't want to be rude, but are you some kind of a troll, or just enjo…

The answer given there is simply not correct. Click: settings, advanced sync settings, uncheck "history".

I am quite confident that the default behaviour when you install chrome is that you are not signed in. It definitely doesn't share any history when you're not signed in. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a login box otherwise ;)

I also feel that the message you get when you decide whether or not to sign in to chrome makes the purpose of this feature quite clear: "Sign in to get your bookmarks, history and settings on all your devices." Here's the detailed page it links to: https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/chrome/browser/signin.html

I'm not sure what behaviour you were expecting, can you clarify?

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