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The world needs more search engines

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Re: The world needs more search engines

#301

Post by FabHK »

mbowcutt wrote: post #66

So, what's different about cliqz? You promise not to keep logs, skew results, and sell data? Also, > With 93% of the search market, Google’s algorithms decide what becomes truth. Can you think of a TV channel with a 93% audience? Would you find it acceptable if there were only one TV channel? Seems to me like Google is more analogous to the TV remote.

As blog post mentions, more than half of Google searches do not result in an (out-)click, but stay on Google. So, the comparison is not completely outlandish.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#302

Post by neonate »

xixixao wrote: post #134
arrosenberg wrote: post #112

How do you design regulation that holds the giants accountable, doesn't impair smaller companies' ability to enter/innovate in the space, and isn't quickly corruptible by the (well-resourced) companies you are trying to control? We're better served by breaking them up and enforcing and strengthening the pro-competition laws on the books. The government has a pretty mixed record with regulating industry, and a far mor…

My biggest problem is: How do you break up a software system? I understand how you break up a company that mines ore, produces steel, builds railways, runs transportation - those are all separable ventures that can negotiate contracts almost as easily as when they had a single owner. But the tech giants run a single system: Amazon in the delivery, FB in the social graph (DB), Google in the knowledge graph. Those woul…

Could you fork it instead? Make a copy of the whole thing and then let the two compete over time.

Counterargument: you can't copy the people who know how it works.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#303

Post by saagarjha »

jefftk wrote: post #256
lucb1e wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you're confirming that Google tracks you without using fingerprinting methods? That's literally the opposite of what s/he just said. The person you're responding asked "How would it know?", implying that they (while being on the Google ads team) think there is no way to know without fingerprinting (or cookies from non-incognito mode).

Right: fingerprinting is the general term for using something other than client-side storage (cookies, local storage) to determine identity. Incognito mode and other private sessions intentionally don't preserve client-side storage.

There are other ways to fingerprint users, though if Google is using them they’re certainly not making it obvious by allowing users in incognito mode the ability to sign in to their associated account.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#305

Post by enitihas »

I don't get the point. Doesn't the world already have search engines. Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo. If the argument is these are not popular, then that is surely not Google's fault. If the argument is Google's brand is more entrenched in the minds of consumers, then it applies to all sorts of companies and everything should be broken up, like Coke, since the world needs more sugar water. Search engines, unlike social networks, have much less network effects. Even if your family is using Google, you can use duck duck go. That's not the case if they use iMessage or Facebook. If you aren't using the same platform you might be cut off.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#306

Post by CDSlice »

wasdfff wrote: post #254
pythux wrote: post #3

Absolutely love this quote from the article: > Paraphrasing Monty Python: “What has Google ever done for us?”. They have done an awful lot for society, for the web and probably saved it a few times a long time ago. But it is time to also see them as the empire they have become. And empires must fall. I think people generally do not understand well enough the far-fetched consequences of a monopoly in the search busine…

Maybe the solution is not in the free market, but by taking the background of pubmed and create a search.gov. No ads, no algorithms, no bullshit ranking and metrics, no tracking, just pure boolean search with a heavy handed spam filter and jam packed with features for the sake of utility and not engagement.

I'm sorry, but a heavy handed spam filter is the absolute last thing I want the government to have. This basically gives the government the best censorship tool they ever had.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#307

Post by Mirioron »

icotyl wrote: post #186
kuschku wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even worse, likely in a country that won’t match your same values of “freedom” For many people in the world, the US already is a country that matches this exact description - what with toothless antitrust laws, anti-union actions being tolerated, and what the ICE camps look like is something we don't even have to talk about. Sure, China would be worse, but you should strive for more than just "the second worst deve…

Has Europe’s pro-union climate led to more competitive software companies, or better pay and benefits for its software engineers? Every European engineer I talk to seems either amazed or resentful about American software engineers’ salaries and benefits. How have the unions helped you in this regard? How have they helped your tech companies be more competitive in the global economy?

Europe is really diverse in wealth and business climate. The wealth gap between different European nations is so large that the US probably seems like the pinnacle of equality. It's hard to talk about Europe in general in this sense. I've worked as a developer, where I made less than $600-800 a month. Although I was underpaid, but it probably wouldn't have been possible to make double that in my country. I think you might want to dial your question in slightly more than "Europe", perhaps "Western Europe".

Re: The world needs more search engines

#308

Post by saagarjha »

1024core wrote: post #198
pythux wrote: post #3

Absolutely love this quote from the article: > Paraphrasing Monty Python: “What has Google ever done for us?”. They have done an awful lot for society, for the web and probably saved it a few times a long time ago. But it is time to also see them as the empire they have become. And empires must fall. I think people generally do not understand well enough the far-fetched consequences of a monopoly in the search busine…

> We really need more diversity and competition in this space, not just for quality of results and convenience of services; but for society as a whole. There are plenty of alternatives. But people don't use them as much because they are worse . Consider Bing ( http://www.bing.com/ ). It is backed by a company even bigger than Google. MSFT's market cap is 1.155T; Google's is 899B. MSFT is 30% bigger than Google. Why h…

Bing is not a core part of Microsoft’s business.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#309

Post by chinesempire »

bko wrote: post #73

Google's dominance is almost entirely due to the fact that its by far the best at search. I use ddg, but I use google search via !g about 25-50% of the time after a failed attempts. And 9 times out of 10 Google gives me exactly what I'm looking for. For instance: "the actor that plays the news guy in spiderman" ddg: Tom Holland (side bar) Spider-Man Homecoming (imdb) Tom Holland (wiki) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Ver…

You're helping google by tagging its searches, so many people ask for this kind of things that they can prioritise results that gets the most clicks (people rank searches for google everytime they click).

By contrast, the new privacy friendly search engine from the article, with a lot less money and users, can answer a simple question like "news guy actor in spiderman" with

Cliqz:

- And the new actor playing Spider-Man is... this guy (www.foxnews.com)

- J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) | Spider-Man Films Wiki (spiderman-films.fandom.com)

Not bad for a small German company uh...

And even if it didn't, when I know it's Jonah Jameson, I can search for the actor that played Jonah Jameson. Search engines are not about having "the answer to life the universe and everything" but helping users refine their searches until they find what they were looking for.

Re: The world needs more search engines

#310

Post by creato »

mikl wrote: post #270
candiodari wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "project dragonfly" the Google search engine version for China? Google was trying to comply with the law. It's a law you might not agree with, but come on. The reason all these governments want Google split up is more censorship, not less. From torrents to negative reporting on EU commissars. From everyone's interpretation of hate speech to pages pointing out that sometimes social services are the abusers in ch…

> Google was trying to comply with the law. Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries. Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have t…

> Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries.

I'm super glad that google didn't go through with dragonfly and it's really sad that they even went as far as they did. However, going through with it would have just made them the same as basically every other company.

Apple, microsoft, and basically every other company all operate in china, following chinese "law". Ironically, it's two of the worst/most hated companies (google, facebook) in the US, and most frequently demanded to be broken up here on HN, are two of the very, very few companies that haven't bent over for china.

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