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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

#331

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

scott_s wrote: post #289
bodono wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try "hillary clinton emai". From a fresh chrome session in NYC I get nothing, not a single autocomplete result. On the other hand "donald trump emai" gets: * donald trump email * donald trump email address * donald trump email list * donald trump email newsletter * donald trump email list signup And just to drive the point home I tried "root_axis emai" and got "root_axis email". Try anyone else and you get similar re…

I got curious and tried the names of a bunch of public figures. Some of " e" yielded "email" as the suggestion. But these did not: elizabeth holmes, tom jones, tom cruise, brad pitt, gwyneth paltrow, roger federer, will smith, jimmy carter. Since Hillary Clinton is not unique, then it's not proof that her results are treated differently.

Why would you expect “brad Pitt email” to be something that auto completes? You would, on the other hand expect “Hillary Clinton email” to auto complete because there was a huge controversy about it.

I’m not saying google is manipulating auto complete intentionally (though they might be), I’m just saying your counter examples are irrelevant.

It would be like “Donald trump Russia” NOT auto completing then someone saying “but neither does Taylor swift Russia, so we’re good.”

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

#332

Post by madez »

rdiddly wrote: post #327
dfabulich wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting these numbers? Google says they get ~2 trillion searches per year. 40 trillion searches over 20 years (way too many) would be 2^44 searches. https://searchengineland.com/google-now-handles-2-999-trilli... (And they don’t even need to store all searches for all time for this, thanks to Bloom filters.)

The whole point was that 2^1471 is wrong.

It is roughly 1.15^(365*20). That it is wrong was clear from its size. I wanted to use it's falseness to show that the assumptions are incorrect. Which they are, just not how I understood initially.

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

#333

Post by phkahler »

noahl wrote: post #61

Okay, this is a relatively serious proposal to require Google to allow API access to its search index, with the premise that it would democratize the search engine ecosystem. There are some issues with the regulations he proposes (you have to allow throttling to prevent DDoS attacks, and you can't let anyone with API access add content to prevent garbage results), but it's roughly feasible. The main problem is, I thi…

For #1 I'd prefer if Google didnt share my search history with anyone. That would also go against GDPR in Europe right?

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

#334

Post by nothis »

I don't mind google search. Let them have search, they're obviously the best at it. What I have a problem with is literally every other service they provide. Google shouldn't own the most popular browser, the most popular video streaming platform, the most popular map service, the most popular operating system and (one of the?) most popular email services. Why is a single company allowed to have control over essentially half the internet? I don't think there's a precedent to that and it's about time it's tackled.

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

#335

Post by martin_drapeau »

learnfromstory wrote: post #307
martin_drapeau wrote: post #283

The article mentions a precedent: "in the 1956 consent decree in the U.S. in which AT&T agreed to share all its patents with other companies free of charge." Today the picture is completely different. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are global - their infrastructure is virtual - not physical lines and cables. If a government wants to cause harm to one of those companies, they can decide to "move" somewhere else. I…

Uh no. Google has hundreds of billions of dollars invested in real non-virtual assets, majority of which are in the USA.

Sure, however they are not directly tied to their bread and butter - pay per click. They could over time divest and move data centers and jobs elsewhere without directly affecting revenues. Would be painful and risky but feasible.

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

#336

Post by rurp »

GordonS wrote: post #195
b_tterc_p wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people do this? Or do you mean queries forwarded by home assistants trying to parse inputs?

Heh, yes, they do. Which is a reminder that devs are not "typical" users. As a developer, I search using keywords; for example, if I was looking for property for sale in Inverness, I might search for "property Inverness", whereas I've seen and heard "typical" users use something like "find me a 2 bedroom house with a garden for sale in the North of Inverness" - much more verbose, and containing stop words and phrases…

I almost always search keywords while my girlfriend uses sentences and we often get quite different results. If I'm having trouble finding a good result there's a pretty good chance she will find something quickly. Surprisingly this holds true even for programming questions on topics that I know well and she's never heard of before.

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

#337

Post by rpiguy »

linuxftw wrote: post #317
rpiguy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that political ideologies are similar to religions and that protections may be extended to them (although they should already be covered by what is in the constitution). What I don't follow is why it matters that platforms are becoming publishers. The government has never had the right to meddle in what publishers decide to publish (with exceptions for regulations on pornography and classified information). I…

I think it matters in the context of liability. For instance, if you're a newspaper, and you publish "Politician X is a rapist" and you don't have a way to back up that allegation in court you're liable. As a platform, you're not liable for the content your users post. If you are allowing people to say "Politician X is a rapist" but not allowing people to say "Politician Y is a rapist", you've crossed into the land o…

I am personally all for freedom of information and also would like the concept of protected groups to go away, however...

Liable is incredibly hard to prove in court, and usually cases are taken in civil court not criminal court.

Can a platform ban specific groups? I see where your argument is coming from. Commerce is allowed by the Constitution for the common good (to serve everyone). Could Walmart, for example, say that conservatives are not allowed to shop there? Definitely not.

However, it has recently been established, through a series of court cases culminating in the Gay Wedding Cake case, that you cannot compel speech from an individual that they don't believe in. Corporations in the US are often given rights similar to individuals. I can see this going to the Supreme Court under a similar argument with Google, etc. (you can't compel us to disseminate what we deem as immoral, anymore than you can make a Christian baker bake a gay wedding cake).

Ironic because leftists were livid with that decision, but it may be the one that allows private companies to censor you on their networks.

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

#339

Post by vinaypai »

nothis wrote: post #334

I don't mind google search. Let them have search, they're obviously the best at it. What I have a problem with is literally every other service they provide. Google shouldn't own the most popular browser, the most popular video streaming platform, the most popular map service, the most popular operating system and (one of the?) most popular email services. Why is a single company allowed to have control over essentia…

What's stopping you from using Bing Search, Open streetmaps, hotmail, Firefox etc.? Google doesn't "control" anything you don't let it.
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