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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

#341

Post by stcredzero »

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…

I don't mind google search. Let them have search, they're obviously the best at it.

I don't think that's a good idea, to let one company "have" search. Basically, you're letting a single company regulate discovery and information for a large chunk of the culture as a whole.

Why is a single company allowed to have control over essentially half the internet?

If that company has control of most of the discovery and monopolizes the information produced, they have one level upstream control of most of the Internet and the culture. It's like they don't just own the reservoir, but own a majority share in the river and most of the dams upstream.

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

#342

Post by nordsieck »

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 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.

So you're saying they're giving away too much good free stuff and need to be stopped?

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

#343

Post by xxz223 »

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…

>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 the hell not? Another company is free to make a better streaming platform, better map service, better browser, better email service... The government has no business telling companies which (legal) products they can or cannot create and own.

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

#344

Post by nova22033 »

swebs wrote: post #186
nova22033 wrote: post #106

Caveat: The author is not a technologists Robert Epstein (born June 19, 1953) is an American psychologist, professor, author, and journalist. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard University in 1981, was editor in chief of Psychology Today, He has also made some questionable claims about google manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein#cite_note-15 His r…

He does raise some good points in his findings: https://sputniknews.com/us/201609121045214398-google-clinton... I know Sputnik isn't a good source, but according to him, they were the only ones who would publish the findings without edits.

they were the only ones who would publish the findings without edits.

They only let him do that because it fits with their agenda. The real test is if they would let him publish an article on Putin's corruption...without edits..

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

#345

Post by com2kid »

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…

> 1) a record of searches and user clicks for the past 20 years

From what I can tell, Google cares a lot more about recency.

When I switch over to a new framework or language, search results are pretty bad for the first week, horrible actually as Google thinks I am still using /other language/. I have to keep appending the language / framework name to my queries.

After a week or so? The results are pure magic. I can search for something sort of describing what I want and Google returns the correct answer. If I search for 'array length' Google is going to tell me how to find the length of an array in whatever language I am currently immersed in!

As much as I try to use Duck Duck Go, Google is just too magic.

But I don't think it is because they have my complete search history.

Also people forget that the creepy stuff Google does is super useful.

For example, whatever framework I am using, Google will start pushing news updates to my Google Now (or whatever it is called on my phone) about new releases to that framework. I get a constant stream of learning resources, valuable blog posts, and best practices delivered to me every morning!

It really is impressive.

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

#346

Post by ForHackernews »

slashdev wrote: post #240
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…

Storage and bandwidth are cheaper than ever before, people scrape a billion pages for much more mundane purposes these days, even for academic papers. Having a full text index on that is more involved but hardly impossible. You're completely right that it's not at all Google's secret sauce. Bing has clearly indexed much more than that, plus invested a ton in actually returning good results from their index. And still…

> It's just not easy to make a better Google

It depends which sense of "better" you mean. It's nearly trivial to make an ethically superior search engine by just not building the spyware bits of Google.

It's difficult to make a search engine that's "better" along the dimensions of speed, profitability, etc.

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

#347

Post by nova22033 »

ar-jan wrote: post #170
tomweingarten wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comments he made are not just questionable, they're outright wrong (and a great example of the problem with cherry-picking data): https://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11903028/hillary-clinton-googl... https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jun/23... (Disclosure: I work at Google, but this opinion is my own)

Google's claim that the algorithm is generic is demonstrably false. Type in "hillary clinton e" and there is no suggestion for "email", type "donald trump e" and email is the first suggestion. Given the news content that we know is out there, that can only be the result of adjusting the results for clinton specifically (if anything, we would not expect "email" to be autocompleted for trump). This is not research that…

How is autocomplete a sign of bias...Take an average voter...not very plugged in..he types in "hillary clinton e" and gets no autocomplete suggestions...he thinks Hillary Clinton didn't do anything wrong with her e-mail server? Do you seriously believe this?

Curious....Did you get any results for "hillary clinton e-mails"?

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

#349

Post by lez »

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…

In a lot of ways I want better search than Google. It's increasingly for the masses, power users are increasingly unhappy.

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

#350

Post by rpiguy »

sidibe wrote: post #250
rpiguy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a profit-seeking corporation that needs to expand into China to generate more money and bends the knee as much as it can to make inroads there. Far from being a source of truth they follow all Chinese censorship laws (why, because they would be blocked from operating there and unable to make money off of the Chinese). China likes everything about Google other than the fact that it is not a domestic corporat…

>Google is not the victim of misinformation. >Google is a profit-seeking corporation that needs to expand into China to generate more money and bends the knee as much as it can to make inroads there. Far from being a source of truth they follow all Chinese censorship laws (why, because they would be blocked from operating there and unable to make money off of the Chinese). China likes everything about Google other th…

You are of course right. While I stand by my assertion that they have tried to cowtow to China in order to get into the market, their services are blocked and China has resisted letting them back in. Their efforts are likely dead or stalled with the death of Dragonfly. In any case, major memory malfunction on my part, apologies.
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