Here's something I've been concerned about... I do Core Audio development, and participate from time to time in the Apple Core Audio Mailing list. Every so often a newcomer will arrive and ask about something basic. In response, someone will tell them to google it. This is common in coding related mailing list circles: "I just googled it and the answer is the third result down". Now, my concern is that the google results an advanced user will get are going to be more relevant a lot of times than what a newcomer – who hasn't done a whole lot of Core Audio yet – will see. They're likely to get hundreds of pages of results that mask what they're looking for, because to Google they're not a low-level audio programmer, so they're probably looking for something else. I realize it's a bit of a slippery slope argument, but something about different-search-results-for-different-people that bothers me – maybe its the fact that so many people aren't even aware that their google results may be drastically different from others. To me, it has a lot to do with what Nicholas Negroponte called "The Daily Me".
Google is FUBAR
71–80 of 278 posts
Re: Google is FUBAR
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results. Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who…
> For the majority of users Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. You both have Ad platforms on your respective platforms to "promote" products. Thank you. Disclaimer: A singleton instance of an average user
You're THE Average User? We've been trying to sign you up for months!
Re: Google is FUBAR
#73Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…
> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results. Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who…
Popularity does not equal relevancy.
Just because FB and TW are 'popular' does not mean the results I (or a search engine) get from them are any more 'relevant' to my search than other "niche" social networks like Google Plus.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#74The solution is to log out. For those of you who like being signed into Gmail put "accounts.youtube.com" in your adblock filters. That will prevent Google from automatically signing you in to Youtube and other services.
Just because you've logged out of a site doesn't necessarily mean the cookies have been deleted. Google can still track you just as effectively until you've cleared your cookies. In fact, if they store IP address and useragent information, they could continue tracking you even afterwards. Now, I don't know that they do that, but they certainly have the technical means to do so.
Pretty sure they do. Watch this ted talk about filter bubbling from last year: http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk
He mentions they use ~30 points of info to identify you, even if you're logged out.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#75What strikes me the most about this whole debacle is that people have complained for ages that Google doesn't "get" social. Its products have been poorly integrated and incongruent. Then, when Google says "Okay, we're going to integrate the balls off of everything, and provide a single consistent experience across all our products", people pitch a fit. It seems they can't win either way. This is a necessary step in f…
My issue with it is mostly in the visual implementation.
I had hoped that Google would be more subtle about it, instead I look at the SERPs and see them shouting at me.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#76Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…
> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results. Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who…
> For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results.
Seems like Google would like to change that.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. For the majority of users, Facebook/Twitter results are more relevant than Google Plus results. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't leverage a successful property to promote another, but it's unfair to everyone to try to pass that off as a move to increase relevance in search results. Disclaimer: I'm a Facebook engineer who…
> For the majority of users Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool. You both have Ad platforms on your respective platforms to "promote" products. Thank you. Disclaimer: A singleton instance of an average user
>Can I have an independent "authoritative" search engine and "cool" social networking tool.
Yes, you can. But Google wants to make search better. There's no denying it's gotten worse as time goes on (and SEO gets better). The only thing to do next is to understand what you're looking for by understanding you.
"I don't want relevant search results, I just want relevant search results!" This is the problem Google faces. They've made their choice.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#78Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…
> As far as SPYW goes, it's all about giving the users more relevant results. This is something you can opt out of (to some extent with privacy controls, otherwise with logging out). Except adwords is in this mix. This makes it one step closer (or is it already upon us?) for ads to be targeted to me based on the contents of emails I send and receive. To me, email is one of the more personal and private things that I…
But...Google already scans your email for AdWords.
Re: Google is FUBAR
#79Am I the only one who has started running Gmail and Facebook in their own separately installed browsers that are used for absolutely nothing else?
Re: Google is FUBAR
#80I've been using "GMail for Domains" service for years to filter spam. Can anyone recommend a viable alternative? I read e-mail in Portable Thunderbird, it's downloaded/uploaded via POP3/SMTP, so I don't have to browse the internet with Google cookies. Also I don't have Google+ account, and I have separate browser to access Analytics and Webmaster tools and AdWords. My main browser clears all cookies at end-of-session…
hotmail and dozens of others has similar feature.