4 ms·

One advantage Facebook is access to social signals. All the link data Google has, Facebook could also crawl. However Google doesn't have access to all the socia

by bemmu 10y ago

One advantage Facebook is access to social signals. All the link data Google has, Facebook could also crawl. However Google doesn't have access to all the social data Facebook has. About the only data I can think of that Google has is behavior on the search results page (which links people choose against a query, bounce rates), which is probably very important, but FB could eventually catch up. FB actually already has a search engine, they just don't have a separate site for it. But it's there, front and center (well up and center) on their page. They can slowly tinker with it to make it more and more relevant. Until they reach a point where it beats Google and is worthy to promote it to the media (or skip the media, just promote it to their own userbase).

eru 10y ago
Google has actually more data on me in gmail than Facebook ever had. (But there's an important distinction: Google is not free to use that data in gmail they have.)
- MarkMc 10y ago
  > Google is not free to use that data in gmail they have Wait, are you saying that if I write, "I love coffee" in Gmail, Google cannot use that to show me an advertisement for Starbucks in YouTube?
  - eru 10y ago
    I don't know, but I could probably find out. (But then I couldn't tell you.) Working for Google, I do know that we have intense scrutiny and strong internal regulations for what one can do with customer data---and especially so with data that's private like emails or your browsing history. From where I work in the company, the procedures and regulations are mostly concerned about <when not and when and perhaps how restricted> we can use customer data to reproduce and investigate bugs. The data Facebook can use is mostly semi-public: posts on your wall that have varying but generally weak privacy expectations in the first place. Friend lists are probably totally fair game. (I don't know what Google does with G+ circles, but nobody is using G+ anyway.) Anyway, all speculation apart from that there are pretty strong safeguards at Google. (Google and even Facebook or Amazon etc treat your information much more carefully than probably almost any other place you put them. Eg most banks have incredible weak password protections, and my ISP is probably selling my postal address to spammers left-and-right. The only reason to be afraid of what those giants do intentionally is that they are actually competent, and will do the best they can in the limits they imposed on them by themselves and regulators. (Break-ins by government-sponsored hackers are a different kettle of fish---but even there, the giants' efforts at fending them off are probably the most competent private sector responses.))
    - MarkMc 10y ago
      > The only reason to be afraid of what those giants do intentionally is that they are actually competent, and will do the best they can in the limits they imposed on them by themselves and regulators. Actually as a Google shareholder I want the Gmail team to share customer data with the YouTube team. I doubt that Google's privacy policy prevents this, and it would certainly offer better targeting of ads and therefore more revenue. Is it considered evil for one branch of a company to share customer data with another branch? Wouldn't most users expect you to do that?
MarkMc 10y ago
Google has many more signals than link data. One underrated signal is that they have a history of what links have previously been clicked for billions of search queries. And in my case they have all my search history, all my Gmail messages, all the YouTube videos I watch, all the Android apps I install, all the places I search in Google maps. And since I leave the 'track location' setting unchanged on my phone, Google also know where I live, when I wake up and go to sleep, where I work, how long I spend at the gym, where I go shopping. And since my friend also has an Android phone, they likely know that he's my gym buddy and how often we get together. And since my girlfriend uses Google Maps on an iPhone they can probably see that she's my girlfriend and where we like to go out together.

by bemmu 10y ago

eru 10y ago

Google has actually more data on me in gmail than Facebook ever had. (But there's an important distinction: Google is not free to use that data in gmail they have.)

MarkMc 10y ago
> Google is not free to use that data in gmail they have Wait, are you saying that if I write, "I love coffee" in Gmail, Google cannot use that to show me an advertisement for Starbucks in YouTube?
- eru 10y ago
  I don't know, but I could probably find out. (But then I couldn't tell you.) Working for Google, I do know that we have intense scrutiny and strong internal regulations for what one can do with customer data---and especially so with data that's private like emails or your browsing history. From where I work in the company, the procedures and regulations are mostly concerned about <when not and when and perhaps how restricted> we can use customer data to reproduce and investigate bugs. The data Facebook can use is mostly semi-public: posts on your wall that have varying but generally weak privacy expectations in the first place. Friend lists are probably totally fair game. (I don't know what Google does with G+ circles, but nobody is using G+ anyway.) Anyway, all speculation apart from that there are pretty strong safeguards at Google. (Google and even Facebook or Amazon etc treat your information much more carefully than probably almost any other place you put them. Eg most banks have incredible weak password protections, and my ISP is probably selling my postal address to spammers left-and-right. The only reason to be afraid of what those giants do intentionally is that they are actually competent, and will do the best they can in the limits they imposed on them by themselves and regulators. (Break-ins by government-sponsored hackers are a different kettle of fish---but even there, the giants' efforts at fending them off are probably the most competent private sector responses.))
  - MarkMc 10y ago
    > The only reason to be afraid of what those giants do intentionally is that they are actually competent, and will do the best they can in the limits they imposed on them by themselves and regulators. Actually as a Google shareholder I want the Gmail team to share customer data with the YouTube team. I doubt that Google's privacy policy prevents this, and it would certainly offer better targeting of ads and therefore more revenue. Is it considered evil for one branch of a company to share customer data with another branch? Wouldn't most users expect you to do that?

MarkMc 10y ago

Google has many more signals than link data. One underrated signal is that they have a history of what links have previously been clicked for billions of search queries. And in my case they have all my search history, all my Gmail messages, all the YouTube videos I watch, all the Android apps I install, all the places I search in Google maps. And since I leave the 'track location' setting unchanged on my phone, Google also know where I live, when I wake up and go to sleep, where I work, how long I spend at the gym, where I go shopping. And since my friend also has an Android phone, they likely know that he's my gym buddy and how often we get together. And since my girlfriend uses Google Maps on an iPhone they can probably see that she's my girlfriend and where we like to go out together.