4 ms·

Am I missing an obvious example?

by lev99 9y ago

forgotpw2019 9y ago
I'm not sure if you're a Google PR drone or just naive, but people have been talking about this for years... Ya know the nice little extensions Google has added over the years to their search page? Like speed test, recipes, dictionary, a rudimentary calculator, map locations, etc?? Most of the information is stuff they stole from other websites. They put it in the search results now so you won't go to those terrible websites yourself and stop looking at Google ads. And nobody can stop it because if you block Google spiders your website dies. So the only people that can fight Google stealing all their shit are other Titans like Facebook and LinkedIn. Everyone else is getting their content lifted and moved into search results. It's so pervasive that I'm not even going to bother to find you links. Ironically, you can just Google something like "Google destroyed my business" and find plenty of results. Google does a lot of things I support but they also destroy businesses intentionally with reckless abandon. For instance, I find it impossible to believe Google didn't think it would destroy Speedtest.com when it added a widget to the search page. Or Allrecipes when they started stealing their content and ploping it on the search page. Some of the things Google does these days are thinly veiled as being for "convenience" or "security" when they're really just a monopoly stomping out various competitors. Remember how Google used to punish "cloaking"? Well now they quietly allow you to do whatever the hell you want which led to all the news site paywalls. These sites we're tired of Google stealing all their shit and powerful enough as a group to stand up to it. Google sits on it's hands because they know if they stop it they will end up in court, probably for antitrust
- jankeymeulen 9y ago
  > I'm not sure if you're a Google PR drone or just naive, but people have been talking about this for years... Do you really believe Google has PR people that are paid to reply on posts on HN? It could be, but I find this quite incredible. (Saying this as an Eng Googler, I have absolutely no insight on how the whole "business" side of the organisation works.)
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Especially here of all places. I can't think of many sites where PR-fueled statements would be countered more, and there are enough "real" Googlers around to provide that insight already.
    - hueving 9y ago
      The fact that real Googlers post here eliminates the need for PR to post. Google employees are participants willing supporting Google in exchange for money so they are incentivized to post only good things about Google or risk violating policy/getting fired. They are even incentivized to scrutinize every negative post about Google because it's an attack on their livelihood and moral choices (whether or not to continue working there). I'm not suggesting the dead post's particular case is true. I'm just pointing out that it's a company's dream to have engineers voluntarily spending time on a forum like this where they have identified themselves as employees. They are implicitly doing PR for free.

Am I missing an obvious example?

by lev99 9y ago

Am I missing an obvious example?

forgotpw2019 9y ago

I'm not sure if you're a Google PR drone or just naive, but people have been talking about this for years... Ya know the nice little extensions Google has added over the years to their search page? Like speed test, recipes, dictionary, a rudimentary calculator, map locations, etc?? Most of the information is stuff they stole from other websites. They put it in the search results now so you won't go to those terrible websites yourself and stop looking at Google ads. And nobody can stop it because if you block Google spiders your website dies. So the only people that can fight Google stealing all their shit are other Titans like Facebook and LinkedIn. Everyone else is getting their content lifted and moved into search results. It's so pervasive that I'm not even going to bother to find you links. Ironically, you can just Google something like "Google destroyed my business" and find plenty of results. Google does a lot of things I support but they also destroy businesses intentionally with reckless abandon. For instance, I find it impossible to believe Google didn't think it would destroy Speedtest.com when it added a widget to the search page. Or Allrecipes when they started stealing their content and ploping it on the search page. Some of the things Google does these days are thinly veiled as being for "convenience" or "security" when they're really just a monopoly stomping out various competitors. Remember how Google used to punish "cloaking"? Well now they quietly allow you to do whatever the hell you want which led to all the news site paywalls. These sites we're tired of Google stealing all their shit and powerful enough as a group to stand up to it. Google sits on it's hands because they know if they stop it they will end up in court, probably for antitrust

jankeymeulen 9y ago
> I'm not sure if you're a Google PR drone or just naive, but people have been talking about this for years... Do you really believe Google has PR people that are paid to reply on posts on HN? It could be, but I find this quite incredible. (Saying this as an Eng Googler, I have absolutely no insight on how the whole "business" side of the organisation works.)
- stordoff 9y ago
  Especially here of all places. I can't think of many sites where PR-fueled statements would be countered more, and there are enough "real" Googlers around to provide that insight already.
  - hueving 9y ago
    The fact that real Googlers post here eliminates the need for PR to post. Google employees are participants willing supporting Google in exchange for money so they are incentivized to post only good things about Google or risk violating policy/getting fired. They are even incentivized to scrutinize every negative post about Google because it's an attack on their livelihood and moral choices (whether or not to continue working there). I'm not suggesting the dead post's particular case is true. I'm just pointing out that it's a company's dream to have engineers voluntarily spending time on a forum like this where they have identified themselves as employees. They are implicitly doing PR for free.