6 ms·

First of all, I hope this is just an tiny experiment or better a hoax, and won't be widely adopted. Google deserves constant critique, but they also deserve cre

First of all, I hope this is just an tiny experiment or better a hoax, and won't be widely adopted. Google deserves constant critique, but they also deserve credit as a company that often promotes the open way first (for example, schema.org as a way anyone can describe their information, which can be ready by anyone). But if it's not an experiment, I'd start putting my energy into moving away from Google. In the AltaVista era, just before Google, there was a company called Real Names, which wanted to bypass intentional DNS and use searches as direct keywords to domains. Since many people use Google to go to everyday sites, just taking the top result each time, this is in effect what Google would be doing with this change, since one would have to actually go to the site to verify it. Which would be great for ad impressions, but terrible for the consumer experience, IMO way too random for Google to seriously consider it. The next step would be to remove URLs from browsers. But that would be quite a change in direction from good intentions.

judge2020 7y ago
I think it's more "test with users but keep programmers/power users happy". Old accounts (or maybe accounts they deem to be 'power users'?) still see the green http/s links, and my search for "mortgages" doesn't show the favicons like the reddit suggests. https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png This happened with the little icons next to the "all/news/images" tabs at the top a few months ago, I didn't see them in my G search but incognito showed them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anchpop 7y ago
  I tried the same search in both and got the same results (links displayed in both). Maybe you just happened to get into a different A/B bucket when you opened incognito
bhartzer 7y ago
This is not a tiny experiment. They have been testing the removal of domains like this for YEARS.
malvosenior 7y ago
Google very, very rarely promotes the open way first, and when they do it's step 1 in embrace, extend, extinguish. They have no good intentions. I don't think they ever did, they just had "do no evil" branding until the evil got too obvious to ignore.
- cdata 7y ago
  Speaking as an employee at Google (but not for Google; opinions are all my own), I will offer you this anecdote: I have met a lot of people in my career who are motivated to do work for the public good in order for the whole world to benefit (e.g., standards, open source, public speaking/education etc.) and not just one company. I met the vast majority of those people after I joined Google, and many of the others had previously worked at Google. As a lowly engineer, it is difficult for me to speculate about the true motivations of upper management. But, I do feel confident saying that I work alongside a lot of people who are not motivated by evil or "embrace, extend, extinguish" mentality. My colleagues have good intentions, and they act on them. That said, Google is a big place. It's so big that usually I only hear about user-hostile things like this from the news. I personally find it demotivating and sad, because it undermines the good work that I know is being done elsewhere in the company. It seems like the latest in a long string of incidents, and it probably won't be the last. So, take that for what you will. But, please also consider that it may not be as binary good/evil as you make it sound.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    As and employee? Sure. As a user and internet person, Google is a huge net negative and needs to go away. AMP, Chrome, Gmail, Search, Android, Google Home, Google News... all of these products have massive, toxic reach and they're damaging the technology landscape.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    As a counterpoint, consider that just because good people work there does not mean that the company isn't evil. I'm sure there are NSA employees who are nice folks, but that doesn't mean that the organization is good. Even the originator of 'embrace, extend, extinguish' had good people working for them. That doesn't mean that early 2000s Microsoft wasn't a fairly evil organization. To Natella's credit, they have radically changed, but please re-read your comment and consider that it doesn't actually prove anything about Google as an organization.
Jagat 7y ago
Confirming that it's not a hoax. Here's what I see on my two browsers https://imgur.com/a/0tcLhBe https://imgur.com/a/0tcLhBe
- Jagat 7y ago
  sorry, wrong link. This is the right one https://imgur.com/a/TX49AZu https://imgur.com/a/TX49AZu

judge2020 7y ago

I think it's more "test with users but keep programmers/power users happy". Old accounts (or maybe accounts they deem to be 'power users'?) still see the green http/s links, and my search for "mortgages" doesn't show the favicons like the reddit suggests. https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png This happened with the little icons next to the "all/news/images" tabs at the top a few months ago, I didn't see them in my G search but incognito showed them.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anchpop 7y ago
I tried the same search in both and got the same results (links displayed in both). Maybe you just happened to get into a different A/B bucket when you opened incognito

bhartzer 7y ago

This is not a tiny experiment. They have been testing the removal of domains like this for YEARS.

malvosenior 7y ago

Google very, very rarely promotes the open way first, and when they do it's step 1 in embrace, extend, extinguish. They have no good intentions. I don't think they ever did, they just had "do no evil" branding until the evil got too obvious to ignore.

cdata 7y ago
Speaking as an employee at Google (but not for Google; opinions are all my own), I will offer you this anecdote: I have met a lot of people in my career who are motivated to do work for the public good in order for the whole world to benefit (e.g., standards, open source, public speaking/education etc.) and not just one company. I met the vast majority of those people after I joined Google, and many of the others had previously worked at Google. As a lowly engineer, it is difficult for me to speculate about the true motivations of upper management. But, I do feel confident saying that I work alongside a lot of people who are not motivated by evil or "embrace, extend, extinguish" mentality. My colleagues have good intentions, and they act on them. That said, Google is a big place. It's so big that usually I only hear about user-hostile things like this from the news. I personally find it demotivating and sad, because it undermines the good work that I know is being done elsewhere in the company. It seems like the latest in a long string of incidents, and it probably won't be the last. So, take that for what you will. But, please also consider that it may not be as binary good/evil as you make it sound.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  As and employee? Sure. As a user and internet person, Google is a huge net negative and needs to go away. AMP, Chrome, Gmail, Search, Android, Google Home, Google News... all of these products have massive, toxic reach and they're damaging the technology landscape.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, consider that just because good people work there does not mean that the company isn't evil. I'm sure there are NSA employees who are nice folks, but that doesn't mean that the organization is good. Even the originator of 'embrace, extend, extinguish' had good people working for them. That doesn't mean that early 2000s Microsoft wasn't a fairly evil organization. To Natella's credit, they have radically changed, but please re-read your comment and consider that it doesn't actually prove anything about Google as an organization.

Jagat 7y ago

Confirming that it's not a hoax. Here's what I see on my two browsers https://imgur.com/a/0tcLhBe https://imgur.com/a/0tcLhBe

Jagat 7y ago
sorry, wrong link. This is the right one https://imgur.com/a/TX49AZu https://imgur.com/a/TX49AZu