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Can someone explain to me how this is problematic? If you go to a grocery store, you will see store-brand items promoted too. They will be cheaper and possibly

Can someone explain to me how this is problematic? If you go to a grocery store, you will see store-brand items promoted too. They will be cheaper and possibly more prominent on the shelves than name-brand items. They might even be in disguise (e.g. Archer Farms is a Target brand). How is this any worse or wrong?

intopieces 7y ago
"Wrong" or "worse" is usually measured as a product of the impact to the customer, measured in value: that is, when a potential conflict of interest results in a lower cost the consumer, it's usually deemed acceptable. What is a similar measurement for information? Grocery stores only sell physical goods; they don't, for example, determine what medical information you see, or what information about political candidates you consume... those are things that search engines do. So you see why this could be "worse" and "wrong": there isn't a good way to measure the impact and the scope of influence is much larger.
- akersten 7y ago
  > What is a similar measurement for information? Grocery stores only sell physical goods; they don't, for example, determine what medical information you see, or what information about political candidates you consume... those are things that search engines do. Okay, but that's a different discussion. Google showing Google Maps first instead of Apple Maps on a search for "maps" is not related to the kind of shadowy political subterfuge you're referencing here. I still don't see what's wrong with highlighting your own products to your customers, which is the discussion here.
  - d2wa 7y ago
    The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence, so they’re not even trying to compete with Google Maps on the web. A map service is objectively more useful than a promotional page trying to sell iOS devices with a built-in Maps app.
    - taffer 7y ago
      > The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence It kind of has: https://maps.apple.com/place?address=San%20Francisco https://maps.apple.com/place?address=San%20Francisco
      - d2wa 7y ago
        No, it doesn’t: https://maps.apple.com/robots.txt https://maps.apple.com/robots.txt
        wolco 7y ago
        The robot file doesn't want you scraping actual locations. So it does have a way of accessing the maps over the web. But because they dis-allow locations they don't compete with google for location based queries. Everyone is wrong or right, depending on if your glass is half full or empty.
    - stronglikedan 7y ago
      > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [0] Replace "maps" with the names of any competing products from both companies with a web presence that can be linked to in search results, if you want to genuinely rebut the point. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
duckmysick 7y ago
If they are promoted results, they should be marked as such.
mthoms 7y ago
When performing a search you are implicitly asking to see the "best" (most on-topic) results according to an impartial computer algorithm. That's the user expectation. A corporation inserting its own pages into organic results means it's not a search engine anymore. It's "a paid directory service augmented by a search engine".
- akersten 7y ago
  > "best" (most on-topic) results according to an impartial computer algorithm. Any algorithm looking for the "best" result is inherently partial to something. Best result in terms of most recent, most local to you, most-likely-what-you-actually-want, I mean, the dimensions are endless. The concept of "organic search results" is only possible if the algorithm were public, and that's just not a realistic expectation. >A corporation inserting its own pages into organic results means it's not a search engine anymore. It's "a paid directory service augmented by a search engine". I mean, Google doesn't have to pay themselves to promote their own pages. If you want to split the difference at "a search engine, part of a larger business whose results might show up preferentially in that search because why wouldn't they," that makes sense to me.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    I thought it would have been obvious, but to clarify what I meant by impartial and organic — I mean "ranked using the same criteria regardless of origin". Of course any human-written algorithm will have bias. But it's a reasonable expectation (and the current norm) that every page faces the same bias. I'm not sure where you're going with your last comment. If you've got evidence that Google is manually promoting its own pages within the search results (not ads) then please provide sources. This has never been proven and Google have consistently maintained they don't do it. (I'm not a Google fan but I believe them in this case because of the anti-trust implications)
    - wolco 7y ago
      Google has been doing this since the beginning. They maintain they don't manually change the rankings. Google originally picked a bunch of sites and included there own and gave them a 10 page rank. That meant they automatically ranked higher for the same words/term because of a higher reputation score.
d2wa 7y ago
They’re often cheaper because the store increases the price of the competitors’ wares to make their own store-product more appealing. It increases the price to consumers. Can’t both practices be wrong? Grocery stores shouldn’t be allowed to sell their own brands that compete with the otherwise free market. It’s an abuse of their position in the value chain. Heinz Ketchup can’t compete with the store brand on equal terms when the store sets the prices for both products.
- akersten 7y ago
  > Can’t both practices be wrong? and an abuse of their market position? Sure. But my point is that no one is railing Kroger for putting their cheap pasta above the DeCecco. So it's hypocritical to call out tech companies for doing what physical retailers have been doing for ages. If we're not mad about the pasta, we shouldn't be mad about Flickr being #2 on the search for "photos". And if we are mad about Google Photos being #1, why aren't we mad about the pasta?
  - d2wa 7y ago
    I’m mad about the pasta too. Price gouging is usually regulated internationally, though. E.g. groceries in India are labeled with a maximum retail price set by the manufacturer to avoid problems like this.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    Your analogy is flawed. Google's value proposition is to provide the most useful/accurate results for your query. Period. That's Google search's "raison d'etre". Kroger makes no such (equivalent) claim.
- 50ckpuppet 7y ago
  It's a free market, shop someplace else.
  - josefx 7y ago
    Some of those shops use price dumping to kill all local competition when they move in. Try again.
CapriciousCptl 7y ago
Search engines aren't selling peanuts clearly marked as store-brand; they're showing information most users presume is in descending order of relevance.
raz32dust 7y ago
Both are wrong. It gets more and more wrong as the entry barrier for a new player becomes bigger and bigger. So Google promoting their content is FAR more detrimental than Yahoo promoting Verizon content, because Google drives most of the traffic. One solution is to force the producer of any service to always be decoupled from the distributor or marketplace. So Amazon cannot promote Amazon Basics stuff knowingly, Target cannot promote its own brand, and Google cannot promote its own sites. Why are both wrong? This is a question of ethics, and is therefore subjective. It depends on your personal values. "Free markets are good" is one of my values, so both are wrong through that lens. If you do not believe that enabling competition is good, then it is not wrong.

intopieces 7y ago

"Wrong" or "worse" is usually measured as a product of the impact to the customer, measured in value: that is, when a potential conflict of interest results in a lower cost the consumer, it's usually deemed acceptable. What is a similar measurement for information? Grocery stores only sell physical goods; they don't, for example, determine what medical information you see, or what information about political candidates you consume... those are things that search engines do. So you see why this could be "worse" and "wrong": there isn't a good way to measure the impact and the scope of influence is much larger.

akersten 7y ago
> What is a similar measurement for information? Grocery stores only sell physical goods; they don't, for example, determine what medical information you see, or what information about political candidates you consume... those are things that search engines do. Okay, but that's a different discussion. Google showing Google Maps first instead of Apple Maps on a search for "maps" is not related to the kind of shadowy political subterfuge you're referencing here. I still don't see what's wrong with highlighting your own products to your customers, which is the discussion here.
- d2wa 7y ago
  The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence, so they’re not even trying to compete with Google Maps on the web. A map service is objectively more useful than a promotional page trying to sell iOS devices with a built-in Maps app.
  - taffer 7y ago
    > The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence It kind of has: https://maps.apple.com/place?address=San%20Francisco https://maps.apple.com/place?address=San%20Francisco
    - d2wa 7y ago
      No, it doesn’t: https://maps.apple.com/robots.txt https://maps.apple.com/robots.txt
      - wolco 7y ago
        The robot file doesn't want you scraping actual locations. So it does have a way of accessing the maps over the web. But because they dis-allow locations they don't compete with google for location based queries. Everyone is wrong or right, depending on if your glass is half full or empty.
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [0] Replace "maps" with the names of any competing products from both companies with a web presence that can be linked to in search results, if you want to genuinely rebut the point. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

duckmysick 7y ago

If they are promoted results, they should be marked as such.

mthoms 7y ago

When performing a search you are implicitly asking to see the "best" (most on-topic) results according to an impartial computer algorithm. That's the user expectation. A corporation inserting its own pages into organic results means it's not a search engine anymore. It's "a paid directory service augmented by a search engine".

akersten 7y ago
> "best" (most on-topic) results according to an impartial computer algorithm. Any algorithm looking for the "best" result is inherently partial to something. Best result in terms of most recent, most local to you, most-likely-what-you-actually-want, I mean, the dimensions are endless. The concept of "organic search results" is only possible if the algorithm were public, and that's just not a realistic expectation. >A corporation inserting its own pages into organic results means it's not a search engine anymore. It's "a paid directory service augmented by a search engine". I mean, Google doesn't have to pay themselves to promote their own pages. If you want to split the difference at "a search engine, part of a larger business whose results might show up preferentially in that search because why wouldn't they," that makes sense to me.
- mthoms 7y ago
  I thought it would have been obvious, but to clarify what I meant by impartial and organic — I mean "ranked using the same criteria regardless of origin". Of course any human-written algorithm will have bias. But it's a reasonable expectation (and the current norm) that every page faces the same bias. I'm not sure where you're going with your last comment. If you've got evidence that Google is manually promoting its own pages within the search results (not ads) then please provide sources. This has never been proven and Google have consistently maintained they don't do it. (I'm not a Google fan but I believe them in this case because of the anti-trust implications)
  - wolco 7y ago
    Google has been doing this since the beginning. They maintain they don't manually change the rankings. Google originally picked a bunch of sites and included there own and gave them a 10 page rank. That meant they automatically ranked higher for the same words/term because of a higher reputation score.

d2wa 7y ago

They’re often cheaper because the store increases the price of the competitors’ wares to make their own store-product more appealing. It increases the price to consumers. Can’t both practices be wrong? Grocery stores shouldn’t be allowed to sell their own brands that compete with the otherwise free market. It’s an abuse of their position in the value chain. Heinz Ketchup can’t compete with the store brand on equal terms when the store sets the prices for both products.

akersten 7y ago
> Can’t both practices be wrong? and an abuse of their market position? Sure. But my point is that no one is railing Kroger for putting their cheap pasta above the DeCecco. So it's hypocritical to call out tech companies for doing what physical retailers have been doing for ages. If we're not mad about the pasta, we shouldn't be mad about Flickr being #2 on the search for "photos". And if we are mad about Google Photos being #1, why aren't we mad about the pasta?
- d2wa 7y ago
  I’m mad about the pasta too. Price gouging is usually regulated internationally, though. E.g. groceries in India are labeled with a maximum retail price set by the manufacturer to avoid problems like this.
- mthoms 7y ago
  Your analogy is flawed. Google's value proposition is to provide the most useful/accurate results for your query. Period. That's Google search's "raison d'etre". Kroger makes no such (equivalent) claim.
50ckpuppet 7y ago
It's a free market, shop someplace else.
- josefx 7y ago
  Some of those shops use price dumping to kill all local competition when they move in. Try again.

CapriciousCptl 7y ago

Search engines aren't selling peanuts clearly marked as store-brand; they're showing information most users presume is in descending order of relevance.

raz32dust 7y ago

Both are wrong. It gets more and more wrong as the entry barrier for a new player becomes bigger and bigger. So Google promoting their content is FAR more detrimental than Yahoo promoting Verizon content, because Google drives most of the traffic. One solution is to force the producer of any service to always be decoupled from the distributor or marketplace. So Amazon cannot promote Amazon Basics stuff knowingly, Target cannot promote its own brand, and Google cannot promote its own sites. Why are both wrong? This is a question of ethics, and is therefore subjective. It depends on your personal values. "Free markets are good" is one of my values, so both are wrong through that lens. If you do not believe that enabling competition is good, then it is not wrong.