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Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. They go down in quality considerably in my experience. Even wit

by Grimm1 6y ago

Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. They go down in quality considerably in my experience. Even with those features on I find constantly outdated information these days. Yup that article from 2012 Techcrunch with the broken links is really helping me Google. Disclosure: Currently running an alternative search engine. However I legitimately don't like Google search or Google's practices in the search market, so much so it actually prompted us to throw our hat in the ring. Edit: I just made the search again, "Techcrunch submission form" The first result for me is from 2006, not 2012, https://techcrunch.com/2006/02/01/how-to-submit-your-company-to-techcrunch/ https://techcrunch.com/2006/02/01/how-to-submit-your-company...

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. Yeah, Google has overtly for, IIRC, about a decade said they are focussing search improvements on personal and even predictive search, so, sure, disable that and the quality goes down. But that just illustrates that, while there is an obvious advertising incentive for data collection, it actually is relevant to delivering useful search results.
- Grimm1 6y ago
  I don't disagree that personalization is important, I disagree with the methods Google employs to collect that data and then that they also use it against the user on the advertising side. So yeah, Google does well by trampling all over ethics and privacy. [0]Only 22% of consumers say they are okay with having their information collected indiscriminately by websites to provide a better experience. Which means by that metric google abuses 88% of it's users unless they go through the means to turn the features off. Informed consent, access and ownership are all pillars a modern site experience should have when it comes to data collection -- Google fails here and so does DDG in the opposite direction by just never asking which means they can't do any personalization. The winner here is going to be someone who can provide the better ethical and functional experience. I firmly believe in the next 15 years we will see litigation in the US around data privacy just using California as the canary and Europe recently voted to get even stricter than the GDPR. [0]https://www.privacymonitor.com/articles/privacy-guide/ https://www.privacymonitor.com/articles/privacy-guide/
  - nl 6y ago
    > [0]Only 22% of consumers say they are okay with having their information collected indiscriminately by websites to provide a better experience. That isn't a quote from the referenced link. The quote is "Only 22 percent of consumers agreed that they would be willing to hand over personal data to improve experiences." - which is quite a different thing. I'm not happy to hand over personal data to improve experiences. But I'm very happy for Google to track what searches I do to improve their results.
    - Grimm1 6y ago
      Uhhhhh but you hand over way more if you use google services. Your right it's not a quote I didn't quote it, notice the lack of quotes. I'm also not sure how you are splitting hairs over "information collected indiscriminately" which would be a superset including personal data.
    - Grimm1 6y ago
      Like maybe it's not clear but google turns around and uses your information in search for ad targeting as well. You don't just improve search which would be largely innocuous but that's not their business.
nl 6y ago
> "Techcrunch submission form" I get https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/submit-a-guest-post-to-extra-crunch/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/submit-a-guest-post-to-ext... as the first link
- Grimm1 6y ago
  Happy to share a screenshot if you'd like :)
  - nl 6y ago
    Here's mine: https://imgur.com/a/7S3cDfQ https://imgur.com/a/7S3cDfQ
    - Grimm1 6y ago
      https://imgur.com/a/dmdJsS1 https://imgur.com/a/dmdJsS1 and there's mine. Google tends to give me crap results though. Seems your experience is different :P
jmnicolas 6y ago
> Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. They go down in quality considerably in my experience. Absolutely. I switched from Google to DDG and Qwant a few weeks ago and was surprised that I didn't see much differences. But after discussing it with colleagues that were switching back to Google it became apparent that it was because I was siloing Google to its own browser, erasing cookies etc that made it as "inefficient" as the other search engines.

by Grimm1 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. Yeah, Google has overtly for, IIRC, about a decade said they are focussing search improvements on personal and even predictive search, so, sure, disable that and the quality goes down. But that just illustrates that, while there is an obvious advertising incentive for data collection, it actually is relevant to delivering useful search results.

Grimm1 6y ago
I don't disagree that personalization is important, I disagree with the methods Google employs to collect that data and then that they also use it against the user on the advertising side. So yeah, Google does well by trampling all over ethics and privacy. [0]Only 22% of consumers say they are okay with having their information collected indiscriminately by websites to provide a better experience. Which means by that metric google abuses 88% of it's users unless they go through the means to turn the features off. Informed consent, access and ownership are all pillars a modern site experience should have when it comes to data collection -- Google fails here and so does DDG in the opposite direction by just never asking which means they can't do any personalization. The winner here is going to be someone who can provide the better ethical and functional experience. I firmly believe in the next 15 years we will see litigation in the US around data privacy just using California as the canary and Europe recently voted to get even stricter than the GDPR. [0]https://www.privacymonitor.com/articles/privacy-guide/ https://www.privacymonitor.com/articles/privacy-guide/
- nl 6y ago
  > [0]Only 22% of consumers say they are okay with having their information collected indiscriminately by websites to provide a better experience. That isn't a quote from the referenced link. The quote is "Only 22 percent of consumers agreed that they would be willing to hand over personal data to improve experiences." - which is quite a different thing. I'm not happy to hand over personal data to improve experiences. But I'm very happy for Google to track what searches I do to improve their results.
  - Grimm1 6y ago
    Uhhhhh but you hand over way more if you use google services. Your right it's not a quote I didn't quote it, notice the lack of quotes. I'm also not sure how you are splitting hairs over "information collected indiscriminately" which would be a superset including personal data.
  - Grimm1 6y ago
    Like maybe it's not clear but google turns around and uses your information in search for ad targeting as well. You don't just improve search which would be largely innocuous but that's not their business.

nl 6y ago

> "Techcrunch submission form" I get https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/submit-a-guest-post-to-extra-crunch/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/submit-a-guest-post-to-ext... as the first link

Grimm1 6y ago
Happy to share a screenshot if you'd like :)
- nl 6y ago
  Here's mine: https://imgur.com/a/7S3cDfQ https://imgur.com/a/7S3cDfQ
  - Grimm1 6y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/dmdJsS1 https://imgur.com/a/dmdJsS1 and there's mine. Google tends to give me crap results though. Seems your experience is different :P

jmnicolas 6y ago

> Turn off all the data collection in Google and personalization from it and compare the results. They go down in quality considerably in my experience. Absolutely. I switched from Google to DDG and Qwant a few weeks ago and was surprised that I didn't see much differences. But after discussing it with colleagues that were switching back to Google it became apparent that it was because I was siloing Google to its own browser, erasing cookies etc that made it as "inefficient" as the other search engines.