3 ms·

As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts. Based on my own infreque

As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts. Based on my own infrequent use of Google (I use DDG by default) I'd guess that frequently people do the search, read the summary, and then never click through to the source. Perhaps if the summaries were significantly shorter people would click through to the source, and then the source would get more traffic, hence more ad-revenue (or whatever). So the problem, perhaps, isn't that Google is linking, it's that they are effectively copying, plagiarising[0], the original works. [0] Added in edit: squiggleblaz[1] correctly notes[2] that it's not plagiarism, since Google is not passing off the words as their own. It's more accurately a form of fraud, or perhaps copyright infringement. Copyright laws allow for short snippets to be quoted as "fair use" (or similar) and so far the quoting by Google has been regarded as legitimate. Perhaps that needs to change. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=squiggleblaz https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=squiggleblaz [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870909

abraae 6y ago
Seems like a lose lose situation for Google to me. If the Aussies call their bluff, then 90% of the population will switch to Bing/ddg and will be fine. More discerning Aussie searchers - like people googling for why their spring boot app won't work behind an nginx proxy - will just use a vpn to get to Google US - and they'll be fine too. Google's dam will be broken open and the emperor's clothes will be left a little raggedy. There's more at stake here for Google than Australia, and Aussies play hard and ruthless at the best of times (can confirm, am kiwi).
- toshk 6y ago
  What if they take it further and also pull other google products like gmail, chrome, maps? That would cause some serious trouble.
  - ulucs 6y ago
    That would likely be an antitrust suit waiting to happen
    - toshk 6y ago
      It's just a hypothetical I don't think it will come to it, but wondering why that would that lead to antitrust case? My knowledge of law is non-existent. I thought antitrust suits are because of getting into a monopoly position. Are you arguing that such an action would leave them open to claims of monopoly? Forfeiting services might be seen as a form of abuse, but isn't it sort of opposite of an antitrust by forfeiting your monopoly / strong market position?
      - ulucs 6y ago
        You're leveraging your dominance in some sectors in order to gain advantage in another sector. That's what they got Microsoft for. Also can't imagine countries bowing down to these kinds of tactics anyway.
        Isinlor 6y ago
        Deciding that it's no longer worthwhile to provide services to everyone in a country is not leveraging your dominance. It's giving up. They can't force Google to operate in Australia.
  - ralfn 6y ago
    There are more countries in the world that believe the people should be in charge not venture capital. Europe would close ranks pretty much immediately. As would New Zealand. Not so sure about UK though, but that's not a surprise to anyone, is it?
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    That's a terrible option for Google, because it's a clear statement that they see themselves as above national governments. The large tech companies have been doing everything in their PR power for the last 30 years to pretend we aren't in the opening decades of a cyberpunk future. Why break the kayfabe now, when they have the most to lose, and before their dominance is generationally cemented?
- jgwil2 6y ago
  Won't the same regulations then apply to whatever search engine fills the gap though?
  - tarboreus 6y ago
    Not as yet. The law will apply to Facebook and Google, at least initially. A rational implementation would set a bar for market share or market capitalization before the laws kicked in.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
In this case though, Google is doing something that’s very useful for consumers. I hate having to click through to websites that might be 90% advertisements.
- Causality1 6y ago
  Indeed. Why should I have to load a ten megabyte web page to access 500 bytes of text information?
  - squiggy22 6y ago
    I think a more fitting question is why should google showcase the ten megabyte page so far up the results. Perhaps because those ads that cause the bloat are likely served by them.
  - 9dev 6y ago
    Because that 500 bytes of text have cost the publisher quite a lot to be written, and the other ten megabytes of ads and tracking code account for that. I hate advertisments as much as the next guy, but it's a little astonishing to me how people expect journalism to be free. Papers have to monetize their content somehow, otherwise they'd be unable to provide it.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      So nationalize it! Isn’t that the HN solution to everything? ;)
      - squiggleblaz 6y ago
        You jest, but doesn't just about every country have a government-owned/government-funded news producing organisation? The ABC, the BBC, the CBC, the ARD, PBS etc. etc.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
wzdd 6y ago
Ten years ago Google News was excellent because it was easy to read multiple perspectives on a story by clicking multiple articles. I ended up visiting more news sites than I would have otherwise simply to get a better picture. Nowadays it's much harder to get that comparison, and I avoid certain sites because I know they're paywalled, or because they present information in video form, which IMO is somewhat reader-hostile (you can't skim a video). So to the extent that your guess is correct, it is something that the news sites have brought upon themselves.
- anon98356 6y ago
  Did they bring it on themselves? Or where they forced to adapt to the loss of revenue? As you say it's harder to skim content behind a paywall or in a video, it's also harder to scrape it. For every user like you that visited more sites because of Google News, there are likely plenty more who stopped visiting any sites because what Google News surfaced was all they felt they needed.
CodesInChaos 6y ago
> As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts. If the publishers were happy to be shown without a snippet, they could simply add a `nosnippet` meta tag or http header.
- sidibe 6y ago
  It's amazing how much robots.txt, nosnippet, and noindex are ignored in the reporting and comments about this topic. The controls are already there for Google to do whatever the news outlets want. The anti-Google argument in this case should be along the lines that they force the news organizations into a prisoner's dilemma. They might be better off if none showed snippets but as long as some are they are better off showing them.
  - CodesInChaos 6y ago
    > whatever the news outlets want They want to be shown in a prominent position on the search and be paid for the privilege. No possible change in result presentation will be satisfactory.

abraae 6y ago

Seems like a lose lose situation for Google to me. If the Aussies call their bluff, then 90% of the population will switch to Bing/ddg and will be fine. More discerning Aussie searchers - like people googling for why their spring boot app won't work behind an nginx proxy - will just use a vpn to get to Google US - and they'll be fine too. Google's dam will be broken open and the emperor's clothes will be left a little raggedy. There's more at stake here for Google than Australia, and Aussies play hard and ruthless at the best of times (can confirm, am kiwi).

toshk 6y ago
What if they take it further and also pull other google products like gmail, chrome, maps? That would cause some serious trouble.
- ulucs 6y ago
  That would likely be an antitrust suit waiting to happen
  - toshk 6y ago
    It's just a hypothetical I don't think it will come to it, but wondering why that would that lead to antitrust case? My knowledge of law is non-existent. I thought antitrust suits are because of getting into a monopoly position. Are you arguing that such an action would leave them open to claims of monopoly? Forfeiting services might be seen as a form of abuse, but isn't it sort of opposite of an antitrust by forfeiting your monopoly / strong market position?
    - ulucs 6y ago
      You're leveraging your dominance in some sectors in order to gain advantage in another sector. That's what they got Microsoft for. Also can't imagine countries bowing down to these kinds of tactics anyway.
      - Isinlor 6y ago
        Deciding that it's no longer worthwhile to provide services to everyone in a country is not leveraging your dominance. It's giving up. They can't force Google to operate in Australia.
- ralfn 6y ago
  There are more countries in the world that believe the people should be in charge not venture capital. Europe would close ranks pretty much immediately. As would New Zealand. Not so sure about UK though, but that's not a surprise to anyone, is it?
- ethbr0 6y ago
  That's a terrible option for Google, because it's a clear statement that they see themselves as above national governments. The large tech companies have been doing everything in their PR power for the last 30 years to pretend we aren't in the opening decades of a cyberpunk future. Why break the kayfabe now, when they have the most to lose, and before their dominance is generationally cemented?
jgwil2 6y ago
Won't the same regulations then apply to whatever search engine fills the gap though?
- tarboreus 6y ago
  Not as yet. The law will apply to Facebook and Google, at least initially. A rational implementation would set a bar for market share or market capitalization before the laws kicked in.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

In this case though, Google is doing something that’s very useful for consumers. I hate having to click through to websites that might be 90% advertisements.

Causality1 6y ago
Indeed. Why should I have to load a ten megabyte web page to access 500 bytes of text information?
- squiggy22 6y ago
  I think a more fitting question is why should google showcase the ten megabyte page so far up the results. Perhaps because those ads that cause the bloat are likely served by them.
- 9dev 6y ago
  Because that 500 bytes of text have cost the publisher quite a lot to be written, and the other ten megabytes of ads and tracking code account for that. I hate advertisments as much as the next guy, but it's a little astonishing to me how people expect journalism to be free. Papers have to monetize their content somehow, otherwise they'd be unable to provide it.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    So nationalize it! Isn’t that the HN solution to everything? ;)
    - squiggleblaz 6y ago
      You jest, but doesn't just about every country have a government-owned/government-funded news producing organisation? The ABC, the BBC, the CBC, the ARD, PBS etc. etc.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

wzdd 6y ago

Ten years ago Google News was excellent because it was easy to read multiple perspectives on a story by clicking multiple articles. I ended up visiting more news sites than I would have otherwise simply to get a better picture. Nowadays it's much harder to get that comparison, and I avoid certain sites because I know they're paywalled, or because they present information in video form, which IMO is somewhat reader-hostile (you can't skim a video). So to the extent that your guess is correct, it is something that the news sites have brought upon themselves.

anon98356 6y ago
Did they bring it on themselves? Or where they forced to adapt to the loss of revenue? As you say it's harder to skim content behind a paywall or in a video, it's also harder to scrape it. For every user like you that visited more sites because of Google News, there are likely plenty more who stopped visiting any sites because what Google News surfaced was all they felt they needed.

CodesInChaos 6y ago

> As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts. If the publishers were happy to be shown without a snippet, they could simply add a `nosnippet` meta tag or http header.

sidibe 6y ago
It's amazing how much robots.txt, nosnippet, and noindex are ignored in the reporting and comments about this topic. The controls are already there for Google to do whatever the news outlets want. The anti-Google argument in this case should be along the lines that they force the news organizations into a prisoner's dilemma. They might be better off if none showed snippets but as long as some are they are better off showing them.
- CodesInChaos 6y ago
  > whatever the news outlets want They want to be shown in a prominent position on the search and be paid for the privilege. No possible change in result presentation will be satisfactory.