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Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and

Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store, driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website. I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the wrong symptoms or describing easily-treatable maladies as "Incurable". Now I actively ignore the info box and intentionally click through to an authoritative non-Google website. To a non-technical user, I'm sure the box looks like a human-curated result which they're more likely to trust. Maybe that's the goal of Google's UI choices. Couldn't be further from the truth.

judge2020 5y ago
> . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are updating their website but not updating that (or checking their email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrect info.
- neartheplain 5y ago
  Even if 90% of businesses play along (doing Google's data entry work for them), the 10% chance of my wasting half an hour makes it worth ignoring the info box and double-checking each time.
  - clydethefrog 5y ago
    It has also been a waste of working hours at our offices. I work at libraries and am responsible for the communication towards visitors — we are slowly opening up all our venues again with lifting of corona measures, which mean we need to update our opening times. With one click I can reverse them on our own website but I have to update every location manually on google results. Anyone can also change these opening times plus they might just change them again based on some third party website that scrapes outdated opening times.
    - mananaysiempre 5y ago
      I don’t know what the prioritization is if you are e.g. explicitly registered in some Google database, but I’ve had a good experience with just marking up the opening hours (addresses, etc.) with RDFa (or Microformats or whatever else Google accepts these days) on the official website. Of course how easy it is depends on the number of layers between you and the actual HTML, and my case was rather straightforward (three locations with separately listed addresses and opening hours), but you might want to check if it’ll take some of the pain out of the process.
- da_chicken 5y ago
  That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Making it sound like the business's fault for not using Google's other service is just reinforcing the idea that Google's information is the only information that's real. This is the problem with the web search and scaping provider also trying to be a thousand other services at the same time. It's a constant conflict of interest.
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    > That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Huh? If the business owners aren't updating the correct info in My Business, how can that possibly be Google's fault?
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Because this means My Business is not fit for purpose. Google is a web search engine, not a Google proprietary DB search engine.
      - dncornholio 5y ago
        Google is an advertising company.. not a search engine
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Google is an advertising company Google is a company that sells space for ads; an “advertising company” conventionally refers to a company that designs ad campaigns and purchases ad space for them on behalf of a client. > not a search engine. No, its both. Just as historically newspapers publishers in the US have been both producers of newspapers and companies that sell ad space.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Google the company is an ad intermediary company. Google is also the colloquial name of Google Search.
- nyhc99 5y ago
  Google recently changed the hours of operation on my business' Google My Business listing to an hour later than I had it set to. I have no idea why; I certainly didn't tell them to. We found out when we got some angry calls from customers who showed up after we were closed. It's hard to explain to someone that we don't own our own listing on Google, and that we're at their mercy to approve the changes we submit and hope they don't make their own arbitrary updates.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    Are you saying you've claimed your listing, meaning Google has set you as the owner, and it was still possible for some rando to make changes?
    - Piskvorrr 5y ago
      Or that some runaway automated internal process is treated as more authoritative than the owner, or...
freedomben 5y ago
As far as I can tell the KG is also the source for Google Home when it answers questions. That's even more rough since it sounds authoritative and there are no visual cues to imply that it may be inferred.
- apozem 5y ago
  Right. Voice assistants are a much harder format for Google, because you can’t just display a list of links. I ask my tube a question, I expect one (1) correct answer.
slipframe 5y ago
Technology Connections had a great observation about this in his video about touch lamps: the problem with Google's knowledge graph is that it takes everything it reads on the internet at face value. https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 (0:58 through 4:20)
- agumonkey 5y ago
  > takes everything it reads on the internet at face value. it's terrible but a lot of people [0] think digital information, and thus internet, is truth [0] and if google itself falls for this.. no wonder if people do too
  - gatorcode 5y ago
    Google isn’t interested in truth, they are interested in information. They are provide a search engine not a truth engine. Sarcasm aside, how do we propose they determine what is truth? If we assume the internet is full of information and more truthful than not, then Google’s assumption could be accurate. Of course they do try and solve this with the knowledge graph and expert curation. Connections to verified information might give validity to that information, but not always.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I don't, I stopped caring about truthes, at least in a large scale social context.. now if someone could tell this to the world.
      - mirekrusin 5y ago
        if you peek outside of math/physics it's pretty much landscape of relative truths; imho ideal thruth/fake news detecting machine would simply require axiomatic/weighted input, ie. "I trust MIT with public key 0x..., youtube jesus from la with public key 0x... and my childhood mate 0x..." – based on that is "X true, false or undefined"? (weighted output). Because I trust MIT with weight ie. 500% and MIT trusts Caltech, my trust graph will favour Caltech view of the world. Yes you can throw blockchain and AI into it and it actually makes sense.
philwelch 5y ago
If Google isn’t legally liable for this under defamation statutes, maybe they should be.
- mcv 5y ago
  The example in the article sounds like a pretty blatant case of libel/slander. Though not as downright dangerous as some of your examples.
blueblimp 5y ago
I once saw it source its info from a wrong answer in a multiple-choice quiz.
cntrmmbrpsswrd 5y ago
This is not true. While the content may initially be auto-generated, the Google KG is worked on extensively by real people. There are regional teams which work to verify and source the information that is out there. My sister works on the traditional Chinese team (mostly out of Taiwan or Taiwanese ABCs). These teams, as far as I know, are WFH contract workers.
- neartheplain 5y ago
  Can users tell when info box answers have been auto-generated vs. curated? How often is KG content updated or re-verified, as in the case of businesses changing their operating hours? Are KG verifiers subject matter experts, e.g. medical professionals, or unskilled workers?
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  I believe you but anyone got links? This is interesting information.
- Too 5y ago
  Real people or not, I've been burned by false opening hours on google maps so many times I will never trust it again. I'd rather spend 20 seconds extra to visit the official webpage rather than a 25% chance of traveling half an hour to realize it's closed. Even if extensive work by a human team can reduce this to a 10% chance it's still not worth my trouble. As the old adage goes. The only thing worse than no documentation is outdated/incorrect documentation.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Google's medical information boxes are irresponsible. They are not accurate enough to serve the general population. They aren't detailed enough to be a useful reference for professionals either. Even a Wikipedia article is a better resource.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
The even uglier aspect of this, I think, is that Google is trying to keep you on their site and discourage you from visiting the authoritative site. That is classic middleman (unwanted intermediary) behaviour. Google produces no content but they sure interested in everyone else's.
- gruez 5y ago
  > That is classic middleman (unwanted intermediary) behaviour. Unwanted by whom? The reader? If you don't want google as an intermediary you can just... not use them. If you want to search but not have an intermediary, you can just run your own search engine and index. The publisher? Again, if a publisher doesn't want an search engine to be an intermediary then they can always get their site delisted. Turns out that most sites don't do that, or do and then quickly revert back, so clearly they want Google as an intermediary.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
Opening hours has been mostly surprisingly accurate - but I agree, it failed a few times. Opening hours and Google Maps are the only things that get me on Google from DuckDuckGo these days (even if Google Maps keeps getting worse every year).

judge2020 5y ago

> . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are updating their website but not updating that (or checking their email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrect info.

neartheplain 5y ago
Even if 90% of businesses play along (doing Google's data entry work for them), the 10% chance of my wasting half an hour makes it worth ignoring the info box and double-checking each time.
- clydethefrog 5y ago
  It has also been a waste of working hours at our offices. I work at libraries and am responsible for the communication towards visitors — we are slowly opening up all our venues again with lifting of corona measures, which mean we need to update our opening times. With one click I can reverse them on our own website but I have to update every location manually on google results. Anyone can also change these opening times plus they might just change them again based on some third party website that scrapes outdated opening times.
  - mananaysiempre 5y ago
    I don’t know what the prioritization is if you are e.g. explicitly registered in some Google database, but I’ve had a good experience with just marking up the opening hours (addresses, etc.) with RDFa (or Microformats or whatever else Google accepts these days) on the official website. Of course how easy it is depends on the number of layers between you and the actual HTML, and my case was rather straightforward (three locations with separately listed addresses and opening hours), but you might want to check if it’ll take some of the pain out of the process.
da_chicken 5y ago
That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Making it sound like the business's fault for not using Google's other service is just reinforcing the idea that Google's information is the only information that's real. This is the problem with the web search and scaping provider also trying to be a thousand other services at the same time. It's a constant conflict of interest.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  > That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing out-of-date information, it's their fault. Huh? If the business owners aren't updating the correct info in My Business, how can that possibly be Google's fault?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Because this means My Business is not fit for purpose. Google is a web search engine, not a Google proprietary DB search engine.
    - dncornholio 5y ago
      Google is an advertising company.. not a search engine
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Google is an advertising company Google is a company that sells space for ads; an “advertising company” conventionally refers to a company that designs ad campaigns and purchases ad space for them on behalf of a client. > not a search engine. No, its both. Just as historically newspapers publishers in the US have been both producers of newspapers and companies that sell ad space.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Google the company is an ad intermediary company. Google is also the colloquial name of Google Search.
nyhc99 5y ago
Google recently changed the hours of operation on my business' Google My Business listing to an hour later than I had it set to. I have no idea why; I certainly didn't tell them to. We found out when we got some angry calls from customers who showed up after we were closed. It's hard to explain to someone that we don't own our own listing on Google, and that we're at their mercy to approve the changes we submit and hope they don't make their own arbitrary updates.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  Are you saying you've claimed your listing, meaning Google has set you as the owner, and it was still possible for some rando to make changes?
  - Piskvorrr 5y ago
    Or that some runaway automated internal process is treated as more authoritative than the owner, or...

freedomben 5y ago

As far as I can tell the KG is also the source for Google Home when it answers questions. That's even more rough since it sounds authoritative and there are no visual cues to imply that it may be inferred.

apozem 5y ago
Right. Voice assistants are a much harder format for Google, because you can’t just display a list of links. I ask my tube a question, I expect one (1) correct answer.

slipframe 5y ago

Technology Connections had a great observation about this in his video about touch lamps: the problem with Google's knowledge graph is that it takes everything it reads on the internet at face value. https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 (0:58 through 4:20)

agumonkey 5y ago
> takes everything it reads on the internet at face value. it's terrible but a lot of people [0] think digital information, and thus internet, is truth [0] and if google itself falls for this.. no wonder if people do too
- gatorcode 5y ago
  Google isn’t interested in truth, they are interested in information. They are provide a search engine not a truth engine. Sarcasm aside, how do we propose they determine what is truth? If we assume the internet is full of information and more truthful than not, then Google’s assumption could be accurate. Of course they do try and solve this with the knowledge graph and expert curation. Connections to verified information might give validity to that information, but not always.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I don't, I stopped caring about truthes, at least in a large scale social context.. now if someone could tell this to the world.
    - mirekrusin 5y ago
      if you peek outside of math/physics it's pretty much landscape of relative truths; imho ideal thruth/fake news detecting machine would simply require axiomatic/weighted input, ie. "I trust MIT with public key 0x..., youtube jesus from la with public key 0x... and my childhood mate 0x..." – based on that is "X true, false or undefined"? (weighted output). Because I trust MIT with weight ie. 500% and MIT trusts Caltech, my trust graph will favour Caltech view of the world. Yes you can throw blockchain and AI into it and it actually makes sense.

philwelch 5y ago

If Google isn’t legally liable for this under defamation statutes, maybe they should be.

mcv 5y ago
The example in the article sounds like a pretty blatant case of libel/slander. Though not as downright dangerous as some of your examples.

blueblimp 5y ago

I once saw it source its info from a wrong answer in a multiple-choice quiz.

cntrmmbrpsswrd 5y ago

This is not true. While the content may initially be auto-generated, the Google KG is worked on extensively by real people. There are regional teams which work to verify and source the information that is out there. My sister works on the traditional Chinese team (mostly out of Taiwan or Taiwanese ABCs). These teams, as far as I know, are WFH contract workers.

neartheplain 5y ago
Can users tell when info box answers have been auto-generated vs. curated? How often is KG content updated or re-verified, as in the case of businesses changing their operating hours? Are KG verifiers subject matter experts, e.g. medical professionals, or unskilled workers?
joe_the_user 5y ago
I believe you but anyone got links? This is interesting information.
Too 5y ago
Real people or not, I've been burned by false opening hours on google maps so many times I will never trust it again. I'd rather spend 20 seconds extra to visit the official webpage rather than a 25% chance of traveling half an hour to realize it's closed. Even if extensive work by a human team can reduce this to a 10% chance it's still not worth my trouble. As the old adage goes. The only thing worse than no documentation is outdated/incorrect documentation.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Google's medical information boxes are irresponsible. They are not accurate enough to serve the general population. They aren't detailed enough to be a useful reference for professionals either. Even a Wikipedia article is a better resource.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

The even uglier aspect of this, I think, is that Google is trying to keep you on their site and discourage you from visiting the authoritative site. That is classic middleman (unwanted intermediary) behaviour. Google produces no content but they sure interested in everyone else's.

gruez 5y ago
> That is classic middleman (unwanted intermediary) behaviour. Unwanted by whom? The reader? If you don't want google as an intermediary you can just... not use them. If you want to search but not have an intermediary, you can just run your own search engine and index. The publisher? Again, if a publisher doesn't want an search engine to be an intermediary then they can always get their site delisted. Turns out that most sites don't do that, or do and then quickly revert back, so clearly they want Google as an intermediary.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

Opening hours has been mostly surprisingly accurate - but I agree, it failed a few times. Opening hours and Google Maps are the only things that get me on Google from DuckDuckGo these days (even if Google Maps keeps getting worse every year).