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If Google deprioritized or entirely removed Pinterest images based on this feedback, wouldn’t that be seen as an abuse of power? (Honest question)

rahidz 5y ago
If it specifically targets Pinterest then maybe. But if they write a general rule (say, penalizing sites that require a login before displaying content I'm looking at you Quora...), or add additional features like perm-blacklisting sites or display more varied image results like Bing/Yandex, that'd get around most anticompetitive accusations
- genewitch 5y ago
  Is there an absolute right to be indexed by Google or something?
  - dazc 5y ago
    Is there a right to expect honest behaviour in so much as Google will return results which are uncensored and where obvious rule breakers (Google's own rules, that is) are dealt with accordingly? https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/cloaking https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...
micromacrofoot 5y ago
If a vendor walks into my store and poops all over the floor, would banning their product be an abuse of power?
- LanceH 5y ago
  For a lot of people -- apparently -- the answer to that question can vary based upon their association with the perpetrator.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Sure, I can see that maybe if it's your best vendor and their product makes you a lot of money you can tolerate some poop on the floor occasionally... ...but if you decide to ban them I don't think anyone would ever consider it an "abuse of power" would they? Your service came with an element that's detrimental to my own... that seems like reasonable grounds for a ban. I think this starts to approach conversations about how big is "too big." If a company or product is so large that a simple ban for bad behavior can be considered "abuse of power" then maybe that product represents too much of the market.
munk-a 5y ago
No, I don't think so - assuming they had user feedback to back up their decision. It's sort of similar to a convienence store specifically stopping stocking of Nestle brand waters over customer complaints. It'd be a lot safer of them to just ban the behavior though and create a rule.
pornel 5y ago
They're already doing such things, and have been since the beginning. It's a standard quality monitoring and tuning of the ranking algorithm. Google even has (outsourced) staff that continuously performs searches and gives feedback. Sites that Google doesn't deem appropriate for their search results are regularly removed both algorithmically and via manual interventions. There's no objective ranking. Every algorithm change is effectively Google's decision against someone's site. Google has been caught abusing this responsibility with preferential treatment of AMP pages, due to AMP giving preferential treatment to Google's ads. Google knows Pinterest is blatantly spamming search, so they must have a reason for keeping them.

rahidz 5y ago

If it specifically targets Pinterest then maybe. But if they write a general rule (say, penalizing sites that require a login before displaying content I'm looking at you Quora...), or add additional features like perm-blacklisting sites or display more varied image results like Bing/Yandex, that'd get around most anticompetitive accusations

genewitch 5y ago
Is there an absolute right to be indexed by Google or something?
- dazc 5y ago
  Is there a right to expect honest behaviour in so much as Google will return results which are uncensored and where obvious rule breakers (Google's own rules, that is) are dealt with accordingly? https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/cloaking https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...

micromacrofoot 5y ago

If a vendor walks into my store and poops all over the floor, would banning their product be an abuse of power?

LanceH 5y ago
For a lot of people -- apparently -- the answer to that question can vary based upon their association with the perpetrator.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Sure, I can see that maybe if it's your best vendor and their product makes you a lot of money you can tolerate some poop on the floor occasionally... ...but if you decide to ban them I don't think anyone would ever consider it an "abuse of power" would they? Your service came with an element that's detrimental to my own... that seems like reasonable grounds for a ban. I think this starts to approach conversations about how big is "too big." If a company or product is so large that a simple ban for bad behavior can be considered "abuse of power" then maybe that product represents too much of the market.

munk-a 5y ago

No, I don't think so - assuming they had user feedback to back up their decision. It's sort of similar to a convienence store specifically stopping stocking of Nestle brand waters over customer complaints. It'd be a lot safer of them to just ban the behavior though and create a rule.

pornel 5y ago

They're already doing such things, and have been since the beginning. It's a standard quality monitoring and tuning of the ranking algorithm. Google even has (outsourced) staff that continuously performs searches and gives feedback. Sites that Google doesn't deem appropriate for their search results are regularly removed both algorithmically and via manual interventions. There's no objective ranking. Every algorithm change is effectively Google's decision against someone's site. Google has been caught abusing this responsibility with preferential treatment of AMP pages, due to AMP giving preferential treatment to Google's ads. Google knows Pinterest is blatantly spamming search, so they must have a reason for keeping them.