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Google going dark would have been the most dramatic protest, of course, but I applaud them for this action. I can't imagine Google taking the financial hit tha
by jaysonelliot 15y ago
Google going dark would have been the most dramatic protest, of course, but I applaud them for this action.
I can't imagine Google taking the financial hit that would come from going dark for 24 hours, and I'm not certain how much more impactful that would have been, anyway.
I wonder, though, if they plan to include the SOPA message on their results pages as well? The Google home page is only seen by people who begin their searches at Google.com instead of using a browser toolbar or one of the myriad affiliate search boxes out there.
- Symmetry 15y agoEven not considering financials, I'd expect at least 1 death from people looking up medical information and not being able to get it if Google was entirely gone for a whole day. EDIT: Of course most reasonable people will contact a medical professional rather than an internet search engine, that's why I guessed "at least 1" instead of "at least a couple hundred".
- meroliph 15y agoI'm pretty sure there are other search engines that would still be available.
- acangiano 15y agoPlenty of people don't know any other search engine but "the Google".
- BudVVeezer 15y agoMy mom still uses Bing to search for Google to get to the website...
- btilly 15y agoI am sadly unable to tell whether you are serious. http://xkcd.com/763/ http://xkcd.com/763/ relates.
- jmsduran 15y agoWhen you have a medical emergency, you call 911 or go to the emergency room, not peruse Q & A sites for answers.
- travisp 15y agoWhile true, I'm sure that there are plenty of users who search for information about something they don't think is an emergency, and then find out it is.
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y agoSometimes is better to do both. For example: Intoxication by adulterated liquor can cause strong headache and (permanent) blindness; but if you search in Google you may find out that drinking pure Whisky right away can neutralize its effects.
- Bootvis 15y agoReally? cool! Honest question: do you have a reference for that? I can't find one Google but would like to know more.
- atakan_gurkan 15y agohttp://www.politedissent.com/archives/905 http://www.politedissent.com/archives/905 See the 2nd paragraph after the warning banner. It might not look serious, but it is. This review is written by an MD.
- chc 15y agoPlease do note that the GP said "adulterated spirits" — that is, rubbing alcohol and the like, which contain methanol. If you have normal alcohol poisoning (i.e. from ethanol drinks like beer, wine, vodka, etc.), drinking whiskey is a terrible idea.
- baddox 15y agoAre you a doctor?
- andyking 15y agoSurely the best place to find medical information is via your GP / doctor, not Google?
- groaner 15y agoDoctors use Google, too. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/study-nearly-half-of-doctors-use-google-yahoo-to-diagnose-patients/ http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/study-nearly-half-...
- acangiano 15y agoCertainly, but there are plenty of situations when people will consult Google before figuring out that they are having a medical emergency. Someone could for example google for "vomit like ground coffee" and realize they are probably bleeding inside and need to rush to the ER.
- jiggy2011 15y agoWhat about people in the US without medical insurance? They have a problem but want to consult online first to see if they can justify the cost of a doctors visit. I'm sure this happens.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y agoBeen exactly there, done exactly that.
- adpowers 15y agoTry searching for [poison control] or [suicide]. Both of those bring up one boxes with phone numbers to call. Those probably help save a couple lives per day. Sure, you could call 911 and have them give you the poison control number, but now you've tied up 911 resources.
- pipeline_tux 15y agoI'm sure that the 911 operator won't mind, especially if it is or could be a genuine emergency.
- rometest 15y agoif people are looking at google for medical information during serious cases, we are in a very bad state.
- nekojima 15y agoI'd much rather use Google than the "medical" alternatives that were available a hundred years ago or are still widely used in developing countries. These can result in increased pain, suffering and deaths because of poor diagnosis or idiotic ineffectual traditional cures. I'd pick Google over a witch doctor, religious medicine or herbal doctor every time!!
- philwelch 15y agoReligious nuts and herbal quacks get listed on Google too. As do anti-vax, homeopathy, and other non-scientific crap.
- wahnfrieden 15y agoIndeed, and these things lead to unnecessary deaths. Very dangerous.
- cscheid 15y agoOf course, this would need to be weighed against the probability that if SOPA passes, someone _else_ could die from not being able to look up some information because of SOPA.
- math_is_life 15y agoI am against this bill, but this kind of comment is absurd. SOPA could censor Google when it comes to piracy (and as most things do, it will end up being corrupt for many more things), but I fail to see how important information to save lives would be blocked. The Government will not take down Google and most normal searches would be intact. The bills need to die, but sensationalism is not the way to stop it.
- cscheid 15y ago(Do you agree that "Having Google's DNS blacked out because Google linked to a copyrighted sitcom transcript" a possible outcome if SOPA passes?) My comment was that you need to calculate the expected loss on both sides: if you do something and if you do not do it. I wasn't even claiming that Google _does, in fact, save lives_; I was claiming that if you say "X will be lost if Y is done", you need to also say ", which is better than the expected Z loss if Y is not done". Please do not insert your assumptions into my comment.
- nyellin 15y agoDo you agree that "Having Google's DNS blacked out because Google linked to a copyrighted sitcom transcript" a possible outcome if SOPA passes? No. Absolutely not.
- LisaG 15y agoIs your reasoning because "The Government will not take down Google and most normal searches would be intact."? I am not sure I would put too much faith in the thinking that Google will get special dispensation from the government because it is so useful to so many people. Google is vulnerable to SOPA. In fact they are vulnerable on more than one front.
- jiggy2011 15y agoTurning google of would effectively turn the internet off for many people. Not sure about deaths (it's possible I guess). I could see the following implications: Tech support line for every ISP would be ringing off the hook all day. The same for IT support providers as people assume their PC has been hacked or has a virus. Google receive 1000s of complaints from people swearing to move to bing. A number of companies get sued due to contractual agreements that somehow relate to websites being accessible to search etc or because emails are not replied to because someone couldn't access their webmail etc. Hundreds of thousands of homework assignments are not done. Spike in number of births due to people having sex instead of going online. SOPA still gets passed.
- kzrdude 15y agoGoogle going dark would be extremely interesting and a valuable lesson for society (that it will fail to understand of course).
- jiggy2011 15y agoTrue, but I don't think it's a lesson that google wants them to learn.
- huskyr 15y agoAll those homework assignments are done using Wikipedia. It will be very interesting to see what will happen tomorrow when people can't look up stuff there.
- RobAtticus 15y agoProbably the same way I did before Wikipedia: by Googling the topic. It's nice having all the relevant references on one page, but search results aren't usually too difficult to master either.
- nikhilalmeida 15y agoI agree with you. Thousands of people use google to search for critical information and loss of that for a day would cause losses in the tune of millions of dollars (if not billions) for a number of companies. I dont think that can be justified in an effort to raise awareness. To me putting a black mark across their logo would be good enough with a link and video explaining why SOPA is bad and why could it stifle innovation.
- keithnoizu 15y ago"Darnit, googles down. Should we try yahoo to look up pa's symptoms?" "Nah he just has a pain in his shoulder and shortness of breath, he'll be fine, lets play some games on facebook"
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- fragsworth 15y agoGoogle shutting down would probably cause a significant amount of awareness of the existence of Bing. This could be devastating to them. I would never expect a complete shutdown.
- klausa 15y agoI think you overestimate number of people who use searchboxes int their browsers - how many times we saw stories about people typing 'facebook.com' into Google? I think the majority of users, especially non-technical (and I think majority of people that should see this message fall in this category), still uses google.com as a place to begin their searches.
- sambeau 15y agoLast time I looked "Google" was one the most searched for items on Google due to people typing it into browser search fields to get Google so they can search for something on Google. I've watched people do this.
- RexRollman 15y agoI bet a lot of them do. I know people who still have Yahoo! as their homepage. As for me, I have hardly visited the Google homepage since modern browsers introduced the search bar.
- knorby 15y agoIt will give greater legitimacy to other sites protesting, just from news reports including google on the list of companies taking part. I'm guessing the news stories will end of having much more influence than whatever google links to.
- j_baker 15y agoI would imagine the vast majority of users would notice something in their Google results before they notice a name in a news report. People search every day. Not everyone reads the news every day (sadly).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- j_baker 15y agoYou know, this actually makes me wonder what the impact on the economy would be if Google went down for a day. I would imagine a lot of people would just use Bing for a day (which would probably be terrible for Google in and of itself), but I wonder how many peoples' jobs would be temporarily halted due to not having Google and not knowing of any other search engine to use. For that matter, I wonder what the economic impact of Wikipedia shutting down will be. It's just one of those things that I haven't imagined a world without. On the bright side, I suppose that there might be a positive benefit to the economy if Reddit shuts down.
- Kadrith 15y agoI would love to see two things from Google: * Change the logo; even just a black bar through the middle since the logo gets a lot of attention. * For any SOPA/PIPA supporter's site in their results, mark it in some way. Don't block it, but indicate that this is a supporter and use that to demonstrate what SOPA/PIPA might do. This allows people to ignore those sites if they want, but does not remove them from the index or cause any permanent harm.
- abjr 15y agoOr at least change the logo to all black...
- Zolo 15y agoThey could also replace the search bar with a prompt, reminding the user that the quality and breadth of search results currently available to them will suffer if the legislation passes. Once they click "Ok" they can go on searching, but at least throw out a warning that things will change for everyone if SOPA/PIPA makes it through.
- LisaG 15y agoGoogle really should go dark, even if it is only for a few hours. Policymakers need to understand that if the internet gets broken, it will have repercussions well outside of silicon valley.
- sehugg 15y agoGoogle would likely face wrath from investors, as well as breaking agreements with partners. Their legal department would need therapy.
- gojomo 15y ago'Most dramatic' ≠ 'most effective', at least not always. For example, tantrums are dramatic, but can create more resentment than sympathy.
- bad_user 15y agoGoogle going dark would basically turn the Internet off, unlike Wikipedia, as Google is to normal people a proxy to the whole Internet. They've got a big responsibility on their shoulders and as much as I hate SOPA, Google going dark would be completely irresponsible and I would think less of them.