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Sergey is nothing more than a hypocrite. Get back to me when Google: 1) Makes its search engine algorithm publicly available. 2) Stops distorting its searc

Sergey is nothing more than a hypocrite. Get back to me when Google: 1) Makes its search engine algorithm publicly available. 2) Stops distorting its search results to favor those with Google Plus content. 3) Stops allowing Android apps to be created. 4) Stops releasing proprietary technologies e.g. WebM, WebP. Then you can talk about how Apple and Facebook are bad for the "open" internet.

robwgibbons 15y ago
Agreed on your first two. I don't understand either of the second. Native app markets are not necessarily a threat to the open internet... only ones that are locked-down "walled gardens." And WebM and WebP are openly licensed specs.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  Open specs controlled by one company are only kind of open, especially when they can iterate the spec faster than smaller competitors can keep up. Here's a doomsday scenario with WebM. Google 1) updates the spec, 2) releases a new version of Chrome, and 3) transcodes all the videos on Youtube to the new format. The question becomes, can Google accomplish those three things faster than Apple/Microsoft/Mozilla can release updated browsers? The spec is open, even the source is open, so all you have to do is recompile and push an update to all your users whenever Google says so if you don't want them to see the "Your browser is obsolete" warning message.
  - ok_craig 15y ago
    Is this seriously something people think would happen? Wouldn't the internet at large be up in arms at Google for this kind of behavior?
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      Like I said, it's a sort of doomsday scenario. Then again, I've seen comments here on HN calling IE obsolete specifically because it didn't implement some HTML5 subspec that had been updated less than 48 hours before. It's hard to predict what will or will not enrage the internet.
  - zobzu 15y ago
    While a horde of zombies voted you down I quite agree with that point of view. Even if it's not as black & white Google already attempts a lot of this. They basically want to be the ones to decide. There's no "consortium" it's just "lets push feat ZZ on our websites, web clients, and say its the new feat everyone has to support. Plus its open source anyway we're the good guys!" If others disagree well, so far it's been pretty much a grey area. Google keeps pushing the technologies others refused. But when Google controls even more of the market, let's say with 50%+ Chrome (they have the market already, website wise, except for FB.), there won't be a need to push anymore. It'll be Google's way or, well, nothing. Even if it's features that are released within 48H.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    This is absurd scenario on top of infeasbily-expensively-absurd scenario. Google has no desire to do this, it would completely fly in the way of WebM's original goals. Further, the idea that YouTube could retranscode content in any sort of timeline like that...
- taligent 15y ago
  It's from the article, "Smartphone apps, as led by Apple: “all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can’t search it”" When you run the second biggest app market in the world it makes you sound like just a bit of a hypocrite. And my issue with WebM/WebP is that Google just seems to release these standards with a complete disregard for what the rest of the industry is doing or has done. True openness happens when you have established open standards that everyone uses.
  - magicalist 15y ago
    > It's from the article, "Smartphone apps, as led by Apple: “all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can’t search it”" He didn't say that though. It seems like Wired added the Apple part. The only quote in the Guardian article (which I don't think includes the full interview, unless I'm missing the link), just says '"There's a lot to be lost," he said. "For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."' Which in most cases is a true statement. > And my issue with WebM/WebP is that Google just seems to release these standards with a complete disregard for what the rest of the industry is doing or has done. You only see the "established open standards that everyone uses" when you ignore the long painful sausage-making process.
    - rimantas 15y ago
      > "For example, all the information in apps – that data is > not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."' > Which in most cases is a true statement. Is it? Not crawlable does not mean non searchable. Google cannot crawl my messages too (I hope so!), but I can search in them.
      - magicalist 15y ago
        Yes, and private messages should remain private (and hopefully searchable). Balkanized data isn't necessarily bad, and there are lots of shades of grey there. As two examples, though, if the only way to search Twitter is Twitter, and Twitter won't let you search for tweets older than a week or two, then you're out of luck. More hypothetically, if most people used Wordpress for blogging for the last 15 years, and Wordpress didn't allow indexing by search engines, but only searching on Wordpress.com, we would not have the internet we have today.
NeutronBoy 15y ago
the beauty of it is that if you don't like Google, it provides interfaces and APIs to extract your data in standard formats. You can export emails, contacts, calendar stuffs, docs, etc. Facebook allows none of this. Once you're in, you're stuck there.
- tedunangst 15y ago
  Well, apart from the whole "Download Your Information" thing that lets you download all your data, you're totally right.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - NeutronBoy 15y ago
    Great, I'll provide instructions to users of my app on how to initiate this (IIRC) manual process that requires them to navigate a maze of FB privacy pages, confirm via email that yes, they do actually want their data, and then they can wait for the request to be processed by FB. Then they get emailed a zip file full of multiple files with everything they've ever done. Hardly the same as APIs that allow you to export the things you want, on-demand, in a documented format, seamlessly into alternative applications.
    - taligent 15y ago
      Cool. Please by all means show me how to get a list of my circles from Google Plus ? Because last time I checked their API was very, very basic.
      - jmillikin 15y ago
        https://www.google.com/takeout/ https://www.google.com/takeout/
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      Your initial comment would have been a lot more credible if you'd said exactly that.
lopatin 15y ago
What interest could you have in their search algorithm? Or should I say, why should they disclose it? It would only allow SEO spammers to game the system so much easier. This would fill the top results with crap so I would think it's in everyone's best interest that the algorithm is kept secret. Also the quality results are what separates Google from the competition. Are trade secrets not allowed anymore?

robwgibbons 15y ago

Agreed on your first two. I don't understand either of the second. Native app markets are not necessarily a threat to the open internet... only ones that are locked-down "walled gardens." And WebM and WebP are openly licensed specs.

tedunangst 15y ago
Open specs controlled by one company are only kind of open, especially when they can iterate the spec faster than smaller competitors can keep up. Here's a doomsday scenario with WebM. Google 1) updates the spec, 2) releases a new version of Chrome, and 3) transcodes all the videos on Youtube to the new format. The question becomes, can Google accomplish those three things faster than Apple/Microsoft/Mozilla can release updated browsers? The spec is open, even the source is open, so all you have to do is recompile and push an update to all your users whenever Google says so if you don't want them to see the "Your browser is obsolete" warning message.
- ok_craig 15y ago
  Is this seriously something people think would happen? Wouldn't the internet at large be up in arms at Google for this kind of behavior?
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    Like I said, it's a sort of doomsday scenario. Then again, I've seen comments here on HN calling IE obsolete specifically because it didn't implement some HTML5 subspec that had been updated less than 48 hours before. It's hard to predict what will or will not enrage the internet.
- zobzu 15y ago
  While a horde of zombies voted you down I quite agree with that point of view. Even if it's not as black & white Google already attempts a lot of this. They basically want to be the ones to decide. There's no "consortium" it's just "lets push feat ZZ on our websites, web clients, and say its the new feat everyone has to support. Plus its open source anyway we're the good guys!" If others disagree well, so far it's been pretty much a grey area. Google keeps pushing the technologies others refused. But when Google controls even more of the market, let's say with 50%+ Chrome (they have the market already, website wise, except for FB.), there won't be a need to push anymore. It'll be Google's way or, well, nothing. Even if it's features that are released within 48H.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  This is absurd scenario on top of infeasbily-expensively-absurd scenario. Google has no desire to do this, it would completely fly in the way of WebM's original goals. Further, the idea that YouTube could retranscode content in any sort of timeline like that...
taligent 15y ago
It's from the article, "Smartphone apps, as led by Apple: “all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can’t search it”" When you run the second biggest app market in the world it makes you sound like just a bit of a hypocrite. And my issue with WebM/WebP is that Google just seems to release these standards with a complete disregard for what the rest of the industry is doing or has done. True openness happens when you have established open standards that everyone uses.
- magicalist 15y ago
  > It's from the article, "Smartphone apps, as led by Apple: “all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can’t search it”" He didn't say that though. It seems like Wired added the Apple part. The only quote in the Guardian article (which I don't think includes the full interview, unless I'm missing the link), just says '"There's a lot to be lost," he said. "For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."' Which in most cases is a true statement. > And my issue with WebM/WebP is that Google just seems to release these standards with a complete disregard for what the rest of the industry is doing or has done. You only see the "established open standards that everyone uses" when you ignore the long painful sausage-making process.
  - rimantas 15y ago
    > "For example, all the information in apps – that data is > not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."' > Which in most cases is a true statement. Is it? Not crawlable does not mean non searchable. Google cannot crawl my messages too (I hope so!), but I can search in them.
    - magicalist 15y ago
      Yes, and private messages should remain private (and hopefully searchable). Balkanized data isn't necessarily bad, and there are lots of shades of grey there. As two examples, though, if the only way to search Twitter is Twitter, and Twitter won't let you search for tweets older than a week or two, then you're out of luck. More hypothetically, if most people used Wordpress for blogging for the last 15 years, and Wordpress didn't allow indexing by search engines, but only searching on Wordpress.com, we would not have the internet we have today.

NeutronBoy 15y ago

the beauty of it is that if you don't like Google, it provides interfaces and APIs to extract your data in standard formats. You can export emails, contacts, calendar stuffs, docs, etc. Facebook allows none of this. Once you're in, you're stuck there.

tedunangst 15y ago
Well, apart from the whole "Download Your Information" thing that lets you download all your data, you're totally right.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- NeutronBoy 15y ago
  Great, I'll provide instructions to users of my app on how to initiate this (IIRC) manual process that requires them to navigate a maze of FB privacy pages, confirm via email that yes, they do actually want their data, and then they can wait for the request to be processed by FB. Then they get emailed a zip file full of multiple files with everything they've ever done. Hardly the same as APIs that allow you to export the things you want, on-demand, in a documented format, seamlessly into alternative applications.
  - taligent 15y ago
    Cool. Please by all means show me how to get a list of my circles from Google Plus ? Because last time I checked their API was very, very basic.
    - jmillikin 15y ago
      https://www.google.com/takeout/ https://www.google.com/takeout/
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    Your initial comment would have been a lot more credible if you'd said exactly that.

lopatin 15y ago

What interest could you have in their search algorithm? Or should I say, why should they disclose it? It would only allow SEO spammers to game the system so much easier. This would fill the top results with crap so I would think it's in everyone's best interest that the algorithm is kept secret. Also the quality results are what separates Google from the competition. Are trade secrets not allowed anymore?