4 ms·

Google Adwords pre-dates Schmidt joining. And so it's unfair to blame him for what is an inevitable path once you decide to become an advertising-centric compa

• infotainment 3y ago
  I disagree -- the original AdWords felt like it was intended to be different. It was visually subtle, ads were clearly marked as ads, and the way it worked was completely transparent. Google made a choice to enshittify AdWords.
  • threeseed 3y ago
    The Google Ads I am looking at right now are visually subtle, clearly marked as ads and I run a lot of them and everything is very transparent about how it all works. And my point is that when you decide to become an advertising company it is inevitable that you are going to want to acquire ever more data about your users.
• NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Technically yes, but that version of Adwords was pretty small. The actual Adwords that made the company so successful was called "Adwords Select" at launch, the one with the Vickrey auction. It launched in 2002 after Schmidt was at the company and with a lot of support by him. Particularly when the AOL deal was negotiated. He was certainly part of making it an advertising-centric company but that was by no means his sole doing. There's plenty of reasons to criticize Schmidt. His role in the collusion to suppress salaries along with Adobe, Apple Inc., Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay was a particular lowlight of his career at Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...