4 ms·

I hope that Microsoft does succeed in making privacy a competitive differentiator, but I feel they lack tact and common sense in many cases.. There is no love

I hope that Microsoft does succeed in making privacy a competitive differentiator, but I feel they lack tact and common sense in many cases.. There is no love lost between them, and IMO Microsoft will get some traction because Google is desperate to increase revenue and keep their PE at over 20. Their shopping is 100% ads and probably 90% of most transactional query pages are ads. Search for a commercial item and you are greeted by so many that "unbiased" search is drowned out. Google has ruined their product in search of short term profit thanks to Larry Page.

ithkuil 14y ago
A sincere curiosity: why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ? What kind of bias you expect exactly ? Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed?
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ? Ask a Googler or Larry Page, why did they do that? Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed? It's a lot more than showing a few ads next to search, it's almost all ads. Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers. I do not trust them at all, their revenue keeps increasing with each change
  - ithkuil 14y ago
    > Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers What do you mean? I wonder if we are talking about the same search engine. For which queries? Can you please provide some data and examples and be constructive. Of course if you search for "buy an ipad" I expected you to get web pages of people selling that thing, some of them will be ads, interesting... Just to compare I searched for "insects in pleistocene", and guess what, no ads, zero, no sites from "advertisers" too. Ah, well there is an entry from google books, in 5th position, crap, I certainly didn't want to know that somebody wrote a book about that... Btw, getting search results containing sites of people selling stuff (I guess that's what you mean by "advertisers in the unbiased results) is a proof that the search is unbiased. Any kind of open and free search engine will give business the possibility to write sites that contain keywords that will eventually get to the search results and piss you off because "the internet is filled with crappy advertisement". What are you criticizing ? The current search engine monopolist or "the capitalistic system" ? -- This article is about a borderline situation where the process of automatic scanning of your personal conversations is used to achieve a goal where you are the party that benefits the less. Compare this with antspam scanning, which also has to analyze text of all your email, including all the training that you put in the system by actually reporting spam, or removing it from the spam folder. You are grateful that somebody is filtering your spam. Of course the company offering the service also benefits from you, since it receives more conversions if it has an useful service which people love. But all in all, you have the feeling that it's you who benefit the most out of the deal, so have a machine parsing your email for that purpose doesn't bother you.
    - OGinparadise 14y ago
      Just to compare I searched for "insects in pleistocene", and guess what, no ads, zero, no sites from "advertisers" too. Ah, well there is an entry from google books, in 5th position, crap, I certainly didn't want to know that somebody wrote a book about that... Wow you got me, you are so smart. Google has no ads for those words so they put no ads. Proof that they are fair and unbiased. Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see
      - ithkuil 14y ago
        You are taking for granted that when you don't search for something you don't get ads. But that's something that's very specific about standard that was set by google with its non intrusive ads. Most of the other commercial sites, including search engines, were filled with blinking banners trying to sell you anything, even if you just searched for boring entomology. (The same pattern is repeating with ads in mobile aps btw) Watching TV you are bombarded with ads you don't care about, consuming your time and infiltrating into your mind. How can this possibly compare with "80% OFF Hotels" message appearing when you are indeed searching for hotels. How can this fuck your brain? Most of anti-ad ideology comes from that aspect of ads, which cannot be applied blindly in this context. I rarely notice search engine ads, unless what I'm looking is really something I'm expecting somebody to advertise and I'm actually searching for that thing! (you named hotels....) Why not? Now please tell me what exactly is broken with this way of advertising. What damage does it cause? I'm all ears but please articulate your concerns and give examples. What I want is that access to information is unbiased. I want that people around the world, no matter what is their income can know about stuff, have access to scientific education, and stuff like that, and this is basically how things are. Yes it works. I've met a guy from remote african viallages, who self learned to be great developers (I mean great, not good). The knowledge wasn't blocked. There were no companies able to pay google to show only forums behind paywalls (like experts-exchange) basically cutting off people which not only don't have money but have no practical way to obtain credit card. And I'm sure that many companies would love to be able to do that! It would be great for them; just provide a site which offers some paywalled content and pay the search company to provide only links to them whenever this keywords come (and prune the normal results). Now, that would be search bias! I never saw anything like this with google or bing. Please point me to an example and I'll change my mind. > Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see What do you think would end up in the search results when you search for hotels? You will find the same old crap of booking aggregators and resellers and cheap offers whatever. That's because the content is what it is. Companies would do nasty tricks to end up higher in that free-open search engine, exploiting fake content (I mean, there is already plenty of that stuff already, so I guess you know what I mean). Is that what bothers you? Or the list of ads in the rights side? Are we talking about the same thing? Search bias = bias in the search result, not the ads side bar, right?

ithkuil 14y ago

A sincere curiosity: why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ? What kind of bias you expect exactly ? Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed?

OGinparadise 14y ago
why do you think it would be in google's interest to bias search result ? Ask a Googler or Larry Page, why did they do that? Showing paying customers first in search results? Or not showing results if there are similar ads to be displayed? It's a lot more than showing a few ads next to search, it's almost all ads. Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers. I do not trust them at all, their revenue keeps increasing with each change
- ithkuil 14y ago
  > Frankly even the "unbiased results" are mostly from advertisers What do you mean? I wonder if we are talking about the same search engine. For which queries? Can you please provide some data and examples and be constructive. Of course if you search for "buy an ipad" I expected you to get web pages of people selling that thing, some of them will be ads, interesting... Just to compare I searched for "insects in pleistocene", and guess what, no ads, zero, no sites from "advertisers" too. Ah, well there is an entry from google books, in 5th position, crap, I certainly didn't want to know that somebody wrote a book about that... Btw, getting search results containing sites of people selling stuff (I guess that's what you mean by "advertisers in the unbiased results) is a proof that the search is unbiased. Any kind of open and free search engine will give business the possibility to write sites that contain keywords that will eventually get to the search results and piss you off because "the internet is filled with crappy advertisement". What are you criticizing ? The current search engine monopolist or "the capitalistic system" ? -- This article is about a borderline situation where the process of automatic scanning of your personal conversations is used to achieve a goal where you are the party that benefits the less. Compare this with antspam scanning, which also has to analyze text of all your email, including all the training that you put in the system by actually reporting spam, or removing it from the spam folder. You are grateful that somebody is filtering your spam. Of course the company offering the service also benefits from you, since it receives more conversions if it has an useful service which people love. But all in all, you have the feeling that it's you who benefit the most out of the deal, so have a machine parsing your email for that purpose doesn't bother you.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    Just to compare I searched for "insects in pleistocene", and guess what, no ads, zero, no sites from "advertisers" too. Ah, well there is an entry from google books, in 5th position, crap, I certainly didn't want to know that somebody wrote a book about that... Wow you got me, you are so smart. Google has no ads for those words so they put no ads. Proof that they are fair and unbiased. Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see
    - ithkuil 14y ago
      You are taking for granted that when you don't search for something you don't get ads. But that's something that's very specific about standard that was set by google with its non intrusive ads. Most of the other commercial sites, including search engines, were filled with blinking banners trying to sell you anything, even if you just searched for boring entomology. (The same pattern is repeating with ads in mobile aps btw) Watching TV you are bombarded with ads you don't care about, consuming your time and infiltrating into your mind. How can this possibly compare with "80% OFF Hotels" message appearing when you are indeed searching for hotels. How can this fuck your brain? Most of anti-ad ideology comes from that aspect of ads, which cannot be applied blindly in this context. I rarely notice search engine ads, unless what I'm looking is really something I'm expecting somebody to advertise and I'm actually searching for that thing! (you named hotels....) Why not? Now please tell me what exactly is broken with this way of advertising. What damage does it cause? I'm all ears but please articulate your concerns and give examples. What I want is that access to information is unbiased. I want that people around the world, no matter what is their income can know about stuff, have access to scientific education, and stuff like that, and this is basically how things are. Yes it works. I've met a guy from remote african viallages, who self learned to be great developers (I mean great, not good). The knowledge wasn't blocked. There were no companies able to pay google to show only forums behind paywalls (like experts-exchange) basically cutting off people which not only don't have money but have no practical way to obtain credit card. And I'm sure that many companies would love to be able to do that! It would be great for them; just provide a site which offers some paywalled content and pay the search company to provide only links to them whenever this keywords come (and prune the normal results). Now, that would be search bias! I never saw anything like this with google or bing. Please point me to an example and I'll change my mind. > Google makes most of their money in finance, insurance, e-commerce, hotels and the likes. Try a keyword and see What do you think would end up in the search results when you search for hotels? You will find the same old crap of booking aggregators and resellers and cheap offers whatever. That's because the content is what it is. Companies would do nasty tricks to end up higher in that free-open search engine, exploiting fake content (I mean, there is already plenty of that stuff already, so I guess you know what I mean). Is that what bothers you? Or the list of ads in the rights side? Are we talking about the same thing? Search bias = bias in the search result, not the ads side bar, right?