6 ms·

Level Playing Field

97 points by julien 12y ago

abcd_f 12y ago
> We’ve expressed the principle of “Don’t be evil” from the early days of Google. The glory days of ancient past. How can anyone seriously defer to this moto in the context of modern day Google is beyond me.
deanclatworthy 12y ago
> The desire for a level playing field also partly explains why Chrome and Android are so important. Without Chrome, we’d be at the mercy of Internet Explorer or other web browsers when users want to get to Google Except that Chrome download notices appear at the bottom of Google's homepage for non chrome users, or at least have in the past. I see where Matt is coming from here but when you are dealing with Google as a competitor, rivals are going to try everything to get back market share. If Google is going to use its competitive advantage in search to push its other products why shouldn't anyone else?
DodgyEggplant 12y ago
Everyone willingly liberates the non core parts of it's business. Google should apply these principles to search, support and ad-sense rev share data
staunch 12y ago
As Google has come to dominate the browser market, they've slowly made Chrome more and more integrated and reliant their own propriety services. They've done away with the concept of a homepage and exclusively control what the new tab page looks like. There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2918032?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2918032?hl=en > "If your default search provider isn't Google you may see a different layout on the New Tab page." They advertise their own products on search results, pushing organic results down even further. They pulled a bait and switch with Android, turning it into GoogleOS. Google throws its weight around just as much as Microsoft ever did, they just smile while they do it.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  > There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page. At least with Image Tab extension you can change the new tab page to e.g. load Emma Watson photos from Flickr!
- obviouslygreen 12y ago
  Google throws its weight around just as much as Microsoft ever did, they just smile while they do it. I think it's less a matter of attitude and more a matter of being really, really good at doing it either unobtrusively or at least in a way that people won't mind or won't understand. With so many years of experience with how users interact with information, they have the potential for unprecedented insight into the realities of UI interaction. I'm not saying it's a good thing, and I agree that Google isn't doing us as users any favors in this regard (any more than Microsoft ever did or does), but there's more behind the fact that they're getting away with it among less user outrage than simply public image.
- magicalist 12y ago
  > They've done away with the concept of a homepage and exclusively control what the new tab page looks like. There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page Huh? This isn't true at all. There are a ton of new tab page extensions and all the functionality you'd want that's in the default one (like most visited sites) is available through the extension APIs.
- netcan 12y ago
  Each have their own definitions and ethic (or maybe aesthetic is a better description). Google have a strong advantage in discovery. They have more influence on "discovery" of everything from podcasts, books, applications, journalists, and everything else than any other company. They certainly use that weight. They can get users to any of their products. But, it is true that these products are not usually very lock-in. Search is very easy to switch from. Gmail is pretty easy. Network effect products like Wave, talk, circles, hangouts are actually the products Google has had trouble getting traction with. They got users, but not the lead in their markets. MS have "weight" with OEMs and decision makers at companies from one man shows to fortune 500. They use that, which creates a nasty distance between liking the software you personally use and the decision to keep using it. Even Berkshire Hathaway's website is made with frontpage. Apple have an interesting version of this. It may be their achilles heel, but it's also made them bold and creative. Apple products sell to the public, not to businesses and not through businesses. They don't rely on deals with OEMs, retailers, distributors, corporate buyers or telcoms to make sales. They don't even rely on discounts and competitive pricing. They definitely don't chase price/feature niches. More than any other company they rely on sheer consumer demand for their products. That means they would find it very hard to survive a "Windows Vista" period of ambivalence about their products. The trait is probably a long term liability. But, it is a version of level paying field, win by winning approach that produces bold product decisions. All three are "cheats" by some standards, including (probably) the standards of the other two.
dilap 12y ago
I liked it better when mega-corp didn't come with a side of self-righteousness.
- bgoldste 12y ago
  amen. take my data, take my liberty, but you'll never take my healthy self doubt of your true motives.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
The comments (amazingly) have some insights - including someone who used his chat history to analyse his changing vocabulary and more - quite a fascinating idea for those who will live digital lives for decades. But what seems to be missing is simpler - googles core function is search and until that is a level playing field we are all at the mercy of Google. I am not a reactionary "nationalise everything" but the biggest uses of global data surely surely must be public goods and treated as such?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- krrrh 12y ago
  Nice try NSA.
daurnimator 12y ago
I run my own XMPP server (prosody), yet use google apps for my domain; due to an annoying chain of dependencies, this means I can't use Google Photos. To allow other google users reach you at your non-google server, Talk+Hangouts have to be disabled in the google apps admin console -> Google+ doesn't work without Hangouts enabled -> Google Photos doesn't work without Google+ enabled. The fact this happens seems to mean that google does not want to play on a level field; but wants to build a walled garden.
- njs12345 12y ago
  I just use my domain registrar's mail server and forward my vanity email to a standard gmail address - then you can set your default From: to be your vanity address in your gmail and enjoy the benefits of having a completely standard gmail account.
- spindritf 12y ago
  Google Apps have always been a tack-on for many of Google's smaller services. Google+ was completely unavailable for Apps at first. Now Inbox is unavailable. It's a fairly conservative product targeted primarily at organizations who value stability over new features. "A personal account with vanity address," while popular with geeks, is not really the intended use.
  - daurnimator 12y ago
    Do you have any suggested alternatives for free email hosting with BYO domain? I don't entirely trust myself to run an email server. Even if I do, are there trustworthy secondary MXs? I also really like google voice; and am sad I can no longer call from inside gmail. I don't know of any other reliable services for completely free calls to USA.
    - spindritf 12y ago
      Personally, I use Google Apps with a vanity domain :) That's how I know. The only (free) alternative left seems to be Yandex[1] which comes with its own host of privacy issues. You don't really need a secondary MX when running your own mail server. Senders will keep retrying for a week or so when your server is down. Secondary makes the whole setup much more complicated because then you need to synchronize anti-spam and other configuration between them. And move data back when the primary server comes back online. [1] https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/ https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/ You need a regular Yandex Mail account first. The domain panel is in Russian only but works with Google translate. Webmail is decent and available in English.
aabajian 12y ago
>"Without Android, phone makers could shut Google out of mobile phones completely. Chrome and Android help ensure that users can get to Google without interference; they protect our users from other companies’ potentially unlevel playing fields." Isn't this just saying that Google won't block its own services on Android? There's no guarantee that Google won't block some other search engine. FWIW, I think the App Store / Google Play stores are the biggest obstacles to openness. They are literally determining what users can and cannot be run on their respective platforms.
- geofft 12y ago
  Yes, but there's a second-order effect. By having Android be a compelling platform, iCloud (or whatever) can't be as easily competitive in the marketplace as a data silo. If my only option for a cell phone were iOS, I'd probably be a lot more willing to buy into Continuity and some of the other Mac-and-iOS-only features. On the subject of platform curation, it's worth noting that Android lets you sideload apps with a checkbox, and the most generous interpretation is that Apple wants you to pay $99 for the privilege. But I also think it's possible to run an app store ethically and fairly, on a "level playing field" if you will, and in fact Google and Microsoft are both top developers on Apple's.
- josteink 12y ago
  >"Without Android, phone makers could shut Google out of mobile phones completely. Chrome and Android help ensure that users can get to Google without interference; they protect our users from other companies’ potentially unlevel playing fields." This quote just rings so incredibly hollow. I challenge anyone to name one mobile-OS (or OS in general) who has blocked Google servies ever. And no, not being the default is not blocking. First one to do so would be facing widespread consumer outrage, so I doubt anyone is even considering this. Now turn it around, and ask if Google has ever blocked anything for its competitors (XMPP, apps on WP, non-Chrome browser access to Google-services, blocking non-Chrome browsers with Google-only DRM, non-Google advertising on Android, etc etc). I think it's pretty obvious which one is need of having its playing field leveled, and it's not Google. Not by a mile.
  - 12y ago
ricardobeat 12y ago
What about a level playing field for Hangouts and GTalk?
nl 12y ago
I suspect publishing this post now is aimed as much at an internal Google audience as at external players. Bearing that in mind, I think "a level playing field" is an excellent goal for Google to aspire to. To say what Matt can't: if Google plays on a level playing field it makes them a much more attractive partner and supplier.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Why can't Matt say that? Effectively he is saying that. And saying it from his now-extended-to-2015 leave. It's a pretty powerful statement. And it makes me wonder if he's going to return to Google or move on.
sz4kerto 12y ago
Google's attitude towards Windows Phone shows nicely how much they strive for leveling the playing field. Or we could look at Google Maps on mobile IE -- in WP 8, it is horrible, in GDR1 it works very well, all that's changed is the user agent.
- xorcist 12y ago
  What you say is very different from the release announcement of GDR1 which is "includes hundreds of enhancements for the mobile web". When it comes to mobile IE performing poorly, I don't think you need to look further than the software itself.
  - sz4kerto 12y ago
    The biggest 'improvement' they did to IE in GDR1 is faking user agents so mobile sites think it's an Android browser so the site appears correctly. At the moment, IE on WP does 100/100 in ACID3. It does not support HTML5 as well as Chrome on Android though - but I really doubt that that's the main reason why Google stuff does not work well on it (as the previous example shows it as well).
  - wfjackson 12y ago
    Not really true, and Google stopped blocking Windows Phone after the outrage. See "Misspelling "Windows Phone" Makes Google Maps Work". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7RiMCrZFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7RiMCrZFw
- 7952 12y ago
  The list of weird google bugs on WP8 is pretty long. If I search for a video on youtube sometimes the first result is an ad. It loads about 0.2 seconds later than the other results. If you click the first result before the ad loads it takes you to the ad instead of the first result! This has been the case for at least 6 months
xorcist 12y ago
Well put, Matt. I take it it fell on deaf ears, given that Google users stopped communicating with me over XMPP before that and it has never worked again?
7952 12y ago
If they want to level the playing field they should properly support oauth and openid. That means letting me log into Google services with an external provider.
jacquesm 12y ago
Level playing field? http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/firefox-install-google-chrome-home-page/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/firefox-install-google-chro... > Without Chrome, we’d be at the mercy of Internet Explorer or other web browsers when users want to get to Google. How so? Is Matt (or Google) afraid that other web browsers would block Google properties? I never saw Chrome as the way for Google to ascertain that the general public can have unfettered access to Google properties, I saw - and see - Chrome as a way to extend the Google eco-system onto the end users device, and to gain access to URLs that otherwise would remain hidden from Google to reduce the 'dark web' as seen through Google as well as a way to track users on pages that don't have Google Analytics installed. When technically speaking it really shouldn't matter what browser the users uses, as long as it is standards compliant it should simply work. Killing off reader didn't do much to level the playingfield either, RSS is so much more open than everything that tries to replace it. On the whole, Matt is on the ball that Google would be a better company ('less evil') if they were willing and able to play on a level playingfield but I don't see Google as a company willing to do either. They could if they really wanted to, but they are definitely not doing that. Between the corporate newspeak about how every change that violates consumer privacy even more that gets hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread and Googles abuse of their muscle when it comes to such things as copyright violation on an unprecedented scale Google, if anything, seems to be totally allergic to level playing fields. Anyway, props to Matt for making public his call on Google to be nicer (especially during his leave), let's see what will happen because of this.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - magicalist 12y ago
    60fps video works in Firefox Nightly, though it still has issues if the connection has troubles. The about:config property is media.mediasource.enabled. Tracking bug is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=mse https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=mse
- ajcarpy2005 12y ago
richardw 12y ago
I would imaging reciprosity and level playing field would require Google's robots.txt to be an open free-for-all. I mean, since we're talking about embracing the open web. I Googled "is Google crawlable" and similar and that doesn't seem to be a thing. I checked the robots.txt and that seems to disallow a lot of stuff. Search, news, groups, images, etc. [1] Google does a great job of taking the open web, repackaging it, slapping it up behind a (crawling) wall, extracting maximum cash from the result. It will always be able to suck in your content "think of the users!" but that'll generally be a 1-way street. Yes there are API's, but that's still a different relationship to "we crawl whatever we want, we put any content we want in our search results, because users". Unrelated: Chrome (which I use and love) also had the added benefit of reducing the amount of money they'd be paying to Firefox for the search deal. Not a terrible outcome. It might even have paid for itself right there, but that's utter speculation. [1] http://www.google.com/robots.txt http://www.google.com/robots.txt - seems to be far more disallow than allow
lwh 12y ago
So if others are evil , it's okay to be evil because that's a level playing field? Maybe change it "Don't be Evil*" ? Hangouts/XMPP , RSS, the big brother aspect of GA - No matter how you justify them they're never going to be good.
OoTheNigerian 12y ago
It is important to read this in the context of republishing an internal memory. It it interesting to see how to disagree with the company's direction and drive home a point. Publishing openly is subtly communicating to the top brass at Google. It is clear Matt finish a not excited about the direction Google is going re: standards. Thankfully, Microsoft is going the other direction.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > Publishing openly is subtly communicating to the top brass at Google. It's not all that subtle. This is a pretty strong signal coming from someone as careful with words as Matt.
  - OoTheNigerian 12y ago
    Do you know if he's back from his sabbatical?
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      It's been extended.
- OoTheNigerian 12y ago
  Apologies for the numerous typos. Memo not memory. How to disagree as an internal executive... *clear Matt is not excited...
lawnchair_larry 12y ago
So why doesn't XMPP federation work then?
- mkopinsky 12y ago
  Because voices other than Matt's prevailed, presumably.
jfuhrman 12y ago
Can anyone tell me how many things in this list are about a "level playing field" or "do no evil". If Apple or MS did even half of the things in this list, people would be screaming about it from rooftops a couple of decades later, but as Assange noted, Google seems to get a free pass. Most of the Google search page area is now occupied by ads, or ads disguised as content http://searchengineland.com/google-results-too-ad-heavy-166226 http://searchengineland.com/google-results-too-ad-heavy-1662... Profiting off adware ads for downloads http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/08/15/firefox_dodgy_download.jpg http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/08/15/firefox_dodgy_download.jpg Decreasing contrast in the background of ads, this especially hurts older people as ability to see contrast decreases with age, and the FTC found that almost half the people fail to notice that there are ads on the page, thus forcing products that are first in the organic results to pay Google for ads. http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-is-deceptive.html/?a=viewall http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i... Tracking the emails in the free Google Apps for Education and even paid Google Apps for Business to build ad profiles, making misleading statements to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to having to make statements to federal court, having to tell the truth about it and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Education data. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht... Paid inclusion for shopping search results http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embraces-paid-inclusion-13138 http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace... Ranking Google+ reviews over Yelp results even if the user explicitly searches for Yelp http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-google-local-listings/111539/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-... Conspiring to kill SkyHook(and succeeding) with its 500lb outsized influence like Microsoft used to, in order to gather wifi & user location data. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-Samsung http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la... Getting fined by FTC for violating Gmail users privacy by exposing their friends lists in Google Buzz in order to compete with Twitter http://www.netcompetition.org/antitrust/why-ftcs-22-5m-google-privacy-fine-is-faux-accountability http://www.netcompetition.org/antitrust/why-ftcs-22-5m-googl... Tracking the physical location of Android phones for ad purposes without properly informing users and disabling things like Google Now if you disable the tracking. http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://www.datadrivenbusiness.com/google-quietly-testing-offline-store-visits-tracking http://www.datadrivenbusiness.com/google-quietly-testing-off... Google employee accesses personal information of others. Google says it has fixed the issue, but how do we even know? Is there any legal safeguard against someone at Google reading your email? http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee... Tying Android App store to having Google search engine as default on Android, ensuring that alternative search engines cannot be shipped as default. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-on-google-rules-for-android/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-... Stopping Acer from shipping Aliyun OS by threatening to pull the Play Store and Android beta access. Bonus points for enforcing this by the duplicitous moniker 'Open Handset Alliance' doublespeak http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threatened-acer-forced-it-to-dump-rival-os/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threate... Making people literally cry with the forced Google+ integration into Youtube and making confusing UX to make people share more than they want to, in order to compete with Facebook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (warning, NSFW language) Extracting petty revenge on CNET for googling(!) information on its CEO http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ Convicted in the courts for colluding with other tech firms in illegal non-poaching agreements http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...
ancarda 12y ago
>If another search engine crawls the open web and returns better search results, people will switch to that new search engine immediately I don't think people would ditch Google so easily or quickly.
throwawaykf05 12y ago
> [A specific company I won't call out explicitly] sucked contacts out of Gmail but refused to export contacts back out. I'm guessing everybody read [A specific company] as "Facebook", but I know for sure of at least one other company, and possibly two, that it could refer to :-) In fact, now that I think about it, I can think of several candidates. But let's talk about reciprocity. Who owns your contacts? You, or Google? If you want to export contacts out of Google's services, why should Google stop you just because the other service does not reciprocate? Sure, Google makes it easier than most, but isn't that also what their users wanted? If the user truly wants the other service to also export contacts as easily, that's between the user and that other service. Now consider that Gmail is in the top 3 biggest email providers next to Yahoo and Hotmail/Live/Outlook/Whatever-it's-called now. Very likely it is now the biggest, and so they have the biggest set of contacts data in the world. If any 3rd party service wants access to those contacts, Google wields a disproportionate amount of power over them, and as this post shows, is willing to apply it by "requiring reciprocity". "Level Playing Field" indeed.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Interestingly, I see here a very similar spirit to the one of GPL - you only get to use our stuff if you share yours on the same terms. Many people avoid GPL exactly because of that. There are arguments though that this feature of GPL is what safeguards freedom, and I think one could try and make similar arguments in case of reciprocity here.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > But let's talk about reciprocity. Who owns your contacts? You, or Google? That shouldn't even be a valid question. But to answer it, you do (of course).
jorgecastillo 12y ago
After all is said and done, Google is still the fairest company and the Google ecosystem is the most open. Seriously, can you imagine a world with out Google? Can you imagine a world were we're at the mercy of Apple & Microsoft? I just can't stomach that with Apple & Microsoft you have to pay to program your own device! You can dislike and criticize Google all you want this doesn't change the facts.
- cwyers 12y ago
  Microsoft and Apple have a much, much longer track record of playing well with others than Google's, which is practically nonexistent.
asadotzler 12y ago
Google used to care about an open and interoperable web. Not any more. Most of their web apps suck in browsers that aren't Chrome and with no good reason considering most other browsers are completely capable. Google continues to advertise Chrome on www.google.com while not opening that same lucrative advertisent spot to anyone else. Level playing field my ass. When he actually does something to level the field, I'll tune in. Until then it seems like Matt is ittle more than a PR drone these days.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > When he actually does something to level the field, I'll tune in. Until then it seems like Matt is ittle more than a PR drone these days. I think you are completely missing the point here. Matt is setting this thing out for the world to see, that is the employee equivalent of displaying your dis-satisfaction with how the company and its management reacted to your previous pleas. It's a pretty brave thing to do and it definitely is not good PR for Google to have this thing out there. What it does is make me respect Matt a bit more, rather than less.
CometLord 12y ago
While i like the approach described by that post, many things are hardly something that is applied by them or others in RL, money is what drives decisions.
cwyers 12y ago
To me, the biggest problem I have in my interactions with Google (and it's growing over time) is that I never feel like their customer. I don't pay them anything (now that they've sold Motorola, they don't make phones, and they don't seem to charge for the OS on the phone), they don't have products I can buy. They just... put stuff out for me to use, and make money off ads. So there's this rather disquieting mismatch between what I as a user want from them and what they do, because their money doesn't come from me, it comes from people who buy ads. And they need to put SOME effort into user satisfaction, because they need users to have someone to look at the ads that they sell, but there's still a mismatch between user wants and Google offerings. Google Reader is probably the canonical example -- yeah, it wasn't a widely used service, but the users it did have were devoted, and might even have paid to keep using it. But it didn't matter, as Google Reader didn't line up with how Google wanted to sell ads now. So it got the axe. And it's in those moments of powerlessness -- where you have no say over what Google does, because you're not its customer, you're just its user -- that Google loses its appeal. It's not evil, it may even be a level playing field. But that sort of user powerlessness makes me uncomfortable using Google stuff going forward.
yuhong 12y ago
OT, but on the European Google antitrust investigation on search results, I am thinking of a tutorial as a settlement.

97 points by julien 12y ago

> We’ve expressed the principle of “Don’t be evil” from the early days of Google. The glory days of ancient past. How can anyone seriously defer to this moto in the context of modern day Google is beyond me.

deanclatworthy 12y ago

> The desire for a level playing field also partly explains why Chrome and Android are so important. Without Chrome, we’d be at the mercy of Internet Explorer or other web browsers when users want to get to Google Except that Chrome download notices appear at the bottom of Google's homepage for non chrome users, or at least have in the past. I see where Matt is coming from here but when you are dealing with Google as a competitor, rivals are going to try everything to get back market share. If Google is going to use its competitive advantage in search to push its other products why shouldn't anyone else?

DodgyEggplant 12y ago

Everyone willingly liberates the non core parts of it's business. Google should apply these principles to search, support and ad-sense rev share data

staunch 12y ago

As Google has come to dominate the browser market, they've slowly made Chrome more and more integrated and reliant their own propriety services. They've done away with the concept of a homepage and exclusively control what the new tab page looks like. There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2918032?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2918032?hl=en > "If your default search provider isn't Google you may see a different layout on the New Tab page." They advertise their own products on search results, pushing organic results down even further. They pulled a bait and switch with Android, turning it into GoogleOS. Google throws its weight around just as much as Microsoft ever did, they just smile while they do it.

mschuster91 12y ago
> There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page. At least with Image Tab extension you can change the new tab page to e.g. load Emma Watson photos from Flickr!
obviouslygreen 12y ago
Google throws its weight around just as much as Microsoft ever did, they just smile while they do it. I think it's less a matter of attitude and more a matter of being really, really good at doing it either unobtrusively or at least in a way that people won't mind or won't understand. With so many years of experience with how users interact with information, they have the potential for unprecedented insight into the realities of UI interaction. I'm not saying it's a good thing, and I agree that Google isn't doing us as users any favors in this regard (any more than Microsoft ever did or does), but there's more behind the fact that they're getting away with it among less user outrage than simply public image.
magicalist 12y ago
> They've done away with the concept of a homepage and exclusively control what the new tab page looks like. There's no way for users to set a competitor's site as the new tab page Huh? This isn't true at all. There are a ton of new tab page extensions and all the functionality you'd want that's in the default one (like most visited sites) is available through the extension APIs.
netcan 12y ago
Each have their own definitions and ethic (or maybe aesthetic is a better description). Google have a strong advantage in discovery. They have more influence on "discovery" of everything from podcasts, books, applications, journalists, and everything else than any other company. They certainly use that weight. They can get users to any of their products. But, it is true that these products are not usually very lock-in. Search is very easy to switch from. Gmail is pretty easy. Network effect products like Wave, talk, circles, hangouts are actually the products Google has had trouble getting traction with. They got users, but not the lead in their markets. MS have "weight" with OEMs and decision makers at companies from one man shows to fortune 500. They use that, which creates a nasty distance between liking the software you personally use and the decision to keep using it. Even Berkshire Hathaway's website is made with frontpage. Apple have an interesting version of this. It may be their achilles heel, but it's also made them bold and creative. Apple products sell to the public, not to businesses and not through businesses. They don't rely on deals with OEMs, retailers, distributors, corporate buyers or telcoms to make sales. They don't even rely on discounts and competitive pricing. They definitely don't chase price/feature niches. More than any other company they rely on sheer consumer demand for their products. That means they would find it very hard to survive a "Windows Vista" period of ambivalence about their products. The trait is probably a long term liability. But, it is a version of level paying field, win by winning approach that produces bold product decisions. All three are "cheats" by some standards, including (probably) the standards of the other two.

dilap 12y ago

I liked it better when mega-corp didn't come with a side of self-righteousness.

bgoldste 12y ago
amen. take my data, take my liberty, but you'll never take my healthy self doubt of your true motives.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

The comments (amazingly) have some insights - including someone who used his chat history to analyse his changing vocabulary and more - quite a fascinating idea for those who will live digital lives for decades. But what seems to be missing is simpler - googles core function is search and until that is a level playing field we are all at the mercy of Google. I am not a reactionary "nationalise everything" but the biggest uses of global data surely surely must be public goods and treated as such?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
krrrh 12y ago
Nice try NSA.

daurnimator 12y ago

I run my own XMPP server (prosody), yet use google apps for my domain; due to an annoying chain of dependencies, this means I can't use Google Photos. To allow other google users reach you at your non-google server, Talk+Hangouts have to be disabled in the google apps admin console -> Google+ doesn't work without Hangouts enabled -> Google Photos doesn't work without Google+ enabled. The fact this happens seems to mean that google does not want to play on a level field; but wants to build a walled garden.

njs12345 12y ago
I just use my domain registrar's mail server and forward my vanity email to a standard gmail address - then you can set your default From: to be your vanity address in your gmail and enjoy the benefits of having a completely standard gmail account.
spindritf 12y ago
Google Apps have always been a tack-on for many of Google's smaller services. Google+ was completely unavailable for Apps at first. Now Inbox is unavailable. It's a fairly conservative product targeted primarily at organizations who value stability over new features. "A personal account with vanity address," while popular with geeks, is not really the intended use.
- daurnimator 12y ago
  Do you have any suggested alternatives for free email hosting with BYO domain? I don't entirely trust myself to run an email server. Even if I do, are there trustworthy secondary MXs? I also really like google voice; and am sad I can no longer call from inside gmail. I don't know of any other reliable services for completely free calls to USA.
  - spindritf 12y ago
    Personally, I use Google Apps with a vanity domain :) That's how I know. The only (free) alternative left seems to be Yandex[1] which comes with its own host of privacy issues. You don't really need a secondary MX when running your own mail server. Senders will keep retrying for a week or so when your server is down. Secondary makes the whole setup much more complicated because then you need to synchronize anti-spam and other configuration between them. And move data back when the primary server comes back online. [1] https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/ https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/ You need a regular Yandex Mail account first. The domain panel is in Russian only but works with Google translate. Webmail is decent and available in English.

aabajian 12y ago

>"Without Android, phone makers could shut Google out of mobile phones completely. Chrome and Android help ensure that users can get to Google without interference; they protect our users from other companies’ potentially unlevel playing fields." Isn't this just saying that Google won't block its own services on Android? There's no guarantee that Google won't block some other search engine. FWIW, I think the App Store / Google Play stores are the biggest obstacles to openness. They are literally determining what users can and cannot be run on their respective platforms.

geofft 12y ago
Yes, but there's a second-order effect. By having Android be a compelling platform, iCloud (or whatever) can't be as easily competitive in the marketplace as a data silo. If my only option for a cell phone were iOS, I'd probably be a lot more willing to buy into Continuity and some of the other Mac-and-iOS-only features. On the subject of platform curation, it's worth noting that Android lets you sideload apps with a checkbox, and the most generous interpretation is that Apple wants you to pay $99 for the privilege. But I also think it's possible to run an app store ethically and fairly, on a "level playing field" if you will, and in fact Google and Microsoft are both top developers on Apple's.
josteink 12y ago
>"Without Android, phone makers could shut Google out of mobile phones completely. Chrome and Android help ensure that users can get to Google without interference; they protect our users from other companies’ potentially unlevel playing fields." This quote just rings so incredibly hollow. I challenge anyone to name one mobile-OS (or OS in general) who has blocked Google servies ever. And no, not being the default is not blocking. First one to do so would be facing widespread consumer outrage, so I doubt anyone is even considering this. Now turn it around, and ask if Google has ever blocked anything for its competitors (XMPP, apps on WP, non-Chrome browser access to Google-services, blocking non-Chrome browsers with Google-only DRM, non-Google advertising on Android, etc etc). I think it's pretty obvious which one is need of having its playing field leveled, and it's not Google. Not by a mile.
- 12y ago

ricardobeat 12y ago

What about a level playing field for Hangouts and GTalk?

nl 12y ago

I suspect publishing this post now is aimed as much at an internal Google audience as at external players. Bearing that in mind, I think "a level playing field" is an excellent goal for Google to aspire to. To say what Matt can't: if Google plays on a level playing field it makes them a much more attractive partner and supplier.

jacquesm 12y ago
Why can't Matt say that? Effectively he is saying that. And saying it from his now-extended-to-2015 leave. It's a pretty powerful statement. And it makes me wonder if he's going to return to Google or move on.

sz4kerto 12y ago

Google's attitude towards Windows Phone shows nicely how much they strive for leveling the playing field. Or we could look at Google Maps on mobile IE -- in WP 8, it is horrible, in GDR1 it works very well, all that's changed is the user agent.

xorcist 12y ago
What you say is very different from the release announcement of GDR1 which is "includes hundreds of enhancements for the mobile web". When it comes to mobile IE performing poorly, I don't think you need to look further than the software itself.
- sz4kerto 12y ago
  The biggest 'improvement' they did to IE in GDR1 is faking user agents so mobile sites think it's an Android browser so the site appears correctly. At the moment, IE on WP does 100/100 in ACID3. It does not support HTML5 as well as Chrome on Android though - but I really doubt that that's the main reason why Google stuff does not work well on it (as the previous example shows it as well).
- wfjackson 12y ago
  Not really true, and Google stopped blocking Windows Phone after the outrage. See "Misspelling "Windows Phone" Makes Google Maps Work". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7RiMCrZFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7RiMCrZFw
7952 12y ago
The list of weird google bugs on WP8 is pretty long. If I search for a video on youtube sometimes the first result is an ad. It loads about 0.2 seconds later than the other results. If you click the first result before the ad loads it takes you to the ad instead of the first result! This has been the case for at least 6 months

xorcist 12y ago

Well put, Matt. I take it it fell on deaf ears, given that Google users stopped communicating with me over XMPP before that and it has never worked again?

7952 12y ago

If they want to level the playing field they should properly support oauth and openid. That means letting me log into Google services with an external provider.

jacquesm 12y ago

Level playing field? http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/firefox-install-google-chrome-home-page/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/firefox-install-google-chro... > Without Chrome, we’d be at the mercy of Internet Explorer or other web browsers when users want to get to Google. How so? Is Matt (or Google) afraid that other web browsers would block Google properties? I never saw Chrome as the way for Google to ascertain that the general public can have unfettered access to Google properties, I saw - and see - Chrome as a way to extend the Google eco-system onto the end users device, and to gain access to URLs that otherwise would remain hidden from Google to reduce the 'dark web' as seen through Google as well as a way to track users on pages that don't have Google Analytics installed. When technically speaking it really shouldn't matter what browser the users uses, as long as it is standards compliant it should simply work. Killing off reader didn't do much to level the playingfield either, RSS is so much more open than everything that tries to replace it. On the whole, Matt is on the ball that Google would be a better company ('less evil') if they were willing and able to play on a level playingfield but I don't see Google as a company willing to do either. They could if they really wanted to, but they are definitely not doing that. Between the corporate newspeak about how every change that violates consumer privacy even more that gets hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread and Googles abuse of their muscle when it comes to such things as copyright violation on an unprecedented scale Google, if anything, seems to be totally allergic to level playing fields. Anyway, props to Matt for making public his call on Google to be nicer (especially during his leave), let's see what will happen because of this.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- magicalist 12y ago
  60fps video works in Firefox Nightly, though it still has issues if the connection has troubles. The about:config property is media.mediasource.enabled. Tracking bug is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=mse https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=mse
ajcarpy2005 12y ago

richardw 12y ago

I would imaging reciprosity and level playing field would require Google's robots.txt to be an open free-for-all. I mean, since we're talking about embracing the open web. I Googled "is Google crawlable" and similar and that doesn't seem to be a thing. I checked the robots.txt and that seems to disallow a lot of stuff. Search, news, groups, images, etc. [1] Google does a great job of taking the open web, repackaging it, slapping it up behind a (crawling) wall, extracting maximum cash from the result. It will always be able to suck in your content "think of the users!" but that'll generally be a 1-way street. Yes there are API's, but that's still a different relationship to "we crawl whatever we want, we put any content we want in our search results, because users". Unrelated: Chrome (which I use and love) also had the added benefit of reducing the amount of money they'd be paying to Firefox for the search deal. Not a terrible outcome. It might even have paid for itself right there, but that's utter speculation. [1] http://www.google.com/robots.txt http://www.google.com/robots.txt - seems to be far more disallow than allow

lwh 12y ago

So if others are evil , it's okay to be evil because that's a level playing field? Maybe change it "Don't be Evil*" ? Hangouts/XMPP , RSS, the big brother aspect of GA - No matter how you justify them they're never going to be good.

OoTheNigerian 12y ago

It is important to read this in the context of republishing an internal memory. It it interesting to see how to disagree with the company's direction and drive home a point. Publishing openly is subtly communicating to the top brass at Google. It is clear Matt finish a not excited about the direction Google is going re: standards. Thankfully, Microsoft is going the other direction.

jacquesm 12y ago
> Publishing openly is subtly communicating to the top brass at Google. It's not all that subtle. This is a pretty strong signal coming from someone as careful with words as Matt.
- OoTheNigerian 12y ago
  Do you know if he's back from his sabbatical?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It's been extended.
OoTheNigerian 12y ago
Apologies for the numerous typos. Memo not memory. How to disagree as an internal executive... *clear Matt is not excited...

lawnchair_larry 12y ago

So why doesn't XMPP federation work then?

mkopinsky 12y ago
Because voices other than Matt's prevailed, presumably.

jfuhrman 12y ago

Can anyone tell me how many things in this list are about a "level playing field" or "do no evil". If Apple or MS did even half of the things in this list, people would be screaming about it from rooftops a couple of decades later, but as Assange noted, Google seems to get a free pass. Most of the Google search page area is now occupied by ads, or ads disguised as content http://searchengineland.com/google-results-too-ad-heavy-166226 http://searchengineland.com/google-results-too-ad-heavy-1662... Profiting off adware ads for downloads http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/08/15/firefox_dodgy_download.jpg http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/08/15/firefox_dodgy_download.jpg Decreasing contrast in the background of ads, this especially hurts older people as ability to see contrast decreases with age, and the FTC found that almost half the people fail to notice that there are ads on the page, thus forcing products that are first in the organic results to pay Google for ads. http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-is-deceptive.html/?a=viewall http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i... Tracking the emails in the free Google Apps for Education and even paid Google Apps for Business to build ad profiles, making misleading statements to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to having to make statements to federal court, having to tell the truth about it and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Education data. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht... Paid inclusion for shopping search results http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embraces-paid-inclusion-13138 http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace... Ranking Google+ reviews over Yelp results even if the user explicitly searches for Yelp http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-google-local-listings/111539/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-... Conspiring to kill SkyHook(and succeeding) with its 500lb outsized influence like Microsoft used to, in order to gather wifi & user location data. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-Samsung http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la... Getting fined by FTC for violating Gmail users privacy by exposing their friends lists in Google Buzz in order to compete with Twitter http://www.netcompetition.org/antitrust/why-ftcs-22-5m-google-privacy-fine-is-faux-accountability http://www.netcompetition.org/antitrust/why-ftcs-22-5m-googl... Tracking the physical location of Android phones for ad purposes without properly informing users and disabling things like Google Now if you disable the tracking. http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://www.datadrivenbusiness.com/google-quietly-testing-offline-store-visits-tracking http://www.datadrivenbusiness.com/google-quietly-testing-off... Google employee accesses personal information of others. Google says it has fixed the issue, but how do we even know? Is there any legal safeguard against someone at Google reading your email? http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee... Tying Android App store to having Google search engine as default on Android, ensuring that alternative search engines cannot be shipped as default. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-on-google-rules-for-android/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-... Stopping Acer from shipping Aliyun OS by threatening to pull the Play Store and Android beta access. Bonus points for enforcing this by the duplicitous moniker 'Open Handset Alliance' doublespeak http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threatened-acer-forced-it-to-dump-rival-os/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threate... Making people literally cry with the forced Google+ integration into Youtube and making confusing UX to make people share more than they want to, in order to compete with Facebook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (warning, NSFW language) Extracting petty revenge on CNET for googling(!) information on its CEO http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ Convicted in the courts for colluding with other tech firms in illegal non-poaching agreements http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...

ancarda 12y ago

>If another search engine crawls the open web and returns better search results, people will switch to that new search engine immediately I don't think people would ditch Google so easily or quickly.

throwawaykf05 12y ago

> [A specific company I won't call out explicitly] sucked contacts out of Gmail but refused to export contacts back out. I'm guessing everybody read [A specific company] as "Facebook", but I know for sure of at least one other company, and possibly two, that it could refer to :-) In fact, now that I think about it, I can think of several candidates. But let's talk about reciprocity. Who owns your contacts? You, or Google? If you want to export contacts out of Google's services, why should Google stop you just because the other service does not reciprocate? Sure, Google makes it easier than most, but isn't that also what their users wanted? If the user truly wants the other service to also export contacts as easily, that's between the user and that other service. Now consider that Gmail is in the top 3 biggest email providers next to Yahoo and Hotmail/Live/Outlook/Whatever-it's-called now. Very likely it is now the biggest, and so they have the biggest set of contacts data in the world. If any 3rd party service wants access to those contacts, Google wields a disproportionate amount of power over them, and as this post shows, is willing to apply it by "requiring reciprocity". "Level Playing Field" indeed.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Interestingly, I see here a very similar spirit to the one of GPL - you only get to use our stuff if you share yours on the same terms. Many people avoid GPL exactly because of that. There are arguments though that this feature of GPL is what safeguards freedom, and I think one could try and make similar arguments in case of reciprocity here.
jacquesm 12y ago
> But let's talk about reciprocity. Who owns your contacts? You, or Google? That shouldn't even be a valid question. But to answer it, you do (of course).

jorgecastillo 12y ago

After all is said and done, Google is still the fairest company and the Google ecosystem is the most open. Seriously, can you imagine a world with out Google? Can you imagine a world were we're at the mercy of Apple & Microsoft? I just can't stomach that with Apple & Microsoft you have to pay to program your own device! You can dislike and criticize Google all you want this doesn't change the facts.

cwyers 12y ago
Microsoft and Apple have a much, much longer track record of playing well with others than Google's, which is practically nonexistent.

asadotzler 12y ago

Google used to care about an open and interoperable web. Not any more. Most of their web apps suck in browsers that aren't Chrome and with no good reason considering most other browsers are completely capable. Google continues to advertise Chrome on www.google.com while not opening that same lucrative advertisent spot to anyone else. Level playing field my ass. When he actually does something to level the field, I'll tune in. Until then it seems like Matt is ittle more than a PR drone these days.

jacquesm 12y ago
> When he actually does something to level the field, I'll tune in. Until then it seems like Matt is ittle more than a PR drone these days. I think you are completely missing the point here. Matt is setting this thing out for the world to see, that is the employee equivalent of displaying your dis-satisfaction with how the company and its management reacted to your previous pleas. It's a pretty brave thing to do and it definitely is not good PR for Google to have this thing out there. What it does is make me respect Matt a bit more, rather than less.

CometLord 12y ago

While i like the approach described by that post, many things are hardly something that is applied by them or others in RL, money is what drives decisions.

cwyers 12y ago

To me, the biggest problem I have in my interactions with Google (and it's growing over time) is that I never feel like their customer. I don't pay them anything (now that they've sold Motorola, they don't make phones, and they don't seem to charge for the OS on the phone), they don't have products I can buy. They just... put stuff out for me to use, and make money off ads. So there's this rather disquieting mismatch between what I as a user want from them and what they do, because their money doesn't come from me, it comes from people who buy ads. And they need to put SOME effort into user satisfaction, because they need users to have someone to look at the ads that they sell, but there's still a mismatch between user wants and Google offerings. Google Reader is probably the canonical example -- yeah, it wasn't a widely used service, but the users it did have were devoted, and might even have paid to keep using it. But it didn't matter, as Google Reader didn't line up with how Google wanted to sell ads now. So it got the axe. And it's in those moments of powerlessness -- where you have no say over what Google does, because you're not its customer, you're just its user -- that Google loses its appeal. It's not evil, it may even be a level playing field. But that sort of user powerlessness makes me uncomfortable using Google stuff going forward.

yuhong 12y ago

OT, but on the European Google antitrust investigation on search results, I am thinking of a tutorial as a settlement.