Quote from: A on January 25, 2021, 08:58:43
There is no such thing. They all decide what we do and don't see, that is called algorithms.
Quote from: _MT_ on January 25, 2021, 16:08:02
Quote from: A on January 25, 2021, 08:58:43
There is no such thing. They all decide what we do and don't see, that is called algorithms. Before google who had algorithms, search was terrible. And these laws will cripple EVERY search engine, not just google. If anything, it will cripple google's competitors more than google.
There are algorithms and then there are algorithms. Page ranking algorithms, like the one the founders of Google invented, are very useful. But individualized search is, in my opinion, very problematic. I never liked it. And not for privacy reasons. It suddenly became impossible to tell someone "just enter XYZ and it's the fourth link." When I search for the same thing on two different computers, I can get two different results. It might be on page one on one and on page twenty on another. Or it might be nowhere to be found. I mean, how often you go beyond page twenty? Perhaps it's on page fifty but I won't ever get there. Sometimes, when I follow a link and then return back, the link is gone. The results are (typically slightly) different. Sometimes it moves one or two pages down, sometimes it moves up and sometimes I never see it again. Sometimes, when I try to find the same thing I did the other day, I just can't find it when I had zero problems previously and it took just a few moments. It just made searching more frustrating. In the olden days, Google Search was very deterministic. I could rely on it. The results were rock solid. Now, it's a fluid mess. Of course, this is partly because of much larger volume of data that's changing more quickly. But it's extremely annoying when I'm looking for a contact, I know they have a website and all Google is offering to me are social media accounts. So, I have to go to Twitter to find out what is their website. I never had trouble finding their website in the past. It's not a new website that might be unknown to Google (too low PR). Instead, it's funneling me into antisocial media. I developed a habit in the past (say 2003-2005) where instead of remembering addresses, I would just search the title or part of the address. Well, I stopped doing it a long time ago. The website I wanted used to be right there, on the first screen (say, top four results). Now, I get a load of crap that's not worth dealing with.
And I hate the idea of a computer deciding what's interesting for me and what's not. Even I don't know that until I see it. I want to be exposed to new things. And not being boxed in. Yes, for example YT has given me some interesting suggestions over the years. But if I go down the rabbit hole, I typically hit a fence. Like it has run out of material to recommend. And now I'm just walking in circles in my little box.
I haven't seen the details but I have trouble imagining paying fees if I'm not actually republishing their content. In a search engine, you typically show just a couple of lines for context so that your user can better decide whether this page interests him or not. It's kind of like a citation. It typically doesn't provide the information you're looking for. Unless you're looking for just a small piece of information and it just happens to be in that short excerpt (like the length of something). You usually have to follow the link to find out. Which means the search engine is providing traffic and the website can monetize it. On the other hand, if you're running a news platform and your users are consuming articles from other outlets, you should have it properly licensed.
Technically speaking, there is a solution. You could block robots from accessing your website (beyond IP blocking known robots, there is a mechanism that relies on robots identifying themselves and respecting your preferences). And then you can have an agreement with chosen platforms giving them access. If you're big enough for them to care, that is.
Who pays whom is a question of who gains more from the relationship (as the parties see it).
As _MT_ said, algorithms are one thing, but Google goes well beyond that. Besides what he discussed--which can be dealt with as @A said by not being logged in for searches (Searchonymous extension is great for this) or using DDG (I do most searches with that, and if I can't find what I need or if it's a technical search, which DDG (Bing) isn't good at, I use the !google bang)--Google outright alters/censors search results. I like to read both sides of a political story to try and see all viewpoints, but there have been multiple times when searching with Google I absolutely
could not find a single result giving the conservative viewpoint or even mentioning an "anti-liberal" story, but doing the same exact search on Bing showed tons of them. Even the search suggestions Google shows as you type are biased. Type "kamala harris" without the quotes then start typing eligibility. When you type the "e" you get a few results, then a few different ones when you type the "l," then absolutely
nothing when you continue typing. Are you seriously telling me nobody's typed that? I know I have, yet it still does it. And it doesn't matter your political ideology, you
should take offense to censorship either way, and hiding a topic instead of making it readily available for research and discussion isn't helping anyone and only serves to further divide.
I'm not a fan of Google, but the
clear censorship they're doing is reason enough to me for
countries to band
them, not wait for Google to decide to do them the favor of leaving. And DDG is growing by leaps and bounds lately, so Google banning countries access is one of the last things they need to be doing, as it will only accelerate their losses. And let's not overlook the fact they're threatening to pull
out of Australia because of this, yet they were perfectly fine with accepting China's censorship terms to get
into that country. Really makes you wonder.
@_MT_ described another big issue with Google and social media: the amplification effect they create. They box people in to their beliefs and social circles, so they just continue to get more and more positive feedback on their beliefs without getting any (substantial, anyways) counter ideas, i.e. pushback on their own.
As for this particular issue, I don't know enough about it to lean one way or the other. The behavior of Google over the years has led me to give them the opposite of the benefit of the doubt, so I'm inclined to automatically think they're in the wrong, but I don't really know. I do know that when an article on a news site that normally has a paywall is linked to via Google, they have to let you read the article (IIRC it's due to a law because if people are shown a result, they, according to the law, should be able to access it), and there's actually extensions that change the referer (yes, that's spelled correctly) when you access articles on applicable sites to make it look like you came from Google even if you didn't, so you can read the article. So maybe that's why they want Google to pay. Not saying it makes it right, just offering some possible insight into the issue. The bottom line is the whole web is a huge mess and there's no clear way to fix it. But I'd also bet most of the people posting here and elsewhere with opinions about it don't have a clue about the details of this issue.
I do think Google is far too big and monopolistic, they use anti-competitive practices, and they need to be broken up. And hopefully that's what will happen with the current lawsuits, though it will likely take
years and I don't have high hopes based on the history of failure of our anti-monopoly laws.
And finally, as @A also pointed out, sometimes changes that seem fair and seem like they would work
against a company would actually
help them. An example is Amazon, who after years of taking advantage of having no liability for the products they sell while B&M retailers
do have liability for their products, is now actually pushing not only for themselves to be liable, but for liability laws in general to be much tougher. Of course, they're only doing this now that lawmakers are already looking to change the law to make Amazon liable, and they see the writing on the wall, so they're taking advantage of the situation, and making themselves out as pro-consumer all of a sudden in the process, to further strain their smaller competitors who are less capable of shouldering the extra burden caused by the new laws, whereas they're large and rich enough to do so without much issue. Big companies are almost always evil, because they have one, and only one, purpose, and are given far too much leeway (IMO) to achieve that purpose.
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