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There are many benefits to the open web as we know it. However, technology and usage always change and its' about adapting, not wishing people weren't using apps. Ideally almost all info would be on the open web. But the open web has drawbacks that cause people to prefer Apps - until this changes we will continue to see the traditional web decline. The open web needs to improve at the pace of apps or faster if it is to survive. How far has HTML and other related tech come since the release of HTML5 (started in 2008 - and wasn't a finalized spec until 2014) ... how far have phones and their apps improved since then? It feels like we are in the 90's, when each browser was so different that websites needed to be optimized for one browser or another - now we have apps that render web content in incompatible ways and hides the data to boot. Web browsers are better now, but things still don't render the same way in every browser... this should not be an issue still. The web was never designed for the modern things we are doing with information - yes web technologies have evolved, but its all built on a system that started only with text and hypertext. Everything else after that was tacked on (CSS and Javascript), and although we can do amazing things with today's web - apps were built from the ground up to handle multimedia and complex interactions in a more straightforward, elegant, and sophisticated way. Yes, there are many examples of building complex application like experiences like GDocs or web-based photoshop alternatives - https://pixlr.com/editor/ - but these are less appealing and capable than native apps. Flash used to cause the same problems for SEO and hiding info from the world - and it sucked for many reasons, didn't evolve much over the years, but it did more than the web could for years because it was built to do something the web couldn't' at the time - provide immersive experiences that were not limited by the confines of traditional web technologies. Lest we forget plugins existed because they filled the gap left by the web. There are many reasons why the web as we know it today is failing users http://arstechnica.com/informa... It sucks that Apps will hide data that ideally would be open - for uses today - and for posterity in the future. I will never argue the ideal that the open web should prevail. I'm not sure what the solution should or could even be - nor will I try to come up with one that will never come to fruition. The whole point of this post is to say that the average person does not care about these issues. They want slick, fast, engaging experiences that fit their needs - the open web isn't doing as well as Apps are at doing just that. If web standards evolved faster - we wouldn’t be talking about this. I love the open web and the benefits it provides for humanity. I have lost a lot of hope in the pure implementation many of you speak f though. Web browsers should be platforms upon which the world operates - and in many cases, they are just that - indeed, thats what Chrome OS was created for. As we speak Chromebooks are rolling out that now run Android apps natively. This is at odds with the original goals of the Chromebook concept. But think about this: Mobile devices usage has surpassed desktops a while ago: https://searchenginewatch.com/... Android is the most widely used mobile OS https://www.netmarketshare.com... and Android apps can now stream to your phone http://www.pocket-lint.com/new... Google is now able to search within apps

Thats nothing have you seen what google does to the url in search results? now for the search "this is a test" I get

"www.dramaticpublishing.com â Genre â Comedy"

instead of

"www.dramaticpublishing.com/p1532/This...Test/product_info.html"

really google how does this help me?

http://searchenginewatch.com/s...

Yes, but there are rumblings of them trying to launch their own engine again. http://searchenginewatch.com/a...

Yahoo's never been effective at writing their own search engine; they were powered by Google up until 2004, and before that Inktomi. In 2004 they tried their own engine for the first time, but it sucked. In 2009 they cut a deal with Bing.

Except this time there's no chance they will be prosecuted, so they're fine.

First, we're not in the same situation as the 1990s. Netscape was vulnerable because they had been lucky to have a serviceable product in the right place at the right time. But Netscape wanted to be MORE, so in a very short space of time they added Email, News, HTML Editor, Conference, and Calendar and re-branded the thing Communicator. These added bloat and instability, making them an easy target for the speedy and stable IE 5.0. Microsoft proved they had the better engineers and management and leveraged the tie-in to make the industry upend itself, and that's why they were taken to court.

Today Google has 66% of the market, and is not losing share to Bing - Bing is simply eating away at the other search engines. So Bing, even 10 years form now, is unlikely to gain more than 33% of the market, meaning a massive upending is nowhere in sight. That means Google has more to worry about from any court action.

Also, every other competitor plays the lock-in game! Google insists you use their tools/services if you want access to the Play store, Youtube and regular OS updates. Amazon locks Prime streaming to Fire devices. Microsoft and Amazon are facing an uphill battle supporting their own forks of Android because of this: they have to improve the value of their own services in any way they can.

Geez - just Alta Vista? Lycos, Yahoo, and a host of others existed at the time as well.

Well, clearly the definitive history needs to be written -- I don't remember about Lycos, off the top of my head -- but I'm pretty sure altavista, then a project at DEC, was the first automated web-crawler index of the web (It was the idea of a friend of mine, who died in 2006: Paul Flaherty) . Altavista was up and running when Yahoo was still a hierarchical list edited by human beings.

Some history of Altavista: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067142/Happy-Birthday-AltaVista

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2261927/Bing-Yahoo-Steal-Tiny-Bit-of-Search-Market-Share-From-Google

"In the battle of Google vs. Bing “powered by” results, 69.2 percent of all searches conducted were powered by Google (down from 69.7 percent in February), while 26.1 percent were powered by Bing (up from 25.9 percent) in February."

The information is out there. You can easily bing for it in less time that you needed to type those comments referencing your own websites' stats "still showing blah blah" which I was referring to when I send "frog in the well bubble".

Windows hat upwards from 90% of the desktop market. Google has, what, 50-70%, depending on country/region?

Depending on whose numbers you use, Google has 70-80% share in US (Comscore being the lowest, with just below 70%, NetApps and other measurement services pegging it higher), 80%-90% WW, and in Europe 90+% (as high as 95+% in many markets). And that is if you are measuring searches, their share is significantly higher on revenue, because they are the only actor in the market with enough critical mass in the ad auction system

Latest US ComScore: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232359/Google-Takes-67-Search-Engine-Market-Share One by country list: http://returnonnow.com/2012/06/search-engine-market-share-country/

Not arguing that Windows doesn't have a high marketshare (at least on traditional PCs, there was a story recently that the true market share on computing devices - including tablets and smartphones etc - was around 20%). But Google has a stronger dominance than many think. As for arguing monopoly or not, that is a different discussion, just jumping in on the numbers here.

They only have around a 66% market share.

...laugh all you want, but how many people shell out real money for WoW -based virtual goodies, or worse, pay shitloads of money to Zynga so that their crops grow faster, or some other similar bullshit? And yeah, folks actually blow money on Second-Life virtual crap as well (and were are a ton of dumbasses as late as two years ago promoting it.

I guess if it makes 'em happy, it makes 'em happy. Fool and his(her?) money, etc.

All that said, if you catch the right trend, and are creative enough in how you sell those virtual goods, you can stand to make a few bucks off of the deal.

Yes, because Google Maps is such an open standard. /s

They provide access to their API, anyone can freely integrate it into their software, websites, or Android apps and even insert their own maps.

https://developers.google.com/maps/

Misleading, at best.

Google charges you if you go over a certain number of users:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2122151/Google-Maps-API-to-Charge-for-High-Volume-Usage

If you want access to map tiles, you simply can't get them, and Google will send their lawyers after you if you reverse engineer.

At least with Apple maps commercial use is free. And Bing will let you license the raw map tiles and provide you with an API to get them.)

(Citation: I've worked on software that implemented Maps from scratch and tried to license from Google. Google also made the news recently when they raised their rates: )

I've been pointing this out for some time now. See my paper "Social is bad for search, and search is bad for social". As soon as some social signal feeds into search ranking, it gets spammed.

Social spamming is cheaper and easier than classic link farm spamming. Link farms cost money to set up and run. Social spam is hosted for free by Facebook, Google, Yelp. etc. Attempts to stop this have not been successful. Even if 80% of fake accounts are killed off, that just means the spammers have to run more fake account generators. Remember Google's "real names" policy? That didn't work out.

Google, and, to a lesser extent, Bing, are running into a big problem - most of their "signals" are spammable. Links are mostly spam - who links to sites that exist only to advertise? Most content, by volume, is now spam - spam blogs, scraper sites, AOL, and Demand Media. There are even spam newspapers, newspapers that get their content from Demand Media and PR Newswire. The San Francisco Chronicle does this, and fake PR then "stories" show up in Google News.

Google tried weighting links less in their Panda update.. It didn't help. Their results in heavily spammed areas became semi-random, and social spamming went up.

That's why there are all those fake accounts.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2051199/Facebook-Login-Fiasco-Demonstrates-Challenge-in-Competing-with-Google

You're welcome.

Businesses do not care about 'eyeballs' when it comes to online advertising. That was the way old media sold ads - the number of tv views; radio listeners; etc. Because there was no way to track the response from the ad.

But online media has tracking. You can tell exactly what % purchase; how much each customer is worth; etc, etc etc. And any ads that don't have a clear ROI eventually die. Banner ads didn't disappear because of the number of 'eyeballs'.. they disappeared because they have terrible metrics.

Google adwords has 44% of the total online advertising market. Guess why?

How much did they pay on the Google Books settlement? Oh, wait, that wasn't 'breaking the law', as there wasn't a court involved ... so let's go with:

• Deceptive AdWords, Australia
• Content regulation, India
• Copyright of news snippets, Germany
• Copyright of books, France

And how many do you need? Only one to disprove your claim that there aren't any. To claim 'tons of' ... more than that. (and in that case, showing where they won doesn't show that there aren't any that they lost)

(and look, I'm supportive of some of the stuff Google does ... but your selective listing is insinuating that they've never done illegal stuff, which was the original claim ... and doing illegal stuff, and being found guilty by the courts are two different things, as everyone tries to settle out of court to avoid setting a legal precident)

instagram has 27 million users: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/11/tech/mobile/instagram-sxsw/
who don't pay anything; has no real business model; and will probably never earn a penny. That anyone could think that it's valuable boggles the mind. Just because you're happy to use something for free, doesn't mean it has value... in fact, it says the opposite, since you're unwilling to pay for it.

bing has 26.2% of the search engine market: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2158888/Yahoo-Search-Share-Sinks-Google-Bing-Rise-in-February-2012
and served 5.1 billion searches last month, and makes 1.22 cents per search (compared with 1.47 cents per search for google)
http://www.trefis.com/stock/msft/articles/75824/can-miscrosoft-improve-its-search-revenues-with-facebook/2011-10-03
http://www.trefis.com/stock/goog/articles/34615/can-google-better-target-ads-to-sustain-rps/2011-01-27

Were it not for Android ever more closely copying iPhone he wouldn't have been asked to leave.

Your usual clueless drivel. Apple never asked Eric Schmidt to leave their board, government pressure did.

...and the long-defunct Bulldozer Software's Diggit was doing the exact same thing in 2001. I can't link to them any more since they no longer exist, but here's a citation noting the sketch search function, and that it worked:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/993764344.html

They went out of business just a few weeks later, it seems:

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067963/Image-Search-Faces-Renewed-Legal-Challenge

Even better it took an Italian judge to rule this way. Brought to you by the same folks as this gem: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049773/Does-Italy-Really-Want-Search-Engines-Recent-Legal-Rulings-Suggest-Not

33% of the market share? I just saw an article that claimed 14.7% for Bing.

Mind you, that was September data... things might have changed a lot since then. (Probably world data as well, not just US.)

I must admit I haven't really used Bing much until I read this article. Just as a test today I set my default search engine to Bing and it's surprisingly decent! It's a very decent alternative to Google now. Seeing as Microsoft loses money on search I don't mind using it either.

With Google being as big as it is, and having it's finger in EVERYTHING, makes me nervous. Having a viable alternative just serves to keep them honest.

This entire proposal rests on the assumption that Google has a monopoly in search. Does it? The latest figures show Google Search has 63.6% of the market. What percentage of the desktop market did Microsoft have in the nineties when it decided to tie Windows and IE together (in violation of its 1994 settlement with the DOJ)? I'm sure it was at least 90%.. Apparently it was news in Dec 1998 when Windows marketshare dropped below 90% "for the first time"...

There's a big difference between Google's 63% and Microsoft's >90%.

Ethics @ Google?

Yes

They are one of the biggest UK/EU tax dodgers. They don't give back to society. Ever hear about the Double Dutch Sandwich?

You mean unlike other ethical companies like Microsoft?

I am an employee for one of the biggest American ex-HF/Bank in London, but from a moral perspective I feel Google is as transparent as the banks.

Then clearly you have never worked @ Google.

Use your head.

Google are common thieves and are like all the fat cats we love to hate, but really if we look inside things we all know how they can afford to give you free swimming pool or pay you 500K USD per year...

I dunno, maybe because we put out high quality products that people actually like using?

Just don't go around like a peacock as the typical American who likes to show his salary, thinking you really are paid with don't be evil money.

Of course, the reason I posted anonymously is because I want to show off my salary. BTW, I am NOT American.

When you know the true reality about all this huge Ponzi scheme which is the global economy, and know Google is part of it, then probably I guess you'd feel a bit ashamed.

This is rich coming from a guy who admits he works for an American financial institution. Clearly, as everyone knows, Google is responsible for the state of the global (and US) economy, and not the American financial institutions .

What a sad sad world we live in.

I agree, which is precisely why I am thankful that I can work for a company like Google. Maybe you should consider not working for an American bank in London?

Because Google holds a majority of the search engine market, making them the market leader, and by restricting (or removing search results from Apple, or any other company for that matter, they would definitely fall into the 'abuse' area of competition, as that could directly impact Apple sales). In contrast, Apple requiring apps to remove links to external app purchases outside of the app store is leveraged against all developers, not just some, and it could easily be considered a justifiable expense. These purchases are still allowed, but this allows Apple to take it's cut. They most likely justify this as a cost of the service itself (bandwidth, storage, distribution, credit transactions, etc), all of which they provide to the developer for a %30 percent cut. For many developers, the price is worth it since they don't have to deal with storage, distribution, credit, etc. Those that don't like it have a healthy market of competition to go to in Android.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2080003/May-2011-Search-Engine-Market-Share-from-comScore-Compete-Hitwise

Now Google could do something like prevent iOS apps from being ported into the Google market and rightly so since they pay infrastructure costs to support, distribute, etc.

What if your computer has your Netflix password saved?

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2076121/Sharing-Netflix-Password-Could-Make-Jailhouse-Rock

Free Wifi really isn't much considering the millions in taxes that can be paid by these companies... I think Jobs's tax comment was a swipe at Google which doesn't pay much of any tax to Mountain View.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2060919/Tax-Assessor-Wants-Google-To-Pay-Property-Taxes-Even-Though-New-Facility-Will-Be-on-Federal-Land

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/google-tax-cut/google-terminal.html

I mean ... bought for $580M and sold for $100M

Sure, but consider that Google alone paid News Corp $900M during that time, News Corp still comes out ahead. Value and worth are funny concepts. MySpace might only have been "worth" $300 million to you if you were running a theoretical competitor at the time that News Corp bought it, but they turned around and made a nice profit on it, even at the higher price. And by buying it, they denied your company the ability to make that profit.

It's all funny money and speculation. I always though financial people were supposed to know better.

Small risk leads to small profit, large risk leads to larger profit. If you have perverse incentives that reward high risk behavior by financial people with little consequence for failure, that's what they're going to do.

ComScore reports search engine market share for the US each month. They report, for January 2011:

• Google: 66.6%, down 1% since last month.
• Yahoo: 16.1%, up 0.1%.
• Microsoft: 13.1%, up 1.1%.
• Ask: 3.4%, down 0.1%.
• AOL: 1.7%, down 0.2%.

Yahoo is just reselling Bing now. Yahoo no longer has a search engine. So Bing's total is 29.2%. The US market has been split about like that for the last several years - Google with 2/3 of the market, Microsoft + Yahoo with 1/3, and the rest nowhere.

Outside the US, Google is dominant in most countries other than China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex).

Just to make things interesting, I binged it (has bing been verbed yet?). The top result was something from 2006 (!) that lists Google with about 49% of the search market, and the 4th said right in the search result headline, "Google is the Most Popular Search Engine in the World".

(Top result in a search for popularity is 4 years old? But just to be fair I checked Google, and it gave the same first result, strangely enough.)

Then you are still having the old sidebar, which could be hidden, the new one can't. See old vs
new. Googles new features don't show up for everybody instantly, it always takes a few days.

In addition to j_l_cgull's posting, also

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-content/bing-makes-moves-to-comply-with-eu-anonymization-directive-does-google-006505.php [cmswire.com]

Google was the first to make this move of their own accord. If the EU forces Bing to anonymize data for EU users, that does nothing for users outside the EU.

Please cite references.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/060119-060352

It was kind of a big deal, but since many Slashdot editors only post stories insisting that Google is evil, it was somewhat overlooked on Slashdot.

That's not a privacy issue.

If you're looking to see which company protects its users, only Google has a positive track record here. However, if you only want to focus on privacy specifically, then Google has refused to hand over user data to China, where as Yahoo has. Again, Google is leading the pack on protecting users.

Until they use it it's not an issue

What? You're not concerned that Microsoft pursued the patent in the first place?

When Mozilla suggested users would be better off using Bing, they did so in the overwhelming face of evidence to the contrary.

Oh come now. You actually expected them to open source the algorithm that made them so rich? (Their advertising gets them their money, but the excellent search drew people in). Releasing source code that's run as a service is a bad idea a large percentage of the time. Why? Because then their competitors can copy, and they might start losing market share. Compare this to say, open sourcing your software product (non-service), where you only have to give away the source after people have bought it, or where you can sell support contracts.
 
And privacy? Need I remind you when AOL, MSN, and Yahoo handed over data to Bush without a fight, but Google didn't?. If you want privacy, go get it. Use Tor, and run your own email server. But don't say "Waaaah, Google is evil" then go run to some other mega corp.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3634991

informationweek.com...
searchenginewatch.com

Yeah... it happened.

That has nothing to do with philanthropy. If you want to use a anonymity proxy, you're free to do so. And that would give you better protection than Scroogle, which only hides your IP from Google. If you're not bothered by other web servers logging your IP, then why would you be concerned with Google? Of all the online megacorporations out there to fear having your privacy invaded by, you're worried about Google?

If you don't want to be tracked by your credit card purchases, then pay for your purchases with cash. It would be unreasonable (and unwise) to ask that banks and credit firms store no digital records of your financial activities. Likewise, in age of information and with the ubiquity of the world wide web, you can't expect there to be no trace of your online activities anywhere (unless you live completely off the grid). You can't go frolicking through the snow and then get mad at the snow for preserving your footprints. Now, you can take care to conceal your tracks, or even create misleading tracks to fool anyone who might be following you. But the only way to ensure there's no trace of your presence is to not tread on the snowy ground.

So, instead of expecting search providers to keep no server logs, store no cookies, and store no session data (things that all modern websites do), perhaps it'd make more sense to focus on other areas of privacy protection that actually matter. For instance:

• Use secure connections when sending & receiving sensitive and/or confidential data.
• Take care to keep your computer free of spyware, trojans, keyloggers, and other types of malware, and just being security conscious in general.
• When you see a luxury car sitting in the lobby of a movie theater with a kiosk next to it asking you to fill out your personal info to be entered into the sweepstakes, DO NOT ENTER INTO THE SWEEPSTAKES. This also applies to online freebies, like free magazine subscriptions, iPods, thumbdrives, etc., that require you to submit your personal info. That's how you end up on the "prospects" lists used by spammers and telemarketers.
• Make sure your ISP, cellphone provider and any other businesses you may have a contract with, are respecting your privacy and not selling your info to 3rd parties as many of them do.
• Lastly, choose your online services (e.g. e-mail, personal blog, search engine, photo sharing service, etc.) carefully. Read the privacy policy of websites you give your personal info to. Don't sign up for an account at or give your email address to shady websites that don't have a reasonable privacy policy available for reading.

IMO, it's much more important to choose a search provider you can trust than to try to obtain perfect anonymity (which is simply unrealistic). The reason people like Google is because they provide the best search results as well as many innovative/useful auxiliary services. Now, if they couldn't collect search data, then they wouldn't be able to analyze them to identify search trends, usage patterns, etc. that have helped them to optimize their search algorithm over the years. Likewise, it's only by collecting this type of anonymized search data that they're able to offer many of their useful derivative services or user-friendly features incorporated into Google search or Gmail.

Google has shown that they can be trusted with user data (at least with regards to Google Search. Orkut and YouTube may be a different matter.) by being the only major search provider to outright refuse to hand over search records to the DoJ. They have also expended considerable resources lobbying for intellectual property reform, green technology, net neutrality, open w

I agree with you, although you have some sort of google account even if you haven't "joined" it.
Your interactions with google are associated with your computer and a google id. I still use google and facebook (although I resisted facebook for a while), but I wouldn't mind if they were both a little less big brother.
Here the first google privacy info I found: Search Privacy at Google

I have an extensive group of friends, and despite your accusations, none of them are wearing my underwear.

All of those that use computers come from a variety of computer-use scenarios, yet the vast consensus I speak of is derived from a meta-analysis of the following general points:

- What the hell is Silverlight?
- I've never been to a site that needs it.
- A microsoft product? I'm not installing it.
- Umm, no. Flash is better and everyone uses it already.
- Silverlight is just a wanna-be flash.

Let me help:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/080509-105719
http://www.riapedia.com/2008/04/14/how_many_visitors_have_silverlight_installed

I'd say 1.5M vs 12M is a big difference. Silverlight is a distraction..... Focus Mr Ratzo, focus!

Your page was from 2007 (and highly suspicious anyway). Let's try a 2008 page and a couple of 2009 sites.

Your page was from 2007 (and highly suspicious anyway). Let's try a 2008 page and a couple of 2009 sites.

Other search engines have similar user satisfaction ratings as Google.(Source).
Yahoo is just too incompetent as a company to leverage it (try to advertise on Yahoo, and you'll see what I mean).

"Targeted advertising" has real problems. Ads on search results pages are valuable, because they're presented at the point that the user is actively looking for something. Vaguely relevant ads on other pages (the "Google Content Network" comes to mind) are a distraction, and far less valuable. Clicks on such ads are mostly from the 10% of web users who make 50% of the clicks, but don't buy much. Many advertisers have opted out of the Google Content Network (read Search Engine Watch). As we point out, about 36% of Google Content Network advertisers are "bottom-feeders", junk sites with no verifiable business behind them. There's been a slow decline in contextual advertising, and I expect that to continue, and maybe accelerate. Ad-supported sites will feel the squeeze.

Targeted advertising is effective if the advertiser has the user's buying history. Amazon exploits this successfully; they know exactly what you've bought. But spreading that information around creates privacy problems and loud objections. Merchants aren't keen about letting their competitors know who their best customers are. Payment companies like Visa and PayPay could in theory take that role, but they've been reluctant to do so for fear of regulatory backlash. Payment companies don't currently know what you bought, just who you bought it from. They'd need merchant cooperation to profile their customer base.

What this may mean is a network effect for broad-based online merchants like Amazon. The bigger they get, the better their targeted advertising becomes. Customers don't object, because they're dealing with one company which legitimately knows what they've bought. Amazon may take up the slack as brick-and-mortar stores go under. In consumer electronics, Circuit City, The Good Guys, CompUSA, etc. have all gone under, and Amazon is taking up much of the slack.

Fast forward to 2008Q2. Searchenginewatch.com reports a dismal 3% rise of 2008Q2 compared to 2008Q1. The weak ad revenue from housing, automobile, and finance sectors are blamed, as is Google's recent efforts to focus on ad quality rather than ad quantity.

Back to the subject of this post. Putting revenue aside, quinthar.com's "analysis" is upside down. Raising the threshold of minimum bids leads to reduced revenue just as raising the minimum wage leads to reduced employment. All it does is redirect business that would otherwise take place to the black market or competitors. Google knows this; they are not greedily seeking short-term gains as quinthar.com accuses. On the contrary, there are other reasons to force minimum prices, and in the case of Google, Google wants to improve ad quality in order to improve or maintain its brand image and realize long-term gains (or at least sustainability).

The Internet is not a bubble, it's a juggernaut. It has changed the world, but it has taken much longer than was imagined during the dot-com era (but in hindsight, it's still fast). Newspapers are on their last breath. But that doesn't make the Internet immune from the general economy. That's the main reason for Google's slower growth rate.

While I agree that allowing anyone to monkey with your search results is ripe for abuse, you are assuming that there are no humans manipulating your search results at the current search engines. While Google loves to tout the fact that their search results are completely algorithm-driven, they actually have teams of people who use manual intervention on a daily basis to "improve" search results, which usually is done to stop abuse of their guidelines.

These people can take actions such as setting a site's page rank to zero or removing entire websites or parts of websites from their indexes. Here is a reference of one such publicized case:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4685750.stm

The fact that you think there is no manual intervention happening probably means that you don't notice it and believe that Google is doing a good job with the manual changes that they are making, but it doesn't mean that it isn't happening. It also doesn't mean that their changes are never influenced by outside forces, as evidenced in another publicized case:

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2164661

Google offers a number of services that don't make money. Why should they put more effort into them?

Even ads on the "Google Content Network" aren't worth much to actual advertisers. There's a class action lawsuit against Google over this. AdWords customers are complaining that it's hard to opt out of running, and paying for, ads on the "Google Content Network". Ads on search result pages are valuable, but there's a growing opinion, backed up by ROI measurements, that putting vaguely relevant ads on random sites is just a money drain on advertisers.

Here's a step by step guide to what you have to do, as an AdWords customer, to turn off the running of your ads on the "Google Content Network". (After you've finished the setup phase, during which you're not offered an opportunity to opt out, click on "Edit Campaign Settings" and un-check the "Content Network" box).

For Google, Blogger is just a way to generate cheap pages for the "Google Content Network".

Google offers a number of services that don't make money. Why should they put more effort into them?

Even ads on the "Google Content Network" aren't worth much to actual advertisers. There's a class action lawsuit against Google over this. AdWords customers are complaining that it's hard to opt out of running, and paying for, ads on the "Google Content Network". Ads on search result pages are valuable, but there's a growing opinion, backed up by ROI measurements, that putting vaguely relevant ads on random sites is just a money drain on advertisers.

Here's a step by step guide to what you have to do, as an AdWords customer, to turn off the running of your ads on the "Google Content Network". (After you've finished the setup phase, during which you're not offered an opportunity to opt out, click on "Edit Campaign Settings" and un-check the "Content Network" box).

For Google, Blogger is just a way to generate cheap pages for the "Google Content Network".

"We're flattered Google thinks Campfire is a great product," said Jason Fried, 37signals CEO and co-founder. "We're just disappointed that they stooped so low to basically copy it feature for feature, layout for layout. We thought that would be beneath Google, but maybe its time to reevaluate what they stand for." From http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080408-123318

"We're flattered Google thinks Campfire is a great product," said Jason Fried, 37signals CEO and co-founder. "We're just disappointed that they stooped so low to basically copy it feature for feature, layout for layout. We thought that would be beneath Google, but maybe its time to reevaluate what they stand for."

Well, silly boys and girls, rails-core ripped off the idea and probably most of the workings for Campfire from NextApp Echo2 ChatClient Demo. I know this because I was in the rails-core IRC channel and I showed them how cool this Echo2 framework was, including that chat demo. A few weeks later they had Campfire and since they say it took them two weeks to write it, Iâ(TM)m guessing they got lots of inspiration.

In theory, if yahoo was taken over by microsoft, microsoft would control more of the search engine world than google.

That would be a nice theory if it were at all true. It isn't.

Different sources put Google's share at around 2/3, and Yahoo and MS combined at around 25-27 percent.

So what's that theory again?

It's more than a case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Gatesists made clear that they would not take "no" for an answer and would continue their plans against Yahoo one way or another. These so-called pension funds are likely part of that approach and just softening up Yahoo, while setting the media against the board in prep for its ousting. One point which is unlikely to ever make many mainstream news sites or forums, even open source ones like Slashdot, is that Microsoftologians are likely to try to replace Yahoo's board. Poisoning the press against the board is a first step.

Later, preventing the Yahoo employees from jumping off with golden parachutes might be a repeat of what MS did to Borland, except against key open source projects. Yahoo contributes in a big way to many open source projects, PHP and BSD being two Very Important (tm) ones. Getting Yahoo would crush a competitor to the spectacularly failed MSN. So without the 'chutes many would have to stay and MS could simply have them sweeping floors or making coffee.

There is also the question of Zimbra, which was recently purchased by Yahoo. MS Exchange is about the only thing that ties Windows into either/both the desktop and the server room. Zimbra is one of the few competitors to MS Exchange, besides Kolab and Citadel, none of which get much press. Quite a few shops would stop or drastically decrease use of MS products without MS Exchange. Zimbra is currently not GPL. Buying Yahoo would allow Zimbra to be put on ice as MS did with FoxPro

Advertising, aka tracking users, is another problem. MS execs want into advertising. Controlling the adservers allows a chance, finally, at income. It also allows access to be tweaked. Ads get served up first before content and delay, especially at the beginning, drastically reduces viewing time and thus mindshare. The first moments are crucial and studies show that the cap is set at 20s. A delay, on purpose or by accident, of even a fifth of a second x one million page views is hundreds of lost viewing hours. So the potential for severe abuse is there in addition to the technical problems MS services and servers are known for.

At the bottom is also a question of money. Many articles somehow neglect that much of the initial offer was funny-money, aka MSFT stock, which MS prints on demand. The noise and smoke about the attempted take over does well at drawing attention away from what must be some rather 'creative' book keeping there in Redmond.

There are plenty more possible reasons to go after Yahoo's board. Having sockpuppets poison the press makes sense for many of them.

Of course my grand plan gets fuddled up when they just stick a sniffer on the outside of my network.