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...no such service exists.

The Google Data Empire.

Here's the letter from 38 state attorneys general to Larry Page.

"Google Whores Out Users with False Privacy Claims".

Completely true, especially when the referrer information is sent for paid clicks. That's basically Google demanding payment if you want to get that information. That exact issue is also pointed out in this article about the supposed openness of Google along with other interesting facts.

Completely agree with you. One should also read this article about the supposed openness of Google, or lack of it. Google is becoming extremely aggressive in their moves, and FTC is completely correct in investigating the company.

How is this different

How is this different from when Google uses open source? There's a great article about the supposed openness by Google here

Some good points from it:

Where Google is losing you can count on them pushing the open label in order to build momentum & destroy the asymmetrical information advantages of existing market leaders. But where Google leads non-transparency is the norm.

- At the same time Google is trying to push social sites to offer transparent data, they decided to block some Google search referral data (unless you are paying for the clicks, then you get that data).

- When planning some of the features behind Google+ one of their employees wrote a book about the social circles concept with Google's blessings. Then, after he wrote the book, Google revoked permission to publish it!

- Android is open but internal Google emails revealed that carriers were getting wise to Google using compatibility as a club.

- The Panda update was needed to rid the web of garbage content. And yet Google is pre-paying Demand Media to post videos on YouTube. Since the Panda update downstream Google traffic to YouTube has more than doubled & YouTube is serving over a trillion streams per year!

- In spite of not having permission to do so, Google has been scanning books for nearly a decade now. Yet whenever Google goes to court they try to get the court documents sealed so that their statements couldn't be used against them.

If you only had to manage competing against other market competitors & staying inside Google's editorial guidelines then investment isn't that difficult, but if you have to stay within Google's guidelines in the short term yet try to build a business that is sustainable even after Google enters & destroys the market it is far more difficult.

A Self-serving Bias You Can Count On
When Google enters a market it might buy out a competitor, buy out a supplier, bundle, use predatory pricing, grant themselves superior search placement, adjust the relevancy algorithms and/or editorial guidelines, violate IP, scrape 3rd party content, work with sketchy advertisers & publishers to undermine competing business models, or any combination of the above.

They are rarely transparent with their interests when they enter a market. Almost everything is labeled as "a beta" and "just a test." They promise to "act appropriately" & you may not be aware of the steamroller until you are under it.

Google can bundle themselves into markets, but when others do the same it is a big no no:

A Google spokesman said "applications that are installed without clear disclosure, that are hard to remove and that modify users' experiences in unexpected ways are bad for users and the Web as a whole."

Google's founding research highlighted how bad ad-driven search engines were & then Google's core revenue engine of paid search was built on their violation of Overture's patent. They keep

How is this different

How is this different from when Google uses open source? There's a great article about the supposed openness by Google here

Some good points from it:

Where Google is losing you can count on them pushing the open label in order to build momentum & destroy the asymmetrical information advantages of existing market leaders. But where Google leads non-transparency is the norm.

- At the same time Google is trying to push social sites to offer transparent data, they decided to block some Google search referral data (unless you are paying for the clicks, then you get that data).

- When planning some of the features behind Google+ one of their employees wrote a book about the social circles concept with Google's blessings. Then, after he wrote the book, Google revoked permission to publish it!

- Android is open but internal Google emails revealed that carriers were getting wise to Google using compatibility as a club.

- The Panda update was needed to rid the web of garbage content. And yet Google is pre-paying Demand Media to post videos on YouTube. Since the Panda update downstream Google traffic to YouTube has more than doubled & YouTube is serving over a trillion streams per year!

- In spite of not having permission to do so, Google has been scanning books for nearly a decade now. Yet whenever Google goes to court they try to get the court documents sealed so that their statements couldn't be used against them.

If you only had to manage competing against other market competitors & staying inside Google's editorial guidelines then investment isn't that difficult, but if you have to stay within Google's guidelines in the short term yet try to build a business that is sustainable even after Google enters & destroys the market it is far more difficult.

A Self-serving Bias You Can Count On
When Google enters a market it might buy out a competitor, buy out a supplier, bundle, use predatory pricing, grant themselves superior search placement, adjust the relevancy algorithms and/or editorial guidelines, violate IP, scrape 3rd party content, work with sketchy advertisers & publishers to undermine competing business models, or any combination of the above.

They are rarely transparent with their interests when they enter a market. Almost everything is labeled as "a beta" and "just a test." They promise to "act appropriately" & you may not be aware of the steamroller until you are under it.

Google can bundle themselves into markets, but when others do the same it is a big no no:

A Google spokesman said "applications that are installed without clear disclosure, that are hard to remove and that modify users' experiences in unexpected ways are bad for users and the Web as a whole."

Google's founding research highlighted how bad ad-driven search engines were & then Google's core revenue engine of paid search was built on their violation of Overture's patent. They keep

Google just doesn't understand why people want to use social networking sites and what people want. Here is blog post by a guy who worked at Google and decided to leave to Facebook, and here is another ex-Googler who worked on Google+. They're both saying that Google only catched upon social networking lately and didn't care about it at all before. Yet they still continue to make so stupid mistakes. And of course, here is a good article about the whole transparency thing at Google.

Android is open but internal Google emails revealed that carriers were getting wise to Google using compatibility as a club.

Everyone should read read that article about Google because it is spot on, and just shows how evil they are.

In so many arguments I hear: "But Google is open, they are providing a useful service to the customer". Just read this really great article: http://www.seobook.com/transparency and judge for yourself how open Google is. The reason the EU anti-trust commission is interested in Google, is because of abuse of dominant power in one industry, entering and killing off competition in another industry through free- or predatory pricing.

I just learned something...

There are ways to achieve each of the various things you mention. See this, this, and this.

I just learned something...

There are ways to achieve each of the various things you mention. See this, this, and this.

Actually they are doing their homework -- sueing Google is listed as step #62 for improving your sites ranking....

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml

I am sure that they will get plenty of free press out of this. Creative marketing applied.

Bit like Ryanair's CEO saying that passengers will need to stand for the duration of the flight (yeah right) or that they need to pay to use the toilet on board.

Google does not extract any semantics from content. It merely analyses the linking between websites and connects that with keywords. No semantics here.

I believe you are referring to PageRank, which is one of many algorithms used by google to determine search relevance. This article discusses their use of Latent Semantic Indexing, which is a somewhat crude but effective form of sematic inference which is widely used in the field of NLP.

Another great resource to consider is Aaron Wall's SEO Book. Aaron is one of the most respected names in the business. Aaron also runs ThreadWatch.org, a community website about Internet marketing that would appeal to many /. readers.

Eric
William Shatner, nameless cereal box celebrity

There is another person being sued by Traffic Power: http://www.traffipowersucks.com/

It is ironic that Aaron Wall (http://www.seobook.com/) only posted some facts about how Traffic Power used Black Hat SEO techniques that got their clients banned in Google, while Traffic Power created some fake forums and bashed and posted lies about SEOBook and other SEO firms, including my own company. If SEOBook sued Traffic Power right now, he would probably have much better case.

The lameness filter blocked me, so find it here.

14. At unknown date or dates, Doe I, alone or in concert with Does I through X, began disseminating Plaintiff's trade secrets to the public, with such information now available on various web sites. Among other things, Defendant or Defendants posted proprietary relating to Plaintiff's solicitation, procedures on publicly accessible areas of the internet.

The basic ideas and principles of TrustRank:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000661.shtml

I can see dangers in this becoming an elitist thing though, i.e Trusted Sites only linking to other trusted sites, or creating perceptions in surfer's minds. It will be interested to see how Google develop this one, that's for sure.