Slashdot Mirror
Google's Software Principles
Nick writes "Google has just posted a new set of "Software Principles" at their site on how they feel about spyware and the like. It is interesting to see the company whose motto is "Do no evil" trying to get the rest of the internet world to follow, with proposed principles dealing with upfront installation, clear behavior, simple removal, and keeping good company. The question is, though - why would a company who makes spyware (whose very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
Funny.. Nowhere in my google toolbar are the words "Advanced Features" showing up anywhere. And if I turn on the PageRank display, a popup warns me that that particular feature has privacy implications and even provides a link to explain them to me.
I think it's possibly the most non-spyware tool that I've ever seen integrate into IE.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
While the spyware types may not particularly give a damn what Google says, a lot of people do. A lot of people look up to Google - a lot of programmers want to work there, and a lot of companies can easily see the success that Google has made for itself by having a good image and a good product.
Google is essentially offering free advice for companies. They're showing what worked for them. Often the CEO of a company will go out and look for information about how people have previously solved the solutions that said CEO is looking to solve in their business plan. It's a 'learn from mistakes and successes' ideal. Right now, spyware is fairly ubiquitous, so is it any surprise that companies start doing it more and more? Whether or not it works, it has a definite presence, and that presence brings it into mind as a company strategy.
Google is bringing their (superior, I think we can all agree) company strategy into view, and saying 'here's something better' for anybody who's willing to listen.
--
Mr Google Advocate
The publication of these "principles" has nothing to do with getting other vendors to start behaving nicely, and everything to do with getting people ready for the impending launch of Google's desktop search app.
To make the leap from being a Web site to being software you have to install locally, there's a much higher burden of trust they have to surmount -- especially when that software will index your entire local filesystem (just think of the snooping possibilities!).
So, I see this as a kind of pre-emptive strike on their part -- a way that they can claim that they will be as "non-evil" on the desktop as they supposedly are on the Web, and have a document to back it up.
If any other companies follow the principles that document outlines, that's probably gravy, from their perspective.
Read my blog.
There are probably going to be a million similar posts by the time I'm done writing this, but I'll give it a stab.
There are a lot of spyware apps that pretend to be something useful. Pop-up blockers, IE bar plugins, etc. Google directly competes with these.
By drawing a line in the sand, Google is making sure they are able to differentiate themselves in the eyes of the public. We all know that the fight against spyware is starting to heat up. By addressing this proactively they are more likely to be heard by the ears who matter. Slashdotters already know the diffrence between the Google bar and spyware, but not all users do. And as we all know, most of the people who draft/pass/enforce laws are clueless users.
If you want to get this info from the source instead of waiting for /. to post it you can always just visit the Google Blog.
I think there's a lot to be said for appealing to customer's sense of propriety rather than merely his or her pocketbook.
Internet users are not Google's customer base. Google's customers are advertisers. We're Google's product.
Ok, I will bite.
I just read a great chunk of the google-watch site, and I came to this conclusion. I now know why we get better page hits on google lately than before.
5-6 months ago, no matter what you seemed to search for you would get porno, e-commerce spam sites. The kind that return things like "Search for bird poop on e-bay!"
Which was rather pointless. One pointed example was to search for "batteltech cartoon" to search for an old, unpopular battletech cartoon that was out in the 90's. You had to go 3 pages down before you could get a legit link, and not something like "eshoplink.com - search for battletech cartoon on e-bay!" bullcrap.
Now when you search for battletech cartoon, you get smart, concise, and easy to view hits.
Seems like google improved thier algorithm by getting rid of the people that attempt to abuse the search engine to get their links up. Googles entire purpose is to return valuable informatino, getting linked to a web site asking if you would like to look at "battltech hardcore porn" is not what I would deem as usefull information. This has the side effect of screwing over people that are putting up worthless information in an attempt to get page hits on google, which completely violates googles mission statement.
The fella on google watch seems totally against the fact that google is trying to provide a useful search capability that does not cater to people who abuse systems simply for fun and profit.
I am glad google-watch.org exists, it shows me how google is pro-actively trying to protect itself from becoming what yahoo was for many years. Pointless, and worthless.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion