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Google Gets Away With What Microsoft Couldn't
FreshlyShornBalls writes "WebProNews is reporting that
Google's new beta toolbar apparently sports an "AutoLink" feature which appends hyperlinks to existing content. These hyperlinks, of course, point to their services, such as maps for addresses, isdn numbers for books, etc. Sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's "Smart Tags"." Update by J : ... except that Microsoft's proposal was in the monopoly browser while Google's software is a third-party add-on, and Microsoft's was (originally) on by default while Google's is a button to click.
Easy tiger - for this to work, you have to click a button on each and every page you want to temporarily create these links on. It took 3 minutes to confirm that. Is the art of journalism dead?
/. reader won't touch that with a bargepole.
This is an opt-in feature designed to help people who want it. Google aren't ramming this down people's throats.
There is also the option to change the default mapping app - you can switch between Mapquest and Yahoo maps in addition to Google's offering. A nice touch - google didn't have to do that. It's just a shame this only works for US addresses right now.
Of course, this is all academic. It runs on IE, and the average
I of course detonated the PC I used to test the toolbar in a controlled explosion a few minutes ago.
Microsoft has an almost total monolopy on PCs. If Microsoft does this, it's anti-competitive. They have been convicted as monolopists.
If Googles optional toolbar points at their services, that is hardly an abuse of a monolopy. Heck, I don't even have a google tool bar, I don't want one.
But at work, I'm forced to have a windows machine.
Until or unless Google becomes a big monolopy who can force everyone to use their crap, the fact that Google does something that would be illegal for Microsoft to do is irrelevant.
Why is this so tough?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Microsoft controls the OS so they could integrate smart tags for their benefit and control and the user has no choice.
vs Google toolbar which you can optionally download. Don't like it, don't download it.
Simple.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
I think we need to stop thinking of Google and MS as good vs. evil. They are both companies out to make a profit. Google chooses to make a profit by showing us advertisements, while Microsoft chooses to make a profit by getting us to buy their software. Neither is less or more evil than the other - they both answer to consumers when the screw up something, and since consumers control the almighty dollar, they are answerable to us. The problem is that most consumers can't agree on what color blue is, much less whether a company is doing something that is too invasive or not.
I did wonder how long the "Microsoft Inc Bad, Google Inc Good" pastiche could last.
...
Just because its founders are young and "wacky" doesn't mean they can't make very corporate decisions in polo shirts instead of pinstripe shirts. The platitude about "thinking outside the box" already sounds trite coming from Google. The decision to fire a blogger for speaking up is proof that Google has a PR department just like any other corporate minded drone army.
Bill Gates was once young and just as idealistic as Sergey and Brin. Bill Gates once said that he was planning to give away most if not all of his fortune to charity - I bet he wasn't labelled "evil" back then
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
A major issue of creating "smart links" (even though these aren't exactly the same as smart links) is one of trust. Can we trust Google that they aren't going to take advantage of us with a feature like this? Well, just look at their track record, where they consistently go above and beyond what consumers expect and set a new standard in user-friendliness.
Why should Google treating its users with respect and consistently creating a quality product be worth nothing? This article sounds like it is using the logic of an eight year old.
Microsoft is the company known for being a big bully who uses its position of power to cram things down its users throats. It is the opposite of Google. This is why the reaction is different, and perfectly valid as well.
I am also much less inclined to trust Microsoft's search engine, Microsoft's maps, etc. than anything Google puts out there.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
I find it surprising that most /.ers, while criticizing the MPAA and the RIAA for placing restrictions on the way their content is used, balk when website content is manipulated on the browser end.
Microsoft's Smarttags could have had great benefits and brought about semantic-web like features if only people weren't paranoid. After all, the website owner had full control over how and where smart tags were displayed on his page.
Now, 3 years later, Google does a stripped down version of the same to make themselves more money (MS' smart tag gave the website owner options - Google does not), and we all scream asking for the equivalent of DRM on web pages.
We who don't want to pay for the music and movies, who don't want to pay for software, who believe in the 'creative commons', throw a collective fit when a user agent wants to do something cool with the HTML already downloaded to the computer already.
It's been over a decade since the first browser - and all we have to show for it from Microsoft, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla put together is what? A new way of doing tables and tabs!
Stop cribbing and let someone innovate.
Throughout humanity, there is a basic standard of right and wrong. We may disagree on some of the smaller points of it, but the general principles are there. Don't steal, don't murder, don't lie, etc... Evil is something that breaks one of these basic rules. A company out for a profit is not inherently evil, however, when it starts to break these rules, then it partaking in evil actions. In general MS and Google are neither evil because neither of them are breaking these basic laws of humanity. We may not like the way they compete in business, but that doesn't make them evil.
It's just like people -- when you build a relationship of usefulness and trust with someone, they'll look upon your new ideas with less skepticism and maybe more tolerance for a commercial venture, and won't feel like you're blatantly exploiting them!
"...Who says Microsoft can't innovate?..."
If MS does innovate, it usually means buying a company that did the innovating. My idea of innovation must be completely different than Microsofts. I see it as contributions to computer science and MS sees it as bring a product (however it was obtained) to market. And usually this spells the death of the innovating company.
Though honesty is important as well. Google's motto is do no wrong, and I for one am inclind to believe them. Microsoft has burned me one to many times for me to trust them. So far I still trust Google. Just like I have a few close friends that I would give them the keys to my house if they asked, I see nothing wrong with trusting certain coperations over others.
Some of the difference is qualitative. In a smart tag envioronment, it felt like we were going to be advertised to - like text saying "broadband" might be linked to MSN broadband. In this case, it feels like Google is trying to be legitimately helpful in a way that also happens to generate cash for them. If I see directions on a page, having the option of asking Google to magically link that address into Google maps is a good thing.
The business model is different. Google makes money because they help you. You have lots of choices, and still choose Google, and all of us can use something else the moment they piss us off. Microsoft was shoehorning smart tags in because people don't know they have a choice in web browsers. Users would either be annoyed or oblivous to smart tags, but would put up with it for a (perceived) lack of options. Google needs users, users "need" Microsoft - that's the differing dynamic.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
As a convicted monopolist...
Microsoft was not "convicted" of anything. The company was the defendant in a civil action, not a crimial case. You sound like a fool using that ridiculous term.
By the time Microsoft became evil, or, by the time Microsoft's evil became apparent, it was too late to stop them.
Giving Google absolute power is no better than giving Microsoft absolute power, the only difference is that Google does not seem corrupt enough to abuse it yet. And yet, absolute power is often cited as a CAUSE of corruption.
The reason that the U.S. Constitution limits presidential terms is because there may come a dictator who begins to tear the country apart. "We The People" have a chance to get rid of him easily after four years, but failing that, he's out for good after eight. It acts as a sort of sanity check - if the people are crazy enough to let him have a second term, they might be crazy enough to let him continue dictating for 20 years. These balances work to temper the power of people who are considered good, because people are corruptible. Corporations are people too.
Google certainly seems like a cool, nice company today, and I agree with that. But turning them into a monopoly over the search market is putting all our eggs in one basket. Letting them into our personal machines with their toolbar and desktop search tool is handing them extraordinary powers. We don't mind because we trust them because they're not evil, of course - but what if they turned evil tonight? We've allowed them to become so deeply entrenched in our lives...
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
A corporation isn't a person, even though we like to think of it that way. When you hand your keys over to one corporation, you are really handing it over to thousands and thousands of individual people - some of whom have good intentions, and some of whom have bad intentions. I do not trust a corporation as a collection whole.
Exactly. You build a relationship with any entity you interact with, and Google has treated me very, very well. I've almost always enjoyed working with Google products, while I've almost always become angry when working with microsoft products.
Google is a good company and I trust them until they break that trust.
ONE too many times? You have to be kidding, unless after that one time you just stopped using MS products forever (which is damn near impossible, even with my magical consumer dollar power. I have to work.)
you're right but I find an easy definition of "evil for businesses" to be:
Google is good because it makes money by making things better for people, thus attracting customers.
Microsoft is evil because it makes money by making things worse for people (or at least not as good as the alternatives), relying on lock-in to avoid losing business.
MS would rather (and does) hold others back than push itself forward. therein is the "evil".
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Sounds pretty convenient. I'd like a firefox extension that does that. Of course, I'd want it configurable so I could choose what gets hyperlinked, and where the links go.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Okay. So, take a web site with lots of advertising. Let's say .. Slashdot. They depend on that advertising to generate revenue to keep that web site afloat.
... you guessed it ... Google advertisers. So, now Google is potentially usurping Slashdot's advertising by encouraging people who are using Slashdot's web site to purchase services or merchandice that are in turn paying Google for advertising.
Now, here comes Google with links to its own services that are funded by
So, in effect Google is making Slashdot nothing more than a big-ass marketing tool for Google while not reimbursing Slashdot for the privilege. In fact, with respect to marketing they are indeed reducing the potential for Slashdot to make money on its own web site using its own advertisers. And they also are not going to give Slashdot the option of opting out of the practice.
Given all of that, I think that I'd prefer Smart Tags, thank you.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
buys you things that deception and malintent does not.
I control it. What web servers let me download is a suggestion of what to display. I am free to take it and manipulate it however I see fit. Just because a website wants to feed something up does not mean that as a user I have to take it. Google's approach gives me one way to manipulate it. If I like how it works, I'll use it, otherwise I don't have to. Sounds like an interesting tool. There's nothing wrong with something that gives more power to the user. As long as the user maintains control of how the manipulation occurs, there's nothing scary about it.
"...One central theme of the documentary is an attempt to assess the "personality" of the corporate "person" by using diagnostic criteria like the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia Psychology Professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath..."
By the way I am not a communist hippy but a proud owner of two company's and think that honesty and business can go together.
Depending who take responsibility for the actions of the corporation some companies act better than others, the problem with public companies is that nobody wants to take responsibility for their negatives actions. Stockholders want no responsibility but profit and CEO's claim they have to obey to stockholders.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
I usually don't like to get into this things, but this time I will.
Throughout humanity, there is a basic standard of right and wrong.We may disagree on some of the smaller points of it, but the general principles are there. Don't steal, don't murder, don't lie, etc. Evil is something that breaks one of these basic rules.
You talk about it as if it's universal and has been understood by all cultures, maybe even thinking of it as part of human nature. What about adultery (not all cultures banned it, and I hope your wife wanting to have sex with me is not a small point for you)? What about white lies? What about death sentence, is the American governmeent evil? What about war? What about not mixing with black people, is every white person from before the 20th century evil?
In general MS and Google are neither evil because neither of them are breaking these basic laws of humanity.
So, if we don't break a couple of rules then we are good, just like the ten commandments, How convinient!, but I hope in my hearth the human beings are much more complex than that. Now, there's also your interpretation of every one of those rules (which cause most of the christian religious separation BTW).
"Don't murder", murder what, only human beings? If so, don't murder any human being? What if I assist on the process but I didn't pull the plug? What if I decided to kill my baby instead of your wife (who is now pregnant, hehe =) )?, that's certainly murder. Am I expected to keep my mother alive for 5 years even if she has no life, cannot speak or move, and, after I have no money left, take a second mortage, sell my cars, and stop my kids from going to school to keep my mother quasi-alive another year (because if I don't, then I'm an evil person)?
"Don't steal". Is a revolution, where you take some land away from another country, stealing? Is an unwanted popup taking space which wasn't authorized stealing?
Human begins are much more complex and what you talk about are social rules (not laws of humanity!) that would help people live well in a certain type of society where those rules apply. You can change those rules and we'll have another society where human beings are still alive, eventhough it's better or worse.