Amazon Dumping Google for Microsoft?

theodp writes "How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share? If you're Amazon, you dump Google for Windows Live Search to power subsidiary Alexa, who has not yet commented on the switch. Other Windows Live Search sightings are being observed at Amazon subsidiary a9.com." From the Search Engine Lowdown article: "The Alexa toolbar's gotten Alexa a bad rap from privacy advocates, though in function it's effect on search results is similar to click stream data that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask may or may not be using in their determinations of relevance. Wall points out that 'A9 is still powered by Google...' A9 is Amazon's primary search project. Wall wonders, however, if the change in Alexa indicates a larger coming change in Amazon's relationship to Google. I agree. In fact, I see the move as the first Google Dump in the post eBay's-seeking-partners-against-Google era."

Comments

So this is what it's come to?

[stjobe]

Cryptic summaries of ephemeral events... I thought it said "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."

Re:So this is what it's come to?

[sbrown123]

This "news" is up there with the recent non-annoucement of eBay leaving Google for Microsoft. A bunch of self-appointed-gurus-of-the-industry are saying they have good knowledge that company X is running from Google to Microsoft. Seriously, why would company X run to a company that is notorious for embracing others and then destroying them? It would be like a fly, fleeing from another fly, straight in to a spiders web for safety. WTF.

Screw it. I'm making news today: Microsoft dumping MSN in favor of Google. a dozen or so Microsoft execs, who will remain anonymous, point out that their search engine is not generating the revenue they original thought it would and feel that they can better tie the new Vista operating system with Google desktop Search.

In other news, Novell looks to purchase IBM.

Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[pla]

The Alexa toolbar's gotten Alexa a bad rap from privacy advocates, though in function it's effect on search results is similar to click stream data that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask may or may not be using in their determinations of relevance.

While that may (or may not) hold true, the key difference there involves how much we trust the company getting the data.

Google has proven itself, time and again, to act in the best interests of its users, even going up against the DoJ to fight for our privacy rights. Yahoo and MSN don't quite have the same good track record, but they at least don't have a reputation as outright spyware.

But Alexa? C'mon, Amazon, give us a frickin' break here!

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[John_Renne]

Allthough Google might have a better reputation then Yahoo or MSN (and certainly Alexa) they're not saints either. The privacy policy for Orkut for example wasn't all that too.

Despite that, this sounds like a first class mindslip from amazon

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong. google wasn't protecting the privacy of its users, it was protecting itself from the potential public backlash once it was revealed the amount of detailed information they held on each user. And yes, if you use gmail, they can probably predict what you're going to do this upcoming weekend with accuracy.

they were protecting themselves. you write as if you still believe in the tooth fairy. google has a great marketing strategy, and it's to let naive geeks like you spread misinformation about an angelic company that is in the most EVIL business ever... ADVERTISING. The very goal of advertising is to make people feel insufficient - in short - to make them unhappy. Then it promotes a solution in the form of the pitched product. THERE IS NOTHING MORE UNNECESSARY AND EVIL THAN ADVERTISING.

Alexa was installed spyware. Google's pimping is so strong that you give them that information for FREE without coercion - then you turn around and proclaim them the second coming. Those google guys are geniuses indeed, but not in the way you think.

Then you assholes complain when the government, which arguably has no self interest in your information, decides to pass new anti-privacy acts - then you all go search for everything through google, when they need to pass no law to log what you search for - how you search for it, when, where, and to what end. They KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU. And you give it to them for free. not smart, geeks. not smart.

get your head out of your ass. google is the enemy. they are more insidious than microsoft because there is a desperation in their efforts - they have to scramble and hustle and scratch and claw to stay alive. Once search parity is achieved - they could be in serious trouble.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good points, but I'll argue one of them. I don't think advertising is unnecessary. Quite the opposite, or else how would you find out about things?

What is evil is false advertising, and THAT I will agree is unnecessary.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see the reason why you think advertising is the most evil thing in the whole world? Annoying? Maybe but evil? Come on....

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[ajs]

How to detect loonies:

"the most EVIL business ever... ADVERTISING"

Ok, now step back, and think about that statement. In a world full of people who build nuclear weapons (e.g. G.E.); research fragrances by injecting bunnies with toxic chemicals; patent genetic sequences; squeeze the third world for cash in exchange for patented, life-saving drugs; grind up tons of sea life per day; build systems to gather all Internet traffic for domestic spying; etc. ... this guy chooses to point the finger at people who attempt to sway your opinion about what to buy as the "most EVIL business ever".

Think about that.

And why does he say this? Because it pains the average paranoid to have a large business that spends its time worrying about the impact of its actions.

Keep in mind, Google has:

* Moved the banner ad from Internet dominance to second-class status.
* Contributed substantially to open source development efforts.
* Countered the growing dominance of Microsoft on many fronts.
* Revealed government efforts at privacy invasion (did MSN or Yahoo!?)

Complaints about Google amount to: well, they could do MORE for me!

If Google bothers you, you need to serious look at your priorities. Sure, they're large and public which makes them more of a source of concern than your average convinience store, but there are companies that spend their time and effort trying to KILL PEOPLE. Google doesn't show up on the evil company radar because there's already too many companies fighting for the right to be there.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[LilGuy]

This is why I still visit slashdot after all these years. What you said was very well put together and I applaud you. I don't agree with the parent user that Google is in the most evil business in the world and I expect many of you out there would feel the same. I expected to see a mish-mash of nasty comments and dirty slams but instead found only your comment. You refuted his obfuscated point very nicely.

I wish it always worked like this.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[gowen]

Google has proven itself, time and again, to act in the best interests of its users

Unless they're Chinese "dissidents" searching for words like "democracy", "freedom" or "Tiananmen Square."

But, hey, we're all right jack, so the Chinese can whistle.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[john_uy]

fight for our privacy rights

yeah right. let's just see what they do so they can operate in china. maybe with all the new ridiculous laws about data retention nowadays, it won't be long before the government will be getting their data without our knowledge (like at&t)

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Hays]

General Electric builds nuclear weapons?

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[GnomeChompsky]

OK. So maybe advertising is not the most evil enterprise on the face of the earth.... but it is one of the most insidious.

Who makes it so that when you think GE you think fMRI, lightbulbs and NBC rather than nuclear weapons? Advertisers, and their big-brothers, PR people.

Who diverts your attention from the bunnies in shackles testing cosmetics to the voluptuous lashes and attractive partners you'll have if you only use Brand X's mascara? Advertisers.

Who makes you believe that the high price of patented medicine needs to remain high at the expense of the third world and in the interests of the pharmaceutical companies? Advertisers.

So yes, there are companies out there doing more active evil than advertisers. But advertisers play their part in squelching public dissent. They produce the ignorance that allows injustice to continue.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Irish_Samurai]

Actually, I don't think it's advertisers. I think its PR people. The two are not the same.

Actually - the terms Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations are all switched in and out as if they were the same - they're not. These are the definitions as they function in how I use them in my business. Your mileage may vary.

Advertising - The art/science of building/designing media that best leverages the media vehicle's strengths and weaknesses to deliver a message developed by marketing.

Marketing - Analyzing the current business/economic/social/cultural landscape to create/discover/define a target for a product or service. This target is in turn analyzed for the purpose of creating the most effective message to motivate the target to take a desired action.

Public Relations - The art/science of using Marketing and Advertising as applied methods for influencing public opinion, injecting a designed piece of "common knowldge" into a population, or damage control to make the consumer/revenue generating Marketing and Advertising initiatives of a company easier over the long run.

Inherently there is nothing evil about any of these things - the way companies use them is where the evil begins. Just as the wedge itself isn't evil. Its also not evil when you sharpen the edge and strap it to a stick. It still isn't evil when you cleave someones head with it - the weilder of it is. AND - the weilder is only evil if the cleaving was done out of malice or spite. Somehow I don't see self defense as evil.

Quit blaming disciplines as being inherently evil/good. Not only is it inaccurate, but it takes soe of the blame away from the companies who do evil things with these tools and distributes it amongst everyone using them - regardless of their use is ethical/moral or not.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Nephilium]

Who makes it so that when you think GE you think fMRI, lightbulbs and NBC rather than nuclear weapons? Advertisers, and their big-brothers, PR people.

Nope, the fact that they make a lot more lightbulbs then nukes... and I don't really have any issue with companies making nukes...

Who diverts your attention from the bunnies in shackles testing cosmetics to the voluptuous lashes and attractive partners you'll have if you only use Brand X's mascara? Advertisers.

Nope... again, I would rather animal testing over human testing... if testing is needed...

Who makes you believe that the high price of patented medicine needs to remain high at the expense of the third world and in the interests of the pharmaceutical companies? Advertisers.

And again... I think it needs to remain high because of the costs involved in R&D, and the need for a company to make back its investment capital...

And the advertisers aren't the ones causing ignorance... that would be the willfully ignorant people... you can't force people to try to learn... only provide the opportunity for them to learn.

Nephilium

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[joeykiller]

Keep in mind, Google has:

* Moved the banner ad from Internet dominance to second-class status.

The poster you call a loonie has a great point and that's that Google has become an advertising company first and foremost.
That's why I'll bet you'll see them move banner ads back to first-class status if that's what'll increase growth for them.

Take a look at this: Not only is Google bringing Flash Ads to their AdSense network; now also video ads has been spotted on AdSense sites. Also take a look at yesterday's articles about Google providing an AdSense products for parked domains.

In short, Google's a business now -- and what they do first and foremost is things that'll improve their ad business. Even if that means bringing back the banner ad in an ever more annoying form than before.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Grishnakh]

I agree with you that advertising, marketing, and PR are really different things. However, I'm not so sure any of them aren't evil.

I think advertising, by itself, is a necessity in most businesses. It's hard to sell stuff to people if they don't know about you. So when I google for something and a small text ad comes up showing a website where I can buy it, that's actually fairly useful. Advertising has been around for ages, ever since business has been around I would guess.

Marketing, however, I think, is the real evil. 100 years ago, was there a such thing as a Marketing Degree at universities? I don't think so. 100 years ago, products sold by respectable companies sold on their merits: if it was a good product, people bought it.

But somewhere in the 20th century, the new science of Psychology was used and perverted into a new field called Marketing. Instead of making a useful, quality product that filled a need for people, and selling it to them at a profit, Marketers came around and changed the way companies did business: now they created cheap junk that no one really needed, but used psychological ploys to convince people they needed them. Companies that didn't employ marketers to con customers failed because flawed humans succumbed to this psychological trickery instead of buying only from companies that acted honorably. 100 years ago, the only people who used trickery and psychological ploys to sell junk were known as "con artists" and "hucksters", but now nearly every company works this way, and has a Huckster, er, Marketing Department.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Irish_Samurai]

but now nearly every company works this way, and has a Huckster, er, Marketing Department.

While that is often the perception - your marketing department also works closely with product managers to make sure that no one is creating anything that there is no market for.

Lets take cars for example. Nissan makes really efficient and trustworthy vehicles (for the most part.) There were alot of people who wanted that reliability with a little more luxury. Nissan wants to sell these cars to the American public, but culturally we have an issue with conspicuous consumption. The American people who want a luxury vehicle at an affordable price point won't buy it if it says Nissan on it. So they go and develop a brand called Infinity. Nissan did nothing to create this behavior, it was a factual state of affairs that needed to be dealt with, and Marketing was the discipline to use. Not very evil.

An interesting thing happened next. Even with a brand change, people wouldn't purchase the Infinity cars initially because they were underpriced. This sounds ridiculous, but its true. The American public refused to accept Infinity as a luxury brand without the equivalent price point. The prices were raised as a response to consumer feedback. This too was a marketing decision. In no way did Nissan force these behaviors on the Amrican public, the public forced these changes onto Nissan.

But what the uneducated consumer sees now is that Nissan slapped some leather in their cars, gave it a new name, and added 30% markup to the cost. While esentially this is true, it was motivated by the consumer response - not by consumer manipulation.

There are other points where this is true also, and it is the fault of the consumer - not the marketer. Wine for instance. Educated wine enthusiasts know a good wine when they taste it, and rarely use price to evaluate worth. The average American consumer uses price as a measuring tool because they don't know better. The marketer did not create this environment, the consumer did.

Also, what if your company goes international? You need a marketer to tell you why you cannot sell things the same way in Japan as in America. Your marketing department also prevents you from losing money by importing Japanese products that sell like hotcakes there, but that are too advanced for our consumer base.

The application is evel, not the technique. And your non specific references to marketing evil are all application specific. Hence, the application is evil, not the discipline.

So when I google for something and a small text ad comes up showing a website where I can buy it, that's actually fairly useful.

And the MARKETER placed the ad, not the advertiser. The decision on what keywords that that particular ad would trigger off of were decided by online marketing experts, ot advertisers. In this case, Google is the Advertising agency. They are utilizing a medium to deliver a MARKETING message.

The problem is that the roles played are misunderstood and therefore unfairly vilified.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Grishnakh]

And the MARKETER placed the ad, not the advertiser. The decision on what keywords that that particular ad would trigger off of were decided by online marketing experts, ot advertisers. In this case, Google is the Advertising agency. They are utilizing a medium to deliver a MARKETING message.

Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Marketer that did that? You're telling me that someone needs to get a college degree to understand that a person looking up "sewing machine" might be interested in stores selling sewing machines? Sounds like Marketing people are vastly overpaid.

I think it's more likely that Google just had a PROGRAMMER implement such a simple concept, probably thought of by some other non-marketer, with a few lines of code. And because they don't have a bunch of overpaid marketers on staff to do such idiotic stuff with layers of bureaucracy, they're more efficient and are easily outperforming other businesses that use a bunch of degreed Marketers.

Lets take cars for example. Nissan makes really efficient and trustworthy vehicles (for the most part.) There were alot of people who wanted that reliability with a little more luxury. Nissan wants to sell these cars to the American public, but culturally we have an issue with conspicuous consumption. The American people who want a luxury vehicle at an affordable price point won't buy it if it says Nissan on it. So they go and develop a brand called Infinity. Nissan did nothing to create this behavior, it was a factual state of affairs that needed to be dealt with, and Marketing was the discipline to use. Not very evil.

An interesting thing happened next. Even with a brand change, people wouldn't purchase the Infinity cars initially because they were underpriced. This sounds ridiculous, but its true. The American public refused to accept Infinity as a luxury brand without the equivalent price point. The prices were raised as a response to consumer feedback. This too was a marketing decision. In no way did Nissan force these behaviors on the Amrican public, the public forced these changes onto Nissan.

But what the uneducated consumer sees now is that Nissan slapped some leather in their cars, gave it a new name, and added 30% markup to the cost. While esentially this is true, it was motivated by the consumer response - not by consumer manipulation.

This is just a case of having to do the same evil as your competitors in order to survive. As a consequence, those of us with a brain (which apparently is rare in America these days) can't buy a nice and affordably priced luxury car because of a bunch of idiots willing to go deeply into debt to have a status symbol. As I was saying before, this state of affairs didn't exist 100 years ago (or probably even 60 years ago--exactly when did Marketing become a college degree?). Companies just used common sense and sold products that people wanted, instead of trying to understand all this psychological bullshit. Just because a lot of people are too stupid to buy a nice car unless the price is jacked up doesn't mean it's the way things should be.

Also, what if your company goes international? You need a marketer to tell you why you cannot sell things the same way in Japan as in America. Your marketing department also prevents you from losing money by importing Japanese products that sell like hotcakes there, but that are too advanced for our consumer base.

Oh, that's a great thing to say about Americans--"too dumb for most Japanese products". Unfortunately it's true.

BTW, how hard is it to just do things like they used to do in the old days: import a small number of the item in question, see if it sells or catches on. If not, no big loss; if so, then import a lot more. It doesn't cost a lot to send one container over, or to set up a website to sell directly to people (or use distributors that already have websites). You don't need to pay Marketers tons of money to analyze markets, create huge and expensive marketing campaigns, and have a big "product launch" (ugh), when you can just start small instead.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Irish_Samurai]

Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Marketer that did that?

Yep, because people don't just type in sewing machines. They type in Singer, Electric sewing machines, computerized sewing machines, ect...

The thing that the marketer does is analyzes the cost of bidding on a keyword, keeps track of the conversion rates, and makes sure each keyword maintains an acceptable cost of conversion and conversion ratio. While you don't need a degree to do that - you are marketing.

Did you know that a Google ad that has the search term highlighted in bold in the title line has a significantly higher conversion rate? How about the fact that the landing page that the ad points to needs to mimic the message exacty in the text ad or you get a drop percentage pushing 80? By the time a programmer figured this out, he would have cost his business a bundle. How about realising that using the term "holliday" for selling things at Christmas will cost you WAY more than you need to pay because you are also competing with the European travel market at the same time?

Theres alot more to it than your oversimplified statements, and your ignorance is showing. None of the above examples are evil, in fact they cut costs that would ultimately be passed down to the consumer.

Also, you seem really focused on the Business to Consumer activities, which I agree are at times a little slimey. In the Business to Business arena, that behavior will get you effectively BANNED FOR LIFE. You can RUIN a businesses' reputation by trying to manipulate the perceptions of the purchasing entity. You will never get a job again if you do that.

As I was saying before, this state of affairs didn't exist 100 years ago (or probably even 60 years ago--exactly when did Marketing become a college degree?).

Because the Social/cultural/economic/business landscape has become so complex that not having a specialized entity in your business to handle these things will spell out the demise of your company. But it doesn't sound like you run a business either.

Just because a lot of people are too stupid to buy a nice car unless the price is jacked up doesn't mean it's the way things should be.

But it is the way things are, time to cope.

BTW, how hard is it to just do things like they used to do in the old days: import a small number of the item in question, see if it sells or catches on. If not, no big loss; if so, then import a lot more. It doesn't cost a lot to send one container over, or to set up a website to sell directly to people (or use distributors that already have websites). You don't need to pay Marketers tons of money to analyze markets, create huge and expensive marketing campaigns, and have a big "product launch" (ugh), when you can just start small instead.

Because your competition will eat you alive. You want to start a business that way, be my guest - but you are going to lose your ass to a business that understands that power of perception. You can blame marketing degrees all you want, but these techniques were used by the earliest rulers to maintain social calm. The advent of the marketing degree did not create this.

Oh, that's a great thing to say about Americans--"too dumb for most Japanese products". Unfortunately it's true.

I didn't say too dumb, I said too advanced. Don't put words in my mouth. The American public doesn't live in an extremely digitally integrated commuter society like the Japanese. The DoCoMo functionality of getting television streamed to your phone through a cell network is too advanced for our poplation. We wouldn't use it. We are just now begining to adopt iPods that do the same thing, and thats by a relative few against the whole population. Too advanced.

This is just a case of having to do the same evil as your competitors in order to survive.

No, this is responding to the

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[ajs]

"Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Marketer that did that? You're telling me that someone needs to get a college degree to understand that a person looking up "sewing machine" might be interested in stores selling sewing machines? Sounds like Marketing people are vastly overpaid."

<sarcasm>
Huh? If I google for "sewing machine" and I get some text ads on the right directing me to places that sell sewing machines on the web, that's a Web developer that did that? You're telling me that someone needs to get a college degree to understand how to put up a bit of text saying "sewing machine"? Sounds like Web development people are vastly overpaid.
</sarcasm>

You are, of course, over-simplifying as I hope my example demonstrated. There is far more to marketing than that. Just as an example, if you had $10,000 to spend on marketting and you could choose between sewing magazines, Google ad words, billboards, and radio ads, what would you do? If you need to come up with a logo to market a new product under, what colors are likely to make viewers ignore the product? Are focus groups worth your while? What are the three most important things to provide with your ad copy when going to print? Why is Pantone useful in specifying logos? What are the top 10 words you should never use when talking about a product? When you put together a visual ad, what is the single most important thing that the reader be able to remember, even if they only glanced at the ad (hint: most amateur advertisers think they know, but get it wrong when they design an ad)?

There's so much to learn about advertising that I'll never know half of it. It's a huge business, and most of what I know is now seriously dated as it's all pre-Web (I've been on the tech side during the Web era). Marketting is not evil, however, it is the applied science of manipulating perception. That is clearly ethical grey territory, and it is ever so easy to step over the line.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[ajs]

"General Electric builds nuclear weapons?"

I feel like I should have Prof. Farnsworth's voice when I say, "Oh my, yes!" Though they claim to have moved out of that business in recent years (keep in mind that their involvement was always considered a national secret), they continue to be one of the major U.S. military contractors. On the public record, the only hardware they supply is aircraft engines today, though they still manufacture nuclear power plants.

"In 1987, GE was the United States' second largest nuclear power company and third largest producer of nuclear weapons systems." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric#Jac k_Welch

"Deadly Deception juxtaposes GE's rosy "We Bring Good Things To Life" commercials with the true stories of workers and neighbors whose lives have been devastated by the company's involvement in building and testing nuclear bombs." -http://www.newday.com/films/DeadlyDeception.html

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[ajs]

"I'll bet you'll see them move banner ads back to first-class status if that's what'll increase growth for them."

I'll bet you that you're wrong.

That's not because I'm a Google cheerleader, but because they made a very interesting play when they went public. They wrote their famous line into their S-1 (AKA "red herring"): "don't be evil".

Now, I know that any company CAN decide to be evil, even if they've written down their intention to do otherwise, but if that were the goal, Google would have written it down elsewhere. Putting it in the S-1 actually hurts them, as it is a warning to investors that they will not do what might otherwise be in the stockholder's best interrests if it conflicts with their ethics. Stockholders generally don't like that sort of thing, and it's safe to say that Google's price, while very high, might be higher if they did not make themselves unique in this way.

When you hear someone say that public companies do the wrong thing because they have to do well for their stockholders, that's not quite true. What they have to do (and often get sued if they do not) is live up to their business plan as described in their S-1. The fact that Google took a (probably small) hit to their value by making that statement in their S-1 tells me that they wish to mitigate the liability that they expose themselves to by doing the right thing.

Ignoring the fact that this is backwards (that's not Google's fault), I don't see why they would have gone out of their way to do this if they intended on doing the wrong thing when the opportunity presented itself.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is your argument. "Don't be evil" in the s-1? Are you fucking serious?

What does don't be evil mean? It doesn't mean anything, least of all to investors. What is evil? How do you define evil? In fact, investors would prefer evil because it's infinitely more profitable. LOLOLOLOLOL.

Google makes money by being evil - they use your own information against you in order to increase the frequency that you part with your disposable income. As aggregate wealth is a clear indicator of "power" in north america and is suspect elsewhere, they are doing evil to you, especially since most purchases brokered through google are likely to be inpulse and non-necessary purchasing. EVIL.

LOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOL at your argument. I can't believe you didn't post that AC.

Are you serious. Please tell me this is flamebait.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Anonymous Coward]

You find out about thing because you are curious. Advertising is there so others can tell you about their things. Big difference.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[flimnap]

Just as the wedge itself isn't evil. Its also not evil when you sharpen the edge and strap it to a stick. It still isn't evil when you cleave someones head with it - the weilder of it is. AND - the weilder is only evil if the cleaving was done out of malice or spite.

Truly, that is the oddest metaphor I've read this year.

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[Ohreally_factor]

"At G.E., we don't make nuclear weapons. We make nuclear weapons better."

Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no difference *there*!

[ajs]

"This is your argument. "Don't be evil" in the s-1? Are you fucking serious?"

Yes, quite.

"What does don't be evil mean? It doesn't mean anything, least of all to investors. What is evil?"

I think you're looking at this upside down. You are essentially saying that they are not compelled to comply with their statement.

Well, you're correct of course, but that has nothing to do with what I was saying. It's a bit like the GPL. You are not compelled to obey the terms of the GPL. You can ignore it, and that's fine. You just have to contend with copyright law... and that's the catch.

Google is not compelled to obey their own statement, and it's not really binding because it's too vague. But, the fact that it's in the S-1 (which is damaging to them, though probably not terribly so), indicates that they wished to remove the obligation that they would otherwise have to take any legal measure to enhance shareholder value. If, for example, their ad business starts doing poorly, they could refuse to move to graphical ads on their adword service. Some other search-based ad service COULD NOT DO THAT. They would be compelled by the business plan in their S-1 to do whatever it took, as long as it was legal, to enhance the value to their shareholders.

Of course, Google goes into more detail in specific areas, but this is a very interesting catch-all, and IMHO just as impressive a legal hack as the GPL.

So you see, I'm not claiming that Google WON'T be evil, I'm pointing out that they are the only company that I know of that doesn't HAVE to be evil. That's actually a fairly impressive step in the right direction.

Google or MS

[Opportunist]

Google or MS
Sony or Toshiba
Reps or Dems

Is it me or does pretty much any "choice" we have look like choosing between hanging and shooting?

Re:Google or MS

[EuphoricaL]

We only ever really have a choice between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich!!!

Re:Google or MS

[LilGuy]

Hot or Cold
Bright or Dark
Sane or Insane

There are always two extremes to any choice but that doesn't limit the gamut of your decisions.

Re:Google or MS

[danpsmith]

Everyone makes comparisons as if there's only two companies to buy from. You can choose between google, MS, yahoo and a whole lot of other companies. Just because these are the most popular doesn't make them the only choices. And the same thing, if you haven't figured it out yet, goes for 3rd party candidates. If you don't like democrats or republicans, don't vote for either. The constitution doesn't have 2 party system in it, I blame Americans for that.

Re:Google or MS

[Grishnakh]

The constitution doesn't have 2 party system in it, I blame Americans for that.

Actually, it does, because of its winner-takes-all scheme, and the fact that it doesn't have any type of proportional representation, run-off voting, etc. The Constitution was a fine document in its day, but the whole voting scheme needs to be completely re-engineered (as an Amendment would be fine). The problem is the two parties in power like things as they are.

You can vote for a 3rd party if you want, but unless half the population happens to do the same, your vote is wasted.

Re:Google or MS

[Opportunist]

True, there are still a few options when it comes to search engines.

For the rest, I don't see an alternative. More and more "choice" gets redefined as "choosing the lesser of two evils".

Re:Google or MS

[Ohreally_factor]

You kids today! You're so lucky and you don't even know it. When we were growing up, we used to dream about Giant Douches and Turd Sandwiches! Now you just take them for granted.

a9 is now also powered by windows live search

[Kamran]

a9 is also now powered by windows live search.
Jeff Bezos shouldn't be criticised for buying class a stock at 6 cents. it wasn't a gift from Google, at the time it was Google needing his money.

Re:a9 is now also powered by windows live search

[br0ck]

Compare these searches for "Nintendo Wii" to see what a poor choice they've made:

A9
Google

Re:a9 is now also powered by windows live search

[11223]

What a fucking idiot. If you spelled "Nintendo" correctly on both sites, you might have a more useful comparison. These results look useful enough to me.

Re:a9 is now also powered by windows live search

[br0ck]

Good catch.. thanks. Actually, I got the idea because two days ago somebody on Digg showed that same search on MSN Search returned nothing relevant at all (although it is definitely starting to slowly pick up some links) so the fact that the A9 search returned nothing was what I expected and I didn't even think to check my spelling.

Re:a9 is now also powered by windows live search

[pacalis]

A9 looks more relevant to me. Less total hits (490,000 vs. 8.6M) but its not like I'd be looking at more than 100 on anything. I prefer googles interface, but still A9 looks fine. INteresting how fast they can switch technology too.

I actually used A9 until this

[DuncanE]

For several reasons I tend to buy a lot of books from Amazon so I used the A9 site to gain my slice of Pi discount. I quite like the interface and it was giving me Google results anyway.

In case its relevant I'm in Australia.

I saw this change straight away... The "powered by Windows live" left a sick feeling in my stomach. So I switched immediately to the visible option for "powered by Google".

Today the Google option is no longer available. Even in the more choices section. I'm considering buying my books elsewhere.

Interestingly A9 has a "add your search engine" option which allows search engines to add there own API. So I'm hoping Google will use this to add back there excellent search engine ;-)

Re:I actually used A9 until this

[Lewisham]

I too, was one of the A9 crew. I loved having web results/image results/wikipedia all in one search. When Windows Live came up, I switched Google back. Now they've abandoned Google completely, and you can't search for web-wide images (from *anyone*) at all anymore.

I tried to live with Windows Live search, although it's results weren't so great. But the loss of image results as well was a deal-breaker.

A9 has lost it's edge in some bizarre powerplay. They should have been shouting about their service, and instead you got there by accident from IMDb or Amazon. Now I have to go back to Google, and it's oh-so-bland results.

*sigh*

Re:I actually used A9 until this

[DuncanE]

Wow... I hadnt even noticed that images is gone...

I think that means you're right. It's a powerplay. Bill has rung Jeff and said "Hey Google is bad for us both".

Re:I actually used A9 until this

[Karyyk]

This was basically the dealbreaker for me as well. When I fired it up, something just didn't look right. Hmmm, no images. Then I saw the "Powered by Windows Live" and I instantly just felt sick. Why mess with perfection. Oh yeah, that's right, money. Hmmm... Ultimately, this will cost them more than they thought to gain... My a9 toolbars will be uninstalled soon enough.

Google vs. Amazon

[Metabolife]

Froogle is quickly becoming a popular selling portal, I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon believes that Google might overtake it eventually. I for one love the increased competition.

Re:Google vs. Amazon

[typical]

If there was a way to filter out used and third-party products from the Amazon search results, I might be more interested in using their service. As it is, I have to dig through many results from "partners".

Re:Google vs. Amazon

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I wish I had mod points today - would bump you up a bit. See also:

eBay Looking for Allies Against Google
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/21/185120 6

Amazon to Take on Google?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/199222

and especially:
Google Base Retail Rumours Confirmed
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/16/153425 2

Re:Google vs. Amazon

[vergueishon]

Well said. Good follow-up on the second reply. The only obvious thing left to say is, how will Google handle Vista's search box?

Disgusting.

[Rachel Lucid]

Does anyone actually FOLLOW Alexa?

My guess is that this is (the first of) a heavy-handed backlash at Google, orchestrated more by Microsoft and others trying to regain their momentum versus any actual competence for a change on Microsoft's part.

With the exception of Google Calendar, almost everything Google's done has been high-quality, search-related, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face applications, and to dump Google for their core product (indexing the internet and keeping track of data, something that Google should PERSONALLY be in the best position to execute, is at best a misguided executive decision to get a kickback from Microsoft and at worse a direct pimp-slap to Google for pure spite.

Re:Disgusting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone actually FOLLOW Alexa?

Amazingly I've seen Alexa stats quotes on techcrunch.com, a site that should know better. I suppose if you can use "stats" to prove a point you don't care where they came from.

Rotten tomatoes

[broothal]

I wonder what they have to offer. It's dead slow - try for your self and if you manage to get an actual search through, it will prompt with a javascript error.

Oh - they do have one thing that reminds me of google - the small "Beta" in their logo :)

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[omeg]

You know, what I actually hate most about it is the fact that the image buttons (Web, News, Images, etc.) are not links. Only the text is a link. I wonder why they forgot to make the images links, since it's rather confusing that the images DO have a special roll-over image.

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[forgotten_my_nick]

Its not so much the errors. Its the results that are stupid.

For example. After getting Live to work I asked it this question.

"Which is better windows or linux?"

The first result is
"Linux sucks..." - Written in 2001.
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/873.html

I tried the same on google.
"Windows vs Linux comparison" - Last updated 2006.
http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.ht ml

Swapping Windows + Linux gets different results however Google appeared to understand what I was searching for and more up to date and relevent.

Also live wouldn't let me center mouse click for tabs.

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[tonyl]

I don't know why you say that first link is not relevant. I wrote it, and it IS political commentary on the difference between Linux and Windows. As to up to date, that article has comments as recent as April of this year, so it is "up to date" in that sense.

The article itself is a little out of date in that Linux has improved since 2001, but Windows has not (at least for the points I made there about being able to do difficult tasks), so the article still has validity.

But.. like you, I prefer Google search results any day :-)

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[kamochan]

You know, what I actually hate most about it is the fact that the image buttons (Web, News, Images, etc.) are not links. Only the text is a link.

What image buttons? All I get is the Beta logo, an entry field, and a magnifying glass icon next to it. Otherwise, a blank page. Which is incidentally also what I get if I enter some search terms and hit ENTER. The last time I tried I also got this very mac-boot-spinner kind of small graphic, so I'm not even sure if this is an improvement or not.

I can't possibly see how anyone could benefit from the live.com service... I mean, what does it do?

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[forgotten_my_nick]

> As to up to date, that article has
> comments as recent as April of this year,
> so it is "up to date" in that sense.

Ahh ok sorry bout that. Most blog'ish type sites have the latest information at the top. Having "Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 08:35:04 -0400" at the top of the page makes it look just out of date and most wouldn't bother reading further if they are given more up to date information.

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[tonyl]

Well, the real issue is whether a search engine should have given that top billing, and I'd say no, it shouldn't have. It is a moderately popular page (12,000+ page views in its life so far), so it should probably appear somewhere north of hit number 43 gazillion, but I don't think it should ever pop up as number one.. except for specific phrases, of course.

I edited that date out, btw : it really isn't important to the page and as you noted, could confuse people.

But that's not a "blog page", and even if it were, comments still belong at the bottom, I think. Some like to put an "updated" date at the top of the page, bit I don't see the point of that and anyway it's nothing to do with this discussion of search engines.

Amazon has made a bad mistake, I think..

Re:Rotten tomatoes

[jp10558]

No idea... All I get is an endless reload of a blank page with what looks to be a search box. No matter if I type or click, I get back to a blank box.

Seems broken to me.

Alexa is spyware?

[digitaldc]

I remember doing a spyware search and removing Alexa since it was deemed spyware.

You can read this page to figure out how to configure it, or if you can just remove it altogether which was much easier to do.

Bezos leads Amazon, he is not Amazon

[Ohreally_factor]

"How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share? If you're Amazon, you dump Google for Windows Live Search to power subsidiary Alexa, who has not yet commented on the switch.

Jeff Bezos is not the sole proprietor of Amazon. It would be unethical for Bezos to award business to Google in exchange for a personal favor that made him more wealthy. As head of Amazon, Bezos has a responsibility to the other shareholders of Amazon. If dumping Google for Windows Live Search to power Alexa is going to maximize shareholder value, then so be it.

Just because Halliburton gets no bid sweetheart contracts from friends in the government doesn't mean that this is how business should be run.

Re:Bezos leads Amazon, he is not Amazon

[cheekyboy]

If 95% of people drop amazon for their choice then how is chosing MSLIVE a better
shareholder ROI ?

Just because this quarters revenue is up 50% doesnt mean 3 years down you will be even around!!

Look at altavista!!! tiny pie

Re:Bezos leads Amazon, he is not Amazon

[Ohreally_factor]

That may or may not be the case. I wasn't discussing whether or not this would be good for Amazon.

I was discussing the impropriety of the quid pro quo that the summary suggests should occur. Which search engine a publicly traded company uses should be based on what is best for the company, not based on favors and material rewards given to the leader of that company by one of the search engine competitors.

Doesnt microsoft part-own Amazon?

[sl4shd0rk]

Seems like I read something years ago about Microsoft buying part of Amazon or something. Seems like it would be the logical decision, especially if you are out to kill google

More piss poor speculation

[TrappedByMyself]

Is there anyway to filter out topics with summaries that end in a '?'

Re:More piss poor speculation

[Baricom]

It should be pretty easy to do with a Greasemonkey script. You'd probably need to write it yourself, but it shouldn't be that hard.

Re:More piss poor speculation

[Ohreally_factor]

Wouldn't you end up with 90% of the stories filtered?

Partners...

[kibbled_bits]

If anyone hasn't read the Google interview in Linux Format (Chris DiBona) I highly recommend it. It really does a good job of conveying Google's position on many issues. Regardless I can't see how most people on this forum would consider Google <= M$.

In a nutshell:

LXF: In what ways would you say that Google is sponsoring open source?

CD: Actually I don't like the word 'sponsoring'. I don't like sponsoring, I don't like 'subsidising', I don't like 'giving back'. The words I like are 'working with' them. We see them as our peers in computer science...

Maybe you don't believe this is 100% true, you can at least agree that Microsoft's position are opposite of this. Not only they not our peers in computer science, but they seem arrogant enough to think they can dictate computer science.

Re:Partners...

[arrrrg]

Ummm ... http://research.microsoft.com/.

"Letting him buy stock"?!?

[tji]

> How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share?

Either this is an intentional troll, or you have no clue about financial matters.

Bezos was an early investor in Google, when they were just getting off the ground. He gave them money ('angel funding') to allow them to expand. The agreement in that situation is that Mr. Bezos then owns a percentage of the company, giving him stock at a low price after an IPO.

Google didn't "let him buy" stock. Bezos invested in Google very early on, and he got big $$ when Google's stock went through the roof.

Re:"Letting him buy stock"?!?

[typical]

Either this is an intentional troll, or you have no clue about financial matters.

Well, there are non-capitalist economic systems. But, yeah.

Not only that -- even more impressive, look at the date on the top of the news article. :-)

It's you

[Colin Smith]

Feel free to continue limiting yourself to the minimum possible of two choices. Others are quite capable of making decisions involving more than two choices.

Re:It's you

[Ohreally_factor]

You forgot to sign your name: offended RC Cola drinker.

it's true

[mytrip]

Web by Live.com is initially checked. they dont even list google as a choice.

Wow

[cuteseal]

Google must have p***ed someone off royally... either that or Gates is in bed with Bezos *shudder*

Look Out Amazon

[aplusjimages]

Why are people more scared of Google than M$? I always thought it should be the other way around. Internet companies should be banning together to take down M$ it seems.

2 1/2 billion dollars at work

[Wylfing]

This is the shape the additional spending for 2007 will take: paying people loads of cash to sign exclusive contracts to use Windows Live. That is how Microsoft "competes."

Kylix

[William Robinson]

It is known and Microsoft will not give up with their evil marketing tactics.

This move, however, will not hurt the community as much as the 'kylix'. Borland has dropped support/development of this wonderful product for Linux due to the pressure from Microsoft.

Read This

From TFA:

Needless to say, this step is a heavy blow for all companies and individuals which have invested time and money in Kylix-based projects on Linux.

It has been claimed that this was the result of a non-public agreement with Microsoft, where Borland would abandon all products for Linux in exchange for receiving .NET based technology from Microsoft. This would indeed be a clever move by Microsoft because it (1) binds Borland to Windows and (2) disrupts the possibility of a Visual-Basic-like programming-tool being available on Linux.

People like me hate M$ for what they have done to Kylix. Hope google will be able to kick their ass.

Keep going google, we are with you always.

Re:woo?

[mrjb]

nonono. not woo. it's "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! uhuhuhu"

Google Is the Competition

[Quinn]

Google is competing with everyone now: shopping, news, maps, entertainment, and (obviously) search. As the Google tentacles creep into more markets, current and potential partners will flee. Most of Google's revenue is from sponsored links; if partners drop, so does revenue. Their growth is self-limiting.

Re:Google Is the Competition

[ELProphet]

You make an excellent point, but Google won't mind shifting its ad revenue from partner sites (EBay, A9, etc) to Content sites (davidsouther.com, euclideanspace.com), eg. the little man that has a blog/personal website with some content, and advertises with adsense.

If Google does this well, they will have their own little "Google Base" that includes a bunch of smaller websites, some buying and some selling ads, all through Google. Their brand loyalty will ensure that Google always has enough money to continue to provide and improve service to these smaller groups.

This brand loyalty is already there; as a previous poster stated, he is considering no longer purchasing from Amazon because they no longer use Google for their search. Your mother-in-law doesn't care, she'll just use whatever you tell her too; these combined will ensure Google remains a strong leading force in the web world, forcing other companies to either quit playing Big Business Buy It All or to continually play the catch-up game with whatever the Google engineers haven't come up with.

Why people Google-bash

[typical]

I've decided that Google-bashing comes down to largely two areas:

* SEO people and website proprietors bitter that they don't have a higher ranking.

* People who are alarmed by the growing influence and power of Google and want to cap it.

The "China thing" was possibly the most absurd slam I've ever seen, where people were complaining that Google was horrible because it followed a country's laws within that country. Good lord. Google doesn't finance private armies to overthrow China's leadership, either. Darn them for not forcibly spreading democracy and promoting revolution. [rolls eyes] I'll take Google's approach over Bush's approach any day, and let the mass of the Chinese people decide whether to revolt or not on their own.

Google is making an incredibly useful set of products in a highly competitive market and still stomping the competition. While doing so, they are not using underhanded business tactics, they are providing funding to a number of highly-cost-effective open source efforts, and so forth. They have generally done a better job of advocating the privacy of their users than their competitors. They promote interesting CS development. They helped reverse the slide into unusable "media-rich" flashy, slow websites.

As you said -- they may not be perfect, but they're one of the best things you're going to run into. Maybe someday, when the growth slows and they hit a (real) scandal or two, there will be good reasons to dislike them. Until them, I'm going to sit back and enjoy.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[KarmaMB84]

So if a company follows the law of a country they operate in, they are free of any ethical considerations? How bad must they get before it's enough? If their compliance directly results in the jailing and/or death of dissidents (go go yahoo), should we be okay with that? The almighty dollar and "shareholder responsibility" should not be a shield for any corporation aiding in the violation of human rights.

Do we speak up only if Google's behavior directly and significantly impacts us? I suppose we should wait till the DoJ starts acting like China and taking search engine data that shouldn't be tied to individuals to use against us?

Re:Why people Google-bash

[ajs]

"So if a company follows the law of a country they operate in, they are free of any ethical considerations?"

Absolutely not! However, look at what Google did.

They have agreed to provide a limited version of their search service to China. They didn't agree to modify the information in any other way.

That's something that I would not be comfortable doing, but it's the only way they can be of any use in China, so it's one of those ugly sorts of situations that you just hope does more good than not.

On the other hand, look at Yahoo! They're activly supporting the government's efforts to discover and jail reporters who tell the truth.

I think Yahoo! has crossed the line between complying with the law and being complicit in state-sanctioned wrongdoing.

Of course, if you're someone who freaked out the moment a company claimed that it would "do no evil" and decided that that was worse than all of the sins of mankind, the China agreement was mana from heaven as it gave you some thin justification for your paranoia.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[TheCrayfish]

So if a company follows the law of a country they operate in, they are free of any ethical considerations? How bad must they get before it's enough?

From an ethical perspective, companies, like governments and individuals, must consider which actions result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In the case of China, most governments and companies have decided that engaging the Chinese government and its people helps more Chinese people than leaving China "to its own devices" would. Many people believe they are acting ethically when engaging in commerce with repressive regimes because they believe the exchange of goods and ideas will lead to more openness and less repression over time. Sure, you can question these beliefs -- and you may choose to believe that disengagement and isolation helps more people than engagement does. The point is, if you can on your beliefs as to what will cause the greatest good, and Google acts on their beliefs (though different from your own,) you are both acting ethically.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rm69990]

When you consider that Google scans all websites in their database to see which ones the Chinese government is blocking, and then removes those from their database, I don't see them as doing anything wrong. If the average person can't get to the site, why show it? And anyone who knows how to get to those sites they want to see, will also know how to use Google.com instead of Google.cn to find the websites.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rm69990]

But don't you know, everyone on Slashdot is god and has the sole power to dictate what is good or evil, right or wrong, ethical or unethical, and everyone else has to do as they say or else?!?! [/sarcasm]

It still bugs me when Slashdot people say that Google is being unethical and evil. Who are you to decide what is unethical and evil? I think it would be unethical of Google to remove their services from China, as many people seem to want. Why do you get to decide what is ethical, and not me?

BTW, when I say you, I mean people who say those things, not the parent poster. I agree with the parent poster.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rtb61]

We all get to decide what is ethical or not. I would not take that ability from you, so why are you so willing to take it away from everybody else. Just because you are a employee or director of a corporation does not absent you from your moral responsibilities as an individual.

When you commit fraud (false advertising), support fraud or try to deny other people democracy for your own profit, it does make you immoral and hiding behind the mask of a corporation does not you any less immoral, it just demostrates cowardice and an unwillingness to take public responsibility for your actions and decisions.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rm69990]

What other choice did Google have? Seriously, everyone bitches at Google, but what would you rather them do? I've asked Chinese people I work with this very question, and they say it would be absurd for Google to withdraw their Chinese services, and wouldn't help the Chinese people at all. If every single Chinese person I've asked supports Google's actions, why do people of other nationalities have so much trouble doing so?

Let's say Google withdrew from China and left people in China with a barely accessible Google.com, Google would get to keep their good-guy image, but would it actually help the Chinese people? Do you think the Chinese government is going to allow a little web company to boss them around?

The Chinese people have to endure censorship, with or without Google's participation. Why take away a service that people in China find useful?

I think the very fact that Google is staying in China, after it hurt their stock price and their good-guy image, is a testament to the determination of the company's executives in doing what they feel is the right thing to do, and I respect the company more for it, irregardless of what anyone else thinks.

Flame away!

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rtb61]

Why choose to make any moral decision that is not a legal requirement because if will all did it this world would not be worth living in.

Having profit or greed as a motive might be the excuse de rigueur of corporations but by no stretch of the imagination does it make it acceptable and customers are fully enitled to express their disapproval and withdraw their support.

With Google becoming a portal, their image is their life, when they damage it for short term profit don't be surpised when it leads to medium term loss and long term collapse.

When autocratic nations can define the nature of behaviour for corporations from democratic nations how long will those countries remain democratic based upon the influence that those corporations demand and pay for, Google has lobbyists on the payroll, as google obviuosly places profit in front of democracy, do you still think their involvement in politics is acceptable.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[rm69990]

1. Google's involvement in China isn't expected to bring Google any profit whatsoever in the short term, and it hurt their stock price, so I fail to see how it was done for short term gain. Please explain.

2. Your first sentence makes so little sense that simply trying to understand it is giving me a migraine.

3. I never said anything about Google being involved in politics, or whether or not I thought their involvement in politics was acceptable. i'm not sure where you are going with that to be perfectly honest, or where that part of your response even came from....

I simply stated that under the circumstances, I think they made the right decision, and I was asking what other decision would have been acceptable to people with your POV. I, and Chinese people I work with, think it would be absurd for Google to simply give up on China. While I don't care for Yahoo because of their actions in China, I think Microsoft and Google have made the best of a bad situation. Google.com in China is awful, with outages and broken links all of the time, and not having Google.cn in China isn't going to make things better, it will simply take away a useful service from the Chinese people.

Are you sure you were responding to the right post?

BTW, I find it funny that everyone decries Google and other web companies for their actions in China, but I have yet to see a single person say "This is what I think Google should have done.....". That was the point of my post, in-case you missed it.

Re:Why people Google-bash

[Ohreally_factor]

My mind isn't made up on the Google-in-China thing, but there's plenty that's not black and white. You say, regarding the methods Google uses to censor search results, "If the average person can't get to the site, why show it?" The reason why is that, absent the information, knowing that you are missing it is important. In fact, if you can be more exact about what information you are missing, you actually will have more information than otherwise.

Maybe I'm taking to fine a point. I'm not suggesting that Google is evil for the way they're doing business in China. As others have said, they're obeying the law in order to do business there in the first place. On the other hand, they're not offering certain services, such as Gmail, and I think this is primarily to prevent being put into dilemmas that Yahoo has faced. There are (at least) two people in jail because of Yahoo. If anyone at Yahoo had an ethical bone in their bodies, they would have suspended their email service after (if not before) the first guy went to prison.

That's the difference, in my mind. When Google follows the laws of China, people have their information limited (which arguably would be the situation without Google). When Yahoo follows the rules, specific people suffer greatly. Actual human beings are in prison for political crimes because of Yahoo. If the execs at Yahoo can sleep well at night, it's because they are sociopaths.

As I said, my mind is not made up on Google. Are they the lesser of two evils? Neutral? Good in some far reaching way (in which the ends justify the means, which always makes me suspicious)? I don't know.

DOJ incident (Re:Alexa, Google... Hmm, no differe

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole thing was a stunt to bolster confidence in their commitment to privacy. a scam. The DOJ asked for sensitive data they didn't really need, so that Google could be the good guys and refuse to give it to them. Fine.

Note I sent to Amazon customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I have been a customer of Amazon.com for a few years. It has been brought to my attention that Amazon now uses the A9 Web Search which is powered by "Microsoft Windows Live". I do not use or support Microsoft products. In my opinion their business practices are horrible. I do not support companies who act the way they do. How can I expect to get reliable results when searching for example the word "Linux" when Microsoft does everything in their power to stifle competition? I work in computers and will not trust Microsoft search to give me reliable results when searching for computer books/products or anything else. If the search facility Amazon uses continues to be from Microsoft, I will be forced to buy my products using other web sites that do not support Microsoft. Thank you, Scott

Google is competing with every web developer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I feel the pinch as a web developer. I feel that Google is competing with all of us. I am not talking about web developer 'the job'. I am talking about web developer 'the innovative entrepreneur'.

This is kind of like how software developers have felt about Microsoft all these years.

Honestly, I hate Google more than I hate Microsoft, because the Web is my bread and butter (and not Windows applications), and Google will kick me eventually.

Re:Google is competing with every web developer.

[Grishnakh]

And Google is hurting you how? Let's see your maps website, or your search engine.

Re:Google is competing with every web developer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give you an example, since you obviously need it.

Calendars - this market was getting defined and there were about a dozen or so 'players'..mostly small upstarts. But, Google jumped in it and the market is suddenly dead for the other more innovative folks, like 30boxes.

Now, of course, Google had to jump in because of 'fiduciary duty' (profits,etc). However, this scenario is being repeated ever more so. Google's products are hurting everyone...from the big guys like Ebay and Amazon to small startups like 30boxes.

So all these years while we cheered and promoted and did our part in making Google what it is today, now Google has turned into a monster with which we are forced to compete.

If I am doing ANYTHING innovative in the mass consumer internet market, Google will jump in and destroy me, the smalltime web entrepreneur.

GOOGLE IS COMPETING AGAINST EVERY CONSUMER WEB COMPANY !

Re:Google is competing with every web developer.

[Grishnakh]

Oh please. This is like complaining that Amazon is putting you out of business because they decided to start selling $MASS_MARKET_PRODUCT. Anyone with a brain knows that it's very hard to compete against large corporations in large markets. The solution: either 1) do such a great job that your company turns big and dominates that market (good luck), 2) make a great product then position your company to be sold to one of the huge corporations (but there's a risk they'll just copy it) or 2) avoid mass markets if you have a small company, and focus on small niche markets (much smarter).

Your solution seems to be to hurt Google somehow, so that Microsoft or Yahoo can put you out of business instead. People have been complaining about MS putting small companies out of business for years, and it hasn't changed. As an end-user, I'd rather use Google's $SERVICE instead of Microsoft's or Yahoo's. I really don't care much about the whining of small companies put out of business when it was their choice to engage it that business in the first place.

Go Google!

Re:Google is competing with every web developer.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I really don't care much about the whining of small companies put out of business when it was their choice to engage it that business in the first place."

Ok Google fanboy (daniel@wolstenholme.net), as someone who sells Acura parts for a living, you don't really know much about tech. You just 'pretend' that you know.

I don't really care if your family gets crunched under the tires of a monster truck and their brain and intestines get splattered all over the road.

Re:Google is competing with every web developer.

[Grishnakh]

You're a complete idiot. I don't sell car parts; if you went to the site, you'd see that it's a hobbyist site. I'm an electrical engineer, currently working as a software engineer doing linux kernel development. What do you do for a living? What claim do you have to "know much about tech"? Play video games?

Moron.

i thought you were kidding..

[jasonhamilton]

I thought you were kidding when you said it was slow. So I tried it out for myself, the iframe-ish search results is unusable. I can't even look at the results beyond the first page...

Re:i thought you were kidding..

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL it doesn't get that far. i'm using my mac and safari just patiently ignores it....

Re:i thought you were kidding..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, at least you got something! All I got was a picture, textbox and button - none of which did anything except stare back at me blankly.

Oh, I am using Opera 8.54, I guess that might be a problem.

typical liberal spin

[jasonhamilton]

Do some research before spinning. Clinton gave out his own share of no bid contracts. This is how the US Gov't does things simply because trying to research and find the best price and best company takes time and effort. Something that can't always be done due to time constraints.

A9 is powered by Windows Live

[Tester]

If you search on A9.com.. you get a nice "Web Results by Windows Live".... So yes, they did dump Google, strange idea, why go for an inferior search engine?

Microsoft ..... Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is trying to do anything they can to cut out google. Google helps many open source projects and Microsoft does not want any of these to catch on because they will lose money. Microsoft is very PO'd about losing some its best talent to Google. Balmer is even known to go into mad fits when anyone mentions google. I don't hate Microsoft but I do hate how they do business and how they are a monopoly but will not admit it. I suspect that Amazon got a lot of money to switch. Most business runs on the bottom line and ethics, morals, anything that is suppose to be right is tossed aside.

I do commend google on going up against the government about the privacy of its customers. (Our corrupt, stupid government is another topic.) This shows they actually want to protect their privacy, unlike the rest of them. I used google because of they stick to their word. The rest bowed down to the government in 1 second....

Re:woo?

[VJ42]

Surley you mean "Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

Google's search is less relevant than Microsoft's

[dada21]

Because Google is (one of the?) most popular search engine, I am finding it less and less relevant when I do searches. The top 10-20 results are more spam than relevant and good information. MSN, on the other hand, is starting to be my preferred search tool because it doesn't seem as "keyword stuffed" as the Google responses. I know this isn't the case for everyone, but almost all the geeks I know are starting to shift away from Google en masse. I much prefer Google as a company, of course, but just being #1 (or close to it) seems to make it a target for the spammers, sploggers and Made-for-CPC websites.

I'm not hoping for a shift for anyone to Microsoft's search technology but if Google continues to lose the battle to PageRank chasers, they'll find themselves slipping as users automatically attach Google to spam sites rather than relevant sites.

My home page is still Google (due to the customized interface), but I am more often using other search engines to combat the spammers. Is Amazon seeing a similar problem?

Powered by Google? No..

[brunes69]

Wall points out that 'A9 is still powered by Google...' A9 is Amazon's primary search project

Doesn't look like it to me

Top right corner - "Powered by Windows Live"

There isn't even the ability to add Google anymore. And their news search is now MSN News rather than Google News.

Google Still the Best

[pavera]

Ok, so I'm a programmer, I write code in at least 10 different languages and often times I'll forget "How do you do X in Y?"... Well I just ran through my last 10 such searches on google... ran the exact same searches on a9, and directly at live.com.... Yeah so "determine distance between zip codes", Google results: first 5 hits open source, freely available code to perform that calculation in PHP, python, perl, and C. Windows Live: 1 hit on the first page that was PHP related however, its a $200 closed source script, all others pay for web sites that offer a form to type in 2 zips and get the distance, but nothing that would allow me to understand how to do it.

The other 9 searches were similar. On google, I never go past the first 10 results to find the answer I'm looking for, regardless of language, technology, whatever Google always has the answer. On windows live, the first page is stuff with people who are paying for their links, or just by MS's bias they list "commercial" sites first in an effort to hold open source down. I never have used A9 but I never will now.

Buying books

[baywulf]

If you want to buy books, use the services at www.addall.com. They don't sell books but with one query, will search dozens of online bookstores for the best price for your book. For those in the US, it will add in the shipping cost and rank by overall price.

MSFT buying out Google contracts, ala Netscape?

[Locutus]

I would expect to see Microsoft spending alot of cash to purchase views for its advertisers in the near future. They need to make MSN something other than an also-ran so using the tactics which helped them destroy the Netscape Navigator marketshare will work here too. Microsoft will also be spending cash to purchase marketshare for its web server too since it was constantly losing marketshare to Apache and also looking like an also-ran. I'd also expect to see Microsoft take more of a loss on the Xbox when Sony ships the PS3.

All and all, there's going to be alot of Microsoft cash flowing around in the next two years. Boy, I wonder if they can put any more stickers on PCs and laptops? Dell, have you asked Microsoft this question lately? It might make you a few more bucks since the Microsoft brand is what they are attempting to polish up... IMO.

LoB

Simply a case of the best deal

[Anonymous Coward]

When Amazon first started using Google for search they had a favorable contract because google wasn't nearly as big as they are now. The contract expired and lo-and-behold google, now having a much larger market cap than amazon, wanted more money to give less features, amazon did what any smart company would do and explore other options. Since user's can't tell the difference between search engine results without the little "powered by xyz" tag, Amazon chose the one that gave them the best deal.

Typical Republican spin

[Grishnakh]

Just because Clinton did something doesn't mean it's right: look at the DMCA. Why do Republicans always trot out Clinton every time someone criticizes them?

The Democrats really suck. They just don't suck quite as bad as the Republicans. Wonderful two-party system we have: we can choose between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

I for one welcome our new Google overlords!

[Grishnakh]

I wish they'd hurry up and extend one of those tentacles into an auction site, and another tentacle into a Paypal-like site. Ebay and Paypal suck, and we need a real alternative here.

A9 switches to Windows Live

[rjdohnert]

Google sucks anyway. Good for Amazon, I may start using their services more now that they are powered by Windows Live. Screw all you MS haters

Google is vulnerable.

[WoTG]

I won't be surprised to find Microsoft cutting deals like this with other major sites. A lot of people don't know how terrible search engines were before Google -- results were ridiculous, I'd expect to shift through 4 pages of irrelevant or minor hits on AltaVista to get something moderately useful. Google was flat out better and it deserved to become #1. However, it's not entirely clear that it's results are that much better anymore. It will be far easier for Microsoft to steal search engine share now and take the wind out of Google's advertising revenues rather than later when web based apps actually are useful.

MS is in a relatively good place, it takes weeks and months (optimistically!) to migrate a business from Windows or Office to Linux or OpenOffice. To migrate from Google.com to MSN.com for web searches? Maybe 10 seconds.

Typical Fox viewer knee jerk reaction

[Ohreally_factor]

I think it's quite telling that I make a criticism of government in general, and you take it as a criticism of your precious Bush Administration, trotting out the old "Blame Clinton for everything" argument.

For the record, I'm a registered Republican. I oppose Bush. He's doing such a crappy job that he's vastly increasing Senator Clinton's chances in 2008.

Amazon another successful Microsoft Partner?

[rmerrill11]

Wow! Amazon is going to become another one of the long list of companies that successfully partners with Microsoft like these:

• Sendo
• Ashton-Tate
• Auto-By-Tel
• Electric Gravity
• IBM
• Micrographx
• RealNetworks (formerly Progressive Networks)
• SpyGlass
• 3com

It's even worse than that

[Opportunist]

You not only need 50 percent of the voters to choose you, you need to have them distributed all over the country, too. It ain't worth jack if you get 50 percent of the US population to vote for you if those 50 percent happen to be all in the same states.

The voting system was all right in the 1800s, but it is by no means a true way of representing the opinion of the population. And that's what the idea behind it was.

Re:It's even worse than that

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. The country is very different from what it was in the late 1700s when this system was devised, and the voting system needs to changed along with the times. Far superior systems using more advanced mathematics have been devised, and could easily be implemented with computerized voting systems (with a paper trail, of course!).

Other democratic governments in the world haven't been around as long as us, but since they don't have the legacy baggage we have, they have better systems of electing their governments than we do.

The recent example on Slashdot about the "Pirate Party" in Sweden running for parliamentary seats is a good one: in that country, they only need a certain percentage of the overall population to vote for them in order to gain seats in the Parliament, and thus have their voices heard. We need a system more like that.

Re:It's even worse than that

[Opportunist]

It certainly offers a lot of variety to the party pool of a country. You don't have to go for either-or, you actually truely have a choice.

Just don't go overboard like it's been for a long time in Italy. There, the "bar" to overcome to get into the parlament was SO low that they had like 20 parties in the parlament. No wonder that no government survived the legislative period 'til recently. You had to find coalitions with 4, 5 or even more parties.

Here, as far as I know, it's 5%. You got 5% of the voters, you're in. Usually two parties agree to form a coalition and work out compromises. That way you also don't get heavy swings when the power changes hands. It also pretty much eliminates any radical changes, but promotes fine tuning of the system.

And it works pretty well. As much as everyone complains, I certainly wouldn't want to trade it for an "all or nothing" system which, basically, reduces democracy to an "either or" decision. No third party can even consider having a say.

Amazon and eBay?

[VGfort]

I dont see them teaming up, ever. Personally I think people are taking the Google thing too far, sure they are doing great on the internet, but if they try to weaken Google and somehow succeed they only make it easier for Microsoft to come in and take over like they always do.

Amazon vs. Google - or Bezos loses golf bet w/Gate

[tinpipes]

"I see the move as the first Google Dump in the post eBay's-seeking-partners-against-Google era"

I see this scenario:

Amazon's HQ is in same city as MS's.
Gates and Bezos are out on the Interbay golf course.
Gates sez, "Bet I can sink this 40-foot putt."
Bezos sez, "No way."
Bezos doesn't see what's coming.
Gates says, "If I don't make the putt, I'll give you free ad space on MSN, but if I do make it...."
Bezos blurts, "I'll drop Google for Microsoft search "capabilities."
Gates sinks putt....

Scary, eh?