How Microsoft-Yahoo Will Affect Open Source

jammag writes "If the marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo were to be consummated, GNU/Linux would be hindered, argues Roy Schestowitz. Yahoo's funding of open source initiatives would dry up. Yahoo, which acquired Zimbra, would lose its love for the open source competitor of Microsoft Outlook. The list goes on..."

Comments

All the more reason.....

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason why this deal should NOT go through....Anti-Competitive ? I think Microsoft would axe Zimbra in a heart beat.

Re:All the more reason.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"All the more reason why this deal should NOT go through..."

Maybe the deal should go forward. If the predictions of yet another Microsoft failed attempt come true, then I wouldn't cry a single tear for their $45Bn outlay.

Re:All the more reason.....

[renegadesx]

I think Microsoft would axe Zimbra in a heart beat.
Yes they will, personally for me its care factor = 0. Thats the beauty of open source, you KNOW it will just get forked and the fork will basically be the successor. Look what happened to Mambo/Joomla for far less than axing it.

For the web browser compatibility, I dont know. From what I've tested, Firefox/Linux works better on Microsoft sites than Yahoo so somehow I dont see it getting worse
In the search market a combined search engine between the two still wont knock off Google as the "search king". It does kill off a Microsoft competitor but does Microsoft realise that they are more than anything else killing off a Google competitor?

Ok by me

[Hatta]

I'll be over here using Thunderbird/Icedove. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I used any Yahoo service or product. If Yahoo disappeared from the internet forever, I don't think I'd even notice. What does Yahoo even do that people find valuable anymore?

Re:Ok by me

[neumayr]

There's this little photo sharing site... flickr I think it's called.
Heard it's still pretty popular.
And a social bookmarking site, del.icio.us.

Re:Ok by me

[gEvil (beta)]

Yahoo doesn't own Digg. How does crap like this get modded up?

Re:Ok by me

[jmcbain]

Yahoo finance.
Yahoo sports.
Yahoo news.
Yahoo movies.
Yahoo TV.
Yahoo weather.
Flickr (I don't use it though)
Delicious.
Yahoo Answers.
Yahoo maps.

Funny how these appeal to 500M unique visitors each month but not to you. I think it's because Yahoo targets a specific demographic, normal humans, rather than the the 30-year-old burnt-out techies on /. or the 19-year-old college students on Digg or the who-knows perverts on 4chan.

Re:Ok by me

[milsoRgen]

Flickr is fantastic in my opinion. I love the site, the way it works, and it's style. It's very low on clutter yet has plenty of features to keep it interesting... if only Yahoo! could take that same sense of style and, oh I don't know apply it to there main page?

Better yet.

Let's take the sense of design from www.flickr.com
Some of the content from www.yahoo.com
and add it to search.yahoo.com

Not quite the no nonsense beauty of Google, but hopefully not the cluster fuck of links that Yahoo currently is. And at the same time they would be distinguishing themselves somewhat from their main competitor.

Just my 2 cents!

Re:Ok by me

[dpninerSLASH]

Please forgive me if this reply is a bit off-topic.

Firstly, I don't believe GNU/Linux development will be seriously hindered. It's long since reached a tipping point past which any major disruptions are unlikely.

This might be a good time, however, for people to begin looking at some of the BSDs. Yes, I realize Yahoo! is a major BSD customer, and should this deal go through I can't see Microsoft permitting the existence of anything else on their servers. Still, the BSDs are also widely deployed, reliable, and many would argue that the BSD license is less encumbering. Also, it has a formal foundation and governance which effectively ensures it's survival.

I've been an open source user/administrator now for over 12 years (12 w/ Linux, 11 w/ BSD) and am surprised at the relatively low uptake for this family of operating systems. In short, Linux ain't the only game in town.

Re:Ok by me

[jaxtherat]

rather than the the 30-year-old burnt-out techies on /. or the 19-year-old college students on Digg or the who-knows perverts on 4chan. You say it like it's a bad thing...

Re:Ok by me

[nurb432]

You may not directly use their 'services' but I think you would notice over time due to collateral damage to other seemingly untreated projects.

One more step towards eradication of that pesky OSS movement.

Re:Ok by me

[Frosty Piss]

...500M unique visitors each month...

500 million *unique* visitors *every* month? WOW!

Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand why this person's opinions are even relevant (obviously the submitter runs the site where this piece was published and needs the ad revenue, not that any normal person would bother submitting something like this to Slashdot). "...argues Roy Schestowitz"? As in "pursuant to the previous insightful and established opinion we've all come to expect from Roy Schestowitz"? Please.

Roy Schestowitz is a non-entity who spends 18 hours a day crapflooding USENET (just page back and see who posts there), Digg, Propeller and any number of social bookmarking and discussion websites. This, aside from running who knows how many attack blogs that target Novell, Xandros, Linspire and many others beg the question of whether this is just a lonely poor student with no life whatsoever or a very organized group of people with some serious corporate backing.

Anyone deranged enough to post things like these should be, in my opinion, permanently ignored. The Microsoft-Yahoo merger needs to be analyzed from many angles by people who know what they're talking about, not by paid drones who regurgitate what they read in other blogs and are trying to make a name for themselves by disrupting communities to push their agendas.

Re:Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[at_slashdot]

How about commenting the message not the person who brings it forth... does "ad hominem" sound like something you've heard before?

Re:Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[dedazo]

The first time I ran into this guy was a hack piece he published in his blog (and pushed to Digg, where I found it) about how Novell was on the brink of dying because there had been some internal staff reorganizations. The whole thing was weird, filled with factual inaccuracies and worded in a way that would make you believe that a mid-level manager leaving the company was some sort of proof that the patent deal with Microsoft (bad in itself but irrelevant in this case) was dispensing karma around Provo. He also hinted that Novell was somehow misreporting revenue or something like that, to which someone suggested reporting the alleged misconduct to the SEC. He didn't reply. Interestingly enough he didn't publish a hack piece when RedHat switched CEOs. I'm sorry I don't have a link but it should be easy enough to find in his blog, it's called "boycottnovell.com" or something to that effect. He also runs "boycottlinspire.com" and who knows how many others.

When I say "he" I'm really using a figure of speech, since it seems to me that it's practically impossible for someone who is supposed to be a medical student on a budget to have that massive level of output. That alone would be an angle worth considering.

After all, whenever Dan Lyons or some other person publishes something /. readers don't like the discussion turns into one large ad hominem. Why should everyone else get a pass? Especially when they have dodgy reputations and seem to have done nothing more valuable than foisting ideas from other people about the Yahoo deal.

Re:Roy Schestowitz, take with prescribed NaCl

[muszek]

It's no different than Rob Weir (a full-time salaried employee of IBM) commenting on OOXML. Whatever he has to say is tainted by the fact that his employer has products that compete with the ones he spends most of his work hours slamming. The fact that out of all FUD that's been spread over the years in the IT world you've chosen this outrageous example (ya know, the one where evil forces prevent innocent geniuses from bringing innovation to the World) says a lot, mate.

Zimbra Admins

[Russianspi]

Yeah, administrators of Zimbra based E-mail servers (like me) are starting to panic I think a Google bailout/business alliance could be, as one Zimbra developer described it, "manna from heaven".

Re:Zimbra Admins

[Dancindan84]

Quote from a Zimbra employee in that thread:

The OSS version of Zimbra is just that, Open Source. Whatever happens there should be no change in that status. The joy of OSS is that if Microsoft/Yahoo discontinue support of Zimbra, someone else can pick it up. If there's a paid "corporate" version, I'm sure a company picking up would include support to migrate. I know that isn't ideal, but it isn't a reason for mass panic either.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The OSS version of Zimbra is just that, Open Source. Whatever happens there should be no change in that status.

Unfortunately it's not true open source, as it has an obnoxious "badgeware" clause.

Zimbra users already seem to be sending out some feelers -- over at the Citadel project we've had quite a surge of new interest from people who are either bailing out of Zimbra or simply evaluating what other options they might have when Microsoft shuts them down. Citadel is end-to-end GPL code so it is a true safety net.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[jimicus]

The joy of OSS is that if Microsoft/Yahoo discontinue support of Zimbra, someone else can pick it up. If there's a paid "corporate" version, I'm sure a company picking up would include support to migrate. I know that isn't ideal, but it isn't a reason for mass panic either.

To be fair, I don't know much about Zimbra, but many opensource projects (including some reasonably big ones) are only really well understood at a code level by a relatively small team of people.

If most or all of those people are employed by Yahoo, then even if someone else does pick up the Zimbra project this is a major setback.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[dilger]

"Microsoft Zimbra" makes perfect sense. Worst. Webmail. Ever.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[risk one]

It might even be a good thing. These open/closed source combo's tend to have a very user-unfriendly open source version with plenty of annoyances, and a lovely smoothed out closed version. I don't know how they do it, but the open source devs never seem to focus on features that would make the closed version obsolete.

Now, if MS would force Zimbra to alienate the OS community (which they will by just attaching their name to it) the whole thing would get forked in a second into a pure open source project. Google would no doubt hand them a large bag of cash, and maybe even some man power.

The closed source blanks would get filled in with open source code. Friendly installation. Free and open integration with Outlook. We'd finally have a good fully open exchange alternative with no drawbacks. Businesses would finally have a reliable way to migrate to open source. Start by migrating away from Exchange, then move to an open source office suite (which will pick up momentum as they get more business users), and finally move to open source desktops. People would get used to Linux at their jobs, and consider moving their home machines to Linux as Vista continues to annoy and XP support is dropped. Linux takes over the desktop, Microsoft loses their hold on the market, Adobe and other companies start supporting UNIX systems. Peace emerges in the middle east. Obama gets elected president with Ron Paul as a running mate and Kucinich as first lady. Jesus returns to earth and gives everybody high fives for a job well done.

Well... maybe the fork would happen. I think "Joombra" has a nice ring to it.

Re:Zimbra Admins

[jimicus]

That's a hell of a guess, and there are at least three problems I forsee with it.

Assumption 1: that the developers are sufficiently motivated to continue Zimbra development that no amount of money Microsoft is prepared to give them will change this. Remember Zimbra is a potential competitor to Exchange, a major cash cow for Microsoft, so if they feel threatened, it's reasonable to assume MS will be prepared to spend quite a bit to get rid of that threat.

Assumption 2: That there exist no non-compete agreements that could affect Zimbra developers. A non-compete with Yahoo would probably be fine because Zimbra doesn't compete against any of Yahoo's other products. This isn't the case with MS.

Assumption 3: That Zimbra's licensing (which I believe is MPL with an attribution clause) doesn't put another company off. I forsee a slight problem with that - namely, I'm not sure who will want to develop a product to tout as an Exchange killer while at the same time attributing credit to Microsoft. Even if they do, how will Microsoft's lawyers feel about someone else to advertising their product as "Fred's Exchange-Alternative Groupware Platform (powered by Zimbra, a Microsoft product)".

Ok, so..

[PhrostyMcByte]

I don't understand how it would effect Linux (much less the GNU utilities), but it might slow down a few Y! projects. These projects, even if MS succeeds and stops all development on them, will still be continued if someone in the community thinks they are useful. That's the beauty of Open Source.

It's Official

[linumax]

BSD is dead, Roy Schestowitz confirms it!

Who will I ping ?

[sodul]

ping yahoo.com

I don't know why but I always ping yahoo to troubleshoot my network connection. I guess I'll have to switch to ping 'google.com'

Re:Who will I ping ?

[apollosfire]

Get with the times, I switched to Google years ago! :P

Re:Who will I ping ?

[Stormwatch]

That's a good move. I don't recall slashdot ever being slashdotted.

Re:Who will I ping ?

[houghi]

Better use tracert or traceroute instead of ping. That way you can not only see if your network connection is up, but also see what the problem is if it doesn't.

Re:Who will I ping ?

[PrescriptionWarning]

"The only thing I use Yahoo for is a junk email account that I give away liberally when an email address is required."

i've started using the 10 minute email instead of yahoo for junk, works wonders :)

Re:Who will I ping ?

[HankB]

Some pages on /. have come up 503 earlier today. So while it probably replies to a ping, it might have been slashdotted.

Re:Who will I ping ?

[rbanffy]

Slashdot is, by definition, slashdotted all the time.

What is different from most sites that get slashdotted is that it can withstand the load.

Re:Who will I ping ?

[PPH]

ping mouse-potato.com

Its always up and has very short round trip times.

Re:Who will I ping ?

[Stormwatch]

No... by definition, "slashdotting" is an influx of traffic from Slashdot to a server that can not handle it.

Cathedral and the Bazaar

[tjstork]

So much for the cathedral and the bazaar.

Alas, as Linux has gotten bigger and more complex, it is also requiring more capital to sustain itself as well, and capital means corporate funding. How ironic that the bazaar has grown to becoming a sprawling, flopping, traffic jammed, flea market, and suddenly key parts of the bazaar are suspiciously looking rather cathedral like (FireFox, the kernel).

I predict that within a few years, Linux will grow to the point that its advocates will quietly abandon the collaborative, libertarian rhetoric that drove it early on, and instead turn more towards a quest for government funding along the lines of National Public Radio. It will continually seek corporate sponsorship, even as it decries their existence.

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[multisync]

Alas, as Linux has gotten bigger and more complex, it is also requiring more capital to sustain itself as well, and capital means corporate funding ... I predict that within a few years, Linux will grow to the point that its advocates will quietly abandon the collaborative, libertarian rhetoric that drove it early on

I think it is great that we have the choice to go with a corporate-backed distro such as Red Hat or Novell if we need the support or enterprise features they offer, while still being able to choose a community-backed, "free" in every sense of the word distro like Debian if that is what suits us. The very existence of choice is the success of free and open source software.

I predict that the bazaar will continue to grow and expand and cater to all kinds of needs and tastes in the future. That really is the benefit of FOSS, isn't it? The freedom to choose (and use) the software that suits our needs, rather than being forced to take what the silo masters are pushing.

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[Per Abrahamsen]

How ironic that the bazaar has grown to becoming a sprawling, flopping, traffic jammed, flea market, You have never been to bazaar, have you?

Re:Cathedral and the Bazaar

[tjstork]

I predict that the bazaar will continue to grow and expand and cater to all kinds of needs and tastes in the future. That really is the benefit of FOSS, isn't it? The freedom to choose (and use) the software that suits our needs, rather than being forced to take what the silo masters are pushing.

Well I think its super, actually. I think some people can confuse FOSS with anti-corporatism, and certainly, there's those that would and on both sides of the boring old aisle. But I think really that the whole thing is about freedom, and sometimes freedom does not necessarily mean efficiency and it doesn't necessarily mean free as in beer either. I see no moral quandry with using, supporting, and developing for Linux while at the same time being a money grubbing capitalist, even if it might have a sad impact on the stock price of a certain large software company whose products aggravate me, and nor do I have any fundamental problem with donating to organizations that actually worked on things for Linux.

I kinda think an NPR for Linux would not be a bad thing at all.

The crazy thing is, I would be willing to bet that if Microsoft just GPL'd Windows, they would actually be much, much better off as a company. Yeah, they would be paying for the development of something they are giving away, but all of a sudden they would have a huge new market for their tool chains as Linux is just killing Windows on every computer that is not a PC. It seems like for every deal Microsoft inks with some Windows variant, there's another dozen devices popping up that run Linux. MS just can't keep up with everyone and every niche market, and that's where the bazaar really wins.

del.icio.us Bookmarks

[kc2keo]

Should M$ aquire Yahoo! I sure hope my del.icio.us bookmarks will still be up and running. If so they better still work in FF/WindowsXP or FF/Kubuntu->Linux. Otherwise I'll just use the local FireFox bookmarks again. Backed up my bookmarks just in case... That would be a pretty big downer for my bookmarks to vanish or just stop working across different platforms...

Re:del.icio.us Bookmarks

[TeamSPAM]

Well, you do have the option to export your bookmarks from del.icio.us. I do it on a regular basis as I have some perl script to work with the data. The bookmarks are yours, just make sure you have a backup if your access to it goes away.

Microsoft 2.0

[writerjosh]

Microsoft's only options are to either open up widely to Open Source, or to crush Google with its proprietary products - which will never happen. This only leaves Microsoft one option: encourage/use Open Source or die. They're simply too far in the hole and their products are rapidly becoming obsolete from the POV of the average-Joe user.

Absorbing Yahoo is going to be a mammoth task simply because of internal cultural differences, but trying to fight the tide of Open Source is a losing battle for Microsoft.

Re:Microsoft 2.0

[samkass]

Not that I don't often find open source valuable and useful, but I don't see the trends you're talking about. There are very few open source products that are winning and/or dominant over their proprietary rivals. Google certainly has not gotten much adoption of their enterprise software-- they're still basically an advertising company. If Microsoft would accept that, and accept that Microsoft is NOT an advertising company, they could probably live together reasonably well.

Re:Microsoft 2.0

[molarmass192]

There are very few open source products that are winning and/or dominant over their proprietary rivals.

Depends on your definition of "few". Apache, Eclipse, Linux, FreeBSD (as OS X), and Firefox are all winning (ie. increasing market share) or dominant (Apache / Eclipse) over their proprietary rivals. Other major open source products that have a marked impact on their segments include GCC, Tomcat, CVS, Subversion, Bugzilla, Struts, Hibernate, JBoss, MySQL, SQLite, and VLC.

Re:Microsoft 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

There are very few open source products that are winning and/or dominant over their proprietary rivals. Open Standards: TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, iCal
Open Source: Apache, Tomcat, Linux (been in a server room lately?), MySQL, Perl, Python, Ruby, Rails, GNU Compiler Collection, Vim, Emacs, Netbeans, Solaris, Java, Glassfish, Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, OpenLDAP, ISC Bind.

Look at all those loser applications. Give me a couple more minutes I might think of some more.

Maybe you're stuck in an anachronistic office suite kind of existence, but few folks I know could care less about creating gratuitously formatted meeting minutes.

I'm all for freedom, including your freedom to keep feeding your money to companies who do little more than capriciously alter their file formats and protocols on a semi-annual basis to compel otherwise useless upgrades. Of course, some folks just like to spend money to have shiny objects too. Fine with me, I do the same thing sometimes. Just remember, in a free market, victory goes to the most efficient and productive; and wasting money on services and software that have been commoditized is a loser.

Holy shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you were kidding about crap-flooding. This is his Google stats card:

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2006 155 407 917 368 1240 1611 1731 1860 1979 1395 1705 1781
2007 2100 1910 2104 1847 1844 1430 1664 1462 1301 1034 1032 1038
2008 1215

1000 posts a month is about thirty a day. He's been doing _at least_ 30 USENET posts a day, every day, for over two years.

Re:Holy shit!

[QuickFox]

He's been doing _at least_ 30 USENET posts a day, every day, for over two years. ...says Anonymous Coward, who makes more than 30 posts an hour.

(Off Topic) New Microsoft story icon submission

[Robber Baron]

With the impending departure of Bill Gates, I think a new Microsoft story icon is in order.
For that I don't think we need to go much further than the picture at the top of this story...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/yahoo-bid-bad-news-for-the-net-says-google/2008/02/04/1201973796947.html

10 minutes to fork both Zimbra & YUI

[Qbertino]

From what I can tell skimming the YPL it takes nothing more than setting up a Sourceforge Project to fork each of these products. It was only a few years ago when Push&Pull JavaScript and a few guys competing with Exchange with a Web ASP were nothing but a handfull of nutcases.
Apart from the corporate fuled buzz Yahoo is putting behind YUI and the consited branding of Zimbra there is absolutely nothing for FOSS to lose with this MS-Yahoo deal. On the contrary. We're watching the evil empire blowing ca. 50 billion on a pipe dream about going head-to-head with Google in search. That's fine with me.

Re:10 minutes to fork both Zimbra & YUI

[ColdWetDog]

10 minutes to fork it and then a lifetime to maintain and develop it.

People always forget about the second part...

Just like sex. People forget about the second part for a while, then little problems creep up. Then the problems get bigger.

Then you're screwed.

Not really sure where I'm going with this one, but it's a scary thought.

Many things would be affected

[kbahey]

There are many implications for the proposed Microsoft/Yahoo merger for open source.

Microsoft will not continue to run on an open source platform, like they did with Hotmail.

- PHP: heavily used in Yahoo. Yahoo employs PHP founder and project lead Rasmus Lerdorf.
- Apache: Yahoo uses Apache heavily, and has many patches and modules for it. IIS will replace it.
- MySQL: likewise, they use it heavily. Expect MS-SQL in there.
- FreeBSD and Linux: they use them a lot. Expect those to be turfed for Windows.
- Yahoo YUI javascript library.

Yahoo also hosts open source events (e.g. OSCMS: Open Source Content Management Systems back in March 2007).

All the sponsorship money, paying salaries for open source leads, ...etc. will end.

This is not good news at all.

two vast and trunkless legs of stone.com

[Stanistani]

Ping av.com - it's shorter to type, is always up, and is a useful reminder that you can have a dominant position in the search market one year, and be practically unused the next.

Re:two vast and trunkless legs of stone.com

[ATMD]

But still Yahoo, apparently:

nl@splig ~ $ hostx -A av.com
  !!! av.com address 66.94.234.13 maps to w2.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com
  !!! av.com address 216.109.112.135 maps to w2.rc.vip.dcn.yahoo.com

So probably best not to get into the habit of pinging av.com, either...

P.S. Nice subject line :)

What a bad article

[Asmodai]

This guy quotes how Yahoo takes pride in running FreeBSD...

Running? Yahoo! is one of the largest infrastructure sponsors of the FreeBSD project and last time I checked even had people employed that are committers on the project. So yes, any take over of Yahoo! by Microsoft will no doubt put a huge dent into the FreeBSD Project's infrastructure that cannot easily be replaced in my opinion. So it's not just about running...

Re:zimbra

[neumayr]

Hehe, yeah, Zimbra will definitely have been the decisive argument when MS decided to spend 45x10^9 USD (even taking up a loan, a first for them) on Yahoo.
Talk about delusional..

It gets worse

[WindBourne]

MS currently has 10% of the market share of the search engines. Yahoo has about 1/3. Google has about 50% or more. If MS aquires Yahoo, they will convert it instantly to being live.com and will exclude all Linux systems. My guess is that sites that use apache will slowly see their searches be pushed back further and further in the MS engine. IOW, this is designed not to just take on Google, but to move companies off of Apache as well as punish all those that are not using Windows.

And to think that just recently MS was released from Federal oversight. All of this makes a good case for either FTC to step in or for either IBM or even Sun to purchase Yahoo. Otherwise, those companies will see *nix take a HUGE hit on the net. For IBM it will hurt a bit, but for Sun, it will destroy them.

Re:It gets worse

[hellsDisciple]

The dark horse in this whole affair is Sun, not Apple. Sun has a very solid hardware and software business, and now has MySQL under its belt. It pretty much has zero real presence in the provision of online services. Sun essentially would get a shrink-wrapped business which takes care of itself and has very little redundant services. There is little political baggage with such a purchase either. They also get a platform to market their products virally (powered by Sun).

FreeBSD would probably fare OK in that situation, and might even make it as an offically supported OS on Sun hardware. Zimbra is potentially touchy subject as is PHP. Zimbra is possibly capable of being rebranded in a 'one box' solution, compared to the heavyweight Sun Java Messaging stuff.

This is FUD

[smitth1276]

Slashdotters, if anything, are consistent in their selective usage of the "fud" tag and in the groupthink that its usage reflects.

Be quiet everyone. Let Microsoft buy Yahoo.

[Otehake]

Most people have been aware of the large Microsoft warchest of billions with which they have been known to squash competition. Hence, one of the best ways to peg back Microsoft a few notches (and become less of a monopoly), is for them to lose some of this warchest. Watch as Microsoft spend the bulk of their warchest on Yahoo, influence Yahoo with their Microsoft leadership and business styles, people run away from such dictatorial practices, and Yahoo diminish in value until there is little value attached to the brand.

Poof! Billions of Microsoft dollars gone up in smoke. So sssssshhhh... don't tell them they are making a very big mistake. Perhaps then they will start competing on valuable software and services.

I'm not sure when you've checked

[Smeagel]

But I've been pinging google.com for years and it has never blocked them.