Slashdot Mirror
Google Starts Indexing Facebook Comments
First time accepted submitter SharkLaser writes "Users of Facebook Connect have previously enjoyed extra privacy as it was harder for Google to index comments made on the platform. Google, which also runs the competing service Google+, has now started indexing Facebook's public comments as well as comments made on platforms Disqus and Intense Debate, which all used programming that was hard for Google to read. Public comments and links made on those platforms will now be directly visible and searchable in Google."
Hey guys, where else can we find more drivel to dilute our search results?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Forget TFA, I stopped reading the summary after "Users of Facebook Connect have previously enjoyed extra privacy..."
The Slaves of Corporate Big Brother have also enjoyed extra silent company.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Google just tanked a few hundred thousand people's job applications. Corporations will be the only ones thanking them for this feature. Now since they've become a massive bank of information that knows no limits, I suppose this is only fair...
#occupygoogle
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I hope no one ever considered anything they posted on Facebook Connect to be even remotely private.
The fact that it's only "public comments" killed that emotion.
This is Facebook's robots.txt currently for Googlebot
User-agent: Googlebot /ac.php /ae.php /album.php /ap.php /feeds/ /l.php /o.php /p.php /photo.php /photo_comments.php /photo_search.php /photos.php
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
It wouldn't take much effort to include the comments pages in there as well, since facebook and google are at war with each other.
I hate it when the information I post on a publicly readable service isn't private.
Jep, I think people deserve it. Lets hope they will be slightly less eager to share anything they don't want the whole world to see next time.
you are an ID10T if you use your real name, birthday, birthplace, family member names, occupation and hometown on FB...
of course, 90 percent of FB users do that anyway...
as for me, online i'm always a blind, handicapped 80-year-old Afghan woman living at knob end of Buzzards Point in Washington, DC
Looks like I picked a good time to quit facebook. :)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
It sounds like Facebook, Disqus, etc., used to use "programming" that made it hard for Google to index them. Apparently, that has changed. So... is this a change by Google or by the comment platforms? It sounds like it's the comment platform that changed, not Google.
Why blame Google, again?
For that matter... if you post something publically (public comments, not private/friends-only)... why should you expect that it won't be indexed?
I'm just not seeing the reason for rage here.
Google starts to index an additional source of publicly available content.
or in other words,
nothing at all has happened.
This should be tagged !story.
Google's job is to analyze the content of a web page to make it as relevant as possible to people searching for that information. The fact that the public facebook comments are rendered in javascript shouldn't mean anything to that mission. If there is information publicly available and that information is relevant to someone search, Google aims to lead the searcher to the information.
No one ever said that a search engine should merely parse html. That's how it started, because that's the easiest way to get at the content. It's up to google to get that content and then figure out how important it is for a given query. A little innovation doesn't make this sinister.
If the content were private and google were circumventing securities to get at it, I would share in the outrage for sure. This is just technology catching up in a fast changing environment.
Does Facebook have any recourse if Google explicitly ignores the robots.txt for their site as well as the site scraping TOS, http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php?
As long as this drivel isn't included in my search results by default, I don't really mind it at all.
The goog will see all the rofls and lols! Wtf r u 2 do?
This effectively makes semi-private posts (those set to viewable by friends only (or certain groups)) to completely public. That is the breach.
There should be a reasonable expectation that those are not indexed and given to people they were not meant for.
From TFA:
Previously, search engines were unable to read comments because Facebook, Disqus and Intense Debate used programming that was not easy to read automatically.
The comments appear as human-readable HTML.
If a person can read the comments, a search engine can also easily read & index them.
TFA provides no sources or references to support their claim that this comment-indexing is something new.
Google's servers have been indexing Facebook comments from the beginning of Facebook. Whether those comments played a significant role in the pageranking algorithm is another matter.
Here's what's funny. Everyone said, "Facebook will crush Google+ by copying its public posting ability!"
Yet, Google was sitting there the whole time going, "Please copy us! Please! Please! Please!"
I8-D
1.) Google indexes Facebook comments 2.) Facebook comments become #1 target for spammers worldwide 3.) Facebook becomes a diluted, email-esque spam haven.... 4.) ...driving all users to Google+, since they - conspicuously - don't index their comments.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
PageRank worked for almost a decade because it lists results from popular sites before obscure sites.
The internet has changed.
Nowadays, Google is great if you're looking for popular stuff like lolcats, memes, angry blogs, discussion forums full of questions and no answers, or corporate propaganda from the 10,000 websites owned by the 10 largest companies in the world.
But for anything else, you can search for days without finding the good stuff. Google is less useful to me at this point than IRC, because if you find someone who knows your topic area, you can find the expert-level sites from that person.
Futurist Traditionalism
So this is just for Facebook Connect? Like if you post a comment to an article on a 3rd party site that allows you to post via your Facebook account?
I figured it was search engine usable, after all it is public. But it is good for people to be aware all the same that someone searching your name on Google will be seeing your posted comments very quickly if you used Facebook to post it (depending on your name). Using Facebook Connect to do that does a lot more than just let you post a comment.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
I use fb as a basic blog and make my Notes public. I have no problem with them being searchable. After all, only people with a fb account can comment.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
From the article:
"The update means links featured in comments will also enhance websites' standing.
Social is bad for search, and search is bad for social. Every attempt by a major search engine to use social signals has been heavily spammed. Social spamming is cheaper and easier than creating link farms - the social sites host the spam for free.
Google Places was hit hard starting in October 2010, when Places results were mixed in with web search results. It happened fast - within two months, Google Places was choked with spam, with both phony locations and phony reviews. This was so bad that the mainstream press picked up on it, and Google had to deemphasize "places" results. You don't hear Google talking about "local" as much as they did a year ago.
Citysearch and Yelp are choked with spam reviews. Google +"1"s are for sale for about $0.15 to $0.25 each. Facebook fans cost about $0-05 each. Google's "real names" policy was an attempt to crack down on phony accounts, but it didn't work. You can buy phone and email verified Google accounts in bulk. There are rogue phone services that help with the fake phone numbers.
Using social signals for search has reduced search quality and jammed social sites with junk that's only read by search spiders. Facebook (which has to allow Google to do this) just set themselves up for an influx of junk. And Google just reduced their search quality again.
There are useful social signals for search, but they come from systems that see transactions and actually know who bought something, like Amazon, eBay, and Visa International. Even those can be spammed; you can buy an old eBay account, change the name, and inherit the old reputation.
Narf?
I read TFS as "...the dingus platform..." and thought someone must be actually reading the comments.
Final nail in the coffin Google / Facebook.. I am deleting my FB account and moving my email back to my own home email sever. no more will i bow to the evil overloards that want to make public everything i just wanted to share with a handful of friends. I mean really now.. not hard for me to email 10 to 200 people in a list with a new picutre of of my 2yo. it was eaiser on FB.. but all in all.. i doubt 80% of the people in my "Friends List" would actully look at the photo and take 2sec to click like. i get far more responses using email...
-also Texting is for fools.... if everyone cancelled their Text service and just used email on their phones for a month all the cell carriers will have to drop the texting fees to nothing... (as a text message costs them less for you to use than sending an email, or making a phone call)
The whole thing about Facebook, or Slashdot, is that they are evocative of a community... and having another site like Google or anyone else barge in and harvest what is something akin to a chat, and save it for ten thousand years, is bullshit.
This is my sig.
Seriously, why would I ever want to have a Facebook comment in my search results?
Google fails.
I hope that one day people will stop eulogizing Google and treat it like any other free service. With the necessary criticism that is.
I think it is reasonable to allow public comments to be indexed. I think it's ok because Facebook gives its users the ability to choose whether or not to make comments private or public. Clearly, users who are concerned about people seeing their comments indexed would choose to make their comments private. However, it is a great opportunity to get exposure for those who want the public to see their comments. Not only will Facebook users be able to see users comments, but the entire Internet would have that ability, thanks to Google Indexing. So, because of the ability to choose, I don't think there is a real issue with privacy violations.
I understand the importance of exposure. I run a small company what runs and operates a number of different websites and blogs, including a new blog called www.HowTheyMakeTheirMoney.com. We have a Facebook page and we use it regularly. Even with the fan page that we have on Facebook, we are given the option to keep comments private, amongst our friends and fans, or we can make the comments public. Of course, since we want exposure, we put to make our posts public.
It is a great think that these public comments will be indexed. As long was users have the option to keep their comments private, it is certainly alright with me that those who make comments publicly can be indexed on google.
1) Dismantle Google Code Search
2) Start indexing Facebook
3) The dumbing down of the Internet continues...
Google+ will become the hub for all social interaction. With this data collection, they will be able to sway people in any direction they desire with further engineering.
Smart move. Very smart move. Let's see if they can survive it.