Twitter Comes Out Swinging Against Google's Personalized Search

Meshach writes "Google's release of the new 'Search Plus Your World' feature has elicited harsh words from Twitter's general counsel (who used to work with Google). He claims that the changes will make information harder to find for users and be bad news for news publishers. Some analysts are wondering if this is a prelude to a legal battle similar to Microsoft's bundling of IE."

Comments

I've been waiting for personalized search forever!

[bit trollent]

I've never wanted to use Twitter.

I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[bogaboga]

From the linked article:

I'm not saying that the Justice Department should look into this. I' m just saying that I think they will. I' m far from an expert on this, but I think anyone should be able to see how this is a very slippery slope for Google.

Where exactly is the [potential] problem? I hope someone can elucidate.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[bs0d3]

twitter sells the right to mine their data, google stopped paying so twitter locked them out. twitter still does business with bing, bing also has a deal with facebook. google is allowing themselves to their own data and also bing sucks

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither do I.
But I have some good mod points for anybody who can offer an explanation that makes sense (even if not THE explanation)

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[EdIII]

I don't think it is possible to elucidate. Had to read the article because I was so confused.

Twitter:

Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

Google:

We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer (http://goo.gl/chKwi), and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.

Article:

The new Google service, which is rolling out today, lets search users toggle between personalized and "global" results, with the former including information gleaned from its Google+ social network and its Picasa image-storage service. Twitter reasonably enough sees that move as a threat, since it could well encourage people to share breaking news on Google+ rather than Twitter.

Ummmm. Huh?

So.... Google is rolling out a service that you have to opt in for that will personalize search results according to data they collected on you.

Twitter has already told Google not to index its tweets apparently. Twitter feels that news comes from them first somehow. I can see that being the case in some tumultuous countries, but as a generality? Come on. That's pushing it. Relevant? Really? What about the signal to noise ratio? Verification?

News publishers might be affected by personalization, but only in so far as their articles that get included would have to match the user profile. Anything else just gets weighted down in the rankings.

Saying the Justice Department should look into this sounds like Whiny Bitch syndrome coupled with some form of cognitive dissonance.

If Google is guilty of anything with the personalized search results, which would be less guilty in my mind, they should already be guilty just by doing what they are doing now without personalized results. Their own algorithms should make them guilty by that logic.

Sounds like Twitter feels intimidated by Google+ and is talking out of its ass.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter sells the right to mine their data, google stopped paying so twitter locked them out. twitter still does business with bing, bing also has a deal with facebook. google is allowing themselves to their own data and also bing sucks

What the hell that means?

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Dahamma]

It's actually pretty irrelevant anyway - Twitter has never had a business model. They just have no clue how to make money.

The only reason they are bitching is that they are worried investors will figure this out before they IPO and the employees cash out before they go down the drain...

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Lillebo]

You have lots of 1s in your ID number.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[MrDoh!]

Mis-typed perhaps, but I understand it to be that Google's looking after their own data. They've got their own social network, and are, obviously, pushing that first!

"hey, should we search our own data?" "hmm... lemme think about that for a second.... yeah, go on then"
Twitter broke away, now moans that google's not paying them/using their data? sheesh.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[tuppe666]

It's actually pretty irrelevant anyway - Twitter has never had a business model. They just have no clue how to make money.

The only reason they are bitching is that they are worried investors will figure this out before they IPO and the employees cash out before they go down the drain...

Google used to give them money to access their data. Microsoft give them money $30 million a year for their data now. Thats not chump change.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of links to follow...

It's the "Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things."

Kinda says it all.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue is if they are prioritizing thier data ahead of thier competitors...that would lead to more clicks to thier own pages which is more ad revenue. Kind of an anti trust issue here...

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[justforgetme]

It means that google is basing it's data from G+ it's own social network now. In fact google is kind of trying to lock all other social networks out lately. Not in some unfair way but I have to admit that I see google+ much more often on google related pages than on the free internet.

Example: google analytics shows social data from G+ for your sites now but I have no idea if there is a way to include social data from Facebook or Twitter aswell. Google search results give you options for G+ sharing but not for the other networks. Now this, that google is going to integrate your
G+ interactions into your search results

Google have understood that social is kind of the web3.0 and is trying really hard to become the dominant entity in social interactions
and this article is just a small part of the bigger picture.

IMO they are doing it wrong. To stay dominant in search - and let's face it that is where you go when your friends fail you - they should embrace the social Internet as a whole, not try to wall it into their own little piconet.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to lure taco to reply "I don't"?

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[lennier1]

and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.

That's the part I don't quite get. Google respects their nofollow instructions and that's supposed to make them the bad guys???

Seems more like they're bitching because they no longer receive money from Google on top of them sending visitors their way

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[RichZellich]

It looks to me like a strategic move by Google to get Twitter to re-allow them to crawl the twitter-feed (and maybe get Facebook to do so, too - good luck with that!).

If it looks to Twitter as if Google search is getting more traction with G+ content included, they may get nervous enough to re-establish their previous deal allowing Google to crawl their content. Frankly, I don't see why they killed the deal in the first place - they may want to become a major search engine themselves, but that will never happen, so it only makes sense to me to let everybody and his brother crawl their feed in order to get referrals. Apparently they see it differently, and they're the ones that have the inside track on their strategic business model. Seems counter-intuitive to me to try to sell your data to people who will give you referral business for free - guess they're using the New York Times business model.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I get the sense that Twitters feeling is, "Hey when Google put streaming twitter posts at the top of every search result page, that was awesome for us. Now they're going to do that for themselves instead of us. That sucks."

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[rtfa-troll]

Kind of an anti trust issue here...

Why? People keep saying this, but I really don't see the key things that are needed for Google to have real Anti trust issues.

A) I haven't seen any evidence that Google's monopoly is illegally acquired. People keep forgetting this, when they compare Google with Microsoft. Microsoft is a fundamentally immoral organisation. They acquired their monopoly by using illegal tactics to block other competitors (to understand the basics, have a look at Judge Jackson's findings of facts). Many of the restrictions which should be imposed on Microsoft come not simply because they have a monopoly, but because they broke the law to get that monopoly. If it were anyone but Microsoft people would say "if you can't take the time then don't do the crime"; because it's Microsoft and they are rich somehow a whole bunch of apologists appear acting as if they did nothing wrong.

B) Google is easily substitutable; it's not like a computer where you need to pay money or even an operating system where you need to know how to reinstall. You just go to a different web page, or you even just type "Bing" into Google. There is only one thing which keeps people on Google's results rather than Bings. It's not even the quality as such, which, IMHO has been going downhill since they stopped treating keywords as having to be in the page. The thing is that people trust Google not to trick them. The results are honest and clear. This is Google's biggest competitive advantage, and if it turns out that Google is wrongly ignoring twitter, that will be an opening for another search engine that is more honest. Fortunately for Google, their competitor at present is Microsoft which is congenitally incapable of honesty. The stupidity of a company which gets caught copying it's results from Google and doctoring results in favour of it's own products in the first few months after launching a new search engine is astounding.

So; what is a search engine? A system which gives an opinion about which pages they would like to recommend based on your query string. If Google's opinion is that you are better with their data than Twitters that's fine for them to say. More importantly; if Google doesn't want to pay for access to Twitter's data. Or any other bunch of factors at Google's discretion then that is Google's decision. In order to change that you would need real evidence that Google broke the law in ways which greatly benefitted their search engine "monopoly".

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[physburn]

"twitter sells the right to mine their data". And good luck to that, mine 140 character all this codes bit.ly that change and TLAs three letter aconyms, can I now data mine 1/f noise and white noise. Don't want google sell mining rights on my searches though. And I want friends and my web search history, very well seperated.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[msobkow]

More to the point: What the hell is "Personalized Search"?

I've used search engines for years, I know how to wield a keyword group. What more would you want it to do?

Sounds suspiciously like marketing-department speak to me: invented buzzwords and phrases devoid of actual meaning.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[ajo_arctus]

I'm not sure it matters how you get the monopoly -- I think the problems start if you abuse the power once you have it. Google will have to be really careful (but they know that, and I'm sure they are doing all they can to play fair), but if they use their dominance in search to (artificially) dominate other markets, it's kind of what Microsoft did with IE and it got them in to trouble. Of course, Microsoft also used some very dirty, very immoral tactics time and time again, so it's hard to compare them with Google.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

- GOOGLE, DON'T FUCKING INDEX US!
- OK, we won't.
*time passes*
- GOOGLE, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY TRAFFIC?

It's not like this is first time it happens.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[JAlexoi]

The issue here is that they added results from Google+ into general search and that is it. Because, unless that guy lived under a rock, Google does personalization of searches for a very long time. And come back when they force you to use it... (Because the "forced use" is the keyword there)

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[JAlexoi]

Ahem... Twitter does not allow indexing of tweets in their public ToS.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they never really had anything technically outstanding either. I mean, their only asset is pretty much their community. Anybody can write a decent twitter clone in some days. Actually, a lot of web framework propose to write a twitter clone as part of their getting started tutorial.

So yeah, I guess they must be kind of afraid of seeing their community migrate to Google+ or Facebook (now that you can subscribe to non-friends).

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

well as i understood currently you have search showing things you are interested in as higher priority, but this personalized search will also show things your friends like as higher priority, for example if you have friend that is there will be more games in your search results

THIS WAITING 10 MINUTES TO SUBMIT COMMENT IS INSANE, SLASHDOT SUCKS

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Monoman]

...

Google used to give them money to access their data. Microsoft give them money $30 million a year for their data now. Thats not chump change.

It is if it costs them more than that to operate. Maybe they are starting to worry about their balance sheet as they get closer to an IPO. They may be able to get funding through VC when operating at a loss but it isn't as easy when you are looking to the stock market for investors.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[iserlohn]

It matters becuase you can violate anti-competition clauses even if you are not a monopoly, or not yet a monopoly.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[icebraining]

If you have a Google Plus account, Google Search will show you results from your friends' feeds, pictures, etc on top of the normal search.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[StripedCow]

The problem lies not just with the monopolist, but with the way the economy works. It allows for only a handful of influential companies in any market segment (including web-search, electronics, etc.) We expect those companies to behave well (following human ethical rules), but we forget that they have to live up to the shareholders' expectations, and thus are greedy by design.

A) Like someone else said, it does not matter HOW a company gets into a monopoly, but more how it behaves once it acquired its dominant position. How we can expect it to behave in the future is not even important because things may radically change with the change of a board.
Bundling of products is anti-competitive, and should not be accepted from either MS or Google. Example: assume you are a game developer, and Google suddenly starts promoting a game that is very much like your game on their homepage (bundling), and starts giving it away for free (dumping), then you are basically out of business.

B) Monopolists or near-monopolists are not easily replaceable, almost by definition. Further, you make it seem like companies can compete in "honesty". Well, unfortunately, that is just not how the market works. In fact, perhaps a more realistic view is that companies compete in "deception". Google is an advertisement company, and thus may be considered masters in this art.

What we need is ways to break up large companies into smaller ones. Ways to commoditize their products. Like many programmers know, it makes more sense to build a system out of small modules which are open and easy to replace, than to build a large monolithic closed-source system. This is where economists and lawmakers can actually learn something from programmers.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the case, then they'd better update their robots.txt, you know, so that google knows about it?

Extracted from www.twitter.com:robots.txt:

#Google Search Engine Robot
User-agent: Googlebot
# Crawl-delay: 10 -- Googlebot ignores crawl-delay ftl
Allow: /*?*_escaped_fragment_
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /*?
Disallow: /*/with_friends

So feeds are indexed.

And before you ask, there isn't a meta noindex on feed pages either

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Chuck Chunder]

IMO they are doing it wrong. To stay dominant in search - and let's face it that is where you go when your friends fail you - they should embrace the social Internet as a whole, not try to wall it into their own little piconet.

This seems to me to be a misunderstanding. Google will index anything they can get their hands on. They aren't indexing Twitter because Twitter told them not to. They can't index parts of Facebook that are relevant to me (ie stuff that I can see because my friends have told Facebook to share it with their friends) because they don't have access to that information (and Facebook have no real right to give it to them).

The only way Google can get their hands on non-public data shared between friends is if they are the provider those friends have chosen broker that information.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[baptiste]

Not if the competitors are blocking Google from crawling their data. Twitter won't stand a chance of making a case when Google can just say 'stop using rel=nofollow and your info will get indexed for Personal Search too'. Same with Facebook.Twitter and Facebook want $$$ for Google to index their content. Google chose not to pay and so now Google coverage of Twitter is significantly less.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[DCTech]

Their back-end is quite technically outstanding. Those Twitter clones couldn't handle such load. Apart from that, what sites on the internet actually are that technically outstanding? Pretty much none. The most valued asset of websites is their users and community.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Raenex]

Google will have to be really careful (but they know that, and I'm sure they are doing all they can to play fair),

No, they aren't. Examples below.

but if they use their dominance in search to (artificially) dominate other markets, it's kind of what Microsoft did with IE and it got them in to trouble.

Like how they display a big fat ad to install Chrome when I visit their home page with IE? Or how they used Android to get themselves on mobile? Or how they aggressively scanned copyrighted books without payment, and then tried to get an exclusive deal to do this in a court settlement? Or how they keep on buying Internet companies like YouTube, which serve content, but Google originally claimed they were just going to be a search company?

I think it's pretty obvious they are empire building.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[delinear]

This seems to be the real issue. Twitter are upset that Google are going to use their own gathered data rather than paying them (Twitter) for similar data. That doesn't sound like anything close to an abuse of monopoly, so long as they don't force you to have a Google+ account in order to carry out searches (and they'll even personalise your search results based on either just signing into search or even just using the same PC and allowing it to drop a cookie). Sounds like sour grapes from Twitter, but if it's cheaper to collect the data yourself long term than it is to pay for it, what did they expect?

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[delinear]

It's common because there's a perception that if my site is generating content, Google should pay me for that content, but if Google is sending traffic my way, well they should do that for free (they've already had the chance to advertise to those people after all). It's a blatant double standard, but the sooner community driven sites recognise that the community is their only asset and anything they can do to feed into that is valuable to them, the sooner these stupid squabbles will end.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Luthair]

The irony of course being they had nothing to do with Arab Spring, when net access was actually available in the countries under revolt Facebook was the site of choice.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Like how they display a big fat ad to install Chrome when I visit their home page with IE?

To be fair, MS shows me a big ad for IE when I visit their site with a non-IE browser. They even offer me a newer version of IE if I'm not using the latest one.

Or how they used Android to get themselves on mobile?

MS installs Bing as the default search engine for IE. Hell, MS even allows MS sites to be accessed from a PC behind ISA server even if the proxy settings aren't set (but only MS sites).

Every company tries to leverage their strengths into more market share. MS allows their users to install other browsers or search providers rather than using IE and/or Bing (both of which are free). Google doesn't require Chrome or Google+ (both of which are free) to be able to use their free search engine. Every company tries to take advantage of every set of eyes that visit their pages or use their products.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Raenex]

Every company tries to leverage their strengths into more market share.

Of course. The question is at what point do regulators start having a problem with it. Microsoft got burned several times by the EU for such practices. One example is how they forced Microsoft to offer users a choice of which browser to install instead of defaulting to IE.

So my only argument is that Google wasn't "doing all they can to play fair", not that Microsoft is playing "fair" (by regulatory standards).

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, if you are not paying for something, you are not the customer, you are the product.

Users are the product of google. Advertisers are the customers. And maybe users have a choice, but advertisers do not. If Google does not like you, you do not exist. So your substitutable argument does not work. And if they leverage advertisers into using a corporate Google Plus account instead of a corporate twitter or facebook account, they are misusing their monopoly

But I agree with you, Google has a history of using their great power with great responsibility

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[justthinkit]

The problem is that one big company might be affected by what another big company is doing. Can't you see how serious that is for us, the ones who can do nothing about it?

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like sour grapes from Twitter...

This sums it all up.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[residieu]

Google has said that they're open to adding more services to Search Plus the World. If twitter and facebook work with them, they can get their posts prioritized as well.

The EU couldn't demand that Microsoft include options for other browsers if no one else had written browsers that worked on Windows.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[residieu]

They would need to set up a way with Facebook for the searcher to indicate what their facebook account is, and have the user authorize google to look at their data. People authorize that access for every Farmville clone that comes around, so this doesn't seem impossible to do.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're still bound by restrictions imposed on them by the Text Messaging API to their service. Does anyone still use that? I can't imagine how it would be practical (especially back when you couldn't get unlimited texting plans).

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[coolmadsi]

The real issue is if they are prioritizing thier data ahead of thier competitors...that would lead to more clicks to thier own pages which is more ad revenue. Kind of an anti trust issue here...

In the case of twitter, they had been asked to not use their (twitters) data, so are not using it (and therefore would be unable to involve it in some kind of prioritizing list). From Google:

We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer (http://goo.gl/chKwi), and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.
https://plus.google.com/116899029375914044550/posts/24uqWqvALud

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[geekoid]

"Like how they display a big fat ad to install Chrome when I visit their home page with IE?"

No, not at all. It fo think that is the same thing, you are very ignorant, and to stupid to realize when you are ignorant.
If Google made you install Chrome, that might be an issue. If you went to use IE, but it over rode your setting to bring up Chrome, that's close to the same thing. Saying ';Hey, here is another option for you, if you like" is NOT the same thing as giving IE away to specifically run Netscape out of business.

"Or how they used Android to get themselves on mobile?"
They created an OS for a mobile device. The did not force other people to use it, and it wasn't done to push anyone out of business.

Yes, they are empire building. No one said otherwise. They are building Camelot compared to other tech empires out there today.

"Google originally claimed they were just going to be a search company?"
Citation needed.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[geekoid]

And as such, they will start too loose marketshare now that Google no longer pays them to access the tweets.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[geekoid]

Two people using Personalized search.
One is a computer scientist, the other a baker.
Both enter the Word 'Gingerbread'. They get different results based on their use history.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not chump change.

$30MM is chump change.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Raenex]

It fo think that is the same thing, you are very ignorant, and to stupid to realize when you are ignorant.

Pretty funny that you're talking like this, when it looks like you had a stroke when typing this up.

If Google made you install Chrome, that might be an issue.

The point is they are using their strong search position to enter other markets. When it came to Microsoft, you could always install Netscape. And it's not like if you use another operating system that you won't get a default browser installed. Personally, I think the Netscape complaints were pretty weak, but if you're going to allow them, then the same can be made against Google.

They created an OS for a mobile device. The did not force other people to use it, and it wasn't done to push anyone out of business.

They did it to gain search marketshare in the mobile space. So they essentially gave away a mobile operating system to compete with the likes of Palm, Blackberry, and Apple, much like Microsoft gave away a browser to compete with Netscape.

They are building Camelot

*snort* If you think Google knowing everything about you and being everywhere is such a great thing, you are welcome to it, but I don't agree.

"Google originally claimed they were just going to be a search company?"
Citation needed.

It's difficult, as this is based on stuff I read from Google when it was just starting out, and that I've having trouble finding. For example, I remember distinctly that Google had a page that said they don't do popup windows because the browser has dedicated functionality for that and it should be at the user's discretion. It's nearly impossible to find something like that over 10 years later. I'm also pretty sure they mentioned something like "Don't Be Evil" before their 2004 prospective, but I can't find the first reference to that, either.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Dahamma]

Are you joking? Twitter is one of the most infamous companies in Internet history for their horribly unreliable backend. Remember the fail whale?

They have fixed most of those problems by now, but a company like Google or Facebook that designs for scalability from the start could duplicate their backend fairly easily (and honestly they more or less already have in many ways).

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the Android users in the US that are using Bing as their default search provider.

There's nothing preventing anyone or any company from substituting their browser or default.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[EdIII]

I never noticed it before.... but why is that important? :)

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Rich0]

Depends - it isn't chump change if you're talking about a startup with 10 employees. For whatever reason people talk about Twitter like it is a $10B company - so $30M/yr is like 1/300th of their price. Twitter's total income is like $120M/yr apparently, which is like a P/E of 100. Unless it shows sign of huge growth that seems significantly overvalued.

If anything I think the signs are that Twitter might start waning. I can't think of anything you can do with Twitter that you can't do better with Google+, and it isn't like my Aunt only reads posts on Twitter either which is what keeps Facebook strong.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[cynyr]

but if twitter would let google access the data then they could bitch, but whining that they are not on google results, but yet want bags of money to be there...

Not sure how this is an anti-trust issue. Google ranks all accessable social network data there, but the only one they really have access to is G+.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[cynyr]

they could drive by install it, and set it as default since you are using IE, would that have been better?

All they are really saying is "hey we have a browser too, just in case you thought the only one was IE".

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[cynyr]

see http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2614944&cid=38662134

something about which "cookies" you mean when you search.

Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb?

[Raenex]

If the standard is to not use your dominant market share to dominate other markets, then they are not "doing all they can to play fair".

Google made a browser, gives it away for free, and uses their dominant position in search as a way to market it. Microsoft made a browser and installed it as part of their operating system, something that every other major operating system now does as well.

And the case of Chrome was just one example out of the four I gave.

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a google account, you already have personalized search. When you are logged into your google account, your search will be tailored to fit in with your previous searches. People that play a lot of games will have a lot bigger chance to find information about a game when searching for things that can be gotten in multiple ways, for example.

I'm a boiled frog

[Anonymous Coward]

These stories made me realise just how crappy google has become; the poor quality search results and unresponsive Javascript interface.

In the market for a new search engine.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.webcrawler.com/

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[lightknight]

Sadly, I am working on it.

I am half tempted to call it "Google Classic," so I can make believe that they gave their users a choice.

See, it probably won't be an improvement over the older Google (the one we remember from years ago). It'll just be a restoration of original level of service.

Well, for the first incarnation, at least.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[fred911]

That be Google Classic Beta.:)

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with your project. The javascript heavy google search, autocomplete and suggest can be turned off to a degree, but slow JS cannot it seems without losing functionality.

I am getting closer and closer to switching to Duck Duck Go each time I use google search (sites or images).

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[lightknight]

Yeah, I've decided the search engine will not make use of any javascript. It will offer useful search results, and that will be all. No spelling auto-correct either. Just 100% ad-free, useful, non-natural language search results. I might offer a checkbox to allow for spelling variations...maybe.

It will look for webpages containing all your search terms, by default. And it will only locate phrases / strings if they are clearly placed within quotes.

"I'm a man of the internet, I'm into discipline. Got a router in my hand, and a beard (some stubble) on my chin. But if I finish my all work, and you want to rewind, then for a while we can pretend it's 1999."

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[Monoman]

Good luck with that. I still get better results with Google than with Bing when searching microsoft.com. Complain all you want but I still find Google to have the best results. Try using google while not logged into their services and see if their current level of personalization is causing your issues. Running your browser in 'private' may even be the best test.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[icebraining]

I am half tempted to call it "Google Classic,"

And ye shall be smitten with a mighty trademark lawsuit.

In any case, what will you use for the index? It takes a damn server farm nowadays to crawl effectively, particularly if you want any kind of decent refresh rate.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[delinear]

"Googol Classic. Now with better spelling."

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[lightknight]

We will drive under that bridge when we come to it, as Ted Kennedy might say.

For the first 30,000 websites (I'm going to maintain a white-list), I plan to index the more important columns in the database. After that point, assuming I still find the project worthwhile, I'll devise something new that won't run afoul of any Google patents. Again, this project falls under a personal project that will make my life easier, not my day job. Why? Because Google's search results, as of late, are so disastrous for the average programmer that I prefer getting up from my desk, and wandering over to my personal library (old school), rather trying to mentally parse the three hundred or so blogs / commerce site results that have no relevance to my lifestyle.

Which reminds me. The reason for the white list is to blockade commerce sites / blogs / news sites / SEOs. The only people who will be able to submit sites to be crawled will be those who put up 2 BTCs into an escrow account; when you submit a site which violates these terms, I get paid. I also get to run a SQL DELETE query which is hot-linked to your user id, which deletes all your submissions. While I may be a banana dictator (functionally speaking, with regards to this index), I think programmers will enjoy the relevant and hassle-free results. Server upkeep with be supported through BitCoin donations, with the search engine automatically shutting off if / when it exhausts its supply, and turning back on again when its supply is replenished. Since the target market, so to speak, also happens to coincide somewhat with people with higher end video cards, it should be a somewhat palatable experience. A dozen BitCoins might run the server for several months.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[icebraining]

Have you thought about using a DHT network to cache the data like Yacy does, but coupled with digital signatures to make sure people don't tamper with it? You'd still have control over the results without having to run as many servers, just the crawlers. And if your funds run out, people would still be able to get the results, just not new pages into the index.

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[lightknight]

I'll look into it. ^_^

Re:I'm a boiled frog

[TheRaven64]

I switched to DuckDuckGo ages ago. Every so often, it comes back with useless results and I go to Google. So far, Google has failed to deliver better results any time I've done that. For any query I've tried, either DDG is 'good enough,' or neither DDG nor Google is.

people block google; google integrates own service

[unrtst]

I'm all for the big brother fear posts about Google getting evil, but this isn't the time. Twitter ended their agreement with Google for a real time feed; other realtime/news sites have been threatening blocking Google; then they get upset when Google says fuck it, introduces their own service, and integrates it.

What's next? NYT blocks Google indexers and then complains when they don't show up in the top of the search results?

The social sites have had users data locked up long enough. It's due time they provide API's to users, aggregators, and others. Google seems to want to include as much of this other stuff as it can in its search results... they're not the bottleneck, nor the slippery slope here.

Buggy whip makers..

[RightSaidFred99]

Also complained that that new fangled automobile would cause various societal ills. In reality, they were just pissed off that they were being obsoleted.

Re:Buggy whip makers..

[Anonymous Coward]

No...no, they were right. Without the automobile, women would still be in the kitchen....making sammitches as God intended! Those brave men tried to warn us, but we didn't listen! We. didn't. listen. Now, it's too late...

Re:Buggy whip makers..

[martin-boundary]

In reality, they were just pissed off that they were being obsoleted.

Gah! How wrong can you be! Some buggy whip makers actually liked the air freshening scent of Eau de Cheval, you insensitive clod!

Re:Buggy whip makers..

[0ld_d0g]

Yeah, those stupid horses cause all the stupid pollution anyway, and they keep using up all the oil that fuels geo-political instability in the middle-east :-P

Re:Buggy whip makers..

[Threni]

Exactly. I'm surprised Twitter was up long enough for the message to be posted.

Twit Fail

[kodiaktau]

This is a distraction to get media focus back on Twitter because of the Google search plus announcement. Honestly Twitter shows me the Fail Whale about once a week and their service record is poor for such a large site - so what will they be complaining about next?

Google has been amassing tons of data and is now planning to use that to have personalized search - that is the story. I don't see how they will get around the filter bubble issue. (Never mind personal data protection and other issues.)

As a side I am still trying to wrap my head around Wolfram's blog today about using a TLD .data in relation to the Google announcement.

Bad day for the internet?

I am surprised it didn't hit Twitfail

Re:Twit Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how they will get around the filter bubble [wired.com] issue.

If they make it a concern, it's easy to work around it: Just as the algorithms can find personalized info that matches your beliefs, they can find opposing viewpoints. Whenever you search for something where people with different views disagree, Google could include a "see other viewpoints" link which would give you the highest-ranked explanations of alternative perspectives.

Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

My problem with Google is that it's never really possible to opt out of their options: for some reason they can't stick to their effing cookies!

I've recently had a lot of trouble with Google Instant and autocompletion: these are features I do *not* want, and yet, it doesn't matter how many times I deactivate them in the search settings, there's always some caveat where it can turn back on - "google instant will be reactivated if you blink the left eye while typing with your left finger on any google page" (or will be reactivated on all incoming searches from Chrome).

Very often, the only solution is to manually game the search parameters: figure what (if anything) can turn all these extraneous additions off, and then turn them off. I'm pretty sure I'm going to face the same annoyance with this: I already see the switch "show personal results"/"hide personal results", and I'm sort of definite about the fact that no matter how I set it, it will tend to get switched back to "show personal results".

(BTW, since I've started ranting, I might add this unrelated tidbit: how many times do I have to "revert to the old look" in Gmail for them to understand that I *can't* stand their new look for Gmail, and will hold out until the VERY END???!

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[CodeReign]

They offer a plugin that keeps the cookies set to OPT-OUT

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree...imagine living in switzerland and for some reasons google and a bunch of website localize me in the german speaking part. Fuckers.
Hi, if I type google.com is not to be redirected to google.ch. Worse when the first page is full of german website.
I don't want this "personalization", worse, finding information is getting more difficult, I cannot just google it anymore.

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have CSFire? I just figured out today that CSFire will prevent your Google settings from saving. I tried everything from deleting all cookies and the cache, setting every cookie setting to save, everything that was recommended and a bunch of other things, but it finally worked when I disabled CSFire.The many months of not being able to turn off safe search & instant are finally at an end.

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

They offer a plugin that keeps the cookies set to OPT-OUT

[Citation needed]. Please provide a link (or revisit Poe's law)

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[physburn]

I concur, just had google+ add my friends pop up in the middle of using google groups, with no close button. Give me back usenet.

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have been getting increasingly annoyed with Google's updating. I am searching information on the net throughout the day, and I have several gripes with their changes
I dont want Personalised results - I want what is actually out there, not my history or results that can only be found when logged in in your account.
The lag and jumping of Auto-search is annoying. Googles auto-meaning with autosearch replaces my searches with searches it thought I meant to type. (I know what I want to search!), occasionally causing me to dredge wrong information.
Logging in: I don't want to be signed in. Why should I login to find a webpage? Nor do I see why my search should tied a personal identifier. I am wondering if they are doing the same thing as Facebook re: tracing user (vs compiter/ip) browsing habits, just from a different source.

I've gone back to altavista now, and only going to google when I have trouble finding more niggly things.
Sadly, Googles iconic "simple search page" concept has become too annoying for me to use constantly.

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[icebraining]

I live in Portugal and I don't keep getting redirected to google.pt, I use google.com just fine. Maybe you have your browser wrongly configured?

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at work we're behind a proxy in Germany... So I keep getting redirected to frigging "google.de"... despite the fact I speak no German at all.

Bloody crap.

Re:Google is becoming annoying

[Cl1mh4224rd]

BTW, since I've started ranting, I might add this unrelated tidbit: how many times do I have to "revert to the old look" in Gmail for them to understand that I *can't* stand their new look for Gmail, and will hold out until the VERY END???!

They do this with Google Analytics, too (for me, at least) It defaults to the new, still-beta UI. I'll switch back to the old version, but if I don't touch it for—I don't know—an hour, the next click will take me back to the main page of the new look, even if I was already looking at a report. It's annoying as hell.

They even still display the "Make this the default" link in the top right, even though they seem to have already decided to make it the default for me...

Swinging? More like whining!

[Dahamma]

Coming out "swinging" would have been more like "that's nothing, we have an answer to this that you will like even more!". This is more like a kid in the playground saying "no fair, I wasn't ready, do over!"

Hey! It's bonch the multi-account Apple Troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/~bonch

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I am totally perplexed

[Taco Cowboy]

What has Google's offer of "'Search Plus Your World" got to do with Microsoft's bundling of IE ?

Can someone educate me, please ??

Re:I am totally perplexed

[posthxc1982]

Ignorance.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[crutchy]

bundling of personalized search into a conventional search engine could be construed as anti-competitive in the personalized search market.

twitter and facebook would probably consider themselves players in the personalized search market, so the assumption is that they may challenge google for monopolizing personal search that users might otherwise currently use twitter and facebook for.

i don't see the point in telling people how many bits of toast i'm making for breakfast on twatter, facecrap is a crock of shit for obvious reasons, and spoogel results are getting less relevant with each passing day. i can only hope they all implode into each other in an epic court battle.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[AssholeMcGee]

This is just another battle between who wants to a monopoly, step on down and sue it out, or use the idiot mainstream press to see who will be crowned the personalized search monopoly!! I could see Facebook bitch over this.. Nitwitter is kind off a half ass-ed Facebook so they could get knocked off with Google stepping into this..You can go onto those classroom search sites, and a host of other search sites to find someone of course you'll find them, you will then need to fork out 20 plus bux to call them, or email them. This is something I could see Google doing, I found who I was looking for, dammit I got to pay to get there email..

Re:I am totally perplexed

[singingjim1]

"i don't see the point in telling people how many bits of toast i'm making for breakfast on twatter, facecrap is a crock of shit for obvious reasons, and spoogel results are getting less relevant with each passing day."

Twitter is an amazing social communication tool and, quite honestly, no one cares how many bits of toast you are having. Facebook is also an excellent social communication tool, especially for people with common interests and hobbies to be able to easily post and share events and subsequent documenting of the events with pictures. I must agree that Google results seem to getting worse in my experience, but I use it a lot for many different things personally and professionally and I'm sure I confuse the hell out of it. It just means I have to be more creative in my searches. Still, it sounds like you need to get off your own lawn.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[Runaway1956]

ROFLMAO - I remember the first years seeing those ads. I actually clicked on them. Looked up a couple of high school buddies, and found that I could contact them for - oh, I can't remember - maybe sixty dollars. Thought about that for a couple minutes. Concluded that if those buddies were really worth sixty bucks to me, I would have kept track of them all along!

Shipmates, now - that's another story. Whole different ballgame. I might pay to track some of them down. But, dammit - seems that more than half are dead already. Heard that my *favorite* (maybe "most respected" would be a better term here) commanding officer had died almost two years ago, and that made me feel ten frigging years older.

Anyway - I figure that the people who want me to pay for that info are probably just con artists anyway. "Oh, you say that this isn't the right John Brown? Oh, so sorry, but the contract agreement doesn't guarantee that we find the John Brown you were looking for. Maybe for another twenty dollars, we can try again? Or, for a hundred, we can do a more personalized search with guaranteed results!"

Re:I am totally perplexed

[geekoid]

It has nothing really to do with it, and twitter is upset because Google is giving users a choice that may exclude twitter, and Google wont' pay twitter for access to their information. So twitter will need to survive completely in their own space; which scares them.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[AmberBlackCat]

Taking something that everybody is using, and using it to shove your other products down their throat that they wouldn't otherwise have chosen.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[crutchy]

Twitter is an amazing social communication tool

its nothing more than a glorified shout box. there's nothing "social" about it.

your legs and mouth/larynx are also excellent social communication tools, and they are underutilized in this day and age. twatter and facecrap are killing traditional conversation.

no one cares how many bits of toast you are having

i totally agree. its not me you have to convince though - its all the twats out there that thinks the world wants nothing more than to know how many bits of toast they're having (or what color the shit that they just pushed out was). its pretty sad.

get off your own lawn

that's a new one, but ok.
my lawn is my own (well, the part that's paid off anyway - which is probably not much really) so i'll preach from it till i can't be bothered any more
i think i see your point though. i consider myself an "optimistic pessimist" - meaning simply that i often expect the worst. However, in doing so, when things fuck up i can't be disappointed, but if things work out its a pleasant surprise. optimists probably find this irritating, but i feel sorry for them.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[singingjim1]

I don't use twitter (I do have an account) myself, but I see its uses and value for those who do - especially when you are trying to communicate, albeit in short squawks, to a large audience. I use Facebook constantly to keep up with what is happening with friends and acquaintances who share common interests with me - mostly bicycling for pleasure and racing. I don't ever need to talk on the phone anymore. I know what everyone is up to just by logging into facebook and I know who is riding with whom and when and where. I might have to send a text every now and again for more specific details about an individual, but rarely. I'm an optimistic optimist. I think all this crap has its purpose and while there's dumb people using it, the smart ones make it all worthwhile.

Re:I am totally perplexed

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-competitive would mean that Google would be ignoring all other platforms and only promoting its own. So long as Google requests openly their 'competitors' to allow their platforms to be indexed and delivered in search results then Google has done all they can to try and produce un-bias results. Shooting yourself in the foot because you wanted to load your own gun is your fault not the guy next to you who offered to help.

I have a similar question to Taco Cowboy above. Nothing I have read here screams anti-competitive...all I am reading is a bunch of Google's competitors whining...

Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[Taco Cowboy]

To use the service, people have to OPT IN --- which means, they have to

CONSCIOUSLY MAKE THE DECISION,

KEY IN THE CORRECT INFO AND

CLICK THE RIGHT BUTTON,

before they are allowed to use the service.

All Google does - and I am not employed by Google or any of its associates - in this case, is to offer a service.

To say that Google is "evil" in this case is like saying the late Mother Teresa did what she did for the sake of publicity.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[Anonymous Coward]

Your parent was saying that Google is NOT being evil in this case.

You two are in agreement, rejoice!

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[0ld_d0g]

Well google instant used to be opt-in too, now its on by default... You need to remain signed in with an opt-out setting enabled to keep it turned off permanently.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[martin-boundary]

That's why I use a text browser for google searches (via surfraw). The damn google javascript nonsense always fucks up trying to search for jjjjjjj and kkkkkkkkkk as soon as I start scrolling...

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[JAlexoi]

To say that Google is "evil" in this case is like saying the late Mother Teresa did what she did for the sake of publicity.

Well.... Then Google is definitely evil.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Just cookie-block and noscript the shit out of google, that's what I do.
The only problem that has caused for me was to make it hard turn off safe-search until I found out you could add &safe=off to the end of any google search URL to turn off safe-search. I even added it to the google search-box in my firefox install,

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[icebraining]

If you don't want Javascript, why don't you block it?

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[martin-boundary]

I only use firefox for a few sites which don't work without javascript, so I don't have an extensive set of customizations for specific sites. Only adblock, ghostery, and firemacs. I notice the google jjjjj/kkkkk behaviour when I happen to be using the graphical browser and want to quickly search for something in a different tab.

I actually prefer to use w3m as my browser, because it launches an instance of Emacs for comment boxes. I find the graphical UI text boxes in Gnome/KDE/firefox/etc way too limited and frustrating.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[Serpents]

Not really, it's 'on' by default if you're logged in. However, if you want to turn off personalized search there is a nice button right under the search box so I don't see a problem here. And while I believe Google's "don't be evil" motto has been only for show for a few years I don't think Twitter's arguments hold water. They killed the deal with Google, signed a new one with MS and now they complain their results don't show in Google search? C'mon, at least have someone intelligent read the press release before you send it to the media.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[icebraining]

Firefox with Pentadactyl can use any text editor you want by simply pressing Ctrl+I. Then saving and closing the editor automatically puts the text back in the box.

There's also It'sAllText, for people who don't want Pentadactyl.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[geekoid]

Ironically, she did.

There have been a couple of good books about it.

But no, Giving the users a real choice is not evil. This is twitter scared not renewing their deal with Google will impact their IPO.

Re:Excuse me, but you just don't make sense !

[Anonymous Coward]

To say that Google is "evil" in this case is like saying the late Mother Teresa did what she did for the sake of publicity.

...but the late Mother Teresa was evil. No, seriously, look it up.

Hitchens did a lovely little exposé on that contemptible crone; hell, I'll even do the work for you, here:
* Hell's Angel, part 1
* Hell's Angel, part 2
* Hell's Angel, part 3
It's about half an hour in total.

STOCK MARKET

[bussdriver]

Shareholders demand not that it always increases even if it is huge and successful.

Anybody who does well has to exploit their market position to the hilt to maintain constant growth or lose stock value. Scratch that, I mean the fastest growth possible of the share price -- faster growth than others.

Re:Google search is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent reason to move on to engines like DuckDuckGo (http://ddg.gg), SSL, no tracking, no bubbling. As long as there are choices, everything is OK.

The only thing I still use google for is research articles search on google scholar. :)

(in before shameless advertising, etc)

Re:Google search is useless

[Issarlk]

I remember (not fondly) the time when entering *anything* into a search engine yielded pages of "Sexy nude girls" results. I don't miss that "unbroken" internet at all.

I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Chrisq]

I can see a problem with personalised search, but not the one that Twitter mentions. It may polarise opinions. Take two people, one leaning slightly towards centre-right wing politics and the other centre-left. These people might have different opinions on some things, but not much.

The one leaning slightly right will see more and more search results showing that low tax is good, social provision bad, Obama wanting to make America a country like Europe or Scandinavia. This may move their opinion to the right slightly, so they will click on further right wing sites where they will start to see stories about "death panels" in Europe, global warming being fictitious and Obama wanting to make America a Muslim country, etc.

The one with centre-left tendencies will see stories about corporations putting out false information on global warming, how European countries have higher levels of health at a lower cost, etc. but hardly any right-wing rebuttals. He may move slightly further left, and then see searches saying that democracy doesn't work because all parties are the same, how republicans want non-Christians barred from official positions (without the context that it is one or two extremists), and so on

You end up with two centre-moderates moving to opposite extremes.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[q.kontinuum]

Depends how Google plays this. If the search result focus on a position somewhere between the global average and the current position of the searcher, the opposite development might be possible as well (picking up extremists and slowly leading them to global average). Of course they could also just make up their mind what they want people to believe and lead them to that point, or they might consider to sell the target point to the highest bidder.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[cc1984_]

I can't really see how this is much different from the previous norm of people buying left/right-leaning newspapers to suit their preferences. Not that I'm saying that this wasn't a problem either.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, they should just have Opposite days, when lefties get their results full of Fox News and righties get Stephen Colbert and Mother Jones.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[JAlexoi]

It's already like that for a long time. Personalized searches is not something new to Google.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: Neither America nor Europe nor Scandinavia are countries.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Ash-Fox]

Obama wanting to make America a country like Europe or Scandinavia.

Pop quiz!

Q: What does America, Europe and Scandinavia have in common?

A: They aren't countries.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Sqr(twg)]

There's a TED talk about this: Beware online filter bubbles!

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Anonymous Coward]

Pop quiz!

Q: What does America, Europe and Scandinavia have in common?

A: They aren't countries.

I don't know about you, but in my Google 'Search Plus Your World' results America, Europe, and Scandinavia are countries. My Google+ account must have more truthiness than yours.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably think that Mexico is not a country either.
Estados Unidos Mexicanos -> United Mexican States -> Mexico
The United States of America -> America
a landmass comprising North America and South America -> The Americas

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[GrumpySteen]

That's about as stupid as saying humans don't exist because they're actually homo sapiens.

Re:I can see a problem with personalised search..

[Ash-Fox]

The United States of America -> America

I'm typing this out by hand from a book called "Oxford Dictionary of English" (ISBN: 978-0199571123) in front of me regarding the definition of 'America'.

A landmass in the western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North and South America joined by the Isthmus of Panama.

No offence, but I think I am going to stick with the Oxford Dictionary of English definition, I think it's far more of an authority on this sort of thing that a random person on the Internet.

Twitter isn't being very clear

[Dupple]

But I think it boils down to the fact that this seems like classic antitrust behaviour, using a legal monopoly in one market (web search) to gain a competitive advantage in a different market (social networking) through bundling. I'm not sure I agree, but that seems to be the nub of it

Re:Google search is useless

[rtfa-troll]

Excellent reason to move on to engines like DuckDuckGo (http://ddg.gg)...

I have DDG set as a default on some computers. I really like the privacy. The first few results are very often useful and interesting; especially the nice way the structure different results so you know which are official sites etc. This really shows there is space for and a need for a new search engine competitor. The fact is though that if it's something where you have to look a little further (e.g. a local business with a somewhat common name) it just doesn't cope. If you know that you can also feed through to Google (with a !g .. or images/news etc. with !i/!n etc.) then that lets you stick with it more easily. In the end, however, the main thing DDG does is remind me exactly how good Google is. I really hope they can come up with a new / better search engine which delivers results which are overall as good as Googles.

Anyone have suggestions for improving DDG's default results?

P.S. Please make links clickable when posting;

Re:Google search is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Only positive sides of DDG is Wiki/Wolfram Alpha/etc. lookup and promise of privacy. DDG's general search gives shitty Bing results. I'm gonna wait and see while they train their DuckDuckBot, may be then it'll be something worthy.

Personalized search just doesn't work!

[q.kontinuum]

Well, it worked for some time, but lately even when looking for some completely innocent words, like e.g. "frog" I tend to get only kinky results. (Don't ask, you don't want to see...) I could not remotely guess how this should in any way reflect my personal interest. (And I did delete my browser history in forehand, also I by no means did not look at any kinky stuff, off course.)

Re:Personalized search just doesn't work!

[cc1984_]

[Personalized search just doesn't work!] Well, it worked for some time, but lately even when looking for some completely innocent words, like e.g. "frog" I tend to get only kinky results.

I'd recommend pron browsing mode to bypass Google picking up your kinky preferences for your personalized search!

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, exactly, and this looks more like Twitter being scared of competition to me

The hidden value of the G+ signals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the supposed implementation of Google+ signals in their search and how they bump the score you might see a different common denominator.

Google+ doesn't promote quality, it promotes websites that use Google products.

captcha: losing

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[aaaaaaargh!]

If you have a google account, you already have personalized search.

That's why I always make sure I'm not logged into Google when searching. Frankly speaking, 'personalized search' is not a very good idea. It has the potential to boost your cognitive biases until you have a completely distorted view of reality. Hopefully not too many people fall into this trap.

It's not bundling though

[Chuck Chunder]

There is a difference between integration and bundling. Bundling is combining the acquisition of one product with another. Google don't spring a Google+ account on you when you do a search. Using Google+ doesn't push using Google for web searches on you. A user has to opt to use either and the integration between the two in question here only happens if the user further opts for it.

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

microsoft didn't force you to open internet explorer either. tit for tat.

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

and yeah i know you're going to say "oh but microsoft integrated IE with windows explorer", but then how would that drive netscape out of business?

Re:It's not bundling though

[anonymov]

Actually, it did, before the browser selection window was introduced - what, were you going to download alternative browser with telnet?

Anyways, preinstalled IE was only part of antitrust investigation, there were also questions of undocumented APIs use in IE and Office for competetive advantage (and if as they say Google doesn't give same API results from YouTube to other search engines, it might be bad for them) and lots of others, like shady OEM licensing and so on.

Re:It's not bundling though

[Chuck Chunder]

Use and acquision are two different thing. Bundling is about acquisition, not use. Microsoft did force you to acquire Internet Explorer when getting Windows. You are in no way forced to acquire Google+ with Google Search.

Re:It's not bundling though

[Anonymous Coward]

most people sadly get the story of microsoft being a monopoly totally wrong.

as you say, the problem was leveraging the monopoly for gain a competitive advantage, not being a monopoly.

in this case, however, google is leveraging is competitive advantage as search engine to enter the personalized web search market.

now, if that are two actual separate markets is debatable, and if twitter and facebook are player of that hypotetical personalized web search market that is totally different from the standard search market is even more questionable

(the o.s. and browser market were totally different markets, so it was easier to see and demonstrate)

Re:It's not bundling though

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter are in the social networking market. I believe their argument (if anything) would be that personalised search encourages you to sign up for a competing (vaguely) social network, Google+, to get better results. The simple answer is for Twitter to provide Google with relevant user data so that use of Twitter also improves search results - will they do that? Not a chance.

Re:It's not bundling though

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* Whipper-snappers. Try looking up FTP sometime.

Re:It's not bundling though

[Anthony Mouse]

Use and acquision are two different thing. Bundling is about acquisition, not use. Microsoft did force you to acquire Internet Explorer when getting Windows. You are in no way forced to acquire Google+ with Google Search.

Not only that, it ignores what bundling is all about. The concern with bundling is that, for example, if you're Intel and you have market power in the market for x86 CPUs, you might say that you'll only sell a CPU if the customer also buys an Intel motherboard. No customer is going to pay Intel for a motherboard and then turn around and pay again for a second motherboard from a third party, so all the third party motherboard makers would be out of business.

The problem with applying this to Google is that you aren't forced to buy anything. You aren't required to pay anything extra for personalized results in order to use Google search, which means there is nothing you are forced to pay for that you would have to discard at a loss in order to use a competitor. The lock-in mechanism doesn't exist.

So then you get people talking about Internet Explorer and conveniently ignoring what actually happened in the Microsoft trial: The government accused Microsoft of tying Internet Explorer, the appellate court ruled that the district court screwed up in finding that they had so there would have to be a retrial (although Microsoft was still on the hook for Java and some other things), and the case was settled before the retrial. The only thing that was actually decided about Microsoft tying IE to Windows was that the analysis the district court used in deciding that they had was wrong.

Re:It's not bundling though

[geekoid]

A) Yes they did.
B) The integrated it into the OS so you could not remove it.
C) The internals would use IE for some stuff, even when you were not running IE.

tit for tat has nothing to do with this, I suggest you try to understand what that means.

Re:It's not bundling though

[geekoid]

People sued to pay for web browsers. Netscape was popular, and MS was behind the curve. SO they bundled it and gave it away.

They used there monopoly to offers something that is normally sold fr free specifically to drive Netscape out of business.

Re:It's not bundling though

[toriver]

More precisely: They CLAIMED you could not remove it (and hence was an OS component rather than bundled), but a professor demonstrated that it could be removed.

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

yeah, so google bundling/integrating their personalized search into google search is analgous to microsoft bundling/integrating IE into windows

while google isn't forcing you to use either, it is offering both and is leveraging its significant google search market share to support its entry into personalized search (like Microsoft putting an IE icon on the Windows desktop).

i imagine if microsoft put a bing search icon on the windows 8 desktop, google would get all pissy too, or if intel built-in a linux operating system into its next generation microprocessors then microsoft would get all pissy.

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

has everyone forgotten that most windows software (still) comes on CD?

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

tit for tat means equivalent argument (i looked it up before i used it actually). you say google isn't forcing you to use google+, i say microsoft didn't force you to use IE. how can i make it any more obvious than that? maybe its you who should get a clue.

integration of IE wasn't the reason for microsoft's antitrust case, it was bundling the browser for "free" with windows, which essentially eliminated the entire browser market due to microsoft's operating system monopoly (dodgy oem deals and the like). the frogshit about its integration so as not being able to remove it was merely microsoft's defence against being forced to remove it from the windows default install.

if "IE" was merely an integrated API for supporting windows explorer and office, there would have been no case because netscape would still have had a market.

google can't bundle anything in the same way as IE was bundled because it uses a different software model (software as a service). there is no "product" that can be bundled in the traditional sense, but it could be argued that even putting a link to google+ on the google search home page could be considered bundling in the world of SaaS, which is the same world that facebook and twitter are playing in.

the real question is does google have a web search monopoly that it could abuse to eliminate the personalized search market? i don't think so, because there is nothing forcing you to use any google services. windows is different because you basically can't go to a computer shop and get anything x86 that doesn't run windows. also, because of the legacy of the oem deals, there is so much legacy software and data out there so many users are forced to continue to use windows because of their vested interest.

Re:It's not bundling though

[cynyr]

I seem to see both as just "search", since i've been using google personalized search for years now. In combination with gmail and reader google seems to do a good job understating what i'm looking for.

Re:It's not bundling though

[crutchy]

no actually most people used IE (as a web browser) because it meant they didn't have to go get a different browser. there was no coercion, arm twisting or blackmail involved.

microsoft simply took advantage of the fact that most consumers are lazy cheapskates, and many other companies strive to do the same

but... it only worked because of their monopolization of the x86 operating system market

Search and Social Network Bubbling

[improfane]

There is an interesting TED talk about this: http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk

Duck Duck Go made this website to reaise awareness of bubbling: http://dontbubble.us/

Re:Search and Social Network Bubbling

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

So "disable" it ... In chrome : ctrl-shift-n + start typing your google search.

done/done

Re:Search and Social Network Bubbling

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so maybe DuckDuckGo doesn't bubble, but what about those tags in selected search results? I sent feedback for that--if the "?tag=(whatever)" is being sent to the destination page--isn't that a form of tracking?

Re:Search and Social Network Bubbling

[mounthood]

I use Chrome when logged into Google, and Firefox otherwise. I can't help but think of Chrome as a proprietary client. It's in Googles long term interests to have an open web platform, but their tracking is working against this.

Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[YA_Python_dev]

Not everyone searches "who is better republicans or democrats" on Google. :-) (BTW, the first result for me suggests that the "Democrats are better for the economy").

When I search for "cookies" I very much appreciate that the first result is the Wikipedia page for HTTP cookies and the second one is the documentation for the cookielib module in the Python standard library. Both are very relevant results for me.

My grandmother, on the other hand, is probably happier to get a website with recipes.

People in the US searching for "United" probably want an airline website, in the UK some people might be more interested in a soccer team.

Disclaimer: I speak only for myself and not anyone else. IANARE.

Re:Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[taiwanjohn]

Useful sometimes, but not others. I'd much rather have it as an optional feature. I'm just wondering if there's any way to "turn it off" without the hassle of logging out.

Re:Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[AlexanderZ]

Verbatim search at the bottom of the left sidebar. http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&p=g_verb&answer=1734130

Re:Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, this needs to be optional.

You type: cookies browser
Granny types: cookies recipe

and you're both happy. Let's not go back to the "AOL Keyword" times where a search is supposed to be based on a single term.

Re:Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[taiwanjohn]

Thanks. That's a bit overkill, but good to know about. I don't want to turn off spell-check, synonyms, or word-stem matching, just the "personalized" stuff. Those other things are actually quite useful. I would just rather not have them skew the results based on presumptions about what I want. For example, what if I'm borrowing a friend's machine for a quick search? I wouldn't want my results tailored to their habits of usage. (Or if my mom borrows my machine to search for anything with the word "Asian"... could be a bit awkward...;-)

I'll have to experiment a bit with side-by-side browsers -- one logged in, the other not -- and see how different the results really are.

Re:Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO

[AmbushBug]

There is a toggle right in the upper corner of the search page that lets you turn it off. You can also go into your settings and disable it permanently.

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, just like Netscape was scared of competition!

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[skids]

If adding a "personalized search" option means they will stop changing my search results (when it is turned off) based on my IP address, I'm all for it.

Because I will turn that crap off and never look back.

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[Quince alPillan]

So.....turn it off? Not only that, but it's clearly separated from their regular search results.

Gear -> Search Settings -> Do not use personal results -> Save

OH NO!!!!

[j00r0m4nc3r]

bad news for news publishers?! how will the world continue to live?

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[diegocg]

You can disable the indexing of your web history, effectively disabling "personalized search" at the same time.

Re:people block google; google integrates own serv

[Jason Levine]

The irony of this is, when Twitter was included on Google's Realtime Search, I preferred Google's search over Twitter's.

MG Siegler is now an analyst?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

When I hear analyst, I don't think blogger, journalist, or even pundit. Maybe I'm thinking too financial about the word.

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[jdgeorge]

If I recall correctly, Google no longer provides search of Twitter posts due to Twitter's deal to support Google's real-time search expired (presumably because Google didn't want to pay as much as Twitter wanted.)

Apparently, Google currently can't index Twitter's own real-time activity due to lack of an agreement, and now Twitter is incensed that Google has the audacity to index Google's own real-time activity. Outrageous!

Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev

[AmberBlackCat]

You can disable the indexing of your web history, effectively disabling "personalized search" at the same time.

Is it really disabled, or do they just stop showing it to you?

Let me in or I will blow your house down....

[Tim12s]

Commenting more on the fact that both Twitter and Facebook shut their doors to Google:

If facebook and twitter want in to +Your World, they will have to drop their walls.

Good strategic move by Google. There is definitely no grounds for anti-trust (Other people will provide better explanations than I) but it will leave Facebook and Twitter with a bad taste in their mouths as they are forced to the table to deal with Google.

FB (& TW) seem to want to takeover the customer by keeping customers in their walled gardens. Take over messaging and remove email, etc.

FB will now be more likely to open its platform to Google, and by extension, ensure that they are unable to control the entire world's social platform/market. Couple with this will be much better privacy controls that should come with open, privacy focused platform.

If Google doesn't do this, FB will introduce FB Search along with Bing or some other absurd measure to replace Google.

5 years ago everyone would have been playing nice... but today... a single company can produce a single product and sell this product to the entire world....

In this story, Google is painted as the wolf with the 3 little pigs being Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft.

Like instant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Google has used all it's karma.

Re:people block google; google integrates own serv

[Rich0]

For the longest time anytime I visited Twitter in Chrome I just get a blank page. I can easily see why people prefer almost anything else to their own interface...

Re:people block google; google integrates own serv

[Jason Levine]

I try to avoid their interface any time I can. I use Seesmic Desktop to manage my Tweets.

I'll trust Google

[nilbog]

I'll trust Google to figure out how to make information easier to find. That's their job and so far they've been pretty damn good at it. Twitter sucks at search.

I do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

to look in the mirror when I want to look outside the window