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Twitter Comes Out Swinging Against Google's Personalized Search

Posted by Soulskill on from the social-networking-drama dept.

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."

17 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by Lillebo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You have lots of 1s in your ID number.

    3. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by lennier1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

    4. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by ajo_arctus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      - 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.

    6. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    7. Re:I don't see the problem at all! Am I just dumb? by delinear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. people block google; google integrates own service by unrtst · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Twit Fail by kodiaktau · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

  4. Swinging? More like whining! by Dahamma · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!"

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

  7. Re:I've been waiting for personalized search forev by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Search and Social Network Bubbling by improfane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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/

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
  9. Most of the times it's very useful, IMHO by YA_Python_dev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
  10. Re:I can see a problem with personalised search.. by Ash-Fox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.