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New Study Accuses Google of Anti-competitive Search Behavior
An anonymous reader writes: Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu — the man who coined the term "network neutrality" — has published a new study suggesting that Google's new method of putting answers to simple search queries at the top of the results page is anticompetitive and harmful to consumers. For subjective search queries — e.g. "What's the best [profession] in [city]?" — Google frequently figures out a best-guess answer to display first, favoring its own results to do so. The study did some A/B testing with a group of 2,690 internet users and found they were 45% more likely to click on merit-based results than on Google's listings. Wu writes, "Search engines are widely understood as key mediators of the web's speech environment, given that they have a powerful impact on who gets heard, what speech is neglected, and what information generally is reached. ... The more that Google directs users to its own content and its own properties, the more that speakers who write reviews, blogs and other materials become invisible to their desired audiences."
Who knew?
Seriously, I personally know the difference between sponsored and unsponsored links. I use the short-cut links in the sponsored section when the same place shows up near the top of the unsponsored section. Otherwise, I take those links with a big block of salt.
Folks, Google is about as good as we can expect to get for a company that makes its money off of advertising-supported services. They need to be watched and called out when they do marginal things, but they aren't deliberately evil as corporate policy goes.
Facebook, on the other hand...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It's extremely important to have useful results in a search engine, quickly. Some of the worst offenders are when you try to define a word- the page is literred with shit links being like:
Definition of “frangible” | Collins English Dictionary ...
www.collinsdictionary.com English Dictionary
Definition of “frangible” | The official Collins English Dictionary online. Comprehensive and authoritative, rely on Collins for up-to-date English with insights into
Meanwhile, at the top of the page, Google has the actual answer (not every dictionary is shit, many have it in their summary text).
So overall the fast results are what we want out of a search engine- the answer.
The more that Google directs users to its own content and its own properties, the more that speakers who write reviews, blogs and other materials become invisible to their desired audiences.
First of all, the notion that Google is directing people to their own services should surprise no one. Anyone who honestly expects them to be an unbiased party is delusional. Google is an advertising company (well over 90% of their revenue is advertising based) so everything they do should be viewed with that in mind. Providing unbiased search results is a second order consideration at best for them no matter what motto they claim to follow.
Second, is this really a problem? There are other search engines out there so if someone is unhappy with the answers they get then use a different one. Google has gotten to where they are mostly because they've provided a better service than their competitors. But there is very little keeping people using Google if there is reason to believe that has changed. Other search engines are only a URL away after all. I see potential for a problem but its a very small problem even in the worst case.
Wu writes, "Search engines are widely understood as key mediators of the web's speech environment, given that they have a powerful impact on who gets heard, what speech is neglected, and what information generally is reached. ... The more that Google directs users to its own content and its own properties, the more that speakers who write reviews, blogs and other materials become invisible to their desired audiences."
Then users will slowly realize that the Google's search results are not trustworthy and they will move away from Google as the search engine. The market will correct itself.
Greatest asset Google has is the trust it has earned over the years. If it misuses it it will lose the trust and the company will lose. I am not saying Google will not engage in such behavior. All I am saying is, there are natural constraints and market feedback against abuse. So we do not need any serious government action to correct it. All that government sanction and fines and browser selection dialog did not cut Microsoft down to size. A competitor did. Google has good competition from Facebook, Twitter and other social media muscling into the internet ad business and search business. That will keep Google in check more than any remedy proposed by a professor, or a lobbyist, or a judge or a legislator.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
AHHHH! Please, government! Protect us from Big Search!
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
... search engine.
It was really painful initially because bing used to be garbage. I would try searches on bing first and if it was failing which was frequent in the early days then I'd switch back to google for that search and then go right back to bing.
These days bing and google do a equally good job so far as I can tell.
All that said, I miss Altavista. :)
I felt they were just as good as google in the old days. I don't know why google ultimately dominated altavista. They talk about their magical algorithms but every time they're explained in detail it turns out they're neither mysterious nor especially different from what anyone else was doing.
Maybe I'm missing something. I haven't researched it extensively. I've just looked a few in depth explanations of the system as well as years of anecdotal experience with the various engines. Google became better than everyone else but that only happened AFTER they became popular. Altavista was initially as good or better. I think one of the funnier things to go down was the whole war over the google bar versus bing bar. Most people don't know this but the top search engines rely heavily on what amounts to spyware which is used to determine what sort of page you actually wanted to see when you typed in whatever into the engine.
Google got upset with MS because they were supposedly copying google's results. But what had happened was that people with the bing bar were using google and so the bing bar learning from that and inputing the results into the bing system. Google accused MS of intentionally copying them. But it was just the stupid bing bar.
Google of course does the same thing with Chrome etc... and of course the f'ing tracking cookies and javascript are ridiculous these days.
No script and cookie monster for the win.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
All I have to say is use another search engine if you don't like it. No one is forcing you to use Google.
Googe is a Basic Human Right. The US was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- do really expect people can pursue happiness with Bing?
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Google can never be a traditional monopoly. If they abuse their status people will simply use different search engines. There is exactly zero cost to use a different search engine. This idea that we need to treat Google like ATT (who is a actual gateway to people they serve) is absurd on every level.
The problem for these people is that they haven't been able to convince others to use different search or haven't even bother trying. There should be no case for anti-trust actions against an actor that has zero cost to switch.
Nobody noticed the so-called study was sponsored by Yelp, who is suing Google in Europe? So many news web sites reported Google screwing your search result, but so little mentioned who sponsored this.
-- do really expect people can pursue happiness with Bing?
Actually, Yelp paid for this study and staffed it as well...
See the footnotes of the first page in the first link in TFS
http://www.slideshare.net/lutherlowe/wu-l
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office