So, Google, a company that makes its money selling ad space, is distributing software to help block advertising?
Nope, this software does not (and does not claim to) do anything to "block advertising".
It blocks behavioral tracking which supports personalizing advertising, which means that when using it, the ads you see will not be personalized based on tracking you, but you'll still get just as many ads, they'll just be generic rather than personalized based on behavior.
Google has provided a durable opt-out of this kind for years with their own advertising (which is supported on multiple browsers), this new tool extends that to include other advertisers that have adopted an industry-standard mechanism for supporting opt-outs.
Does this plug-in/add-on also stop all tracking of Google properties?
It doesn't really have anything to do with Google properties. Its about behavioral tracking that supports personalized advertising regardless of the provider (the new feature in this is that it isn't limited to Google -- Google has for years had a tool for all major browsers, not just Chrome, that did the same thing for Google ads tracking.)
An FTC ruling which dictates something along the lines of "You must default everybody to opted-out of all advertisements, and allow them to opt back in if they wish to," pretty much destroys Google's business overnight.
Well, except that it would almost certainly be struck down by the courts, and its not even the subject that the FTC has been looking at. A more reasonable FTC order on the subject actually at issue, which mandated opt-out of ad personalization via behavioral tracking wouldn't have nearly that effect on Google (they'd still be able to serve ads, and even contextual ads.)
No need for the FTC to take action, since the browser makers have already provided a system to allow users to opt out of advertisements if they wish to," hurts a lot less.
The opt-out mechanisms (both the one that Google has had for years for their own tracking, and the new one that they just released for other people's tracking) are for behavioral tracking that supports personalized ads. They aren't opt-outs for advertisements at all. Its tracking, not advertising, that you are opting out of (and that's also the issue that the FTC has asked the industry to do something about if it doesn't want the FTC to step in -- behavioral tracking, not advertising.)
By implementing a header flag, Mozilla is ahead of the game.
Sure, in the sense that Mozilla's approach might have much broader applicability in the future. But, a browser sending a header that no server existing does anything with acheives nothing.
"Keep My Opt-Outs", OTOH, supports an existing industry-standard opt-out mechanism that lots of existing advertisers use (and more are adopting.)
Mozilla's approach does exactly nothing now, though in theory, hosts could add support for it in the future.
Google's "Keep My Opt Outs" works with the mechanism by which providers of personalized advertising allow people to opt-out from the tracking that supports personalization right now.
I know, lots of tech implementation problems, but Google's fast turn-around indicates that someone between Mozilla and Google is on the same page.
This isn't a response to Mozilla.
Both Google's actions with "Keep My Opt Outs" and Mozilla's "Do Not Track" header are responses to the FTC urging the industry to adopt do not track mechanisms (with the strong implication that, absent sufficient non-mandated progress in this direction, mandatory regulations would be imposed.)
Google already provided a similar mechanism for all major browsers to opt-out of Google's own tracking; the new extension -- initially available in Chrome but, per Google's announcement, being worked on for other browsers as well as released as open-source, extends similar durable opt-out to other tracking services (and is designed to update itself to include new services as they are added to its database.)
So, a company that became huge and rich from advertising and trying to "judge" us based on our clicks is now acting like they don't do it?
No, they aren't. As noted in the blog post announcing the "Keep My Opt Outs" extensions, Google, two years ago, "made available, for all major browsers, a downloadable browser plugin that enables you to permanently opt out of Google’s advertising cookie, even if you deleted all your browser’s cookies."
They aren't pretending they don't do anything. They are quite open that they do it by default, they provided a cookie-based mechanism to opt-out of it, and they later provided a mechanism for durably opting-out of it.
"Keep My Opt-Outs" is an extension that provides durable opt-out by default functionality for all advertising/tracking systems that support similar opt-out mechanisms.
That is like me being a bank robber, and then telling others to not rob banks and also tell some banks that ONLY if they talk to me ahead of time, I will not rob from them.
If you assume that the use of tracking cookies is equivalent to robbery, which I think is, at best, a non-obvious position for which some argument should be presented.
I tell you what Google, how about you stop using them yourself before you act like you are a huge activist behind getting rid of them.
But Google isn't pretending to be an activist behind getting rid of them. Google, who has for some time provided a tool to durably opt-out of Google's tracking system, is now providing a tool to durably opt-out of an expanding set of third-party tracking systems as well. Its about supporting user choice in whether or not to participate in tracking, not about getting rid of tracking.
This "excuse" didn't work at the Nuremberg trials. Why should it work today?
The Nuremberg trials were conducted under a set of principles adopted specifically to negate common, broadly accepted limits to prosecution under the internal criminal laws of countries that, if applied to trial for the offenses at issue, would have prevented any accountability for those offenses. Those limits, however, remain fairly widely accepted as being applicable to internal prosecutions.
Among these are bars to prosecution based on: 1. The absence of a defined punishment for the offense under internal law, 2. The fact that an act was committed by a person with immunity from prosecution by right of government office under internal law, 2. The fact that an act was directed by internal authorities.
While certainly one might accept that direction of local government authorities is not a bar to prosecution by a competent international tribunal for war crimes, etc., that is a very different issue than whether direction of local government authorities ought to be a bar to prosecution by the same government exercising the direction for offenses against that government itself.
That's what I thought too. They were still in the matrix. How else could Smith move from one to the other? HE'S A FUCKING COMPUTER PROGRAM.
The rationalization I came up with for that (which also addresses Agents needing to "replace" people in the Matrix) is that Agents are computer programs that actually run in human brains overriding the "local" personality when running (if true, this may also be true of the other programs that manifest as humans -- or human-like creatures -- in the Matrix, though that's less central to the idea.) But, Agents normally also need continuous connection to centralized resources in the Matrix to continue operating; the same liberty which freed Smith from from central control within the Matrix also is what made him able to function outside the Matrix.
It's most likely not a success but I just want to touch on the logical fallacy there.
Simply being unable to explain a phenomenon doesn't mean a scientist hasn't discovered something new.
That depends what you mean by "something".
An accurately-reported observation stands on its own without an explanation, but doesn't serve much purpose except spurring efforts to explain it and test the explanation.
So, an observation without an explanation may be "something new", but its what people are generally talking about when they talk about a scientific discovery, which is an testable -- and, actually, tested -- explanation for a set of observed phenomena which can serve as a useful basis for predictions of future behavior.
Furthermore, when you've got a bunch of instruments and other intermediaries that are being relied on for an observation, its an interpretation not an observation, so to even have faith that it is an accurately-reported (interpretation of an) observation, you need a explanation for the direct observations (the instrument readings, etc.) which is more plausible than an error in the instruments given the circumstances.
Have you ever tried to contact google about anything ever? It's near impossible whether as a user or a webmaster. You can't even send them an email or report a bug.
Yeah, its pretty hard to click the "Give us feedback" link, choose a category of issue, and then provide your feedback.
And even harder to use the publicly accessible bugtrackers for many of their non-search properties.
Just because evidence is anecdotal doesn't mean it should be blithely discounted.
True, but irrelevant. Google, even though they say that their measurements don't support the trend that certain media articles have suggested, is not blithely disregarding comments about too much spam or the perception that it is increasing. If you read the blog post linked in TFS, you'll see that they do several things: 1. State that their metrics show that spam in results is decreasing, 2. Identify recent steps they've taken to decrease spam, 3. Acknowledge that they are aware of concerns about the quality of results, 4. Suggest that they believe that the perception of a trend toward less satisfying results is a result of their improvements not matching the pace at which expectations of Google are increasing, 5. Acknowledge that, despite the improvements they believe they have made, they "can and should do better", 6. Present steps they are in the process of implementing to decrease spam further, 7. Specifically deny that their algorithms and delisting policies for the search engine are friendly to spammy sites that have Google Ads.
See, this is where Google goes off the rails and starts to believe its own press. Cutts said, in effect, "Our search engine tells us that our search engine is doing just fine."
No, actually, he didn't. "Metrics" don't have to be automatically generated. If their search engine could identified spammy results internally, it wouldn't keep metrics of how many spammy results it produced, it just wouldn't show any. Clearly, the metrics are external to the search engine unless they've deliberately engineered the search engine to identify but still display spammy results, which makes no sense from any perspective.
Further, Cutts didn't say they are doing just fine. He said that their internal measurements show the trend in spammy results being downward, contrary to the criticism that it has increased, but that they see and accept demand from their user community for even better results, and that they "we can and should do better", and also lists several improvements they are working on so that they will do better in the future than they do today (it also lists improvements that have been made recently.)
Google better figure out how to change their evaluation metrics to reflect what users are seeing rather than attempt to change user's opinions to match what their evaluation metrics say.
I suspect that Google has correctly identified the source of the perception: quality expectations increasing faster than actual quality, rather than decreasing quality. Whether or not that's true, rather than modifying the metrics so that they match what critics claim to be the trend, they should do exactly what they claim that they have been doing and continue to work to reduce actual spam results as much as they can, whether or not their metrics show the trend as being in the right direction or the wrong direction.
Actually, if you read the blog post from Google linked in TFS, they aren't saying that "there is no problem" (as parent post's title suggested) or that "it's great" (as parent post's text suggested.)
They did say that their own metrics don't show the trend that various, mostly anecdotal, critics have claimed. But they also said that they view the spam that does exist as a problem, and they announced several steps to address it:
As we’ve increased both our size and freshness in recent months, we’ve naturally indexed a lot of good content and some spam as well. To respond to that challenge, we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments. We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010. And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. We’ll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites.
As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we’re not perfect, and combined with users’ skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better.
This is not a company denying that there is a problem because their internal metrics don't match the problems being reported. It is a company acknowledging that there is a problem and committing to take action on it, even though their own internal metrics don't agree with their critics on the size of or trend in the problem.
Every time I search for something these days I get some ridiculous set of non-results due to the fuzzy matching. I search for "TIPC layer3" google nicely finds me results about TCP Layer3 because google thinks I must have typo'd something.
Aside from your post, most of the results I get have "tips" highlighted; if I use "+tipc layer3" instead of "tipc layer3" those are excluded. (And its not one of the "Did you mean?" searches that I am used to, it seems to be an odd corner case of a search with so few real results that fuzzy matching results almost completely drown them out. OTOH, I would expect that most of the time, a search like that would actually be a typo, so its not necessarily a misfeature, though when you are doing such a search it is a problem; it might be useful for Google to have a strictness toggle control of some sort.)
And thus begins the downfall of Google. Once you start drinking your own lemonade and stop listening to the people who use your product, you're on a greased downhill slope.
Discounting claims in the press is not the same as stopping listening to the people who use your product. I've seen no evidence presented that google has stopped listening to the people who use their product. AFAICT, your argument proceeds from an unjustified assumption.
True, but irrelevant, as ex post facto laws, as prohibited by the Constitution, have consistently been held to include 4 categories of law, all of which are criminal: "1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender." Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798)
Retrospective application of civil law may raise due process concerns, but the analysis there goes beyond whether the law has retrospective effect.
Whether you're for or against net neutrality, the above post is correct.
No, it isn't.
The FCC doesn't have the authority to impose net neutrality by fiat and regulation.
That's a different and more narrow claim than was made in the incorrect post you refer to. On that point, the FCC cited its authority in the Report and Order. If you want to post a counterargument, please feel free to do so. Simply asserting without evidence or argument that it does not is unproductive.
Which would do nothing, because ISPs aren't common carriers.
And then prosecute them for piracy and every other illegal thing that passes through their links.
Well, except that its not the FCCs job to prosecute for those things, and the protection they have against such suits is in legislation, so the FCC couldn't rescind it so that they could be prosecuted.
Weren't we all 'against' this version of FCC's net neutrality???
No, we weren't all against it. Slashdot isn't a hive mind.
It wasn't exactly what most people wanted, and it only passed because it appeased to cable lobbyists (ie. ATT, Level 3, etc.).
Well, no. Cable lobbyists lobbied against it, and the people on the FCC that have been traditionally against net neutrality regulations voted against it, and the members of the FCC that have supported the concept of net neutrality regulations voted for it.
It wasn't everything some people wanted, but its a lot more than nothing. It essentially follows the Google-Verizon proposed framework except: 1. While it applies looser rules to mobile broadband operators than the fixed operators, it doesn't completely exempt mobile operators; 2. The FCC did it themselves citing existing legislation granting regulatory authority rather than Congress imposing the rules directly.
The main complaint proponents of stronger neutrality rules seem to have are: 1. It does give looser rules for mobile broadband, and 2. It allows "reasonable network management" as an exception to some of the provisions, and proponents fear this will open the door to a variety of undesirable practices (despite the fact that the Order specifically addresses some of the practices that these fears are raised abouts and states that they would not constitute reasonable network management.)
What I don't get here is that a lot are praising the net neutrality and are against Verizon, but if you read through that earlier slashdot post, a lot of people were against this version of Net Neutrality because it really didn't give that freedom we wanted, not all of it, and nowhere near it..... I wonder what changed since the rules by FCC have not changed...
Yes, Slashdot has lots of people that disagree with each other, and isn't a hive mind. Plus, all the people that object to the rules adopted by the FCC because they don't restrict broadband operators enough are opposed to the rules from the opposite direction that Verizon is opposed to the rules. Verizon is suing to get it so that there are no rules in place, while proponents of stronger net neutrality are opposed to the rules because they want stronger rules in place. While many of those net neutrality proponents may have adopted hyperbolic language (like "worse than nothing") in response to the FCC Report and Order, given a challenge to the order from Verizon -- for whom "worse than nothing" is not a hyperbolic description, since there preference is for the FCC to either impose rules that only affect fixed broadband providers leaving mobile providers completely free, and, failing that, to do nothing at all -- suddenly some of those net neutrality proponents realize that, while imperfect from their perspective, the FCC Report and Order is really closer to what they want than nothing at all.
The failed Groupon acquisition probably had something to do with it.
If a failed acquisition had anything to do with it, why would the newly announced division of responsibilities leave him with responsibility for that kind of external deals?
The probably dropped him as CEO because he just comes off as creepy and not giving a damn about privacy
I suspect that if that was the motivation, they wouldn't be keeping him as "executive chairman" with principal responsibility for most of the non-technical aspects of leading the company, including customer relations.
I don't see how this could be a smart move for Google. Page and Brin may have become too big for their boots, but I suspect something else.
The official explanation seems plausible: its streamlining operations and clarifying roles and responsibilities in an organization where three people have been functionally working together as co-leaders (and, in a sense, will continue to do so.)
Perhaps Schmidt will follow Steve Jobs to lead Apple.
Staying on as "executive chairman" without being CEO and still keeping primary responsibility for most of the "business" (non-technical) operations suggest that that's not all that likely.
Slashdot Mirror
So, Google, a company that makes its money selling ad space, is distributing software to help block advertising?
Nope, this software does not (and does not claim to) do anything to "block advertising".
It blocks behavioral tracking which supports personalizing advertising, which means that when using it, the ads you see will not be personalized based on tracking you, but you'll still get just as many ads, they'll just be generic rather than personalized based on behavior.
Google has provided a durable opt-out of this kind for years with their own advertising (which is supported on multiple browsers), this new tool extends that to include other advertisers that have adopted an industry-standard mechanism for supporting opt-outs.
Does this plug-in/add-on also stop all tracking of Google properties?
It doesn't really have anything to do with Google properties. Its about behavioral tracking that supports personalized advertising regardless of the provider (the new feature in this is that it isn't limited to Google -- Google has for years had a tool for all major browsers, not just Chrome, that did the same thing for Google ads tracking.)
An FTC ruling which dictates something along the lines of "You must default everybody to opted-out of all advertisements, and allow them to opt back in if they wish to," pretty much destroys Google's business overnight.
Well, except that it would almost certainly be struck down by the courts, and its not even the subject that the FTC has been looking at. A more reasonable FTC order on the subject actually at issue, which mandated opt-out of ad personalization via behavioral tracking wouldn't have nearly that effect on Google (they'd still be able to serve ads, and even contextual ads.)
No need for the FTC to take action, since the browser makers have already provided a system to allow users to opt out of advertisements if they wish to," hurts a lot less.
The opt-out mechanisms (both the one that Google has had for years for their own tracking, and the new one that they just released for other people's tracking) are for behavioral tracking that supports personalized ads. They aren't opt-outs for advertisements at all. Its tracking, not advertising, that you are opting out of (and that's also the issue that the FTC has asked the industry to do something about if it doesn't want the FTC to step in -- behavioral tracking, not advertising.)
By implementing a header flag, Mozilla is ahead of the game.
Sure, in the sense that Mozilla's approach might have much broader applicability in the future. But, a browser sending a header that no server existing does anything with acheives nothing.
"Keep My Opt-Outs", OTOH, supports an existing industry-standard opt-out mechanism that lots of existing advertisers use (and more are adopting.)
Mozilla's approach does exactly nothing now, though in theory, hosts could add support for it in the future.
Google's "Keep My Opt Outs" works with the mechanism by which providers of personalized advertising allow people to opt-out from the tracking that supports personalization right now.
I know, lots of tech implementation problems, but Google's fast turn-around indicates that someone between Mozilla and Google is on the same page.
This isn't a response to Mozilla.
Both Google's actions with "Keep My Opt Outs" and Mozilla's "Do Not Track" header are responses to the FTC urging the industry to adopt do not track mechanisms (with the strong implication that, absent sufficient non-mandated progress in this direction, mandatory regulations would be imposed.)
Google already provided a similar mechanism for all major browsers to opt-out of Google's own tracking; the new extension -- initially available in Chrome but, per Google's announcement, being worked on for other browsers as well as released as open-source, extends similar durable opt-out to other tracking services (and is designed to update itself to include new services as they are added to its database.)
So, a company that became huge and rich from advertising and trying to "judge" us based on our clicks is now acting like they don't do it?
No, they aren't. As noted in the blog post announcing the "Keep My Opt Outs" extensions, Google, two years ago, "made available, for all major browsers, a downloadable browser plugin that enables you to permanently opt out of Google’s advertising cookie, even if you deleted all your browser’s cookies."
They aren't pretending they don't do anything. They are quite open that they do it by default, they provided a cookie-based mechanism to opt-out of it, and they later provided a mechanism for durably opting-out of it.
"Keep My Opt-Outs" is an extension that provides durable opt-out by default functionality for all advertising/tracking systems that support similar opt-out mechanisms.
That is like me being a bank robber, and then telling others to not rob banks and also tell some banks that ONLY if they talk to me ahead of time, I will not rob from them.
If you assume that the use of tracking cookies is equivalent to robbery, which I think is, at best, a non-obvious position for which some argument should be presented.
I tell you what Google, how about you stop using them yourself before you act like you are a huge activist behind getting rid of them.
But Google isn't pretending to be an activist behind getting rid of them. Google, who has for some time provided a tool to durably opt-out of Google's tracking system, is now providing a tool to durably opt-out of an expanding set of third-party tracking systems as well. Its about supporting user choice in whether or not to participate in tracking, not about getting rid of tracking.
This "excuse" didn't work at the Nuremberg trials. Why should it work today?
The Nuremberg trials were conducted under a set of principles adopted specifically to negate common, broadly accepted limits to prosecution under the internal criminal laws of countries that, if applied to trial for the offenses at issue, would have prevented any accountability for those offenses. Those limits, however, remain fairly widely accepted as being applicable to internal prosecutions.
Among these are bars to prosecution based on:
1. The absence of a defined punishment for the offense under internal law,
2. The fact that an act was committed by a person with immunity from prosecution by right of government office under internal law,
2. The fact that an act was directed by internal authorities.
While certainly one might accept that direction of local government authorities is not a bar to prosecution by a competent international tribunal for war crimes, etc., that is a very different issue than whether direction of local government authorities ought to be a bar to prosecution by the same government exercising the direction for offenses against that government itself.
Advertisers and tracking services will fight this to the bitter end.
Google, as well as other major online ad and tracking services, already support "Do Not Track" mechanisms with similar functionality.
That's what I thought too. They were still in the matrix. How else could Smith move from one to the other? HE'S A FUCKING COMPUTER PROGRAM.
The rationalization I came up with for that (which also addresses Agents needing to "replace" people in the Matrix) is that Agents are computer programs that actually run in human brains overriding the "local" personality when running (if true, this may also be true of the other programs that manifest as humans -- or human-like creatures -- in the Matrix, though that's less central to the idea.) But, Agents normally also need continuous connection to centralized resources in the Matrix to continue operating; the same liberty which freed Smith from from central control within the Matrix also is what made him able to function outside the Matrix.
It's most likely not a success but I just want to touch on the logical fallacy there.
Simply being unable to explain a phenomenon doesn't mean a scientist hasn't discovered something new.
That depends what you mean by "something".
An accurately-reported observation stands on its own without an explanation, but doesn't serve much purpose except spurring efforts to explain it and test the explanation.
So, an observation without an explanation may be "something new", but its what people are generally talking about when they talk about a scientific discovery, which is an testable -- and, actually, tested -- explanation for a set of observed phenomena which can serve as a useful basis for predictions of future behavior.
Furthermore, when you've got a bunch of instruments and other intermediaries that are being relied on for an observation, its an interpretation not an observation, so to even have faith that it is an accurately-reported (interpretation of an) observation, you need a explanation for the direct observations (the instrument readings, etc.) which is more plausible than an error in the instruments given the circumstances.
Have you ever tried to contact google about anything ever? It's near impossible whether as a user or a webmaster. You can't even send them an email or report a bug.
Yeah, its pretty hard to click the "Give us feedback" link, choose a category of issue, and then provide your feedback.
And even harder to use the publicly accessible bugtrackers for many of their non-search properties.
Just because evidence is anecdotal doesn't mean it should be blithely discounted.
True, but irrelevant. Google, even though they say that their measurements don't support the trend that certain media articles have suggested, is not blithely disregarding comments about too much spam or the perception that it is increasing. If you read the blog post linked in TFS, you'll see that they do several things:
1. State that their metrics show that spam in results is decreasing,
2. Identify recent steps they've taken to decrease spam,
3. Acknowledge that they are aware of concerns about the quality of results,
4. Suggest that they believe that the perception of a trend toward less satisfying results is a result of their improvements not matching the pace at which expectations of Google are increasing,
5. Acknowledge that, despite the improvements they believe they have made, they "can and should do better",
6. Present steps they are in the process of implementing to decrease spam further,
7. Specifically deny that their algorithms and delisting policies for the search engine are friendly to spammy sites that have Google Ads.
See, this is where Google goes off the rails and starts to believe its own press. Cutts said, in effect, "Our search engine tells us that our search engine is doing just fine."
No, actually, he didn't. "Metrics" don't have to be automatically generated. If their search engine could identified spammy results internally, it wouldn't keep metrics of how many spammy results it produced, it just wouldn't show any. Clearly, the metrics are external to the search engine unless they've deliberately engineered the search engine to identify but still display spammy results, which makes no sense from any perspective.
Further, Cutts didn't say they are doing just fine. He said that their internal measurements show the trend in spammy results being downward, contrary to the criticism that it has increased, but that they see and accept demand from their user community for even better results, and that they "we can and should do better", and also lists several improvements they are working on so that they will do better in the future than they do today (it also lists improvements that have been made recently.)
Google better figure out how to change their evaluation metrics to reflect what users are seeing rather than attempt to change user's opinions to match what their evaluation metrics say.
I suspect that Google has correctly identified the source of the perception: quality expectations increasing faster than actual quality, rather than decreasing quality. Whether or not that's true, rather than modifying the metrics so that they match what critics claim to be the trend, they should do exactly what they claim that they have been doing and continue to work to reduce actual spam results as much as they can, whether or not their metrics show the trend as being in the right direction or the wrong direction.
Actually, if you read the blog post from Google linked in TFS, they aren't saying that "there is no problem" (as parent post's title suggested) or that "it's great" (as parent post's text suggested.)
They did say that their own metrics don't show the trend that various, mostly anecdotal, critics have claimed. But they also said that they view the spam that does exist as a problem, and they announced several steps to address it:
As we’ve increased both our size and freshness in recent months, we’ve naturally indexed a lot of good content and some spam as well. To respond to that challenge, we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments. We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010. And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. We’ll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites.
As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we’re not perfect, and combined with users’ skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better.
This is not a company denying that there is a problem because their internal metrics don't match the problems being reported. It is a company acknowledging that there is a problem and committing to take action on it, even though their own internal metrics don't agree with their critics on the size of or trend in the problem.
Every time I search for something these days I get some ridiculous set of non-results due to the fuzzy matching. I search for "TIPC layer3" google nicely finds me results about TCP Layer3 because google thinks I must have typo'd something.
Aside from your post, most of the results I get have "tips" highlighted; if I use "+tipc layer3" instead of "tipc layer3" those are excluded. (And its not one of the "Did you mean?" searches that I am used to, it seems to be an odd corner case of a search with so few real results that fuzzy matching results almost completely drown them out. OTOH, I would expect that most of the time, a search like that would actually be a typo, so its not necessarily a misfeature, though when you are doing such a search it is a problem; it might be useful for Google to have a strictness toggle control of some sort.)
And thus begins the downfall of Google. Once you start drinking your own lemonade and stop listening to the people who use your product, you're on a greased downhill slope.
Discounting claims in the press is not the same as stopping listening to the people who use your product. I've seen no evidence presented that google has stopped listening to the people who use their product. AFAICT, your argument proceeds from an unjustified assumption.
I'll be Google has been working on alternatives to Android, just in case, they lose partly or fully to Oracle.
Android was always a short-term bridge in Google's OS strategy, Chrome OS is more like their long-term vision.
Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional.
True, but irrelevant, as ex post facto laws, as prohibited by the Constitution, have consistently been held to include 4 categories of law, all of which are criminal: "1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender." Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798)
Retrospective application of civil law may raise due process concerns, but the analysis there goes beyond whether the law has retrospective effect.
Whether you're for or against net neutrality, the above post is correct.
No, it isn't.
The FCC doesn't have the authority to impose net neutrality by fiat and regulation.
That's a different and more narrow claim than was made in the incorrect post you refer to. On that point, the FCC cited its authority in the Report and Order. If you want to post a counterargument, please feel free to do so. Simply asserting without evidence or argument that it does not is unproductive.
The FCC should let them have their way.
They'd be happy with that.
And then revoke their common carrier status.
Which would do nothing, because ISPs aren't common carriers.
And then prosecute them for piracy and every other illegal thing that passes through their links.
Well, except that its not the FCCs job to prosecute for those things, and the protection they have against such suits is in legislation, so the FCC couldn't rescind it so that they could be prosecuted.
Weren't we all 'against' this version of FCC's net neutrality???
No, we weren't all against it. Slashdot isn't a hive mind.
It wasn't exactly what most people wanted, and it only passed because it appeased to cable lobbyists (ie. ATT, Level 3, etc.).
Well, no. Cable lobbyists lobbied against it, and the people on the FCC that have been traditionally against net neutrality regulations voted against it, and the members of the FCC that have supported the concept of net neutrality regulations voted for it.
It wasn't everything some people wanted, but its a lot more than nothing. It essentially follows the Google-Verizon proposed framework except:
1. While it applies looser rules to mobile broadband operators than the fixed operators, it doesn't completely exempt mobile operators;
2. The FCC did it themselves citing existing legislation granting regulatory authority rather than Congress imposing the rules directly.
The main complaint proponents of stronger neutrality rules seem to have are:
1. It does give looser rules for mobile broadband, and
2. It allows "reasonable network management" as an exception to some of the provisions, and proponents fear this will open the door to a variety of undesirable practices (despite the fact that the Order specifically addresses some of the practices that these fears are raised abouts and states that they would not constitute reasonable network management.)
What I don't get here is that a lot are praising the net neutrality and are against Verizon, but if you read through that earlier slashdot post, a lot of people were against this version of Net Neutrality because it really didn't give that freedom we wanted, not all of it, and nowhere near it..... I wonder what changed since the rules by FCC have not changed...
Yes, Slashdot has lots of people that disagree with each other, and isn't a hive mind. Plus, all the people that object to the rules adopted by the FCC because they don't restrict broadband operators enough are opposed to the rules from the opposite direction that Verizon is opposed to the rules. Verizon is suing to get it so that there are no rules in place, while proponents of stronger net neutrality are opposed to the rules because they want stronger rules in place. While many of those net neutrality proponents may have adopted hyperbolic language (like "worse than nothing") in response to the FCC Report and Order, given a challenge to the order from Verizon -- for whom "worse than nothing" is not a hyperbolic description, since there preference is for the FCC to either impose rules that only affect fixed broadband providers leaving mobile providers completely free, and, failing that, to do nothing at all -- suddenly some of those net neutrality proponents realize that, while imperfect from their perspective, the FCC Report and Order is really closer to what they want than nothing at all.
The failed Groupon acquisition probably had something to do with it.
If a failed acquisition had anything to do with it, why would the newly announced division of responsibilities leave him with responsibility for that kind of external deals?
The probably dropped him as CEO because he just comes off as creepy and not giving a damn about privacy
I suspect that if that was the motivation, they wouldn't be keeping him as "executive chairman" with principal responsibility for most of the non-technical aspects of leading the company, including customer relations.
I'm rich enough now and don't feel like working.
Right. Which is why he is staying on as "executive chairman" and retaining day-to-day responsibility for most of the business operations.
I don't see how this could be a smart move for Google. Page and Brin may have become too big for their boots, but I suspect something else.
The official explanation seems plausible: its streamlining operations and clarifying roles and responsibilities in an organization where three people have been functionally working together as co-leaders (and, in a sense, will continue to do so.)
Perhaps Schmidt will follow Steve Jobs to lead Apple.
Staying on as "executive chairman" without being CEO and still keeping primary responsibility for most of the "business" (non-technical) operations suggest that that's not all that likely.