Anti-trust or anti-Google?

[rpm]

Anti-trust or anti-Google?

It’s become a rite of passage for the world’s biggest technology companies. As soon as you’ve fought your way to the top and become the darling of both stock markets and customers, regulators begin to cry “monopoly”. It happened to IBM in the 1960s, Microsoft in the 1990s and now it’s happening to Google.

 

[|tera|]

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger they say.

I tend to believe it. I'm a real MS fan up to today and nothing much will make me lose the feeling. The same holds for Google. I love their products and services. It's just the way it works. If you become too popular, there's always someone that wants to bring you down. They'll survive

 

[cpu.]

I hope Google will show us a social network without Facebook. A social network without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A social network where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to Google.

 

[|tera|]

I hope Google will show us a social network without Facebook. A social network without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A social network where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to Google.

Uhm... Google+ ?

Ever heard of it?

 

[Mouse]

I hope Google will show us a social network without Facebook. A social network without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A social network where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to Google.

I see what you did there

 

[Dylan_G]

I hope Google will show us a social network without Facebook. A social network without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A social network where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to Google.

Some seriass points for that one.

 

[Reelix]

Facebook are complaining that Google takes search priority of Google+ over Facebook, thereby removing their customers.

I don't know about YOU, but I havn't ever seen Google (Or Google+) results on a Facebook search...

- Edit -

A social network without rules and controls

I got banned from Google+ since I didn't give my proper Surname (I said my full name was "Reelix .", as the Surname field was mandatory)

 

[CritiKill]

Love Google...not a fanboy...let's be realistic!

Let's not be naive and think that because a company comes out with awesome products and provides them with seemingly selfless benevolence for free and under the etho of "Don't be evil", that they're automatically incapable of any wrongdoing. The issue of search is too big a deal to leave in the hands of one company. Google is effectively the custodian of all the world's data. How that data has been indexed, manipulated, served and ranked is something out of which they derive ENORMOUS profits. Considering that data is the basis and currency necessary for human advancement, it is absolutely absurd to leave this most sacred and essential of services 100% in the hands of an intensely for-profit organisation.

I think it is imperative that Google's indexes be nationalised or even "globalised" and put under the auspices of an organisation run similar to Wikipedia. It is absolutely vital that search becomes open-source, P2P and completely open. That a for-profit company is making obscene profits while systematically using it's market-strength to decimate competition, remove choice and gain ever more online powers is something that should concern us all. Suppose Google goes out of business in a few months time. The ramifications around the earth will be almost like a neo-Global Recession because of the way the company has aggressively removed competition and caused users around the world to have no option but to make use of its services. When that recession happens, we'll only have ourselves to blame for not being pro-active enough about the prevention of this global monopoly.

Have we South Africans not learnt anything from our experiences with Telkom, that no matter the good intentions as envisaged by the Dept of Communications in extending Telkom's monopoly, competition is an ESSENTIAL part of healthy markets and the fact that we are wilfully allowing our digital markets to be contaminated and compromised by this corporate titan is a sad indictment on all people who value "CHOICE".

I encourage you to read www.googleopoly.net and http://www.searchanddestroybook.com/

 

[zamicro]

Let's not be naive and think that because a company comes out with awesome products and provides them with seemingly selfless benevolence for free and under the etho of "Don't be evil", that they're automatically incapable of any wrongdoing. The issue of search is too big a deal to leave in the hands of one company. Google is effectively the custodian of all the world's data. How that data has been indexed, manipulated, served and ranked is something out of which they derive ENORMOUS profits. Considering that data is the basis and currency necessary for human advancement, it is absolutely absurd to leave this most sacred and essential of services 100% in the hands of an intensely for-profit organisation.

I think it is imperative that Google's indexes be nationalised or even "globalised" and put under the auspices of an organisation run similar to Wikipedia. It is absolutely vital that search becomes open-source, P2P and completely open. That a for-profit company is making obscene profits while systematically using it's market-strength to decimate competition, remove choice and gain ever more online powers is something that should concern us all. Suppose Google goes out of business in a few months time. The ramifications around the earth will be almost like a neo-Global Recession because of the way the company has aggressively removed competition and caused users around the world to have no option but to make use of its services. When that recession happens, we'll only have ourselves to blame for not being pro-active enough about the prevention of this global monopoly.

Have we South Africans not learnt anything from our experiences with Telkom, that no matter the good intentions as envisaged by the Dept of Communications in extending Telkom's monopoly, competition is an ESSENTIAL part of healthy markets and the fact that we are wilfully allowing our digital markets to be contaminated and compromised by this corporate titan is a sad indictment on all people who value "CHOICE".

I encourage you to read www.googleopoly.net and http://www.searchanddestroybook.com/

Hey Juliass is it you? Now, you do not only want to nationalize all farms and mines, but also Google? ;-)

If you feel this strong about it, what is stopping you from creating an alternative? I started using Google because it gave me the best results. If Google mess too much with the results, we will start to use Bing or Yahoo, or the nice new one that someone will create.

 

[Elimentals]

......

Nothing is stopping you from changing your default search engine to http://www.altavista.com/ http://www.bing.com/ http://www.excite.com/ http://www.hotbot.com/ http://www.alexa.com/ or the millions of other search engines.

So as you can see you fail at the 1st point as not all the data is in one companies hands. Sure most people use Google as its the best for now, but I can promise you this that as soon as people no longer get what they are looking for they will switch.

Oh and whats wrong with them making money out of their data that they collected them self, they paid for the servers and bandwidth to collect the data for themselves just be glad they dont charge us like to old days when some search companies needed monthly subscription to access "their" databases.

Hell final resort, go code your own search engine and start crawling the net. then you dont have to worry about anyone stuffing up your data with "useless" ranking based on other people's searches and other commercial entities.

 

[drukkie]

Let's not be naive and think that because a company comes out with awesome products and provides them with seemingly selfless benevolence for free and under the etho of "Don't be evil", that they're automatically incapable of any wrongdoing. The issue of search is too big a deal to leave in the hands of one company. Google is effectively the custodian of all the world's data. How that data has been indexed, manipulated, served and ranked is something out of which they derive ENORMOUS profits. Considering that data is the basis and currency necessary for human advancement, it is absolutely absurd to leave this most sacred and essential of services 100% in the hands of an intensely for-profit organisation.

I think it is imperative that Google's indexes be nationalised or even "globalised" and put under the auspices of an organisation run similar to Wikipedia. It is absolutely vital that search becomes open-source, P2P and completely open. That a for-profit company is making obscene profits while systematically using it's market-strength to decimate competition, remove choice and gain ever more online powers is something that should concern us all. Suppose Google goes out of business in a few months time. The ramifications around the earth will be almost like a neo-Global Recession because of the way the company has aggressively removed competition and caused users around the world to have no option but to make use of its services. When that recession happens, we'll only have ourselves to blame for not being pro-active enough about the prevention of this global monopoly.

Have we South Africans not learnt anything from our experiences with Telkom, that no matter the good intentions as envisaged by the Dept of Communications in extending Telkom's monopoly, competition is an ESSENTIAL part of healthy markets and the fact that we are wilfully allowing our digital markets to be contaminated and compromised by this corporate titan is a sad indictment on all people who value "CHOICE".

I encourage you to read www.googleopoly.net and http://www.searchanddestroybook.com/

Sounds like an Apple fanboy....

 

[BeVonk!]

CritiKill, I agree with you. The information under Google's control should be liberated so that it will be equally available to all. Such information should never be owned by anyone, and especially not anyone in business for profit. Google is a very dangerous entity. Those who stand for true freedom of information should not try to defend Google. Google is not in the information business for altruistic reasons.

 

[Azbubu]

The self-righteousness is strong in this thread. It's information they gathered, why should anyone else have right or be entitled to it?

 

[Elimentals]

CritiKill, I agree with you. The information under Google's control should be liberated so that it will be equally available to all. Such information should never be owned by anyone, and especially not anyone in business for profit. Google is a very dangerous entity. Those who stand for true freedom of information should not try to defend Google. Google is not in the information business for altruistic reasons.

By your argument Facebook should open all profiles for everyone to see? Same goes for Microsoft that gather information about you from hotmail and other services like Skydrive.

 

[BeVonk!]

Every individual must have the right and the mechanism to protect whatever the individual deems personal and private. Laws should protect this and governments should enforce it. Companies that demand such information must be forced to be 100% transparent with the provider of such classified information, keep the provider informed what happens to such information at all times. The provider must then also have the right and mechanism to permanently erase such information.

All information not classified in such a way must be open to all for equal access.

That is how see it.

 

[_TrXtR_]

Uhm... Google+ ?

Ever heard of it?

Yeh, I heard none of my friends are using it

 

[|tera|]

Yeh, I heard none of my friends are using it

I heard the same. Your friends suck bro

 

[nexxus]

Google's done a great job getting everyone I know onto Google+ sadly, nobody I know actually uses it. Even sadder is that they hijacked the Google Reader sharing functionality & co-opted it into G+, so my shared lists are nowhere near as good as they were.

 

[Elimentals]

Google's done a great job getting everyone I know onto Google+ sadly, nobody I know actually uses it. Even sadder is that they hijacked the Google Reader sharing functionality & co-opted it into G+, so my shared lists are nowhere near as good as they were.

Aaah but the nature of Google+ is that you can set who you share what with.

Maybe just maybe none of your friends like sharing stuff with you