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Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
Is Google abusing its power?
- Thread starter rpm
- Start date
Hamish McPanji
Honorary Master
While the travel companies did have a fair case with regards to results of travel searches, the article is correct in the sense that the presence of direct competitiors/haters such as microsoft, nokia (microsofts poodle) and oracle (still sore about losing the java case against google) makes fairsearch's motivations very suspect.
Ever heard of the amazon kindle hd? It runs android , and doesn't punt google services but is all about amazon services.
Nothing stops microsoft and nokia from doing the same, with their own interface and linked to their services
Ever heard of the amazon kindle hd? It runs android , and doesn't punt google services but is all about amazon services.
Nothing stops microsoft and nokia from doing the same, with their own interface and linked to their services
Arthur
Honorary Master
Volenti non fit injuria, as the saying goes.
I posted this elsewhere, but still good for a cackle:
[video=youtube;-Cr6AgUo764]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Cr6AgUo764[/video]
I posted this elsewhere, but still good for a cackle:
[video=youtube;-Cr6AgUo764]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Cr6AgUo764[/video]
Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to an official Bing search app in GooglePlay (there is an unofficial app that looks a bit dodgy, and several Bingo apps that might actually be better at searching than Bing is).
That is not actually very accurate. It's not my pocket that get's hit by the ball. Someone else gets hit, but they pay Google for that hit. I'm getting all Google offers for free so that they can harvest information. Doesn't cost me anything.
MS on the other hand do hit my pocket with a ten pound hammer ... milking me wherever they can. Pay for everything ... Windows ... Office (and now Office access in the cloud) ... Things Google gives me for free.
So MS, that ball went past you thrice ... so it is Strike Three ... Out!
And besides, there are many more companies harvesting the same info (and worse). Google is just very good at it and knows best how to make money from it ... and the others are jealous about that. If Google were to disappear the same info will still be collected. Visa and MasterCard and Facebook and Yahoo and Your Bank and Your Service Providers and Your Loyalty Cards and and and ...
Information is everywhere. Those that harvest and package it best win. It's not a new business model. They've done that with crops for ages.
We cannot stop it, so we may as well enjoy the free stuff Google gives us in exchange.
Information is everywhere. Those that harvest and package it best win. It's not a new business model. They've done that with crops for ages.
We cannot stop it, so we may as well enjoy the free stuff Google gives us in exchange.
Arthur
Honorary Master
Good point.
Google are dominant in Search but they are becoming increasingly dominant in other areas that they are going into as well. Do you congratulate Google for their successes because they have been able to predict various industries or markets and become dominant or do we go after them because they have become too dominant.
I can’t remember anybody saying anything when Apple dominated the iPod market and then the iPhone market but then maybe their time at the top was not long enough to call for investigations into their abuse of power.
I can’t remember anybody saying anything when Apple dominated the iPod market and then the iPhone market but then maybe their time at the top was not long enough to call for investigations into their abuse of power.
Arthur
Honorary Master
Well done, Google!
Arthur
Honorary Master
I'd really hate for governments to get involved. People should be free to make their own decisions on these matters.
koeksGHT
Dealer
Fine people, leave gmail, get rid of your android phone, delete all your google apps.
Wait, when did they force to you to use their services?
Personally I don't mind Google having some of my info, allows them to better design products to fit your needs.
Wait, when did they force to you to use their services?
Personally I don't mind Google having some of my info, allows them to better design products to fit your needs.
murraybiscuit
Executive Member
Google seems to get a rough deal around privacy issues IMO. Sure, we all know they track our account activity. Who doesn't? That's the payoff, if you don't like it, or have something to hide, don't use them.
That ms internal video is funny, but is kind of sad because they still don't get why they have lost market share. Tastes like sour grapes.
On the plus side, however, people forget that google redirected Chinese users to the uncensored Hong Kong search engine till they were forced to stop by Beijing. Meanwhile, ms was happy to sign a deal with baidu no problem. Ms also played catchup with the transparency report behind google.
Then there's the street view wifi debacle, but people forget about the apple location tracking scandal. Google pays and settles. Apple puts it down to a bug in their software.
It's not that I think google is any better than anyone else, I just think that other corporates like to spin it that way and keep quiet about their own back yard. Users also like to have their cake and eat it and then claim ignorance. Press releases with reductionist logic often reveal the biases of the author.
That ms internal video is funny, but is kind of sad because they still don't get why they have lost market share. Tastes like sour grapes.
On the plus side, however, people forget that google redirected Chinese users to the uncensored Hong Kong search engine till they were forced to stop by Beijing. Meanwhile, ms was happy to sign a deal with baidu no problem. Ms also played catchup with the transparency report behind google.
Then there's the street view wifi debacle, but people forget about the apple location tracking scandal. Google pays and settles. Apple puts it down to a bug in their software.
It's not that I think google is any better than anyone else, I just think that other corporates like to spin it that way and keep quiet about their own back yard. Users also like to have their cake and eat it and then claim ignorance. Press releases with reductionist logic often reveal the biases of the author.
cerebus
Honorary Master
I don't really have an issue with Google being what they are. I get irritated when people fall for the showmanship of the likes of Larry Page proclaiming that technology isn't zero-sum while increasingly securitising and locking out their competitors and stealing their best ideas.
Arthur
Honorary Master
Oh, I think they get it very clearly. The video is not an expression of the businesses or tech strategy, it's a fun little meeting-intro done by two or three geeks buried deep inside the organisation. Most large tech companies do similar things, including Google. The mistake is to take it too seriously or read to much into it.
In this space, Google have out-executed Microsoft for years. Hats off to them. I admire that, and it deserves full recognition.
An interesting question is Why? It's not from lack of talent and vision - both companies have that in spades. Microsoft's failure is very much its own. For too long too much energy was spent building dominance in the Olde Paradigm. Just as the market was changing, the company got embroiled in (outrageously wrong and unjust) legal actions by governments, states and trade blocs (EU), and management spent its time having to talk to lawyers as every option and decision had to be quadruple-checked. This was deeply debilitating, and we see the wreckage everywhere. In the meantime, Google and others raced ahead.
Somewhere in the human psyche lurks a residual Tall Poppy Syndrome, especially amongst the political elites in America and Europe. They hate for anyone to succeed too much, and invent ways of cutting them down. It happened to Alcoa, it happened to IBM, it happened to Microsoft ~ endless government investigations into dominance, that debilitate everything.
It would be a great injustice if this were to happen to Google. Their dominance did not come from state protection. It came from innovation, smart marketing, and brilliant execution - all the while delivering outstanding value to their customers. And shareholders. So what if they dominate Search and related segments - they did this through competence and good timing. So what if others are battling to even get a look in - there is no moral or cosmic law that obliges Google to create space for their competitors. And any government attempts to do so would in my view be a great injustice. Which of course we've seen before.
AlphaJohn
Honorary Master
The scary part of this is. Who has your back?
Microsoft collects just as much info on you as Google does. Esp if you use Windows OS + IE + BING + Windows Phone. Or Apple with Mac + Safari + iPhone + Apple TV.
End of the day, as long as Google has something like http://www.google.com/dashboard I am happy with them collecting the data. ie: its fine if you give me a way to remove it.
That data is anyway so wrong (and useless) that it is actually funny. I have my Google profile loaded and active on about five devices and they are not in the same places so the location data is one big mess. LOL! They try to graph how much time I'm at different places but it is so far out they can't get much from it anyway. If one had one active device on you with GPS turned on all the time then yes, it will make sense. But not when you get reports from five devices at the same time from different places.