google... bad?

[amazon10x]

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

whaddaya think?

[KraziKid]

Oh NOES, I'm going to stop using google now because this person has a conspiracy theory ;) . Seriosuly, there are people all over the internet that have conspiracy theories about everything. Google is the best search engine I use, so at this point, I won't stop using it or its' toolbar.

[su root]

I figure most of it is true. I also figure, no matter which search engine you use, they'll all do the same thing.

Name an advertising company that doesn't give you an ID that won't expire, and keep tabs on you. Everyone does it. Using it as tracking is a little big-brother. Logging of Date, Time, IP, and search conditions is automatic.. every webserver does this by default. Giving me results based on geolocation is great. If you don't want to be tracked, disable cookies for that site.

'Spyware' is a little forward to call a bar that is supposed to take the URL you are browsing, and look up related sites (among other things). Don't like it? Don't install it.

They may have some valid points, but they give no solid facts, or links to anything, so I'm going to count myself as a non-believer for now.

[JigPu]

Originally posted by su root
I figure most of it is true. I also figure, no matter which search engine you use, they'll all do the same thing.

Name an advertising company that doesn't give you an ID that won't expire, and keep tabs on you. Everyone does it. Using it as tracking is a little big-brother. Logging of Date, Time, IP, and search conditions is automatic.. every webserver does this by default. Giving me results based on geolocation is great. If you don't want to be tracked, disable cookies for that site.

'Spyware' is a little forward to call a bar that is supposed to take the URL you are browsing, and look up related sites (among other things). Don't like it? Don't install it.

They may have some valid points, but they give no solid facts, or links to anything, so I'm going to count myself as a non-believer for now.
Well said!



Out of all the things he talks about, one thing irks me more than anything...
Call it class warfare, if you like. Because that brings up the other major gripe that Google Watch has with Google. That's the PageRank problem -- the fact that Google's primary ranking algorithm has less to do with the quality of web pages, than it has to do with the "power popularity" of web pages. Their approach to ranking is anti-democratic, in that already-powerful pages are mathematically granted extra power to anoint other pages as powerful.
Umm, sorry, but that algorithm makes the most sense. If you think about it, merely letting the search engine decide for you what is a 'quality' web page will inevitably leave you with a ranking based soley on keyword density and prominance of keywords. It would completely suck. Letting the user 'cast a vote' by clicking the link is a much better method. We are MUCH better at determining what is relavent to what is being searched for than any search engine, and so popular sites (which are usually relavent) come up on top. Sure, it sucks for the begining webmaster since they're site has no status, but so long as users find they're site (which they will...) they'll move up in the google world.

JigPu