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Google Businesses The Internet

Who's Afraid of Google? 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the in-the-end-there-can-be-only-one dept.
Khuffie writes "Wired has an interesting article about who's afraid of Google: in short, almost everyone! "Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information. High-minded as that sounds, Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft.""
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Who's Afraid of Google? More

Who's Afraid of Google?

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  • What about... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:14PM (#14109490) Homepage
    Google itself? Is it afraid of itself becoming and doing evil eventually?

    Oh, one thing that Google hasn't done is Database, although its existance is almost solely based on databases. When are we seeing GoogleSQL?

    • Re:What about... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CSHARP123 ( 904951 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:20PM (#14109525)
      Google itself? Is it afraid of itself becoming and doing evil eventually?

      Google is a publicly traded company. They by law has to keep shareholders interests (if they are legal). There is a difference between being ethical and being legal. When they say DO NO EVIL it may mean do legal things. They have never said we follow some ethics as dicatated by some religion or some community. As long as they do legal things there is no need for them to be afraid of anything.

      • Perhaps GP meant: Is Google afraid that their business model and mission statement will eventually FORCE them to be an EVIL company.

        Is Google thinking about the long term ethical consequences of their business?

        Although it is nice to think that maybe they are, the cynical me says they are not.

      • Re:What about... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jtorgers ( 163093 )
        Not true. It's in a company's best interest to follow a standard of ethics, which avoids alienating the majority of stakeholders. A publicly traded company wants to return value to their shareholders, if to many of the stakeholders(consumers, employees, unions, or society) deems their actions as unethical the company will have reduced profits. This statement holds true for any company selling products with elastic demand.

      • Re:What about... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by killjoe ( 766577 )
        It's legal to have sex with underage children at various places in the world. Should Google facilitate the finding of underage boys and girls for rich businessmen? I mean it's legal right?

      • Re:What about... (Score:3, Informative)

        by bigpat ( 158134 )
        When they say DO NO EVIL it may mean do legal things. They have never said we follow some ethics as dicatated by some religion or some community. As long as they do legal things there is no need for them to be afraid of anything.

        You bring up a good point, that they never stated exactly what they view as "evil", but I very much doubt they meant they would merely follow the law. Unless you have the moral fiber of a jellyfish, then you should realize that civil laws are never a good substitute for a more comp
      • They made "do no evil" such a centerpiece of their public stance on issues that to go against it would be a public relations disaster which could make people go to MSN and Yahoo. Everyone with Windows has easy access to MSN and absolutely everyone uses Yahoo (maps, mail, personals, etc) so Google could lose out badly.

        That would hurt the shareholders.

        Shareholders already complained about the China issues.

        Plus, if the head of Google is religious, making him go against his religion's beliefs to satisfy shareho
        • but under Bush (love him, hate him or anything in between on other issues, like bungling the Hurricane Katrina situation in New Orleans) you got to admit he supports religion (he has an office of faith based initiatives).

          No, as you demonstrated by mentioning the "Office", he supports merging religion and government.
          That can only lead to corruption of religion as has been demonstrated every time it's been tried.

          So clearly, he does not support religion even though he says he does.
      • Google is a publicly traded company. They by law has to keep shareholders interests (if they are legal). There is a difference between being ethical and being legal. When they say DO NO EVIL it may mean do legal things. They have never said we follow some ethics as dicatated by some religion or some community. As long as they do legal things there is no need for them to be afraid of anything.

        Following the law has absolutely nothing to do with being good or evil.

        Of course, good and evil are entirely subjecti
    • Oh, one thing that Google hasn't done is Database, although its existance is almost solely based on databases. When are we seeing GoogleSQL?

      Nah, they'll just sponsor an open source effort. Way way cheaper that way.

    • Re:What about... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by intmainvoid ( 109559 )
      although its existance is almost solely based on databases

      I'm not sure Google needs a traditional database, it's more about generating a huge set of data (the index) then making it available as read only. So really easy to scale, compared to say clustering database servers, as there's no need for updates between the nodes, you just replace busted nodes without worrying about lost data etc. While I'm sure there would be some useful snippets in there if Google release the code, most of it just wouldn't be

      • Not to mention the fact that it is optimised to run on *lots* of hardware, and on google's own OS (Which, though based on Linux, uses a nicely different filesystem with bigger chunks etc.

        Basically, it's useless for any company which doesn't have Google's sheer volume of data and hardware.

    • Re:What about... (Score:3, Informative)

      by TooMuchToDo ( 882796 )
      Actually, very little of what data they collect is in a database/databases. Almost all of the data is managed via the GFS (google file system).

      http://labs.google.com/papers/gfs.html [google.com]

      "The file system has successfully met our storage needs. It is widely deployed within Google as the storage platform for the generation and processing of data used by our service as well as research and development efforts that require large data sets. The largest cluster to date provides hundreds of terabytes of storage ac

    • Google itself? Is it afraid of itself becoming and doing evil eventually?

      Was anybody else reminded of that scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Luke goes into the cave on Dagobah to confront his worse fear and its Darth Vader, only when Vader's mask blows off we see Luke's face was underneath. That just popped into my head when I read this.

  • Twilight Zone: It's a Google Life (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:14PM (#14109491)
    Mr. Fremont: It's snowing outside! Google, are you making it snow?
    Google: Yes, I'm making it snow.
    Mr. Fremont: Why that'll ruin half the crops! You know that, don't you, half the crops! That's what that... But it's good that you're making it snow, Google, it's real good.

    Narrator: No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of our very special search engines, little Google, age 6, who lives on the internet in a place that used to be the Web. And if by some strange chance you should run across it, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do meet Google you can be sure of one thing: you have entered the Twilight Zone.

  • Well... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Red Samurai ( 893134 )
    I, for one, welcome our new information-finding overlord.

    • Re:Well... (Score:2, Funny)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )
      Soviet Russian #1: Who is this Red Samurai?
      Soviet Russian #2: Type his name into Google.
      Soviet Russian #1: Ah ha! I have found him!

      In America, you use Google to find them,
      In Soviet Russa, they use Google to find YOU!
    • I, for one, welcome our new information-finding overlord.

      Sorry, you're 8 months late. Our information-finding overlord just told me [google.com].

  • Google the new Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NightWulf ( 672561 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:19PM (#14109515)
    Sure, they're a pretty friendly looking corporation now, but there's the old saying, "absolute power corrupts absolutly." I think 10-15 years from now, we'll have as much disdain for Google, as we do with Microsoft today. Do you honestly thing that once they becoome the juggernaut of the industry, they won't eventually abuse it to make even more money?

    • Re:Google the new Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:52PM (#14109656) Homepage Journal
      Does anyone remember when Microsoft was the underdog that most people rooted for? And IBM was the evil one..

      Times do change, and i agree that at somepoint Google will be the evil one.

      • Microsoft was an underdog, rather than the only dog? Ok, that does predate my experience, but I think it was a completely different world then. Perhaps there was a time when people voted for MS and against IBM, but there were much fewer people with votes then. At that time, they were all experts working in the computer field.

        After reading the article, I wondered the same thing... Can Google be the next Microsoft? I've heard it so many times about companies associated with Linux.

        My answer is NO. Hi

      • I hate to sound revisionist, and wasn't all that old when IBM was taken down, but I do clearly remember rooting for Compaq. Even with IBM, we had operating systems. What we did not have was affordable computers. When we got the PC probelm solved, then everything else came together. I do not even remembering worrying about the OS. I would run SOS or CP/M, telnet into VMS or Unix. At the when IBM was king, most computer users were sophisticated, and those that weren't hired people much more so than the
      • That attitude strikes me as bogus. Microsoft was the underdog because, and only because, they weren't the overdog. Even back then they were no nicer. It's just that folks would have thrown a street party for Satan himself, if he rode into town with IBM's head on a pike.

        I believe that companies, like people, rarely change their personality. Rather, their changing role can give them wider opportunities to express it, for good or ill.

        Therefore, Google will not become evil merely because of success.

        • MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)

          by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
          I've got karma to spare, so it doesn't matter if this is modded redundant or whatever...

          The parent makes a point which seems to be ignored by a lot of people comparing Google to Microsoft.

          Microsoft were evil from the very beginning!

          The bought a hack of an OS off a guy and sold it to IBM. They lied to and manipulated people. They basically did everything they could to get ahead.

          Unlike Google, which actually tries to be "nice". It's got massive geek cred, and it seems to have done nicely without the

    • Yes, but it's the first time I see a company with a "don't be evil" slogan. I think google can become the "new microsoft", but I also think that google people may be aware of it and I bet they don't like it. Why can't a company be rich and "good" at the same time?

  • I believe it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bun ( 34387 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:19PM (#14109516)
    A friend of mine works as a market strategist for eBay in Europe. While he was in town this summer he asked me who I thought eBay's biggest competition was. I said I really didn't see another competitor in the on-line or virtual auction space. He just smiled and said, "Google", then explained to me how virtually all of eBay's business is small B to P, and eBay really just brings them together. Google does the same thing with their search engines and targeted advertisements, and is getting better at it.

    • Re:I believe it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mochan_s ( 536939 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:29PM (#14109572)
      A friend of mine works as a market strategist for eBay in Europe. While he was in town this summer he asked me who I thought eBay's biggest competition was. I said I really didn't see another competitor in the on-line or virtual auction space. He just smiled and said, "Google", then explained to me how virtually all of eBay's business is small B to P, and eBay really just brings them together. Google does the same thing with their search engines and targeted advertisements, and is getting better at it.

      I totally agree with you. Ebays' main feature is to be able quickly search their 1 million plus database of goods. Everything else is just fluff (except maybe Paypal but I don't know banking at all).

      However, ebay is not being very good as the monopoly auction site. They charge a lot for items (paypal and ebay will take about 10% of what you make for items below $100 and at least 6-7% for larger items) and keep finding new fees to add, sell straighforward features for sellers for higher price and I feel Ebay doesn't retain records of past auctions long enough.

      There is no questions that Google will enter the auction market whatsoever. I think they're probably just stuck on googlePay or similar. The auction site itself is probably piece of cake for them.

      • ...sell straighforward features for sellers for higher price and I feel Ebay doesn't retain records of past auctions long enough.

        Not that they couldn't do it, but Google (or anyone else) would have a harder time beating down eBay than that. Just look at how Yahoo! (a company with way more money that eBay at the time) tried and failed miserably.

        The problem with beating eBay at their game, is that it is not simply a matter of making a better service. In order to sell your goods, you need lots of people sea

        • (eBay has entered the popular culture almost as thouroughly as Google, it is in TV, movies, etc.).

          Are you kidding? Almost as thoroughly? eBay was a pop culture brand years before Google, and is still one of the most popular. Google is nowhere even close to eBay's status, and to suggest that eBay is nearing Google's affect on pop. culture, well, come on, that's just ludicrous.

          • Maybe so, but "google" has become a verb, while "eBay" has not.

            • Maybe so, but "google" has become a verb, while "eBay" has not.

              Though I disagree with you ("I don't really want an Xbox 360 for myself -- I just plan to eBay it and take the profit."), the point is that eBay is more a part of pop culture than Google is. After all, how many Jay Leno jokes have you heard about eBay? And about Google? He even does a regular spot about wacky stuff found on eBay on the show. And he auctioned a motorcycle for Katrina victims on the show for more than $500k and will be auction

        • From TFA:

          Within hours of the [Google] Base bombshell, eBay's market value dropped by almost $2 billion.

          Though to be fair, I looked up the last month of closing stock prices [yahoo.com] and the trend has been upwards. So the article is probably just talking about a blip in the stock's value.

          I'm going to guess that ebay's stock is only going to go higher as we go into the christmas shopping season.

      • except maybe Paypal but I don't know banking at all
        name one other moderate cost internet orientated international money transfer system for small-moderate transactions (say £1-£50).

        i've used bidpay and they were a lot more expensive than paypal even before counting the £1.50 my bank charged me for the international visa transaction to bidpay and when i enquired about the fees for a bank transfer from the uk to germany they were insane for small transactions "Please allow me to confirm that
    • And I could do without the small B to P part, actually. If I'm looking for a used pro camera, I don't want to see "auctions" from every small camera store in the US selling new inventory.

      Encouraging every mom and pop small business in the world to advertise their stock on ebay has pretty much ruined the service, IMHO. Especially as any given small business's stock is pretty much the same as everyone else's.

  • Results (Score:5, Funny)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:19PM (#14109518) Homepage Journal
    Results 1 - 10 of about 3,200,000 for whos afraid of google?. (0.05 seconds)

    Apparantly lots of people, but even more shockingly:

    Results 1 - 10 of about 1,780,000 for whos afraid of microsoft?. (0.20 seconds)

    Time to be afraid?

  • The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by intmainvoid ( 109559 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:22PM (#14109541)
    It's not just the problem that they might enter your market. It's that, being essentially an advertising company these days, they'll offer their product for free. The last week or so must have been rough at any company that offers web stats for example. (though most of them aren't that hot anyway). And how many people are paying for yahoo mail now? Alternately, they can make you offer better services at great cost. GMail doesn't have nearly as many members as hotmail, but it they can make Microsoft up their storage limit in response, it costs microsoft a lot more - the sort of game where microsoft is used to playing on the other side!

  • Google Services (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xoip ( 920266 )
    The Financial community has a hard time getting their minds around what Google does. Simple answer near a I can tell is they make money hand over fist...create new services that don't cost much to add on, and make even more money. Sort of like the GE mentality...try it..see if it sticks and run with it if it does.

  • I'm not afraid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ninjagin ( 631183 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:24PM (#14109550)
    ... mostly because google hasn't charged me for anything. They seem to charge the people who want my time, which I think is fine.

    Maybe I'm alone in this, but I haven't had much reason to feel like they were the type of company to be afraid of, unlike SCO or M$oft.

    Chime in if you think I'm smoking crack.

    • *plays carol of the bells*

      I kid! I kid!

    • Re:I'm not afraid (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bobke ( 653185 )
      ... mostly because google hasn't charged me for anything. They seem to charge the people who want my time, which I think is fine.

      no, but then again, gator didn't charge me anything either.

    • AGREEED k thx!~ (Score:2, Interesting)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 )
      There's always this talk running around about how google is taking over the world. You know what? SO WHAT! The only people google are adversly affecting here are other giant corporations. And they are the ones with the loud mouths shouting to reporters how evil google is. In reality, we live in the age of the giant corporation. One way or the other, these giant organizations are going to control major parts of your life. I would _much_ rather have google a major part of my life than microsoft, ebay, aol, or

    • Maybe you should check your maths (Score:4, Insightful)

      by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @11:05PM (#14110643) Journal
      "They seem to charge the people who want my time, which I think is fine."

      How is that fine? YOUR time. GOOGLE charging other people for it. Yes, you get 'paid' through Google's services... but really, they are taking your time and more importantly your conscious and sub-conscious attention, and selling it to other people. So while this doesn't leave a hole in your pocket, it arguably does take a bit of your freedom of choice away, possibly without you even realising it.

      I mean, am I the only one who thinks that advertising will eventually get subtle and targeted enough that we effectively won't have free will in some respects? Has this already happened? GMail in particular really, really bothers me. Microsoft may try to screw me in many ways, but as far as I know they are neither smart nor subtle enough to pull of the marketing tactics that Google employs. With MS I can say, no, I don't want to pay $500 for Office. With Google it can be hard to work out what I'm paying for their services.

      And this whole 'trust them, they're nice' thing has got to end. The answer to the question, "Who's afraid of Google" should be anyone who understands why competition and a balance of power is an inherently good thing. People like those of us at ./ should be doing everything in our power to make sure Google stays accountable, not worshipping them for writing a cool search algorithm.
      • Both you and the grandparent seem to be missing the point. Google are not charging people who want your time, they are charging people who want your business. Do you expect companies to pay you for your business? That sounds a little illogical to me!

        I do think advertising will get more and more subtle, and you know what? Great! I find convential advertising irritating because the focus is trying to convince me to purchase a product or service that I dont need. Advertisers could not target specific potential
      • They charge people who want my time for their efforts to obtain it not for any of my time they may actually get.

        Thus it becomes more and more expensive to try to bother me. This is a Good Thing.

        Justin.

    • No charge, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by massysett ( 910130 )
      ... mostly because google hasn't charged me for anything. They seem to charge the people who want my time, which I think is fine.

      Yeah, Microsoft didn't charge for Internet Explorer, either.

  • Who is Google anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:26PM (#14109554)
    A known country has around 50% of the world military budget. This country and several others have skills and history in espionage. They have also showed the interest to build up their sources over a period of many years before they get anything back.

    Would the media ask questions if a known government agency was running a public spider? What about a firm like google that do run a spider?

    What about centralizing emails on something like gmail? Or listening to chating trough talk.google.com?
    What about telling another spider about the robot.txt files that tells google to stop?

    mmm.. What about making a geographical network over all the searchers? Using a tool bar or something like it to get even more information?

    A lot of possibilities for those who do this kinds of things for a living and have a budget so much larger than most countries state budget.

  • Internet isnt made out of cement. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel@hedblom.gmail@com> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:31PM (#14109584) Homepage Journal
    Altavista was once king but was fast thrown out in favor for the better Google. You dont sit very firm on the internet. Internet users are very fluid and its not easy to lock someone in to a single search engine. If google begins to suck people will just migrate en masse to say MSN search or some other search engine. Until Google has done something stupid it feels very hollow when people try to paint a perfectly sane company as evil. When that fails they say "-just you wait they'll become evil eventually!".

    Google has a quicksilver grip on the market. Any big redmonduesq manouver will make it all vanish in a heartbeat. Thats the biggest reason i have a hard time imagening they suddenly turning evil. Google hasnt got a desktop monopoly to live on or some vendor lockin in effect. All they have is great people, good inventive minds and people who like their services. Without that they are nothing.

    This is just some Microsoft proxy bullshit spewed out from a frustrated redmond who fails to compete on the merits of their services.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:37PM (#14109602) Homepage
    From the article:
    Signs of panic: Microsoft launched its own toolbar and protested the decision of the Massachusetts Information Technology Department to dump Office for open source alternatives.
    Huh?

    1) Nothing to do with google.

    2) They mean open format alternatives, no open source (sighs)

    I'm not afraid of google, but I am afraid of lazy journalism.

  • We should all be weary, not afraid... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:37PM (#14109604)
    because of stories like this [theregister.co.uk]. The story is of a guy who apparently Googled for the words neck, snap and a couple of others and is accused of breaking his wife's neck. Now initially I thought 'fair enough, they've got his hard drives, they can come to that conclusion by looking at them' except that the information about his Googling habits came to light two years into the investigation. If this was gleaned from his local hard drive, I woudl have expected something like that to be found earlier.

    Now I don't particularly have anything to hide, and I don't really mind people knowing what I look for online, but what scares me is someone looking at my profile and coming to the wrong conclusions. If Google becomes a centralised powerhouse for data and information - as they want to, they will also be a great target for attack, and for agencies wanting to get a fix on someone's online activities. All it needs is a couple of active minds to join the dots in the wrong way and hey presto, a story against you emerges from nowhere. You don't even need a police state, just gossip and tabloids can do the same amount of damage.

    Looking at my last set of google searches: comet, philips, samsung, ice axe, Aluminium 18swg, Galeras, uk Beal top gun rope, you might be fooled into thinking I'm about to murder someone, whereas in actual fact I'm planning to buy a TV and go winter climbing...

    The point is; with Google Base (you ever noticed how much gBase sounds like eBay?), books, maps, and goodness knows whatever else, the capability exists that the more you reply on it, the more they know about you whether you like it or not. And while you may say that the information about searches is anonymous, other services like chat and gmail pin an identifier on you.

    And if all thsoe companies are worried about Google, how would you feel if they currently exchanged data about you between them, because that's the effect a giant Google will have... maybe we'll see a backlash towards less 'linked' services?
    • Uhuh... so... law enforcement was slow, and thus you're inventing a conspiracy theory involving Google divulging info about this guy's browsing habits? Have I got that right?
      • Ah no, I should have made myself more clear. There's no evidence that Google divulged information about his browsing habits, though having said that, there's no evidence that they didn't. What I am saying is that either way, this is a technical possibility, not necessarily a reality.

        However, it got me thinking that by being a centralised point of information, Google are increasingly likely to be a first port-of-call for various law enforcement types as they cotton on to the fact that "Google will have some
  • Is it a good thing "to organize the world's information " ?

    It seems I'm one of the few people not excited about this idea. I fear that in the future privacy will be luxury item that very few can afford.

    One SF novel I read introduced me to very interesting idea - if everything networked and you can access virtually any kind of information about the only reliable way to have privacy is to drown it in a see of misinformation and irrelevant information. Anything distinctive about you becomes a disadvantage - yo

  • Fear of the unknown (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yath ( 6378 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:53PM (#14109662) Journal
    There are two reasons to be afraid of someone: their ability to do harm, and their intent to do so. Now, Microsoft is pretty scary on both counts, having the ability to do damn near anything, and having actually performed evil and illegal anticompetitive acts on multiple occasions. So worrying about Google when Microsoft is around isn't especially rational.

    I do have some sympathy for people who worry about Google, though. That's because they provoke fear of the unknown. Google's behavior so far has been so brilliant and successful that they almost appear like aliens from a superior culture. Predicting their next move seems nearly impossible. Microsoft on the other hand is a known quantity.

  • Does Google hurt consumers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jimmyhat3939 ( 931746 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:53PM (#14109663) Homepage
    I'd like to run an idea/theory by people about Google since we're on the topic.

    It seems to me that Google hurts consumers. The reason lies with how they do their ad ranking. Basically, the ad that generates the most revenue for Google gets ranked first -- in a lot of cases this is the ad that pays the most per click. In all cases, it's the ad that's writing the biggest check to Google.

    This methodology leaves no room for providing discounts to customers. There's literally no money left over once the advertiser pays Google. Think about a simple example of an industry with average operating margins (excluding cost of customer acquisition) of 20%. In such an industry, companies have an incentive to pay anything up to 19.9% to acquire customers. Google is such an efficient marketplace that companies wind up paying that 19.9% or even more (some companies will overpay because of the value of the brand exposure).

    It has surprised me for some time that no competitor to Google has arisen that somehow provides some of this money back to the customers. A simple (and completely unworkable due to fraud) example would be a search engine that gives 50% of the click revenue back to the user who clicks the ad. I'm relatively certain that something will arise someday that returns some of the revenue from search-engine ads to consumers. A clever version was the iWon portal [iwon.com] -- they let you win cash prizes, with each link clicked counting as an entry into the drawing.

    A search engine might be very successful and actually help consumers if it worked on a bounty basis. Advertisers would offer the search engine a certain dollar amount or percentage of each transaction as a rebate if customers buy stuff after clicking the ad. The search engine could then return, say, 50% of the bounty to the user. Obviously this would require more bookkeeping, but it would make the search engine much friendlier to consumers.

    Until then, I still do my searching on Google but my buying on PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, etc. I still for the life of me can't understand why people click Google ads and make purchases. You're just not getting a good deal.
    --
    Free 411! 1-800-411-SAVE [1800411save.com]

    • You don't understand Google's ad ranking (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's not based on how much you pay. It's based on how much you're WILLING to pay AND how many people actually click on your ad. So, even if you are willing to pay less, but everyone clicks your ad because it's what they're looking for, then your ad can move to the top.
      • True, but the fact of the matter is, the ones who pay the most move to the top. And 100% of the aforementioned paying is going to Google, with 0% going to the consumer. Wouldn't it make more sense for the consumer to participate in some way in his/her willingness to click an advertisement and make a purchase?

        Now, certainly you could say "no, that's the price of Google giving you such a great service." My response would be that, while that's nice and all, eventually some competitor will arise (MSN, maybe)

        • a company that paid searchers for clicking on the advertisements would be offering a less valuable product to the company buying the advertising. this business model has been tried before (alladvantage.com) and failed. they get flooded with people clicking just for the money and not actually interested in purchasing anything, and you're paying for all of them, vs paying the same amount per click for people who aren't just clicking for money, but are actually interested in making a purchase.
    • I still for the life of me can't understand why people click Google ads and make purchases. You're just not getting a good deal.

      That's advertising for you. But the bottom line is, want to sell anything EVER again, you have to fork over all the money to Google first. It's a beautiful monopoly, a true wonder of man's ability to screw everyone.

      And don't worry, you're already on Google's list and will be one of the first to go when they take over the world.

  • Google Earth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BRUTICUS ( 325520 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:16PM (#14109765)
    Imagine when EVERY COMPANY in the world is paying Google to be listed on GoogleEarth. And paying them to build a model of their company.

    They are creating timeless content that grows exponentially with use. Microsoft makes hardware and software that ages.

    Mark my words, I do believe Google will dwarf Microsoft someday.

  • own worst enemy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:16PM (#14109766)
    There is an old Buddhist saying from the dhammapada that goes something like there is no enemy greater then your own misdirected mind and no greater friend then your own mind properly directed.

    Ya, google is a threat that may pull people away from ebay, but ebay is pushing customers away with its incompetence.

    My account got labeled as being monetarily delinquent. I wrote to them about it and they admitted that I was right. The problem went away. I kept getting emails telling me that I owed them money. I wrote back to ebay several times, each time being told that I was right and that the problem would be resolved. It never was.

    Over the course of a month with emails where the agents did not read what I had to say I got fed up and tried calling them( long distance ). I had to scour the net to find a customer service number and even then nobody could put an end to the problem for me.

    A lot of companies that got started as internet businesses seem to have the attitude that they don't have to and will not deal with their customers outside of the web.

    At that point I gave up on ebay forever and decided to buy things online from somewhere else.

    My story is not uncommon.

    If ebay loses business to google it will in part be because of the lousy way they handle their customers.

  • Go google! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:18PM (#14109770)
    Google is great. For the most part, they appear to treat people who work there with respect. They have a noble goal - not just make money, but to organize humanity's information and knowledge - the stuff we've figured out since caveman days - and make it instantly accessible. This is what companies should be about!

    My job would be misery without google. I'd have to spend a lot of time tracking and maintaining my own databases of information relevant to my industry; tracking down specifications and parts would be a nightmare.

    Google has let my 2-3 man consulting company compete and WIN on a multinational stage against people with two orders of magnitude more employees. Not through advertising, but through zero overhead and instant access to information.

    Hators abound, but credit where credit is due, google.
  • Check out this amazing story about the possible future of Google:

    Epic 2005 (flash) [albinoblacksheep.com]

    Sure it's fiction, but WOW!

  • Google basics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PietjeJantje ( 917584 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:29PM (#14109832)
    The article starts of like this:

    It seems no one is safe: Google is doing Wi-Fi; Google is searching inside books; Google has a plan for ecommerce.

    Of course, Google has always wanted to be more than a search engine. Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information. High-minded as that sounds, Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft

    Does ANYONE remember how Google entered the search market as "just a search engine" because others failed to concentrate on their core business and that this is exactly what made them so succesful? This was their prime strength. I don't make this up. They did. Now they are ad-brokers and stock-driven, their prime aim is exactly the opposite. They need as much services and thus page hits as possible, and next year they need more, or otherwise they are "doing bad", for stockholders anyway. Me, I think they can be beaten by the next company which purely concentrates on search. Actually, if I consider all the fluff and features I don't use, all the overpaid top names working on pet projects, and the lack of any true inovation in the search field, I wonder what could have been done if they had concentrated on search and search alone.

  • Ugggh! Stop it already (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Google does not bat 1000. Look at Orkut. Look at their RSS reader. Even Google Base has issues. Is this the eBay killer? Ms Whitman is not losing much sleep I think. Google Base has none of the useful community features of other ecommerce sites. Now understand that Google will face competition from Microsoft and Yahoo very soon in the distributed ad gig. Ad rates will drop. Its inevitable. Google rules search, but search is a commodity market now. Oh sure I will get a thousand replies about how all the ot

  • Not afraid yet (Score:5, Funny)

    by nnnneedles ( 216864 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:40PM (#14109884)
    I will only be afraid when they get into the AI field and bring us brain.google.com.

    Or.. even worse:

    braaaaaaains.google.com

    Until those happen, I am not afraid!

  • Another company who should be afraid (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jorkapp ( 684095 ) <jorkapp&hotmail,com> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @08:01PM (#14109977)
    OSTG should be afraid of google. Simply put, Google can offer competitive services similar to those that OSTG offers. Google would have a marked advantage with a much larger userbase than (most) OSTG services and can come up with witty names to further their competition.

    Take for example:
    Sourceforge and Freshmeat - - Google Codebase
    Thinkgeek                 - - Google store already exists, just rename it to ThinkGoogle or something similarly witty
    Slashdot and Newsforge    - - Google News already exists, just add comments, which shouldn't be too difficult seeing as how they already have an accounts system in place
    ITMJ                      - - Google blog already exists, could be renamed to Blogoogle or something.

  • Comcast's conflict that google doesn't have (Score:3, Insightful)

    by max born ( 739948 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @08:08PM (#14110005)
    Who's threatened: Comcast and other cable providers, Yahoo!, TV networks that still shun the Net ...

    Seems to me it should make sense to distribute TV content via the Internet. 1) It would give consumers more choice. 2) The current "one-way pipe to dumb terminal" system doesn't make sense in the presence of the Internet.

    The problem with Comcast is they have a conflict of interest. A company that's an ISP and a cable provider is hardly likely to give you gigabyte Internet access so you can cancel your cable bill and get your content via the Internet.

    Google is starting to compete with an ancient TV distribution business model whose time has come. This is a good thing.
  • Given that most companies in IT are in some way focused on acquiring, organising and retrieving data - Google set themselves up to compete with pretty much everybody in the world.

  • PRIVACY (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lukOh ( 930297 )
    Who's threatened: anyone

    C'mon, guys, Ma'soft looks like milk in a comparison. Concentrate.

    Use of any service is arguaby on everyone's choice, but think carefully to dependence (need) and alternatives, so far: once you've choosen [google], think either about your a)cookies or b) IP (eventually semi-static, part of a pool, often bound to a location or a provider)

    Registration? M$ doensn't even want it anymore, hardware validation is enough.
    Interests? Need to search, sir?
    Letters? Mail (IMHO the best service AFA
  • I've been thinking more lately about the president of the American Library Association, Michael Gorman, and the objections he has to the Google Book Search. He's almost the only person I've head of who objects not on the basis of copyright, but rather on the basis of the atomization of information. Then I did a search on the name of one of people behind Google-Watch, and compared Google's snippet containing his name [google-watch.org] to the actual text from the book. Atomization? Heck, he got completely nuked by the snippet

  • Adsense- I'm afraid, and fear Google is broken. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by paul.schulz ( 75696 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @09:28PM (#14110296) Homepage
    Earlier in the year I had my Google AdSense account suspended because of
    illegal clicks. It was against their policy and I acknowledge that..
    BUT (the long story)

    - The ads. that Adsense was serving to my community website
        were irrelvent to the audience of my site. I had informed Google
        of this and were told changes were in the pipeline.. for over a year.

    - I tried several methods to get more relevent ads. displayed, including
        removing words from the site that triggered particular ads (like
        'maillist' and 'email') and adding particular advertisers to the
        blacklist (which was limited to 200). [Why should I have to modify
        my website to get Google ads. to work for me, other than to enable them
        in the first place? ]

        If I could make the ads. relevent to my audience, then this would help
        bring more visitors, and I could also approach advertisers and promote
        AdWords to relevent businesses.. a win,win,win situation (The customer,
        The company, and myself.)

    This didn't happen!

    - In despiraton (and nothing else to do) I clicked on the ads. myself. At least
        then it would make some money, make someone pay, and hopefully get some
        different ads. displayed.

    After 6 months, Google contacted me to say that my Adsense account had
    been disabled, ironically the day after I had been informed
    about the site target advertising (the feature that I had been waiting for).

    A request to re-activate my AdSense account was refused. The revenue
    prevously received from Google had been small, and only one payment
    had ever been made (the minimal amount). An offer to payback even this amount, in order to get the account reactivated was also refused.

    (I could have very easily opened another Adsense account under a different
    name/address, but this would not have helped Google and was not the point.)

    So.. my point?

    - Adsense seems to be run out of the UK (was it purchased?), and seems to have
    a different ethos to the 'do no evil' US operation, as much as they try to
    be the same comapny.

    - While Adsense has taken a strong stance on illigal clicks, there is no appeal process to the decisions that they are making. They have made up their mind,
    and they didn't care why.

    As Google gets larger, and buys/develops more customer facing businesses,
    rather than technology, this situation will only get worse, and more scary.

  • This guy [google-watch.org] is definately scared. I'd be scared if i had a cookie lingering around my hard drive with an expiry date of 2038.

  • With the anouncment of google base, google shifted from a service which could help the small website content publisher, to a manopoly aiming to grab everyones content. Small providers could make a small living through hosting content and showing google adds. Now they want your content for free with no financial insentive.

    As with the monopoly of Microsoft and it counter the open source movement, we need to start building a new open movement to counter Google. We need to quickly embrace the latest Web 2.0 id

  • Although Google is better than, for example, Altavista, it still lives a lot to be desired: for any particular topic, the user has to search hundreds if not thousands of links. Try for example 'serial port ReadFile multiple threads' and Google will come up with many pages that have those words but nothing about how to use the serial port using the function ReadFile under multiple threads.

    And then you have to focus really hard in each page to find the relevant information in the suggested page, due to an ext

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