Google As The Next Microsoft? 235
theodp writes "In this week's missive, Robert X. Cringely argues that Google is starting to look a bit like Microsoft. The search giant is learning too well from the master, says Cringely, noting that Google's launch of Goog-411 after taking a long look at investing in or acquiring Free411.com under an NDA is straight out of an old Microsoft playbook. Cringely goes on to note that Google has a problem with algorithmic optimization gone mad (seconded by Newsweek), which is wreaking havoc on some AdWords customers who may find themselves out of business before they can get Google to do the right thing. Cringely concedes that Google's inability to follow through because of IT failings may not have been learned from Microsoft — it may just be an inevitable part of having an IT monopoly."
Re:A monopoly? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not even a close comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
not surprising (Score:1, Interesting)
Simply put: Corps spread Google FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
A company that has rendered my computer useless many times because of a false WGA positive? That's evil. A company that injects false TCP flags into sessions to "shape" bandwidth? That's evil. A company that renders a 600 dollar phone useless because I installed a 3rd party program? That's evil.
In fact, the only thing I can recall that google has done ever even remotely evil is a censored version of google search in China. That was a VERY calculated move and they were very open about the decision. Google has actually expressed regret for not standing up for what is right. But this PALES in comparison to the crap other US companies have pulled in China. This includes border-line slave labor and the turning over of information that has led to the death of many innocent people. On the evilness scale, what google did in China was like a
Re:They aren't even close (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A monopoly? (Score:2, Interesting)
3 groups... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know anything about the free411 thing. That might be "Evil" if it is how Cringely suggests. But with no details, it's hard to speculate.
The adSense complaining is in no way an indicator of a Microsoft-like monopoly. Google must balance the interests of users, content-providers, and advertisers. Subsets of all three groups are trying to game Google for their own benefit. Of those three groups, Google seems to be most leery of offending the users -- and this has worked well for them.
The user, really, is in control here. The user could use another search. They could put ads.google.com (or whatever) in their hosts.txt file (like many have done to doubleclick and others). Even for those who can't/won't do that, users can avoid pages they know have ads that are more annoying than the content is good (Otherwise I would read Dilbert every day -- but not with popup-blocker avoiding popunders.) Further, since the other two groups are trying to game google to get the attention of users, Google acts as a kind of spam filter for the user, only giving them ads that they can manage -- or even ignore. (Thus Google's limits on the number ads per page, etc.)
The content provider wants, simply, to make money. They have content -- which drives page hits -- and want to monetize that. They have some tension with Google over caches and summaries, but Google can make that up to them by increasing their traffic (for free, when the user searches) and maybe by providing money, if they use Google ads.
Advertisers are the loudest complainers, especially those who have chosen to base their business mostly on Google's referals. They also try the hardest to game Google, to get more users. This group seems to think that since they are the ones paying Google, that they're the only customers of Google, and that Google must treat them better than the other two groups. This is also the only group from whose perspective the 'monopoly' claims begin to make sense. If an online business wants traffic, they pretty much have to deal with Google, since Google "controls" so much traffic. Clearly, some of them resent Google for this lack of choice.
The content providers could choose someone other than Google to support their pages, and the users could opt out of google ads if they wanted. But the advertisers are stuck with google. This might allow google to abuse the advertisers if they wanted. I haven't seen them going that far, though. But they are willing to tweak their algorythems in ways that that sometimes hurt advertisers. I don't think it's intentionally "Evil", but the consequences are hard to foresee. (On the other hand, I've never seen google ads screw up a page's layout, much less infect a user's computer with spyware or worse.) I think that Google would love to be completely fair to these customers, but that's "hard," especially since many of these users are trying to be Evil to Google and the other two groups.
Anyway -- this is one way free markets work. The users and content providers have chosen the terms on which they'll deal with advertisers. If you don't like Google, you'll have to come up with something that's more attractive to those groups, in order to compete.
The comparison to Microsoft is there, but pretty weak. Microsoft does have to address the interests of users, 3rd party developers, and hardware manufactures. Microsoft uses its domanance in its OS and office products to keep all three groups locked in to each other and themselves. Microsoft does seem to favor developers over the other two, but only if the developers will lock themselves into the Microsoft-way of doing things (eg, Microsoft APIs instead of portable code.) This locks users in (if the software they want runs only on Windows), which in turn gives MSFT more clout when ordering hardware vendors around. Microsoft lock-in of some users puts pressure on others to do the same (what else do you do when someone sends you a Word2007 or Visio document that needs to be edi
Re:Google is *NOT* a search company ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but I cannot see how Google could lock people into their advertising in the same way that Microsoft locks people into Windows, Exchange and MS Office. The cost of moving to another product will remain cheap.
Google is offering apps and services to better profile individuals. If they develop the most accurate database of profiles they can achieve lockin to the same extent that Microsoft does. There will be a cost, a loss in revenue, by switching to some other targeted adverting firm.
Re:They aren't even close (Score:3, Interesting)
Google takes 6-8 months sometimes to resolve click fraud issues like this. By then its way too late, you're out of business.
Re:They aren't even close (Score:3, Interesting)
Google while not being a monopoly, really is THE ONLY way to advertise online, nothing else works reliably that I've seen.
Unfortunately, when someone decides they are going to click fraud your ads, well there isn't anywhere to hide, you can't just take your google budget and put it on yahoo and expect an equal return, its not there, your sales disappear overnight. And the length of time it takes to get google customer service to respond is way too long to save a company from a death spiral when sales dry up overnight.
Re:3 groups... (Score:3, Interesting)
What cannot be stated loudly enough is that when advertisers and content providers attempt to game the system, they have a negative impact on the users.
There was a time when Google was unmatched at getting you what you were looking for. As soon as people started to hack their PageRank, that web search Garden of Eden was destroyed. They're still pretty good, but many off-the-beaten-path keywords churn up increasingly suboptimal results, and I can only conclude that this is because they're attempting to inflate their PageRank.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who gets bitten in the ass by their own attempts to cheat has it coming. I suppose you could say that you are putting yourself at a disadvantage by not cheating, but this does not negate the fact that you are doing a disservice to search users. And furthermore, it's in the best interests of EVERYONE that Google attempts to get search users what they want. As soon as they stop doing that, users will stop being curious about what the net has to offer, and then they stop spending money in new and interesting places on the web, then commerce drives up and so does advertising.
Re:Google Rubs Them the Wrong Way (Score:2, Interesting)
Toyota beat the rest of the world because they didn't act in an evil way. Other car companies were doing things like lowering quality in order to make sure that people bought a new car or parts sooner.
Toyota instead tried to make things better. They made better cars which maybe meant less in the short to medium, but paid off in the long - people would buy one Toyota and then replace it with another (there's some phenomenal rate on Lexus customer loyalty).