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Google Counters AOL Deal Speculation 135

Posted by Zonk from the only-time-will-tell dept.
arrrrg writes "Google has responded to speculation of biased search results and flashy banner ads arriving in the wake of their recent $1 Billion deal with AOL. On their official blog, they deny that users will see any negative changes. In particular they maintain that search results will remain unbiased and the site will remain free of banner ads." From the post: "Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say 'all the world's information,' this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content."
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Google Counters AOL Deal Speculation More

Google Counters AOL Deal Speculation

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  • Uh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy@nosPAm.gmail.com> on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:25AM (#14326238) Journal
    Yea, a lot of people would pay 1 billion dollars just to look at AOL's content. OMGWTFLOLOLROFLCOPTERS

    Jeez, why didn't they just use one of the damn free cds?
    • why is everyone so upset that google paid for a year of aol? they should be more upset that it costs $1B per year imho
      • Now that Google got the free trial, AOL has their credit card number -- and that sucker's Platinum, baby. Ice.

      • Re:Uh? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Haydn Fenton ( 752330 ) <no.spam.for.haydn@gmail.com> on Friday December 23, 2005 @11:20AM (#14326865)
        I know slashdotters don't like to actually read any articles (just like I'm not going to read this one), but surely I can't be the only one who has read Googles press release [google.com] (20th Dec) on their AOL business?

        Under the strategic alliance, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL's network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement's broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:
        • Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google's advertising technology - enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
        • Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
        • Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
        • Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video;
        • Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
        • Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.
        [...]
        Google will become the only shareholder in AOL other than Time Warner. Time Warner will retain management control and full strategic flexibility over AOL, while Google will have certain customary minority shareholder rights, including those associated with any future sale or public offering of AOL.

        For $1b, Google are getting a hell of a lot more search content, video content, IM users, along with a share of AOLs advertising revenue and they're gonna continue to get their search features provided to AOL users, and let's not forget that MS not cannot bully Google around as easily by buying a share in AOL themselves anymore. Whether it's worth it only time will tell, but I don't think it's been too bad of a deal.

    • Re:Uh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:31AM (#14326286)
      When Google came for the AOL'ers, I said nothing, because I was not a 12 year old girl.
      When Google came for the MSN'ers, I said nothing, because I was not a 50 year old grandma.
      When Google came for the Myspace'rs, I said nothing, because I was not a 15 year old emo freak.
      When Google came for the Yahoo'ers, I said nothing, because I was not a mentality retarded person.

      Then, Google came for slashdot, and I was like.. meh.. whatever.
    • Does this include AOL content that is AOL-paid-acct-only? I figure it would, but does that now mean that googlers can see AOL data in a search? Or is the search just internal to AOL?
    • More like: a lot of people would pay 1 billion dollars to stop Microsoft buying AOL and taking 10% of their revenue away.

      A cynic might say that Google is in a weak position here and are getting played... wonder who will have the last laugh....

      • Re:Uh? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Will Fisher ( 731585 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:46AM (#14326367)
        I read that (and I might be wrong) that Google makes $400 Million in ad revenue from AOL subscribers (who, presumably, arrive at google from AOL). If microsoft had bought this steak in AOL, and cut Google out of AOL, then Google would be out $400Million a year.

        I see this purchase as Google protecting the traffic it gets from AOL. In a little over 2 years they will have made their $1 billion back.

        Remember when Ballmer said "I'm going to kill google?". Google just spent some of its HUGE cash pile on protection against MS. Fair play to them.

        • Re:Uh? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by space_dude_27 ( 838047 )
          Exactly - Google just spent a billion dollars protecting a big chunk of their revenue stream which is highly vulnerable. The problem (for Google) that I see is that every knows this - Microsoft know it and, most importantly, AOL know this. It seems to me that AOL have Google over a barrel to a certain extent because AOL could still jump into bed with Microsoft and screw Google over. Who's to say that AOL won't continue to require favours from Google in the future in order to prevent this?

        • Re:Uh? (Score:5, Funny)

          by geniusj ( 140174 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:57AM (#14326411) Homepage
          ... If microsoft had bought this steak in AOL ...

          Yum..

        • Re:Uh? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by 110010001000 ( 697113 )
          Even if it is $400Million in revenue per year, that is not profit. GOOG spent a billion in CASH, who knows how many years it will take to recoup that.

          It sounds dumb to me, but hopefully GOOG's executive staff has run the numbers. MSFT isn't "bad", and GOOG isn't "good" - they both only care about the money.

          • MSFT isn't "bad", and GOOG isn't "good" - they both only care about the money.

            I don't think that this is true of either company; both are making enormous profits which leave significant room for experimentation. It should be obvious that both companies have other agenda - in MSFT's case, trying to extend Windows' reach onto every computing device in existance, and in GOOG's it's trying to index every bit of information on every medium. Sure, both of these activites could lead to a great deal of money b

          • Even if it is $400Million in revenue per year, that is not profit. GOOG spent a billion in CASH, who knows how many years it will take to recoup that.

            You say that as if the $1B is a pure loss; it isn't, they bought a 5% share of AOL with it.

            (Yeah yeah, so that means they only have to recoup about $999 million...)

          • They also have over $7 billion in the bank according to Yahoo Finance. Their profit 30-Sep-04 to 30-Sep-05 was $1.7 billion. They can throw $1B at AOL and live.
    • I'm glad that this is the first comment, seriously. That quote in the article sounds like google thinks we must have zero business sense.

      I mean, if true, that's one LARGE consulting fee. Defense contractors would probably even gawk and say "that's a lot of money!"

    • Don't be an idiot (Score:3, Insightful)

      by logicnazi ( 169418 )
      Aside from stopping MS from getting AOL google gets a 5% stake in AOL. They are buying stock, that stock has value. At some point in the future they can sell that stock (probably not right away due to contract agreements) and get money back.

      Google no more gave up 1 Billion dollars than you give up money when you put it in you 401k. Sure Google likely paid more than the AOL percent was worth in return for additional contractual assurances (will use Google ads, won't do blah with MS etc..) but not the wh
    • "This isn't an armed robbery, I'm just pointing this gun at you in case you inadvertently overlook giving me all your money."

  • 1B for that? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content."

    No need to pay 1B for that, eh?

  • AOL ads (Score:3, Interesting)

    by onedobb ( 868860 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:27AM (#14326258)
    Can we atlease overlook all of the AOL popup ads? I can't believe that people actually paid for AOL. As far as I'm concerned all they did was pay for popup ads and under par internet service. If it was for the instant messenger, you could get that for free.

    • Re:AOL ads (Score:2, Interesting)

      by orangeacid ( 909831 )
      I am also no great fan of AOL, as I am (as someone mentioned earlier) not a 12 year old girl or a clueless (but well meaning) family guy who is 'ready to take the virual leap into cyberspace and the information superhighway' or something else suitably moronic. Although I did pick up a few AOL cds from blockbusters yesterday to use as drinks coasters.
    • We all know AOL has been bad for the net in some ways, but there is at least one good thing we can say about it. That is, it's the only company that held its own against Microsoft's attempts to dominate the IM world. Thankfully, they may have just held on long enough for Google to get the Jabber ball rolling at last.

  • Google is brave... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:28AM (#14326266)
    Man, you'd have to PAY me a billion dollars to work with AOL "webmasters". A lot of these people still thing AOL=The Internet.

  • Text ads work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:29AM (#14326267)

    - There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.

    Will the same be true for all the hundreds of thousands of sites in Google's ad display network?

    Google achieved much through its innovation in text advertising. It proved that relevance is way more effective than blinking and moving graphics.

    But now my local Google rep tells me Google accepts graphical banner content including Macromedia Flash format.

    They're making some sort of guarantees about their own Google web site in TFA, but what about all their affiliate relays? Will Google allow customers to flood those with annoying graphical ads?

    • Re:Text ads work (Score:2, Informative)

      by stealth24 ( 849605 )
      On a large percentage of the message boards that I go to, we always have fun messing about with the Google ads. You know, typing in a bunch of words that relate to one topic (IE: Satan, Witchcraft, Evil, Pagan, etc.) and watching what the Google ads pull up. I don't think it will be as fun is there's a Flash presentation of "demonic acts". Or what if the subject changed to castration for some reason? I can see it now: "LOW COST CASTRATION, ONLY $199 TOTALLY LEGAL" Except now it will have a video to ba
      • You know, typing in a bunch of words that relate to one topic (IE: Satan, Witchcraft, Evil, Pagan, etc.)

        Those words do NOT all relate to one topic.
        • Yes they do.

          They all relate to the religious right nut jobs (as opposed to the religious right sane people, so don't flame me) view of Judaism/Islam/Atheism/Catholicism/Harry Potter.

    • Re:Text ads work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ozydingo ( 922211 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:42AM (#14326335)

      My guess is that will be up to the site displaying the ads. And for that i'd say you can't fault Google; they'd be losing out on a lot of potential marketshare by not offering graphical ads. If some website wants to get paid to host some ads, it's up to them to decide what type of ads they want to host. And if they want to host banner ads (more money in those, i assume?) and Google can't do anything for them, then they'll just host banner ads through another service (doubleclick, whatever). Google loses out on a potential customer. By offerring graphical ads Google gets to snag those customers, but that does not mean we'll see more annoying popups and banners, it only means those websites that aer willing to subject their readers to that kind of thing in the first place have another option to choose from. We may see some sites that use Google text ads switch to graphical ads; but I think the major change will be Google will steal away customers from doubleclick and the likes--just a change in what service the webstie that already host graphical ads use, not necessarily an increase in the number of sites that use graphical ads.

      You could get into a whole moral debate about not offerring a service you fundamnetally disagree with, and that offerring it because "if we don't do it someone else will anyway" is no excuse; but noone ever said (well, Google never said (did they?)) that they're on a moral campaign against graphical ads, just that they recognize that they'll get more users if they don't have them on their own site. If someone else wants to have graphical ads, well that's their own decision to make. I'll just be that much less likely to visit that site, and that's my decision to make.

      • I've already seen annoying ads and banners from Google ad feeds, some bad enough to make me consider blocking them. And while what sort of ads are accepted may be up the the site owner, in the previous discussion someone pointed out that graphical ads pay better, so there is incentive for site owners to encourage them.

        And that indeed does make me much less likely to visit such a site (having learned that the value of the average site is inversely proportional to the annoyance factor of the ads it displays).
      • Though you acknowledge the "whole moral debate", I think it is pretty key. AdSense is absolutely huge and the decisions Google makes change the face of the Internet. So if Google makes banner ads a large part of AdSense, even if it will be turned off, they will be responsble for making the Internet more flashy in exactly the ways they think are detrimental to users.

        I do agree that its not exactly reprehensible, but just like popup ad providers, their decision will have a significant impact on the user exp

    • Re:Text ads work (Score:5, Informative)

      by alphakappa ( 687189 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:47AM (#14326370) Homepage
      You always have the option to choose graphical ads or text ads in your adsense account. Graphical ads have always been part of adsense - most folks just choose not to use them.
    • "ever" must mean something like "until after next quarter".

      You will one day curse Google just like you do AOL, Microsoft, and Gator. Mark my words.
    • They're making some sort of guarantees about their own Google web site in TFA, but what about all their affiliate relays? Will Google allow customers to flood those with annoying graphical ads?

      I believe from reports, and what isn't in the post, that Google will be providing search affiliates with rope to hang themselves with, a gun to shoot themselves with, etc. Basically, it appears Google will give affiliates the option of graphical crap. If those sites want to annoy their users, Google will be more tha

    • But now my local Google rep tells me Google accepts graphical banner content including Macromedia Flash format.

      I've already seen them.

      I block flash ads. Usually I'm nice enough to not block the ad network outright - but block any .sfw file coming from them. Googles' context didn't include that... but there was enough in the path to identify a multimedia ad and so I blocked based on that. If it gets any more complex, I'll probably just block all ads from Google.

  • Time Warner (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cez ( 539085 ) <info@historystar ... m ['ay.' in gap]> on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:31AM (#14326283) Homepage
    I wonder how much of that Billion dollars was spent for AOL content compared to Time Warner content...perhaps this is a way of sweetening the pot for their lyric database, movie database, news service and video archives.

  • Contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:34AM (#14326296) Homepage
    Dude, seeing AOL content IS a negative change :(

  • I'm not quite sure what this means... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pulse2600 ( 625694 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:34AM (#14326302)
    ...when they say they "want to organize the world's data, including AOL's." Doesn't Google already crawl and catalog sites on AOL or created by AOL subscribers? Or are they talking about things like multimedia content that is only available to AOL users? I was under the impression that internet content served by AOL worked just like any other site on the internet. Does AOL currently block Google from cataloging/caching all content served by AOL via robots.txt or other methods? I am not an AOL subscriber so if someone out there could share with the rest of the class, it would be appreciated.
  • If they start pushing animated gifs and swf.

    Maybe I will block them, even if they use just logos for the ads.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:43AM (#14326347)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Article Text (Score:4, Informative)

    by alphakappa ( 687189 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:44AM (#14326359) Homepage
    Since very few folks will RTFA, here's the text in its entirety

    The recent announcement of the AOL partnership has been the source of a lot of rumors and misconceptions. We'd like to clear some of those up.

    - Biased results? No way. Providing great search is the core of what we do. Business partnerships will never compromise the integrity or objectivity of our search results. If a partner's page ranks high, it's because they have a good answer to your search, not because of their business relationship with us.

    - Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say "all the world's information," this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content.

    - AOL will receive a credit towards advertising purchased through Google's ad program. You might wonder if this will affect the ad auction. It won't. We don't offer preferential treatment on advertising (in either the auction or the display) to any of our partners.

    - We have a service called "onebox" for which we provide some additional links separate from ads (sponsored links) and search results. (Try searching on [new york transit strike] and look for the news section.) AOL and its products have always been a part of onebox, along with many other providers, and will continue to be.

    - There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.

    Our service and our business works because of you - our users. You're important to us and something that we think about all the time -- as we build new products, negotiate deals, and think about what our future holds.

    We're looking forward to what AOL can help us do for you, and believe that our new agreement with them will only create a better experience for you in 2006 and beyond -- one where you can continue to trust that we're giving you a result because it's the best one we can possibly provide.

  • What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:50AM (#14326385)
    - Biased results? No way. Providing great search is the core of what we do. Business partnerships will never compromise the integrity or objectivity of our search results. If a partner's page ranks high, it's because they have a good answer to your search, not because of their business relationship with us.

    What about google's collaboration with china's government?

    - Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say "all the world's information," this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content.

    Does "all the world's information" includes information about human rights, liberty and all this stuff?

    • there is a teeny tiny difference between a "business partner" or "the government of a sovereign nation". Except ofcourse when said government is buying or selling something.

    • Do you think google takes some kind of perverse pleasure in dealing with China's great firewall? The answer is of course: no. Just like companies don't like getting tarrifed in certain counries. The point is: if you want to be in a country's market, you must play by their rules.

  • Built in conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by augustz ( 18082 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @09:53AM (#14326395)
    The problem is the have a built in structural conflict of interest.

    They do well when AOL does.

    Even though it seems a stretch, these structural types of conflict of interest can be surprisingly powerful.

    Give it five years. At some point, instead of trying to pick the best choices for onebox with the goal of it being the best for the user, they will pick an AOL option, and rationalize it will be the best for the user. It's a subtle difference, but almost guaranteed.

    We also see from lobbying in the political realm, that access means a TON. Just getting alot more overlap with Google will let AOL really tune into what they are going to be doing in a way that others won't be able to.

    Be interesting to see how this unfolds. Feels very business driven, and even there not sure I buy it. If you have to pay $1b to sell your ads on someone elses site, you're not really selling them. Better to just adjust the cut they get until they and more people everywhere cary them.
    • I think whether or not their is any structural conflict depents a lot on the exact structure of the relationship. Since google and AOL aren't merging but google is only holding a stake in AOL this could be kept as a purely financial arrangement (lots of companies have random investments) which doesn't filter down to the actual people doing the work. Generally you don't want to be sharing technology and close access with companies you only own 5% of. Still the talk about indexing AOLs content makes one th
      • You may be forgetting a human element in this.

        Someone on the edge of the relationship, either on the AOL side or the Google side, may have their success very tied in with how this partnership will result. For example, I pushed this deal to buy the $1b stake. It would be good for me to show that the stake is worth something, so I push for AOL to show in a bunch of places.

        This would usefully be from the business persons side, rather than a programmers side. Google has grown a lot in a short time, and corporat

  • Lies? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ghislain_leblanc ( 450723 ) <ghisleb@m[ ]om ['e.c' in gap]> on Friday December 23, 2005 @10:01AM (#14326438)
    But of course, it is Google...they could not possibly be lying, can they? I am really concerned about this. Not the fact that they have all this power, but more the fact that nobody seems to see any problem with it. "Because they do no evil". They still are a company, a big one, and companies (espacially big ones) are more or less meant to be evil. Why would Google be an exception? They did, after all, buy a big chunk of stock in a comonly known as evil one...!

    • Re:Lies? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by english_august ( 718408 )
      Because all said and done, Google has not given us any reasons to be suspicious of them. This is the giant chasm that Google has managed to cross - they are a huge corporation with complete trust of users like me because I see them constantly innovate. The day they stop wowing me with new functionality I will start complaining but until then I will keep my mouth shut because I know that far more superior brains than mine are at work at Google.
    • They did, after all, buy a big chunk of stock in a comonly known as evil one...!

      Google bought a BIG chunk of Microsoft stock?

      -Brent
    • Lying? Read their blog carefully. I don't think they made any promises which could turn out to be lies. Now, your concept of "good" search results may diverge from Google's at some point, but that doesn't make them liars.
  • Until the entire planet is indexed. They have the capital and unlimited resources available to make it happen.

  • Outrageous! (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by artemis67 ( 93453 )
    One billion dollars, just to show AOL how to use robots.txt!

    Hell, they could have paid me five hundred million and I would have done it for them for half price!
  • Does this phrase "Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say 'all the world's information,' this includes AOL's" sound like some cheesy evil super-villains group motto... You know... the kind of evil group the JLA would send Aquaman to fight?

    Batman: Green Lantern, the Legion of Doom is attacking the UN! Scramble the team.

    Green Lantern: Right. On it!

    Aquaman: Oh - oh - oh! Can I go this time? I swear I won't leave a fishy smell on the plane's leather seats!

    Batman: Ahm.... w

  • The most important information's not from .HTML (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Friday December 23, 2005 @10:28AM (#14326577) Homepage Journal
    The most important information for a company such as Google is not from any information stores that Google will display publicly in a search response. It isn't from databases or PDFs or HTML files or any of the like.

    In my opinion, the most important information is that which is contained in private e-mails. Many users are not weary in the least to tell other users very private ideas, thoughts and connections.

    Google has harvesting engines that can associate words, thoughts and connections better that previous generations of their code, and this is used primarily to help advertisers associate their products and services with the as many different keywords as they possibly can.

    Websites are generally static, but e-mail is always changing. Even the busiest blogger might change their site 3 times a day, a news site might change it 20 times, but an e-mail user could send and receive dozens. Imagine tying in all of a user's e-mails together to find insight into what they want and like and need.

    At this point, is Google sorting through our e-mails at gmail? I'd say no. I don't think this will last -- and AOL's e-mail system is gigantic. The signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low, but it is still massive data. On top of that, the noise that does exist (spam) may help Google implement better anti-spam routines in gmail.

    Of course, I could be all wrong, but I've been studying Google for years now, and nothing they do surprises me. Everything they've been up to has been unique in how they attack their problems, and I do believe that their desire to catalog everything is true. I've said for over 15 years that the future is not products or services but information. The right company that can aggregate and align information for every user (consumer or producer) will be the wealthiest company in history.

    Microsoft who?

  • $1 Billion for search engine optimization consulting?! I am in the wrong industry!

  • <tinfoil_hat>

    Our goal is to organize all of the world's information.

    There is a very fine line between organization and control. By sheer classification and by deciding interfaces and limits on how to access that information, you exert a signifigant amount of control over perception and equal ease of access to biased sources. What happens when you _have_ all the world's information indexed?

    </tinfoil_hat>

    And for the umpteenth time, your goal is to maximize shareholder profits (which
    • "What happens when you _have_ all the world's information indexed? "

      You sell it. Or you use it to sell something else (like ad delivery). Hence, maximize shareholder profits.

      You're right though, it's kind of scary to have so much power centrally administered.

  • What is bias? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tomhath ( 637240 )
    From TFA: In particular they maintain that search results will remain unbiased..."We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works...so we don't inadvertently overlook their content."

    It sounds to me that they're going to make darn sure AOL's content is properly indexed. That will have to change the results of a search from what it is today; helping AOL get better placement isn't bias?

    Yes, they als

    • Though they have certainly been highly critical of this type of relationship when discussing Yahoo's Search Submit Pro program (used to be called Overture's Site Match xChange, used to be called Inktomi's Paid Inclusion). They made a big point that even have inclusion relationships with content providers tainted you search results, even if they didn't influence ranking.
  • In other news...
    AOL is mailing out 1 billion more CDs to the US market!
    • There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.

    Thanks, You have my continued support.

  • Do no evil? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Belial6 ( 794905 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @12:11PM (#14327170)
    AOL is evil. They have been evil since the C-64 days. At no time have they not been evil.

    So, giving AOL a billion dollars to continue their work IS evil.
    • AOL is evil. They have been evil since the C-64 days. At no time have they not been evil. So, giving AOL a billion dollars to continue their work IS evil.

      I'm going to rag on the whole "Evil Google" meme for a second here. You can call something Evil all you want. But everything's relative, and at the end of the day, these statements are no more philosophically monumental than it would be if you were posting on Slashdot referring to the Holocaust as Evil and for Google to index Holocaust pages as Evil.

      T

    • How is AOL evil? I always thought they were just kind of dumb/annoying, but not really evil. They aren't Microsoft. And even if they are evil, don't you think Google can use its position to force them to do better?
      • And even if they are evil, don't you think Google can use its position to force them to do better?

        Nope, they don't have a big enough stake in AOL. (5%). 5% is nothing.

        -everphilski-
    • So, giving AOL a billion dollars to continue their work IS evil.

      Nah, its just outsourcing that evil.

  • Glindows?? (Score:2, Funny)

    by charlesnw ( 843045 )
    Why don't Google and Microsoft merge already!?!? I mean think about it for a minute. They are fighting each other like crazy. The only way they can both realize there goals and make tons of money easily is to merge. No more fighting. No more out bidding each other. Or put another way Google/Microsoft Market capatilzation: 200 Billion Dollars. No more slashdot stories about M$ Google wars: Priceless Google wants to index every bit of information everywhere. Video. Audio. IM. E-mail. HTML/XML/PDF/DOC/XLS/P
    • first of, it goes without saying misrosoft is pure evil.

      Personal bias aside:
      Microsoft is going to go out of buisness.

      Google is poised to take over the desktop market
      (if not globaly, then domesticly at least).

      Think about it, nobody wants a computer, they want a web browser and an office suite.
      If google can put OpenOffice online, then suddenly all people need is a thin client that can handle PPPoE/DHCP have a USB port for a memory key
      and an embedded web browser. If you have access to that 2 Gig of gmail space
    • Okay, I was driving around last night in my car...trying to think of a name for the drug, and suddenly it hit me.

      The name?

      No, a bird hit my windshield. When that happened, I got depressed.

      Not you, Cisco.

      Yeah, even me. But as soon as I got depressed, I got "undepressed"... 'cause as I was cleaning the gleaming guts off my windshield...I thought of the name for the drug-- Gleemonex!

      The slogan?

      Gleemonex makes you feel like it's 75 degrees in your head...

    • Google says it all the time - they want to index the world.

      Bill Gates and Microsoft have said several times - they want to give YOU the tools to index your information.

      Note the difference in semantics. Google wants all the information in the world indexed in one place. Microsoft wants to sell each company the tools to index their own information.

      -everphilski-
  • You've got to be fucking kidding me. If google search results were unbiased, I wouldn't get search result summaries that have nothing to do with my search, except that have my exact search term inserted in the text. Of course, these biased results link to link trap sites or other sites that generate revenue for google...

    No, that's not biased. Not at all.
  • Google swears users will not see any negative changes as a result of the AOL buyin...

    of course, the word "negative" is subject to interpretation. Of course, Google and AOL execs would view banners and even more biased search results as a POSITIVE change, because it will give users what they want and offer them more opportunities to save blah blah blah.... or some other similar drivel...

  • Adsense and embedding sponsored search results is great because they're not shaped like a banner.

    Creating buzz about potential acquisitions, offering the potential of unlimited wealth to any media provider that gets acquired is a brilliant tool for Google. In return, no-one says anything negative about Google.

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