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Last post Author Topic: The conflict of interest that is Google  (Read 74320 times)

40hz

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #25 on: May 05, 2010, 12:30 PM »
The bigger question for me is what the revenue split is between various types of pages.

I'm not sure what you're asking here. AdWords is where Google makes it's big money.

But if you want to know what the split is among the advertisers who are in the AdWords program, you're right in assuming Google isn't ever going to share that information. Especially since AdWords is an auction based "pay to play" system. Not allowing advertisers to obtain what economists call "perfect information" prior to placing a bid generally results in higher bids all around. And that's good for Google.

That's the sort of stuff that usually falls under the heading of Company Proprietary Private and gets a big honkin' blue CONFIDENTIAL stamp on it.

If they told ya - they'd have to kill ya!  ;D

-------


@superboyac -
Yeah,...Bloody Damn huh?
Like I said - I knew they were doing good, but I never knew it was that good.

 :)


« Last Edit: May 05, 2010, 12:38 PM by 40hz »

JavaJones

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #26 on: May 05, 2010, 12:33 PM »
Yes, of course I don't expect Google to actually disclose that info. But it's the only way questions like how much money the "screen scraping" sites make for Google will ever be answered. That discussion earlier in the thread is what I was referring to.

- Oshyan

40hz

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #27 on: May 05, 2010, 12:37 PM »
I feel much the same way about the 'Singularity' event leading up to the Big Bang.

But I expect we'll probably get an answer to that question sooner. :) ;)




Tuxman

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #28 on: May 05, 2010, 09:34 PM »
I'm not sure what you're asking here. AdWords is where Google makes it's big money.
Wasn't it the combination of AdSense and Analytics (which is actually not even legal in some countries but no-one really cares)?

Gwen7

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2010, 07:41 AM »
almost anything is illegal somewhere in this world if you look hard enough.

try not to lose too much sleep over it. :)  
« Last Edit: May 06, 2010, 07:59 AM by Gwen7 »

mouser

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #30 on: October 26, 2010, 07:18 PM »
An interesting infographic suggesting that Google is a monopoly drowning in conflicts of interest:
http://www.scores.org/graphics/monopoly/

Found on http://www.boingboin...raphic-is-googl.html

mahesh2k

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #31 on: October 29, 2010, 01:07 AM »
I'm curious whether there is conclusive evidence that the "scraped" sites that have Google ads on them are higher ranked because of the ads, or because they *aggregate* content from other sites.

Yousaytoo.com, and similar other autoblogs fetch content from member blogs to earn money from google adsense. Scraper sites aka autoblogs do run google adsense and earn lot of bucks. You can check the rank of sites like yousaytoo, and similar other autoblogs(scraper sites).

mouser

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #32 on: October 31, 2010, 01:34 AM »
Amen:

http://tech.slashdot...lluting-the-Internet

"In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin made a promise: 'We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.' Now, Micah White writes in the Guardian that the vast library that is the internet is flooded with so many advertisements that this commercial barrage is having a cultural impact, where users can no longer tell the difference between content and advertising, and the omnipresence of internet advertising constrains the horizon of our thought. And at the center of it all, with ad space on 85% of all internet sites, is Google. In the gleeful words of CEO Eric Schmidt, 'We are an advertising company.' The danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious to ignore, writes White. 'The universal index is the shared heritage of humanity. It ought to be owned by us all. No corporation or nation has the right to privatize the index, commercialize the index, censor what they do not like or auction search ranking to the highest bidder.' Google currently makes nearly all its money from practices its founders once rightly abhorred. 'Now it is up to us to realize the dream of a non-commercial paradigm for organizing the internet. ... We have public libraries. We need a public search engine.'"

andykeating

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #33 on: November 12, 2010, 03:56 AM »
google is not doing charity here..right..so they have to also earn..and earning through ads is the best source.. and why people are giving ads more on google beacuse it has reached the best position due results quality..everyone prefer google search..

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #34 on: November 12, 2010, 04:13 AM »
+1 mouser!

The danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious to ignore

Wow. That's an understatement.

There's been so much research done on advertising psychology and propaganda that it's simple for any company like Google to pick up from there and really do a lot of damage. It's simply too much power.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Curt

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #35 on: November 12, 2010, 07:08 AM »
Hmm... I don't care too much how it all works. I mean, $20 billion from advertising, is how it works... they're not going to change anything unless they'll make at least the same profit.

What is frustrating me the most is, the limited number of search results (and a consequence of this limit). I can become so infuriated when I first read something like "1.234.567 results", but then they NEVER show you more than approx 1.000 results. And the page I was looking for, was not part of these 1.000 because the subject was just a little too popular for my not-quite-so-popular site to be among the listed results.

This is the exact same path that has been taken by YouTube and so many others. You cannot search for whatever you like, unless you 1) already have visited the wanted page / file before so you maybe can remember what terms to use to narrow the search, or 2) will settle with what answer is already the most popular.

Catch 22, I think.

One consequence is  that too often we can only know what is popular
-and that is an extremely dangerous path for the future!
« Last Edit: November 12, 2010, 07:13 AM by Curt »

rxantos

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #36 on: November 12, 2010, 12:55 PM »
One thing of monopolies, they are always abused. I guess is just human nature, or more likely corporate nature. A corporation, by nature, is an egoistical being whose only purpose is to devour as much as possible for the longest time possible.

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #37 on: November 12, 2010, 06:34 PM »
<rant>
I hate to say, "I told ya so...," but I did and I remember being raked over the coals by some as a conspiracy buffoon because of my warnings.  Anyone that knows me knows I have had concerns about Google doing exactly this, i.e, having the power to manipulate knowledge and using it for their benefit, for some years now.  I previously pointed out the validity of Lord Acton's profundity.   I have no desire to rub anyone's nose in this and all those that were antagonistic will remain anonymous.  There is no need to try and search this forum for those threads.  Due to Providence (or call it "luck," if you prefer) all of those threads were wiped out a while back by me (the DC staff had nothing to do with those events), but that's all I need to say about that. 

I have no axe to grind, but I hope now I won't be written off as some nut case.  The threats that were real years ago are more real today.  Frankly, I'm not worried near as much about what Larry and Sergey are doing as I am when (not if) some Administration usurps Google's autonomy for less-than-benevolent purposes.  It is only a matter of time and History, itself is my star witness.  "Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Human nature will allow nothing else unless that "power" is kept under good regulation by love.  Ignore these facts and one day you are going to be unpleasantly surprised.  Ask the folks in the Warsaw Ghetto among others.

'Nuff said.   :)
</rant>

I really don't worry about Big G that much anymore.  I don't use it (directly) except on rare occasions.  Have been using the Scroogle Scraper for years.  Every now and then I get a message from them announcing Big G has changed their algorithm.  A day or two later, Scroogle is back online.  I have also had some pretty good success with the old Clusty, which is actually Yippy now.

I wonder if the way Scroogle, (actually, this is the "Scroogle Scraper" site) works has any bearing on what is returned?  I don't think so, but I was wondering if anyone else did?  Anyone know?

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #38 on: November 12, 2010, 08:20 PM »
+1 CodeTRUCKER.

I have a formal education in logic and argumentation. Conspiracy theories are often dismissed outright for one reason or other, but as of late, I've started to rethink some of the logic and metaphysics behind the general attacks on conspiracy theories (and a range of other topics as are applicable).

I've come to a sort of mid-way where I can see some limitations in the logic used, and some rather hasty uses of logic that fail to address the issues.

It seems to me that very often whether or not there is any intent behind a conspiracy is largely irrelevant. However, it is the intent portion of the conspiracy that is usually attacked, and rather easily.

Historicism has been debunked along with philology, but that doesn't stop people from taking Nietzsche seriously. Among those debunking it are Karl Popper and C. S. Lewis, both intellectual juggernauts not lightly to be dismissed.

Still, it is precisely those patterns in history that in the practical world we see repeated. Logic be damned. It happens. We're talking about inherently stochastic processes, so any degree of logic will eventually meet with some form of paralysis. Logic throws up its hands in defeat in the face of pure chaos (the study of chaos is another matter though). (Incidentally, this is why "brute force" attacks are used -- because strong encryption maximizes the randomness of the stored data and the only approach to it is to start at the beginning of all possibilities and work ones way to the end.)

But those patterns exist. Whether there is intent behind them or not, they are there.

So while we may smugly sit back, confident in our pretty logic that the "conspiracy" is false and nothing more than the ravings of a madman, it doesn't change the reality. Something *is* happening.

As an analogy, consider the typical ways that people think about morality and ethics as being the standard fare for logic and reasoning in the Karl Popper anti-Historicism vein of things. Then consider Carol Gilligan's arguments for relationship-oriented morality and ethics as she puts forth in "In a Different Voice" as being more like the way in which conspiracy logic works. (I am aware of the possible connotations there, so please do not read into that anything more than what I am saying. I am not trying to demean conspiracy logic or relationship-centric morality. I am merely trying to frame the system, or different systems, in a relationship to each other.)

So what we end up with is a matter of perspective or a matter of dealing with situations using different systems.

Any logician worth a damn will tell you that some problems cannot be solved using some systems of logic.

This is detailed in Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Well, I may be making some assumptions (that it is applicable to humans and/or history) and jumping a few steps, but close enough. For an overview of what I am skipping over see here and here and here. Perhaps the most telling is Penrose's conclusion:

Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer.

Well, let's just assume that human's are just very good at switching logical systems, and that's their core logical system. Problem solved. :)

Anyways, that's the quick summary on why I believe that quick dismissal of conspiracy theories is premature. (I'm still waffling on a few things, but whatever. I'll make up my mind eventually. That is unless I'm inconsistent. Or maybe because I'm incomplete... ;) )

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Tuxman

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #39 on: November 12, 2010, 08:26 PM »
BTW, as I recently have read something about "20 years of WWW":
The WWW (Google's reason to exist) was developed on a NeXT. So, maybe, we shall blame Apple?

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #40 on: November 12, 2010, 08:29 PM »
BTW, as I recently have read something about "20 years of WWW":
The WWW (Google's reason to exist) was developed on a NeXT. So, maybe, we shall blame Apple?

Naw, I think if there is anyone to blame, it is ourselves.  And I quote, "
I am persuaded the only reason bad men have succeeded is not because good men have done nothing, but that good men did not do enough."

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #41 on: November 12, 2010, 08:43 PM »
+1 CodeTRUCKER.
...
Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer.

Well, let's just assume that human's are just very good at switching logical systems, and that's their core logical system. Problem solved. :)
...

Hey Man, you've outlined my next week's study outline.  ;D

The funny thing is I was pondering the subject of "logic" just yesterday and today [Cue Twilight Zone theme].  After some cogitation on the issue, I was struck that "logic" was illogical.  :o  Unfortunately, my post would be about twice the length of your missive, so I will try to distill it and get back to you.  In the meantime, here is a smattering...

If...
A = B
and
B = C
then
A = C

... see anything wrong with this?

Maybe I'm not seeing everything (the emperor's new clothes, perhaps), but it seems ludicrous to me (and the man who originally brought this to my attention).  It says nothing!  The "then" is already contained in the equation.  Nothing new is learned, nor proven at all.  At best, it is redundant.

Anyway, thanks for a substantive reply.

KynloStephen66515

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #42 on: November 12, 2010, 09:18 PM »
@complearning123

Please refrain from double/tripple posting in the future  :D

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #43 on: November 12, 2010, 09:25 PM »
If...
A = B
and
B = C
then
A = C

... see anything wrong with this?

Maybe I'm not seeing everything (the emperor's new clothes, perhaps), but it seems ludicrous to me (and the man who originally brought this to my attention).  It says nothing!  The "then" is already contained in the equation.  Nothing new is learned, nor proven at all.  At best, it is redundant.

Well, it is informative in a way. It's a definition in a logical system. That is, it is trivial.

Now, I'm not really sure what you're finding ludicrous, but if you're finding it ludicrous in the "common sense" way, then I'd have to say you're right. A = C does not follow. Here's an example of what I mean:

(A) I am (B) white.
(B) White is (C) a color.
(A) I am (C) a color.

For those programmers among us, this is obvious in another context: value vs. reference.

e.g.

int a = 1;
int b = 1;
int c = 1;

Now, this is true:

a == b

So is this:

b == c;

So is this:

a == c;

But that's a value comparison. But if we are talking about references, a is not b is not c is not a.

Here's a simple example (really for others reading):

Code: C# [Select]
  1. int a = 1;
  2. int b = 1;
  3. int c = 1;
  4.  
  5. textBox1.Text += "a==b is " + (a == b).ToString() + "\r\n";
  6. textBox1.Text += "b==c is " + (b == c).ToString() + "\r\n";
  7. textBox1.Text += "c==a is " + (c == a).ToString() + "\r\n";
  8.  
  9. Form x = new Form();
  10. Form y = new Form();
  11. Form z = new Form();
  12.  
  13. textBox1.Text += "x.Equals(y) is " + (x.Equals(y)).ToString() + "\r\n";
  14. textBox1.Text += "y==z is " + (y == z ).ToString() + "\r\n";

Which yields this result:

a==b is True
b==c is True
c==a is True
x.Equals(y) is False
y==z is False

a, b, and c are all value based, where x, y, and z are all reference based. Again, different systems apply to different things.

Anyways, I do tend to get carried away with logic. It's just so much fun~! :D

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

tomos

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #44 on: November 13, 2010, 10:14 AM »
Please refrain from double/tripple posting in the future  :D

totally off-topic: I've started doing that lately too* - it can make for cleaner/clearer read for others imo.
Same with email (especially work but even with private), I now stick to one subject (with an appropriate subject line of course!)

* not trying to boost my post count, I swear!
Tom

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #45 on: November 13, 2010, 10:17 AM »
* not trying to boost my post count, I swear!

Post whore~!
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #46 on: November 13, 2010, 10:18 AM »
* not trying to boost my post count, I swear!

Dirty post whore~!
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Renegade

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #47 on: November 13, 2010, 10:18 AM »
* not trying to boost my post count, I swear!

Just kidding~! :P
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Tuxman

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #48 on: November 13, 2010, 10:56 AM »
*push*

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: The conflict of interest that is Google
« Reply #49 on: November 13, 2010, 12:14 PM »

* not trying to boost my post count, I swear!

I am!  :eusa_dance:
« Last Edit: November 13, 2010, 12:22 PM by CodeTRUCKER »