Why we should leave Google behind

Google has been a good friend for over 5 years now. It has taken the Internet world by storm. They have build a brand purely on the quality of their product, almost no advertising was involved. In many ways, Google brought back the sensibility that had slipped the Internet during the dot.com boom. The clear user interface, the seperation between advertising and commercials, even the humor, it was all very much the way Internet was supposed to be. Lately, stories around Google sound like the end of a beautiful friendship.

A year or so ago, the Scientology Church threadened Google with legal actions, if Google would not remove a link to xenu.net, some Norwegians with an alternate vision on Scientology. Google complied. Since some time, xenu is findable again through Google again, though. However, last month or so, Google removed all references to Kazaa lite from its database, because Kazaa (the irony) had complained about copyright infringements.

Google, of course, is a company and has to think about shareholders value. However, when Google starts to filter its results per requests of governments and removes links that are not to the liking of a certain government, we can no longer trust Google with the central position it currently has in our information eco-system.

It is not only that. Just like we shouldn't depent on one company for something important as an all present OS, we can't really depent on one search engine that decides with secret algorithmes what page is the most relevant. Our freedom would be much enhanced if we would know how search engine results where produced, even more so if we could decide which algorithme to use.

What is needed here, is a seperation of data and algorithmes. The webcrawl programs that scourge the Internet for fresh content and are not that different between search engines. Some are faster maybe, but in the end they build up a catalog of what there is on the Internet. The collecting of all this data could be done by a widely used p2p program (like loomsmart's grub does). This information should be free to use and free to inspect by all - it is after all just another view of the World Wide Web itself.

On top of this distributed database, anybody should be able to build search engine algorithmes. Some will imitate Google and put pages that are linked to on top. Others could do a more intrinsic analysis of the content of the pages. On top of it all a variety of search engines could be build and no doubt a lot of other applications too. Just have a look at the results of the recent Google competition.

googlicious
by Adam Rice
I had some <a href="http://crossroads.net/a/archives/2003_02.php#000826">similar thoughts</a> a while back.

No shareholders
by DG
Google has no shareholders to please - it is a private company.

re: No shareholders
by Douwe Osinga
Well, there you'd be wrong. They do have shareholders, even though they're not publicly traded. Private shareholders are still shareholders. Some of these shareholders are VCs and there not in it for the greater good of humanity.

You are paid by google!
by Peter
Hmm, when you want to leave google behind, why do you display Google ads? You are critisizing someone who is paying you...strange.

Re: Paid by Google
by Douwe Osinga
That is a fair point. I'm no fan of MS monopoly on OS & Office either, but I still use both. I don't like the fact that the Saudi's have all the oil, but I still use it. Monopolies are bad, but you cannot always avoid using them. Let's just try. So, if you know a company that would pay for my ads, let me know and I'll gladly sign up.

comment_7
by
Take the Kaaza Lite example, search google for it.

Then look near bottom of result page for:

"In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."

DMCA complaint is underlined and a link to a site run by the EFF etc.
So you still can find the links, you just need to click one more extra time :)

And I doubt anyone will try to file a complaint for providing a link to a complaint hehehe!

pay for ads
by Michael
If you want to be paid for ads by someone other than Google, go to www.linkshare.com or www.cj.com (or other affiliate program sites). FYI. :)

Re: Shares
by
Contrary to what other posts have said, Google is planning to go public with its shares (see http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/Business/Technology/7B8734FDB2AED0F486256EDE0015B535?OpenDocument&Headline=Google's+shares+could+go+for+$135), so that anyone (with $135 or so) can have some shares of Google. So therefore, it soon will be a public company and have "shareholders to please."

hypocrite
by spywire.net
Does anybody find it interesting that the author of this article (who is telling us how evil google is) actually has a gmail account?
See bottom of page.

search for engine
by FriendlyFire
to be fair, when I typed in "search engine" into Google, it didn't show google.com first.

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by Armani
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Google Went public a while bak u see
by
Google has public shareholders and has for a while now...

Google is a monopoly
by DigitalBlade
In my opinion, Google is a monopoly and because everyone thinks it's so good and fair, it has little problems in growing big and gaining support. Just look at some of the services Google offers - it's far more than a search engine. They are even developing their own browser and operating system... Microsoft didn't start big, and look at it now. Google is aiming to overthrow MS in the monopolic world of software. I use many of Google's services, simply because they are the best, but that hardly means I like what Google is trying to do.

Google a monopoly? and Removing links.
by Ike
You must be joking, right?

Do you have any idea how many other search engines are out there at your disposal?

How can an entity be a monopoly when it doesn't charge you to use it?
===================================
On a different note, what is the difference between the Scientologists wanting to remove a negative link, and a woman opting out of Google phone searches? (I am staunchly anti-Scientology, by the way...)

Under what circumstance does either of the above equate to government collusion or coercion? There is no free speech violation there. Period.

Um... Yahoo! Anyone?
by Mike
Um... Yahoo! and MSN Search are still around. They're not gone. They're still there. They still get a lot of traffic.

Drummed up hypocrisy
by temb
All of these attempt to make concerns about google sound hypocritic by pointing out affiliations with google are missing the point. No one wants google to disappear. It's just a little worrysome that it is increasingly the case that EVERYONE goes to one place for their information. That means that if google, or the united states government, decides something should not be known, that thing

WILL NOT BE KNOWN.

hmmm to think what came up @ the top
by the big bad wolff
well im my opinion if you limit youre own self the you will limit youre own results i have found out that using the same search engine on two different computers will not always return the same results every time

YAHOO's Services
by a Google user
YAHOO provides so many more services than Google its not even funny; yet <i> Google <i> is the monopoly

the word
by alex
has anyone noticed how the term "to google" something is now interchangable with the prase "to search the web for" something?

Open Source Search
by
There are a number of projects on the go, but it isn't easy. Check out the Links page of http://www.openindex.org.

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Ask Google for humanty in cina!
by
Why Google permit NETWORK FILTERING of search content form/to countries like CINA!

Noo Free for people there ... but no free for google from money!

Bye

Same Author Above
by Anonymous
I so agree with the people who posted before me!!

I'll use google..
by D
I'll use google.. theres not a paper I have researched.. a dispute I have settled.. or just something that I wanted to know that I haven't used google for.. and it never lets me down.. so lets say you get a few people to boycott google.. it wont do a damn bit of good..

I tried that
by Ffoeg
I wrote a spider and search front end in PHP/MySQL and had a blast watching it find stuff. It is really fun to have complete control over what matching/ranking algorithms to use. Unfortunately my database hit the limit when I had spidered about 2 million items with it. It's a lot of data to search. I could possibly get 5 to 10 times that with optimizations and better hardware but you just can't download the whole Internet. Won't fit.

Google is my friend.
by Luke
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Google is open source-friendly, easy to use, fast, reliable, and just plain fun to use. It doesn't have annoying popups, spyware, or cookies that send your most personal data to them. When they want to track your activity _anonymously_ they ask you for your permission. So, in short, I will stick with Google thank you very much.

Try DOGPILE
by Barney Google
If you ever get tired of being consumed by GOOGLE, try DOGPILE. They've been around longer and have better customer satisfaction.
And they search GOOGLE.
Just use GOOGLE forother things BESIDE your search engine!

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