COMMENTS
The capitalist system is inherently greedy and selfish in its own right. Any company as successful as Google, with the widespread, unbridled control over the market that they have has the opportunity to manipulate the market. In the free market, all is fair (or at least under the table). I don't doubt for a minute that Google not only has these capabilities but has at least considered them, if not acted on them.
As power rises, those in power eventually shift their focus from gaining power to not losing power. It's safe to say Google has made that shift.
Google could also promote Internet regulation designed to pad its bottom line under the banner of "net neutrality." That would be pretty evil.
Excellent article, Dharmesh!
power corrupts
absolute power corrupts absolutely
Use other search engines!
M Wu:
Google as a for-profit company would want to increase their earnings? What a shock. Net neutrality is good for users, but of course Google is backing it, they're in it to make a profit! Not to mention, net neutrality doesn't change anything, it just keeps things the way they have always been.
"people spend their lives trying to understand the Google algorithm"
Google's been around for what, seven, eight years now? That's some life.
"Evil" is bad for business in an online world. It's becoming increasingly obvious who have and have not figured that out.
"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"
Have faith people - google it your friend
repeat after me
google is your friend :)
6. commercialize the contents of public libraries and use its massive resources to re-write copyright law.
Only redemption in this blog is that you have put no ads.
Google has ties with the CIA, unfortunatelly.
They've been caught on numerous occasions freezing and deleting hits on uploads of so-called conspiracy videos. If I remember right they denied it at first but then finally they admitted it but said they were accidents. Google is bad news, period. I'd like to see some rival search engines. Google supports open web censorship in a growing number of foreign countries and it could happen here. Fight Google!
I'm sure all the search engines are taking notes.
These techniques could seriously increase revenue. And some of the companies that compete in this space are *all* about making a buck.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Most powerful and still being just is a very rare quality.
But there are some inherent privacy issues. Here is a blog on this topic (by me): http://anil.org.in/2007/03/17/google-knows/
Funny takes on the what-if's.
Why do people use google search? I think it is because it consistently gives good results. Your "evil" ideas mostly consist of google corrupting its own search results for sort term gain. In the longer term, that would drive away their users.
sounds like the company mythical winston will work for.....or maybe a winston already works at Ministry of Truth?
Weafer, you are spouting crap. Back up your allegations.
Haha, the internet basically means no one has any privacy at all. Anyone can be statistically rooted out using mathematics, time ID's, hidden and not so hidden unique ID's in computer hardware (specificallly the network card or rouers) and geotargeting IP address blocks. For many people their IP address gives them away, also special "malware" (which is not called "malware" since much malware is released under the guise of another program) that comes installed with things like toolbars and other free junk you download off the net, no one has ever checked out the code of over half the stuff on the internet, no one could, its an humanly possible task. I would not be surprised of intelligence agencies around the world did not know everything about anyone who uses the net, and stupid companies anyone deals with over the internet that publically send out emails with your full name on it to your google or hotmail accounts. Specifically:
Vonage
Amazon.com
And many many more simply send out emails with you full details, names, addresses, phone numbers sometimes. It's stupid easy to do the correlations on the data mined from people that use google and statistically figure out who they are, if Orwell were alive he would be alarmed at the internet: It's one giant orwellian device if you have the power, money, talent and connections.
Half the problem is stupid businesses and their spam printing your full name on email they send you. Most businesses do not give a lick about privacy, they sell your data to other companies so that they can better target their ads towards you.
Heh, and now that you've publicized it - if they weren't thinking about doing so already, they now know what they can
Heh, and now that you've publicized it - if they weren't thinking about doing so already, they now know what they can
All the tricks you describe depend on the activities of many Google employees. Some of them, presumably those who actually believe they shouldn't be evil, can be depended on to blow the whistle.
google is not evil.
at the core, as long as sergie and alex rule it, it will remain thus.
will google fall to corruption and greed? yes. but hopefully not soon. and there will be a new google someday too. another company that believes in good.
Are you sure Google wil do that if they have their way thru the world leadership and rise as a dictactor kingdom.
By the way, aren't you worried with this post, you would lost your SERPs? :p
Too much power in the hands of a corporation is a dangerous thing. Information is power nowadays, and it will become more and more important while our society digitalize itself.
In a free market, competition is the only way out to avoid letting someone become too powerful. But monopolies always existed in capitalism history. Laws and regulations always failed to defend the crowd of weak consumers and are often used by big and rich companies to become even bigger and richer.
There's no real way out. Hope for Google not to be too evil. Hope for the world to change as soon as possible (after all the web is an example of the will to change).
You can read more on my thoughts about monopolies in the information industry at http://www.filiberto.org/archive/2007/02/growing-of-a-monopoly-in-information-technology/
or about Google services and their relationship with end-users at http://www.filiberto.org/archive/2007/03/defend-yourself-from-google-analytics/
Err... they already do all these things. They're evil. They just have a better brand than Microsoft.
I am sorry but google already does all of the above. Google is evil. It is just that everyone still happily believes Google is a nice company. It isn't. It is pure evil and is daibolically corrupt in exacting advertising fee revenue by manipulating page rankings.
The real issue is whether google should be seen as a public corporation providing public services for a capitalist economy, or whether -- due to its overwhelming influence -- it should be seen as a quasi corporate-state with responsiblities that go beyond simply accepted corporate behavior. It would be worthwhile to examine the Microsoft/EU struggle in relation to this.
Funny at first... later well.. not that pleasant :)
I think everyone forgets that Google is a company. They're not the government or the court system. Google doesn't have to make it's operations transparent. If every SEO firm knew exactly how Google ranked people then were back to the times of paid search results. The more you pay the higher you go in the rankings (although one could already argue that now, but I digress). I for one at least would rather have relevant results than paid results. I realize Google inserts ads into the SERPs, but at least they're clearly marked. The solution is really simple, as with any company, if you don't like them stop using their service/product. If enough people do it they'll go away.
The fact that Google is largely trusted to not do any of these things is the reason for its success. A great way to destroy your business is to start screwing over your customers. If Google wants to hold on to their enviable market share in search they will do none of these things.
this article reminded me of a dream of mine ... an open source search engine ... or using the article's terms ... a democratic search engine
I wonder what it would take for people to claim that google had a monolopy over online advertising. What if MS gave up and Google kept putting space between them and Yahoo. Can you break up an advertising monopoly?
---
Shredder
It is interesting to watch the evolution of Google. Does anyone remember the early days when they were mocked for not having a business model? In those days they simply produced solid search results. Evenutally they figured out a valuable business model, went public and are now subjet to the public stock market quarterly scrutiny. While the two founders (often referred to as the source of good) will remain, the pressure from the board, insitutional investors and all other shareholders will create enormous profit motive pressures in the endless pursuit for more profit and more market share.
This all begs the question -- how much profit is enough? How much market share is enough?
Too many companies blindly grab for more without thinking about a natural level of profit and growth. This drive (combined with competitive paranoia) can make companies rot their original core values.
good work, very insightful. with secrecy comes power, not that it's not their right, it's just very good to be aware of it. this is google's weakness though, if there was an open source search engine, democratically controlled even, I think people would leave google behind.
Google could also shoot itself right thru both feet by entertaining any of these notions.
Google knows what I wish all businesses know -- that they prosper best by serving their customers best. Especially in Techdom, where Google created many variations on their ideas, they have eaten the lunches of Yahoo and Microsoft by delivering better, faster, cheaper(for advertisers' results) tools to users.
Dozens of other companies would be happy to steal Google's crown if they start screwing up.
Capitalism also promotes this sort of vicious competition where you relinquish your crown very quickly. Sometimes, yes, it's done nefariously, as when MSFT used its "we know Windows best" lines to trounce 1-2-3 and WordPerfect with mediocre products.
Google, however, enjoys no such monopoly power in ads that it can force against the CraigsLists, Yahoo pages, customized in-house search engines provided by other firms.
As soon as Google does anything that smells like these ideas, sell its stock quickly. Very quickly.
The reason why people prefer Google over the other search engines is because the results they return are accurate and unbiased. If they mess with the results than people will change search engines.
[...]Google As Dictator: 5 Most Devious Things It Could Do, If It Were Evil[...]
The Internet is anarchy in its purest form.
Google has no more power than what you give it. Stop using Google search. Don't use adsense. And lastly remember peoples lives don't hang on whether they get hits through google.
If you run an online business and your only advertising strategy is google, then you need to re-think your business plan.
While I agree with you, if you Google the words 'Google sitemap generator' or similar, they come up as the first sponsored link. This is kind of unfair to the companies paying for those AdWords.
Interesting debate. Spare a thought to those other service providers that you often link to that also have the ability to monitor all who visit your web site. The more service providers you use the more open and exposed you are.
Google does not have a monopoly so it is in Google's best interest to keep it's customers happy and it's search users coming back with relevant results. Any of these evil things would hurt that and hurt the company. Why would they do it?
As a public company it's Google's lawful responsibility to maximize shareholder value. I think that any of these evil things would result in decreased search result relevancy, Google users would notice, and shareholder value would impacted.
With any business, the operating word is 'trust' whether you allow a Tesco to data-mine your buying data to send you coupons for fruit (or microwave meals, whatever rocks your boat) or whether you allow American Express to determine arbitrary credit-limits on your charge card based on your past ability to pay (a charge card technically lets you buy a Boeing 747 but additional security means that is the case IFF it is within your 'credit limit as mentioned).
It is not what Google can or cannot do; it is what they think they can do and nobody will find out.
However the cost of broken trust is manifold as large businesses find quickly.
> 3. Know Who Is Related To Who
This just got loads easier with the DoubleClick purchase, didn't it.
Once the original founders of google are out of the picture and there is little insider ownership, google will turn very corrupt and probably implement everything said here and some!
This article and two others (one here and one elsewhere) inspired me to connect the dots in my own blog. All three newer articles that refer to this one are being discussed at Sphinn:
http://sphinn.com/story/5044
http://sphinn.com/story/5077
http://sphinn.com/story/5083
If you're not on Sphinn yet you'll probably want to join. They're the best way to find out about and discuss great articles like this one.
I've had my fair share of getting 'love' emails from Google and this time they send me a letter to pack up and leave their Adsense premise.
Very irritating.
Google is holding too much of power in the internet with their high SEO usage per day. If it weren't for internet users, they'd still be a small firm.
And how many times must they revise their PR standing? I'm having my bottom kicked by them again which I think is not fair at all.
Google should be having a Death Grimmer as their icon.
See, this is why I use Yahoo and MSN, although Google isn't too bad. It's just biased.
As for the whole page-rankings thing...I can understand companies being worried, but you can just GoogleBomb. As for everyone else...why worry?
But, of course, too much power can get to the head. Google does need someone to knock it down a little, just as Microsoft needed Apple to remind it that no, it isn't the best. And as...well, you all know what I mean.
All Organisms want to thrive, grow, expand. This is inherent in the laws of nature. The difference is how man influences these laws that govern and modifies, shapes or controls them.
The real question is, what can the yahoo acquisition by MS do for privacy?
from the news - so maybe Google is at least a little bit evil?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331106,00.html
Sounds almost like a theory Hobbes would write if he was still around.
"Do no evil".
You should know that Evil can do
both good and evil.
Goo gle algorithm is funny and their
stock price was hyped.
Their era will be soon over.
Google will ultimately go the way of Altavista because of the appauling way it treats webmsters, whom they rely on for revenue.
They even have that Matt Cutts declaring war on SEOs and saying that if you over SEO, you are more likely to be a criminal. Not very smart since a large proportion of SEOs are also advertisers or publishers.
The diggs on 666. Unless it was there from the start??.. Hmmm im afraid to click it in case it wasnt.
Edot3: This was not there from the start. The current diggs is at 666, which is simply an interesting coincidence.
As the old saying goes - "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Let's hope that the rise of specialized search engines and human/machine hybrids will hold the beast down.
Interesting story... thanks!
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Great topic! I think that Google has started some of this already. Look at their fav site ripoff report. It violates all the rules of Google. but Google keeps it up there.
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