whoismua

So how did that work out for them?"

Hmmm.....just hmmm....

I do not buy that Google Search is not doing Google Adword's bidding, directly or indirectly. They know why advertises and who doesn't, by name and by category ("large brands" for example. ) So unless Google is separated in two separately owned parts (Search and Ads) I think people have every reason to question this. Especially since a drop in traffic essentially forces a site to buy ads.

the same goes for Android and Chrome, many of their features are to drive people to Google search.

Google makes a lot of their money when people download /upload /view a lot of files and videos since they slap ads on them. At&t etc must carry them, so there's a conflict of interests. No one is really on your side, just some of their interests may align with ours..for now.

Have you noticed Google's earnings reports that mention a 20+% increase in ad clicks every quarter? Where do you think that's coming from? From shifting traffic away from other sites to Google, so instead of going to Metafilter Google decides that a G+ post of youtube video is better,

So MetaFilter has been getting some "help" from Google's public relations squad, as is usually the case with sites that hit a nerve with HN. What about the thousand or million other sites that lost their traffic?

So call it manual, algorithmic, display change or whatever, you're f-ed and call moves more of web traffic to its own properties.

Commercial sites now have to deal with a full page of ads before the real results so their fate is sealed another way. In other words, we need 4-5 search engines, not one giant monopoly that seeks to increase ad clicks by underhanded methods each quarter.

Even credit reports are barred from reporting older than x years acts.

I don't really feel sorry for Google at all. They are making $10 to $12 BILLION a year in profit, even after paying amazing salaries, benefits and spending money on a lot of unrelated stuff. So they can hire, 100, 100 or 10,000 new employees to screen better and to reduce false positives. Google is used to profiting from the web while having no responsibility (at least the new Google,) but now no one is buying their shtick. Soon or later the algo changes that shift traffic from other sites to Google and from small sites to larger sites (likely advertisers) will be scrutinized as well.

Even worst, he uses Microsoft Windows, making this a clear Microsoft smear against the angelic Google. :)

>>This is the second class action attempt launched against Google by this trial-lawyer outfit As if Google is any better than them.

Google will probably end up paying for the clicks not deemed individually fraudulent, TOS or not.

Hopefully the market share will be more evenly distributed among SEs. Let's do our part

My guess is that US and China went to war over cyber-spying...

Amazing power Google has. We desperately need this power distributed to 4-5 search engines, not one. I have been thinking about the changes, and I suspect that a lot of the "lost" traffic went to ads (Adwords) and YouTube. In other words it shifted from sites like MetaFilter to Google. Great ain't it? Google decides that it's own properties (where it keeps 100% of revenue) are more relevant than sites where it keep just about 30% of it. Proof for the shift are Google's own numbers: in house ad clicks have been grown by double-digits, quarter after quarter.

Oh, I have heard the "Chinese Wall," "Church and State" but frankly I no longer buy it. Something stinks , as we hear of a lot of losers and one winner, the one that also ranks.

Too many coincidences, too many punishing updates for non Google sites, and a very suspicious increase of Google's own ad clicks.

Oh he gets it, it's his job to act like he doesn't and to change the subject "...Ummm...Bing does it too..look I made a video"

All Google roads and products lead to ad clicks and Adwords. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Search separate from everything else.

but in that bad case scenario, Google would just lose some small fraction of its business.

Germany is in EU, so Google would risk losing roughly 50% of their business. But not really, in theory you could see "Baby Googles" being setup with different properties. Will they stand a chance on their own without being thrust on top of Google Search? Who knows

Google already "snoops" on you, FB snoops on you, so why not AT&T for a discount? Google and FB offer "free" services as long as they snoop on everything you do, AT&T offers a discount. Capitalism at its best. Don't like the cheaper snooping offer? Pay more. Or don't choose AT&T.

The average users stands no chance of avoiding Google between the search, Youtube, Analytics, Adsense, Doubleclick, Android etc etc...More or less, 100% of sites have one of those installed. So why shouldn't AT&T make you an offer too? Take it or leave it. Surely Google would still be wildly profitable if they tracked you 30% less and /or if they showed less ads.

On a related note, NYT wrote a story on "How Doctors Die" http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/how-doctors-die...

" What Dr. McKinley wanted was time with her husband, a radiologist, and their two college-age children, and another summer to soak her feet in the Atlantic Ocean. But most of all, she wanted “a little more time being me and not being somebody else.” So, she turned down more treatment and began hospice care, the point at which the medical fight to extend life gives way to creating the best quality of life for the time that is left.

Dr. Robert Gilkeson, Dr. McKinley’s husband, remembers his mother-in-law, Alice McKinley, being unable to comprehend her daughter’s decision. “ ‘Isn’t there some treatment we could do here?’ she pleaded with me,” he recalled. “I almost had to bite my tongue, so I didn’t say, ‘Do you have any idea how much disease your daughter has?’ ” Dr. McKinley and her husband were looking at her disease as doctors, who know the limits of medicine; her mother was looking at her daughter’s cancer as a mother, clinging to the promise of medicine as "

Let's see: maybe it should have never gotten so expensive and some people awoke up? Tens of billions of dollars is a lot of money and maybe, just maybe, Twitter isn't worth that much. If it was, professional investors would have snapped the shares employees sold. Maybe I'm old school, but a billion is a lot of money. Now imagine tens of billions.

I think in most companies, what you do in company time, belongs to them. That's very reasonable, since you are getting paid already

Real journalism costs money. A lot of money to produce and a lot of money (is) lost since they don't coddle to say, Exxon, GE, MS or Google.

On the other hand, Google doesn't want to piss off the Feds or the Military Industrial Complex. They spend a lot of money and have friends in high places.

But why give the IRS and the state 50% of it via taxes? He gets a nice chunk in dividends at very low taxes. And the mega rich borrow against the stock so when they die that debt is taken out from the estate without paying taxes. (Ellison got an earful from his accountant for doing so, lotsa debt and refusing to sell his shares. If the stock crashes, you're royally f-ed as the bank demands new collateral...death spiral etc etc)

And what is he going to do with all that money?

I guess it depends how far the rocks were moved. I know they were quarried far, far away but then moved via the Nile.

Now from the Nile to the final location is how far?

Samsung has a long history of waiting what side wins and then cut and paste the winning one.