If Google's rivals are being unfairly treated by Google's search results, then they should make their own search engines that are fair. Yes, I understand Google has an advantage by having a head start, but that hasn't stopped for example Facebook from overthrowing MySpace for social networking. A rival company with a better idea or better results could challenge or even defeat Google without getting even more government involvement in the internet.
People voluntarily choose to use Google, at least on deskt
google doesn't just have a head start, they have a monopoly position, once you are a monopoly the rules of fairness change and it isn't enough to simply say someone can start their own business.
Yes, but unlike traditional monopoly, there's no cost of switching and no cost of entry. If you are the only person selling burgers in the world, you can bully your suppliers not to sell to anyone else, you can price your competition out of business, you can buy up sites and not use.
None of those things apply on the internet. If I found another search engine that worked better than Google, I'd switch tomorrow. So far, no dice.
Google is the only entity in the world that has the history of the web stored. Without this history, proper search result ranking is next to impossible.
I don't think you or the other commenters really know this area. I have worked on web search engines for many years, also in Google.
archive.org has nothing. Google is to archive.org as archive.org is to my browser cache. Even if archive.org had something, it's not available to a new entrant.
A search engine is not so much about sifting through large sets of data quickly, but which signals you can use to score and rank the hits. When there is a monopoly on these signals, there is no amount of capital, fi
Do you seriously think finding a few old geocities pages on archive.org refutes what I'm saying?
Well, yes, because it sounds like Khyber chose an arbitrary, non-remarkable website, looked it up on archive.org, and it was there. Not conclusive, by any means, but it certainly counts for something.
I was talking about the user, but actually, the startup cost of a new search engine is pretty low. There is very little cost to running your own web spider, basically a few bucks [semantics3.com] a day for several million pages. Of course you have to buy the expertise to run and tune it but in startup terms these are not exactly ridiculous. Google obviously has a depth of expertise that would be difficult to match but I don't think it's impossible to compete with them if you're sufficiently determined.
Google obviously has a depth of expertise that would be difficult to match but I don't think it's impossible to compete with them if you're sufficiently determined.
This isn't hypothetical: see Bing, and Baidu.
According to Bing, Bing is at least as good as Google in blind-tests. Whether that's really true, I don't know. I admit I don't use Bing - the reason is that unless Bing is really better than Google, why switch? That said, it costs me nothing to switch. Maybe it's just a matter of 'trust'.
I just asked myself... what would John DeLorean do?
-- Raoul Duke
Again? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
google doesn't just have a head start, they have a monopoly position, once you are a monopoly the rules of fairness change and it isn't enough to simply say someone can start their own business.
Re: (Score:3)
None of those things apply on the internet. If I found another search engine that worked better than Google, I'd switch tomorrow. So far, no dice.
Re: (Score:1)
"no cost of entry"
Google is the only entity in the world that has the history of the web stored. Without this history, proper search result ranking is next to impossible.
The "cost of entry" is astronomical.
Re:Again? (Score:3)
The "cost of entry" is astronomical.
I think what u38cg meant was that there's no cost to a person using the search-engine, to switch search-engine.
Of course it costs millions to start your own search-engine.
Google is the only entity in the world that has the history of the web stored
Wrong. [archive.org]
Re: (Score:0)
I don't think you or the other commenters really know this area. I have worked on web search engines for many years, also in Google.
archive.org has nothing. Google is to archive.org as archive.org is to my browser cache. Even if archive.org had something, it's not available to a new entrant.
A search engine is not so much about sifting through large sets of data quickly, but which signals you can use to score and rank the hits. When there is a monopoly on these signals, there is no amount of capital, fi
Re: (Score:1)
"archive.org has nothing."
Which is why I can find my old geocities pages and even download some of the old files from my page, eh?
Google's cached content can't even do that half of the time.
Re: (Score:0)
And global warming doesn't exist because today it was really cold.
Do you seriously think finding a few old geocities pages on archive.org refutes what I'm saying?
You know what, I can find an old slashdot page in my web browser cache.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you seriously think finding a few old geocities pages on archive.org refutes what I'm saying?
Well, yes, because it sounds like Khyber chose an arbitrary, non-remarkable website, looked it up on archive.org, and it was there. Not conclusive, by any means, but it certainly counts for something.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google obviously has a depth of expertise that would be difficult to match but I don't think it's impossible to compete with them if you're sufficiently determined.
This isn't hypothetical: see Bing, and Baidu.
According to Bing, Bing is at least as good as Google in blind-tests. Whether that's really true, I don't know. I admit I don't use Bing - the reason is that unless Bing is really better than Google, why switch? That said, it costs me nothing to switch. Maybe it's just a matter of 'trust'.