Firefox Creator No Longer Trusts Google

watashi writes "Blake Ross the man whose scratched itch became the Firefox browser explains on his blog why he has a problem with Google's policy of promoting their own products over competitors' in search results. His main gripe is that the tips (e.g. "Want to share pictures? Try Google Picasa") result in an inability for other products (perhaps even Parakey?) to compete for the top slot on Google."

Why shouldn't they?

Wah. Why shouldn't Google put their own products first? Name me one other company that wouldn't do the same thing.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

The problem is that Google has a monopoly on web search, and as such, they cannot simply do what other companies would do. As it is, Google is using its web search monopoly as leverage to promote its non-search products (Picasa, Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Talk, Gmail, Blogger, etc), to the disadvantage of others that produce better products in those areas.

They do? What about http://www.altavista.com/ [altavista.com] http://www.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] and http://www.live.com/ [live.com] ? Do they not work? Are you confusing popularity with monopolies?

Nobody is stopping you from using those other search engines.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

So far Microsoft hasn't tried to stop me using Linux.

Don't confuse covert action with inaction. Microsoft has definitely tried to stop you from using Linux. They've done everything that they could possibly get away with to prevent you from using ANYTHING but Microsoft products on your PC.

But it was covert - you didn't witness the exclusive deals, threats and haggles yourself, your vendor(s) did.

You might remember a certain antitrust trial, in which Microsoft played one of the sides? Perhaps you were sleeping under a rock or something...?

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Wah. Why shouldn't Google put their own products first? Name me one other company that wouldn't do the same thing.

Any company would, and that's why we have anti-trust laws. If Google gets a defacto monopoly on searches (which it hasn't got yet), then manipulating the search results to promote it's own non-search related products would be a clear anti-trust violation. Plus, Google has told us their motto is "don't be evil", and manipulating search results is at the very least naughty.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

I see no naughtyness. Search results are search results. Paid ads are paid ads. We can all tell the difference, and for those a little less intellectually endowed, Google has colored the ad bar and noted it "sponsored link(s)". An ad placed by google has opportunity cost associated with it.

FWIW, a google for "Online Maps" brings up Mapquest in second place. You know who was in first? Multimap.com. Google maps hit the top of the blue bar; Mapquest was the top of the sidebar. Google maps, btw, wasn't in the first two pages of search results. (A Google search for "map" has maps.google.com first, mapquest second, with that order recreated in the blue bar)

Re:Why shouldn't they?

> We can all tell the difference

There is opinion and then there is fact [usatoday.com].

> An ad placed by google has opportunity cost associated with it.

A tip does not.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

>> We can all tell the difference

> There is opinion and then there is fact.

No one considers banning the lotteries yet. Isn't it fair for stupidity to be taxed?

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Google lost the right to use the "Don't be evil" motto when they teamed up with the Communist rulers of China to censor search results for Chinese subjects.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

So which is better, at least getting a foot in the door in China for the potential to even MAKE a fight at one point in time, or just leaving them to do their own thing which has just worked so wonderfully in the past? Would you rather have all the major search engines in China be controlled by the government and have no outside presence at all?

If you actually stop and think for a second instead of making knee-jerk reactions, it's pretty cut-and-dry what the better choice is.

Oh noes, COMMUNIST!

"Google lost the right to use the "Don't be evil" motto when they teamed up with the Communist rulers of China to censor search results for Chinese subjects."

It's 2006; the era of McCarthyism is dead. Is there really a reason why people still use the word "Communist" as a sort of bogeyman? China's leaders aren't evil because they're communists (and, by the way, they aren't); they're evil because they're evil.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

I'd say Google has a pretty good argument that the Chinese people aren't losing anything by having Google censored, as if Google didn't do it China'd just block the entire country from going to Google.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

I think your reality check bounced..

If Google had a de facto monopoly on search, it wouldn't mean squat. A company that wants to promote its photo app on Google isn't competing with Google in the search market. It's using Google as an advertising medium. The only way for antitrust law to come into play is if Google gets some kind of monopoly on 'advertising media', and there's no way that can possibly happen.

Nothing Google does in its search results page prevents a company from running print ads in trade magazines or doing TV and radio spots. If you want to restrict the discussion to 'online advertising', nothing Google does on its search results page will prevent a company from hiring an actual marketing agent who's willing to do the legwork of finding the top 100 websites visited by the company's core audience and buying ad space there, or better still, working deals that will see the company's product discussed in the direct content of those sites (thus gaining the product a high page rank in Google's non-paid search results, and avoiding the "nobody actually talks about our product but we're going to buy our way onto the search page anyway" games entirely).

This whole "Google won't let me buy the top slot, waah-waah-waah" bullshit is the sound made by people who are too cheap, stupid, or lazy to get out there and do some actual MARKETING. They want to click a "send me business" button and have the world beat a path to their door, largely based on the hard-earned-and-diligently-maintained reputation Google has won for providing relevant and trustworthy search results.

People also have this strange notion that 'top slot' has some magical value that no other slot has. Seriously: I defy anyone to show me a meaningful financial breakdown of the difference in value between "number one slot on Google's paid search list" and "number two slot on Google's paid search list." If Google is 'harming' its competitors by keeping the #1 slot for itself, someone please define that 'harm' in actual shillings and pence. If you can't, there's no way you could establish standing to file a lawsuit, let alone claim any damages.

Besides, Google putting its own products at the top of the paid links list is the very antithesis of anticompetitive behavior. When you see the link to Google's product, you also see links to other products that compete directly with Google's stuff. Please explain how we entered the Bizarro World where 'giving everyone the URLs to all your competitors' has come to be construed as 'anticompetitive behavior'. Christ on a pogo stick, people, show me three other companies that devote half as many resources to 'promoting competing products' as Google.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Why shouldn't Google put their own products first?

Because ultimately it may not be in their best interests.

Google relies on trust. I enter my search criteria, and Google returns the "best" results it can find.
If users start to think that Google is manipulating those results for their own gain, then they will stop trusting the results and start looking at other search engines.

Is this "hints" section a sign that Google has crossed the line? Maybe - that's for each person to decide - but there is a line there, and Google needs to walk it very carefully if they want to maintain that trust relationship.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Other Search Engines don't exist. Face it, Google is by and far the only option.

I agree, but google doesn't necessarilly agree. If you search google for "search" [google.com], you will find that MSN Search is the top hit. If you instead choose "search engine", google is at the top.

As long as the google hints are clearly marked as distinct from the search results, and are not intrusive, I see no problem with this. In the actual results google seems to be fairly honest to the algorithm for now.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

dumbass i guess you forgot their "do no evil" policy.

How is promoting your own products over other products evil? Don't open source projects do the same thing? Do you see Open Office recommending MS Office or Firefox recommending IE?

Re:Why shouldn't they?

It's a question of context. Most companies promote their own products. The question is more regarding the ethics behind doing so. In particular, when MS began putting IE on every installed OS (with some other details in there), MS got into a little hot water. You could argue the same thing -- of course MS would want you to use their own products.

But the devil is in the details. As the article says very clearly, Google is in a (near monopoly) position to direct users to "the best" of the web. When they do so with their own products in a way that is inaccessible to other vendors, questions begin to be asked.

At the moment, it's more of a concern to advertisers. If I were Kodak trying to advertise my photo sharing product on Google, I'd be pretty upset that their competing product has far better visibility.

It's a very clear conflict of interests -- just like MS with IE. Or MS with Office using "secret" API calls.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

You make some valid points. Its just like Microsoft pushing IE and including it in Windows to kill Navigator. I think people forget that Netscape practically had a monopoly on browsing for a time. Yahoo was once in google's position and they did exactly the same thing. Its called marketing.

There are several things that google has done I'm not happy about. This is very small on my list. As a geek, I realize that many of us have stronger ethics than most others. The public will continue to use google just as they love their Windows install. The difference is that its much easier to unseat a search engine.

Now if the developers at Mozilla wish to look down on google, they could stop making it default in Firefox as a search engine. Frankly I find it interesting after Microsoft started giving them help with Vista compatibility that we hear this negative google talk. I can say things about others just as easy as the Firefox guy.

I think its time some of you realized that google is not this amazing company that is totally different. Its similar to the argument I have with my mother over Yahoo. She views them as the best thing the internet has ever seen. She chooses them over google daily. For a long time I tried to talk her into using another search tool and game site. She stuck with Yahoo because of her personal experiences. I stay away from Yahoo because of my personal experience*. If you don't like google, just don't use any of their products and chose something else. The same goes for IE, Windows, etc. Modern computing is about choice.

* If you are curious about my hatred of Yahoo, its simply a flaw in their early childrens search feature. Their advertising code displayed a porno ad to a 7 year old I was watching and nearly lost me my job. His search was totally unrelated and quite clean.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Frankly I find it interesting after Microsoft started giving them help with Vista compatibility that we hear this negative google talk

I knew someone would figure it out eventually. Yes, the Vista workshop was so valuable that I decided to cut all ties with Google. They may be supplying millions of dollars and free promotions across the globe, but... man, it was such a great workshop!

Re:Why shouldn't they?

As a geek, I realize that many of us have stronger ethics than most others.

While your wording is careful and not technically untrue, don't you think that it's a rather smug-sounding assertion? Almost any large group can make some claim that a sizable number of its members are more _____fill-in-the-blank___ than most others. Try it out. As a left-handed person, I realize that many of us have longer shinbones than most others.

But, given the prepositional phrase that you began the sentence with, I wonder if you didn't mean to imply that geeks are generally more ethical than most other subgroups of the population. If so, what is the ethical mesuring stick? As far as I can tell, the prevailing ethical system here is a relativistic/existential one (meaning that a universal moral code is rejected in favor of a personal/subjective one). I'm not necessarily against that, but it does seem a little easier to be "moral" when one has the ability to decide for oneself what that means. At least in comparison to some externally imposed ethical system. In any event, you would be hard-pressed to find a whole lot of people who have an relativistic/existential ethical system who did not feel that they were quite moral or ethical.

It's interesting that no one has yet challenged your statement here on slashdot. If someone had posted an equally accurate statement, such as "as a [Religious Jew, Practicing Christian, Card-Carrying Republican, CEO of a major corporation, I realize that many of us have stronger ethics than most others," I wonder if they would have gotten a free pass.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

Because it takes customers away from superior products? Because they have this grandiose page saying things like on no account will they compromise the integrity of search results. And yeah, I'd say putting unmarked ads -- a.k.a Tips -- over standard results does compromise the integrity of the results, especially since they're not clearly marked as the ads they are.

To put this another way: CNN routinely cross-promotes Time-Warner movies as 'news', and gets routinely razzed for doing so (unless they've stopped -- I've stopped watching). So did many other publications, and these days the better ones have taken to labeling such articles with a 'note: we have the same parent' notice. Even Slashdot marks links to OSTG sites. It's basic ethics. But of course, if you see Google's search results as a haven for commercials, you'll fail to see the point -- just like execs at AltaVista and Yahoo Search once failed and gave Google their chance. They might as well put huge blinking banner ads there next.

Re:Why shouldn't they?

MOD PARENT UP

This is the most insightful post Ive read all day. The fact some schmo agrees with some other schmo really makes you think.

I Disagree

I think we can all agree that Google has incredible power. They mean the difference between a paycheck and an unemployment check for--i'm guessing--millions of Americans. I was a developer consulting a web retailer during the September/October 2005 "Jagger" updates. This website went from page 10 on their top phrases to the first page above the fold. Two months later they were number 1 where they still are to this very day.

The difference? Pre Jagger sales averaged $110,000/mo less $20,000 in adwords. Post Jagger sales were $140,000/mo with nothing in adwords. Six hundred thousand dollars a year from an algorithm update.

This puts Google in the league of "Common Carriers." They're not nearly as vital as, say, the electric company--If google went dark today the other search engines would absorb the traffic--but their power doesn't come to them at no charge. They are benefiting greatly from this power, as you can see in their market cap. Google isn't a 1-company bubble, it's doing well because it has a unique amount of leverage and power in markets and technologies that almost surely will be the foundation of the global economy. In exchange for this massive power, Google has a responsibility to be a responsible corporate citizen.

And let's face it--if you called AT&T 411 for the number to your local Cable Internet company and the woman wouldn't tell you without first giving you the name and number of their own internet service, people would justify complain. This is similar. We expect our "utilities" to be fair abiters in exchange for a captive audience. The time has come that we start considering Google in the same light.

Re:I Disagree

This puts Google in the league of "Common Carriers."

No it doesn't. Go look at the Telecommunications act of 1934 to find out what a "common carrier" is in terms of telecommunications. Google runs a free service over the internet. Further puncturing your ridiculous assertion is the fact that not the ILECs and cable co's that provide internet service are not even considered common carriers. You're clearly confusing the nition of "common carrier" with that of "utility monopoly", probably from hearing about ILECs being called "common carriers".

They're not nearly as vital as, say, the electric company--If google went dark today the other search engines would absorb the traffic

Yeah, it sounds like you're making the "utility monopoly" comparison. The laughable part is that you make and refute your own argument all in the same sentence. Google is open to competition at any time, on an equal footing. Buy a domain and enough hosting facilities and you too can index the internet and sell ads, just as they have.

Re:I Disagree

Google is open to competition at any time, on an equal footing. Buy a domain and enough hosting facilities and you too can index the internet and sell ads, just as they have.

That is not strictly true. The idea that "anyone" can compete with any company on "equal footing" is one of those silly libertarian, "free market cures all" delusions.

In the real world, something called a "barrier to entry" exists for each of competitors in the marketplace. If those barriers are small, competition is usually flourishing and the "free market" functions as intended. Not so if the "barriers" are measured in billions of dollars or political power.

Sometimes those barriers are regulatory and legal in nature, which causes libertarians and "anarcho captialists" to howl and whine about the evils of government.

But more often then not they are based on other factors, such as technological, geographic, geo-politicial and the like. In the case of Google, the company is at this point in time "open" to competition by any Microsoft or Haliburton out there, or any one individual with a few billion dollars to spare on a risky venture. That is because Google has achieved nearly 50% market penetration (compared to 25% of the nearest competitor) and thus wields tremendous power over the marketplace. And that is why socially unjustifiable monopolies or, in this case, oligopolies are a fundamentally bad idea, no matter if their creation is coupled "good intentions" or not.

In short, it is exceedingly foolish to allow any one company to control anything near 50% of the marketplace in any product, for market distortions of massive scale are sure to follow.

Re:I Disagree

Sometimes those barriers are regulatory and legal in nature, which causes libertarians and "anarcho captialists" to howl and whine about the evils of government. But more often then not they are based on other factors, such as technological, geographic, geo-politicial and the like.

There is a big difference between legal barriers to entry and financial ones. There is good competition in the auto industry at the moment, an industry with much higher barriers to entry than the search engine market. Financial barriers to entry can be overcome, and lack of market share can be resolved through advertising (assuming the product is decent...well even not them sometimes). Legal barriers to entry cannot be gotten around. If you don't do what they tell you men with guns can come and take you away. Men with guns, that's the difference between a legal barrier to entry and a financial one.

Re:I Disagree

There is good competition in the auto industry at the moment,

You must be joking. What dealership do I go to buy my electric car, for which there is considerable demand? Where do I get my bio-diesel/electric hybrid? How about an in-hub electric motor 4 wheel drive system? Stuff that has been around for decades and for which there would be a 2 year-long waiting list if it were only available from any of the major makers. Give me a break, none of the major, entrenched car makers compete on anything but marketing and manufacturing vehicles that are as cheap as possible to make and last as short a period of time as it is humanly possible while generating maximum after warranty parts demand. The term to use is "oligopoly". In a properly functioning marketplace there would be hundreds of car makers, not less then 10 globally.

Legal barriers to entry cannot be gotten around.

Neither can be geographic. A toll road built in the only valley linking major metropolies is just as difficult to "compete" with as a legal decree. In one case there is next to impossible political power to overcome, in the other a few trillion tons of rock. A conglomerate who manages to purchase all, say, nickel deposits world-wide, is also impossible to compete with. The very simple fact that the deposits accessible to mining (at non-astronomical price) are finite. There is no room to "expand" or to compete. Etc and so on.

Men with guns, that's the difference between a legal barrier to entry and a financial one.

As I pointed out, "financial" is only one of many different types of barriers to entry, of which legal only but one. Most of them are as insurmountable as men with guns.

Re:I Disagree

FYI: The absence of specific products does not equate to a lack of competition. It could be that the cost for manufacturing such things is simply not justifiable, the technology just isn't as mature as you want to believe, and/or you have grossly misjudged the potential market.

You are, of course, free to start "The Ignoramus Maximus Electric Auto Company" and produce these products yourself. Come up with a good sales pitch and find some venture capitalists, hire some good engineers and have a go. If the big bad oligopoly squishes you under its thumb I suppose you can always blog about it. Of course we all know such a brilliant business idea is guaranteed to be successful, what with such readily available technology and high demand...

Give me a break, none of the major, entrenched car makers compete on anything but marketing and manufacturing vehicles that are as cheap as possible to make and last as short a period of time as it is humanly possible while generating maximum after warranty parts demand.

Buy a Honda. If you bother to take care of the thing like you're supposed to it'll last longer than you will.

=Smidge=

Re:MOD PARENT UP

First, to make it clear, I'm replying to this to put my post nearer to the top, but that's because I'm egotistical and have a bias towards exaggerating the value of my own posts. So please, feel free to ignore the nice tidbit below:

It appears what TFA is about is incorrect. Why? Google for "share pictures." Picasa is the second ad in the blue box.

Google for "blog." Blogger shows up below the paid ads, as mostly plaintext with a blogger logo.

Google for "videos." Google Video shows up in the blue box, second ad.

Is it just me, or does it seem like they aren't favoring their own ads at all? There might be some algorithm sorting them, as when I search for some other terms Google comes up first (gmail comes up before AOL mail,) but in other cases Google's service shows up last in the paid ads.

Re:I presently work for Google.

Wait, so are you a Google acountant or a security professional [slashdot.org]. Don't tell me you changed jobs yesterday.

Re:I presently work for Google.

Wait, so are you a Google acountant or a security professional [slashdot.org]. Don't tell me you changed jobs yesterday.

Maybe he/she/it is a CIA plant who got confused about which cover story they were using this month. Either than or they have a multiple personality disorder where each personality holds down a different job at opposite ends of the country.

Re:I presently work for Google.

Given that every post he makes is fake [slashdot.org], I think you may be on to something there.

agreed... i don't find it unreasonable at all.

...as long as their ad results are clearly distinguishable from the real results. I don't have a problem with the ads of a different background color at the top or side... it's the ad results injected into the middle of the real results with only a faint horizontal line to separate them, that I find objectionable. What's worse is Google doesn't do it all the time, so they tend to catch people off guard.

Re:I presently work for Google.

TrisexualPuppy is a known slashdot troll. His method? Make big, impressive (and false) claims about what he does and try to play the authority card to make his posts fly. On the process TrisexualPuppy writes a few pure troll posts. Here is a small list of claims that TrisexualPuppy made:

• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to work for google's accounting department
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to write video game reviews
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to be a systems administrator working for a 3500-employee corporation
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to be "an active lesbian"
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to have worked "in the UK for Barklay's for 30 years"
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to "work in Washington for an Internet Security firm" (while in here [slashdot.org] he claims to be "planning on travelling to DC" to attend president Ford's funeral).
• in here [slashdot.org] he claims to have met Sheldon Cohen, a psychologist and researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, and also reading "few of his papers on the immune system". Then he pastes a link to a wikipedia article which doesn't even exist.

All this was extracted from TransexualPuppy's last 25 posts. And of course, the confession right out of the wolf's mouth:

Hey, idiot. I only posted this to up my karma. Every post that I make is fake.

Taken from here [slashdot.org] Mod him accordingly.

His scratched itch became the Firefox browser

My scratched itch became ringworm.

I wish I had more ambition. And less fungus.

Parakey?

This is the third reference I have seen to Parakey in the past two days, yet when you go to their sight, it's nothing more than a solicitation for an email address for a product announcement. Anyone care to explain what it is? (I know, I know, Google it, but then again, wouldn't that go against the intent of the article? ;-)

Re:Parakey?

From Wikipedia: Parakey is a Web-based computer user interface proposed by Firefox creator Blake Ross. Ross describes it as a "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do."

Uhmm... everything? Like run device drivers and manage memory allocation and multitasking :P?

Have people forgotten that an "OS" comprises more than a shiny GUI? Well let's see how his "OS" performs when it doesn't have a real "OS" to run on top of.

Can't people call it the way it is: Web GUI, Web Desktop, Web Apps...