Google is absolutely terrible. They need to be impeached and reduced to nothing. Even their search engine sucks now. Anyone old enough will get that joke.
I am divided on this topic honestly: The "free" services they offer are often of an exemplary quality. Using Firefox and knowing your way arround browser settings can mitigate most of the privacy issues, making most of their services almost truly free. Google invades your privacy but delivers high quality software and services. Microsoft invades your privacy but delivers below average quality software and services. It is easier to avoid Google than Microsoft if you are using Windows 10 "Dont be evil" has more than one significant crack.... still for a company this size and power it is "relatively" good. I mean, there are far far worse companies out there. Has at times shown restraint against its enemies and competitors. For example, when the german goverment in 2013 decided to have a "publishers right" - an idiotic law that demands that Google/another search engine pays for links to online newspapers Google - sensible - denied to pay. Ironically protecting not only its financial interest but also freedom of press. Sadly, instead of learning their lessons large publishers fought and got for an EU wide publishers right and got it.... https://www.beamng.com/threads/in-remembrance-of-the-european-internet-and-digital-future.69950/ Back in 2013 Google decision to not pay for this legal robbery forced large publishers to relinquish the idea of getting paid. This benefits small publishers the most, who in case of mandatory payment forced upon google - or any other search engine for that matter - would simple be removed from the search index, denying them badly needed traffic. The "Neighbouring right for publishers" if implemented knows precisly two winners: Google... and large publishers.... everyone else looses and as such I applaud Google for - even if guided by some self interest - standing up for smaller publishers. protecing freedom of press and expression by not silencing diversity in voices. Currently the battle rages on in this regard but at least for know it looks like big publishers plans are failing again. Their attempt to silence the competition of smaller publishers hopefully wont happen. Google has become to powerful.... they control most of the search engine market and online advertising. And while they - for now - have shown some restraint, it is in everybody interests that their power is curtailed because such power could be abused with devastating results. Google has an almost monopoly like market share in some countries. In those countries but also worldwide, if you are not listed by Google... you dont exist. That is a power to wipe out almost any small and medium business by simple removing it from the search index. If your customes dont know you are there... they can buy something from you. There already has been some resentment as Google listed shops still as "temporarly closed" even though they had already reopened. Imagine the despair of a business owner on the verge of bankruptcy and google isnt helpful at all in getting people back into your building. Google alone wont become weaker anytime soon. They only serious competitor would be Microsoft but its offers are not any better in terms of privacy while often lagging behind the quality of google services. European search engines stand no chance due to copyright reform and general hostile climate for all things digital. There are many more search engines but none of them has the clout to make a serious stand against google.
"Back in 2013 Google decision to not pay for this legal robbery forced large publishers to relinquish the idea of getting paid. This benefits small publishers the most, who in case of mandatory payment forced upon google - or any other search engine for that matter - would simple be removed from the search index, denying them badly needed traffic." Don''t you mean it doesn't benefit small publishers as they are removed from the indexes? --- Post updated --- Yeah the potential for Google to do a 180 and completely ruin the rest of our times is there, which is why I don't like it. And there's rarely an alternative these days. Everyone uses the big thing and the better products get kicked off the market due to sheer numbers of stupidity and ignorance.
Yes. Google for the most part is still heavily internet only based. Which grants it very significant power mind you... but simple pales to direct access to local files and local behavior. You can mitigate most of google tracking by usage of firefpox, sensible security settings (cookie policy + scripting policy) and different services when possible. Now try to get rid of your operating system. You cant escape from it without not using it all all. Ironic that android from google has more privacy options than Win 10..... The logic - and likely reasoning for the lobbying from large publishers like Axel Springer for the neighbouring rights goes something like this: The market for news is under severe strain and a lot of newspapers wont survive. The total amount of money to be made from news is getting much smaller.... less cake for the same amount of companies one might say. If you cant increase the size of the cake (due to technical and cultural realities) the next best thing is gaining more pieces of the smaller cake for yourself. How to achieve this? By making the competition die. How do you kill the competition without competition watchdogs intervening? By making them die by someones others hand. If search engines have to pay for links to newspapers.... then the search engine has a vested interest in keeping the amount of links as low as possible. In fact, the ideal value for the search engine is zero. No more seach engine traffic to newspapers at all. Which newspaper does survive? The small one..... or the big one? The big one.... because the big one is large and well known enough to survive by direct page access - by entering the URL directly for example www.spiegel.de - alone. Small newspapers rely on aggregator services much more heavily for random user visists. To use an english language example.... enough people know https://www.nytimes.com/ to make that newspaper survivable without search engine traffic. Meanwhile the "Mancos Observer - just a hypthetical newspaper" will never attract a significant amount of random visitors from across the US without being listed in a search engine and being even promoted by it. As a result, if implemented, the "Mancos Observer" will go bankrupt, allowing for more of the shrinking cake to go into the New York Times". The ludicrous amount of money for the "link tax" demanded also means that smaller search engines either - remove all newspaper from their index - which makes it harder for them to compete with google as something is missing - or pay a ludicrous amount of money - which means that they have less money to develop their search engine to become good enough to challenge google. The New York times wins..... google wins...... "Mancos Observer" and people loose. Being larger in size and owning a crap ton of newspaper also means that most of any payment from google will end up in the pockets of the very people needing it the least. It was once estimated that if google should pay in germany for newspaper links.... that 90 % of that value will end up in the pockets of Axel Springer. Take an educated guess which publishers was and is bribing politicians left and right for just this to happen. Sadly with success.... to the peril of european citizens. Every citizen of the world has a vested self interests in nobody becoming too powerful. Power needs checks and balances. Google has become to big as has Axel Springer.... both should have their power curtailed by any means necessary.
You can’t argue with the facts though: Intel Celeron, so terrible, it’s named after a vegetable No ram Terrible performance No storage, only the cloud See? You can like them though
