<story><title>Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/01/google_opinion_column/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samizdis</author><text>In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually &lt;i&gt;believed&lt;/i&gt; Google&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t be evil&amp;quot; line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.)&lt;p&gt;I was far too gullible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marginalia_nu</author><text>If you go back and read the stuff from Brin and Page at the time, they do actually go to quite some lengths explaining how crucially important it is for search results to be relevant, and the original PageRank paper even outlines methods for reducing manipulation from commercial interests.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a jarring contrast to what Google is today.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;[...] we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm. &amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;infolab.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;~backrub&amp;#x2F;google.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;infolab.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;~backrub&amp;#x2F;google.html&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090&amp;#x2F;422&amp;#x2F;1&amp;#x2F;1999-66.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090&amp;#x2F;422&amp;#x2F;1&amp;#x2F;1999-66.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Data trading for ad revenue must be regulated</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/01/google_opinion_column/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samizdis</author><text>In hindsight, I find it hard not to feel complicit, having invited friends and family to Gmail back in the day when invites were a thing. I had actually &lt;i&gt;believed&lt;/i&gt; Google&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t be evil&amp;quot; line, when it launched what was a brilliant stripped-down search product. (And yes, I defected from AltaVista with the crowd. Oh, how I miss case-sensitive queries; how I miss all those relevant results.)&lt;p&gt;I was far too gullible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dtech</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure what we should&amp;#x27;ve done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It&amp;#x27;s only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly.&lt;p&gt;Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.</text></comment>