[dannywarner]

I tried signing up a few weeks ago and they are not allowing international or Australian access.

I'm surprised the comments here are missing the elephant in the room.

Sridhar Ramaswamy was the Google executive directly responsible for putting all those ads on Google's search results. If Google search got broken then I reckon he did more than anyone to break it. He had a brutal rivalry with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.

Vivek Raghunathan put all the ads on YouTube. Those ads are so bad Google makes money from people paying to remove them.

They left Google after a scandal with YouTube showing ads on videos that exploited young children and appealed to pedophiles.

Are the architects of the problem the right people to trust for a solution? The born-again anti-advertising schtick just seems too clever by half. They are collecting more private personal data than Google ever did.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-exec-sridhar-ramas...

https://camilancumicumi.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-former-google...

[navyeet]

This is literally one of the quotes: "Ramaswamy fought a battle with other Google executives to prevent them from mining the search histories of Google users to improve ad-targeting on non-Google sites."

Did you actually read the business insider article that you linked?

Seems like you went into your research with preconceived notions, didn't find anything glaringly against your viewpoint, and proceeded to provide it as evidence for your claims.

[dannywarner]

It's a fair question whether the architects of Google's ad monopoly are the right people to build a private search engine. As noted in the comments here, Neeva's own website says "Neeva was founded by Sridhar Ramaswamy (ex-SVP of Ads at Google) and Vivek Raghunathan (ex-VP of Monetization at YouTube)." Anyone who reads the NYT or Information articles can draw their own conclusions.

If the counter-example you quote is Ramaswamy arguing to go not-quite-so-far abusing people's personal information as others at Google wanted, then I think that's pretty damning. It's a very Google-like position to argue that it's okay for Google to mine personal information to drive more ad clicks on Google properties, but not to let other websites do it as effectively. That's the argument to which your quote refers and it's both anti-privacy and anti-competetive.

Seems your account was created within a week of OP, and this is your only comment or post on HN.

I've found some extra supporting quotes and links below, detailing that Ramaswamy oversaw all advertising at Google, was the exec responsible for increasing ads on search results (which was only 3% of the screen originally), and that he knew doing this made search results and privacy worse for consumers.

"Earlier, he [Ramaswamy] spent 15 years at Google where, as a senior vice president, he oversaw all of its advertising and commerce products, including search, display and video advertising, analytics, shopping, payments, and travel. When he joined the company in 2003, Google Ads was a $1.5 billion business. By the time he left in 2018, its annual revenue run rate was $100 billion." https://www.globalindiantimes.com/globalindiantimes/2021/5/1...

"I was the exec in charge of many of the increases in ad load, there was an expectation of a certain amount of growth" - Ramaswamy quoted on CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/16/sridhar-ramaswamy-ex-google-...

"Useful search results were pushed down the page to squeeze in more advertisements, and privacy was sacrificed for online tracking tools to keep tabs on what ads people were seeing" - Ramaswamy discussing his 15 years at Google https://searchengineland.com/former-google-ad-boss-ramaswamy...

[navyeet]

Read what I said again, and then re-read in just in case you didn't get it that second time.

Also my account was created 2 years ago.

[dannywarner]

No, your statement is not correct. I can see your account was created on May 15, 2020 and that you have no other comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nbabra.

The OP account that posted the link was nmwnmw. It was created on May 23, 2020. It has 2 submissions (both Neeva) and no comment history, at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nmwnmw

It seems likely you work for Neeva. You should address these points as a Neeva representative if so. I'd be totally stoked to engage in constructive discussion about this, because it is actually an incredibly important issue.

[dannywarner]

Curiously, I noticed you changed your username. Here's an updated link to your profile showing the same May 15, 2020 date, and comment/post history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=navyeet

If you're interested in engaging with the substance of my comments feel free.

[judge2020]

> Those ads are so bad Google makes money from people paying to remove them.

Arguably those ads have to be that annoying if people want to use YouTube for free, at least in its current state - it’s a globally free service that receives 500 hours of content every minute[0]. Less annoying ads drive less clicks and thus generate less revenue. Paying to remove them is a sign that you actually value YT for how much it costs to run.

0: https://blog.youtube/press/

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

I don't value YT for how much it costs to run I value it for the videos that people choose to upload for free. I am not sure that it matters much to me that I am downloading videos from an enormous site with massive traffic. Some of the best videos I get from YT have very few views and the uploaders are not looking to financially profit from sharing them. These videos could easily be served from smaller sites with less traffic that do not cost much to run. I get reliable downloads from all over the internet, not just Google servers. I would not complain about YT because I never see any ads, and downloads are relatively easy, but I do think it's a bit myopic to imagine that YT is the only way we could ever have accesss to so much video. I think that was/is inevitable. The internet allows people to share stuff.

[judge2020]

I don’t disagree with you but there’s a reason those creators chose YouTube and aren’t purchasing video hosting for $x/mo and linking people to their website - YT provides free uploading and discovery to everyone, so those creators are available to you just as a million other small creators are available to all 2+ billion YouTube viewers who have their own niches and interests. YouTube’s free-ness and discovery is only possible at this scale, with ads (and the subset of users who convert to paying customers via those ads or purchase YT premium) subsidizing the rest of us with our OSS ad blockers turned on. If google can’t continue to get people to pay for YT premium or show ads that lead to conversions, they won’t turn a profit and won’t be able to provide this global service in its current form.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"... us with our OSS ad blockers turned on."

That's great, but personally I do not use an ad blocker because I do not need to use a browser to search, download or watch video. Nor do I need python or youtube-dl. I download videos with something like

   curl -4o 1.mp4 $(curl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567890a|sed  "s/\\u0026/\&/g"|grep  -o "https://r[0-9]\{1,2\}--[^\"]*"|sed -n /itag=22/p)

except I do not use curl.

I play videos with ffmpeg-based players. I do not need to be online to play video.

Tech companies that rely on advertising to generate revenue (and thus need "scale") want others to believe advertising is necessary for there to be free stuff shared via the internet.

I know that's not true because I have been downloading free stuff via the internet, including video, since before YouTube or Google existed. I also know that peer-to-peer is the most efficient way to share stuff, not server-client. Middlemen selling ads are not necessary.

People are going to share stuff for free as long as the internet exists, regardless of whether Google or anyone makes money from advertising. That's what makes the internet interesting, not middlemen like Google or people using the internet for commercial gain.

"That's all I know."

[kyawzazaw]

You are the extreme outlier. Creators will continue to be on Youtube, and ads will continue to be there.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

https://web.archive.org/web/20210415072450/https://neeva.com...

We could read this like a confession from ex-Google managers:

"There are technology products [like the ones we acquired at Google] that work better when they [anthromorphising the software] know some information about you, like your interests or what country you live in. However, companies today [(read: Google)] collect whatever information they can about you and store it indefinitely. [Yikes!]

Additionally, companies [such as? Google?] need to offer you controls that are easy to find and give you real ownership over your data-not just lip service. [What the heck is "real ownership"? Submitted/uploaded data belongs to the user. Larry Page himself said this in a televised interview. Are "privacy policies" considered "lip service"?]

For example, tech products [like the ones we became familiar with at Google] rarely need to store your location history forever. A better default would be to store this data for 90 days, while offering you the option to let the company [Google] store it longer if that is your choice. [Why 90 days. Why not 0 days.]

Do you know all the different ways technology companies [like Google, our former employer] use your browsing data? Your IP address? Your name and profile photo? Companies [such as the one we worked for] can get your personal information for a purpose that benefits you, but then use the data in whatever way they want going forward. [How clever. And what can be done about that. What if Neeva does that? What recourse do users have?] Products [such as the ones we saw at Google] ask for your phone number and email address so you can recover your account in case you get hacked, but then will use this data to report your online purchases to advertisers."

How and why did Neeva arrive at the 90-day data retention policy.

Why cant users have the option to have data stored for 0 days.

Why cant users request to have their data deleted immediately.

(Neeva is getting paid regardless of whether they collect or store data, other than the minimal data required to administer user fees.)

Why does a "paid search engine" need to collect and store more information than, say, a VPN provider. For example, collecting more data than than username, email address, and payment details.

[edmundsauto]

Certain jurisdictions may have records retention regulations so e.g. search history can be supoenaed in a criminal investigation.

[admax88q]

I would be very surprised if there way a law requiring search history to be recorded.

Just because some data can be supoenaed doesnt mean you are required to store/create the data in the first place.

[edmundsauto]

I agree, search history is a bit too specific to be encoded in laws. There are, however, a broad class of laws called "mandatory data retention" laws, which the EFF is against. https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention

[dekhn]

sridhar and susan worked in ads at the same time. I believe they were co-SVPs. I didn't really see any rivalry (I worked in and around their offices for several years).