| I used to love Google - I used pretty much every service they had to offer. But in the last few years I've found myself distancing from them - I've replaced all but a small few (Reader, Email and Docs) of their services and I intend to get the last few over with. Why? I'm not sure. I guess Google, to me, used to be about pushing what's possible. With each service, Google created something that surprised and impressed me. Lately, everything they do seems to be rooted in aggressive data mining and advertising. Google is almost psychotic in controlling users for data. They feel threatened by Facebook, enough to force and wedge everything into Google+. What does Google even know about social? Why would they feel the need to move into that area? Google can't seem to make up their mind on what services they feel like running. It's not just Reader, although that was the final straw for many. Over 40 services[1] have been axed by Google so far. How many more? Can anyone rely on Google for anything, and when they neglect services millions rely on AND host them for free, how can one realistically compete? Is Google+ just yet another 'this is how to do something' - like Wave was? Just a demo. Just a way to 'kickstart' innovation in something? Now look Google Glass - is it really an innovation to help us or is it just yet another front for data mining? Makes you wonder doesn't it, if Google cares so much about data why they cancel so many services. Google have an overall terrible attitude which I only feel is getting worse. I no longer trust them with my privacy, which is why I'm migrating almost all my online services to ones hosted on my own server - At-least then I can stay away from the ever prying eyes of Google. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/map_of_the_week/201... |
Yes.
My personal pet peeve is when Google breaks search results links for the sake of data mining. Search results links often now no longer give the destination site, but some awful URL like:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...
This neither improves the web nor helps me organize information. Of course the SER offers a partial link shown in green, but I can't single click copy it, and if I swipe and copy, it doesn't have the protocol.
Worse is that the titleless garbage URL goes into Safari's web browsing History, and when after reading several results I want to go back to one, I cannot figure out which is the article I liked, because there's no title in my history:
http://i.imgur.com/ogJnx6B.png
This is breaking my web. Aside from being broken in my history so I can't tell which of 15 visited results is which, I also cannot even see, months from now when I run the same search, which I've visited before.
This redirect counter URL is incredibly useful for "aggressive data mining and marketing", but is so anti-user that it has managed to change my behavior from accepting my default browser search configuration to manually spending the time to change it to something not broken -- and tell other people how to change theirs as well.
Now, when I'm researching something I know I've researched before, when I want to see visited sites as visited and want to end up with site titles in my history, I use Duck Duck Go (or even Bing!), so at least I can see what I've visited:
DDG: http://i.imgur.com/mj5c5Gt.png / Bing: http://i.imgur.com/xzBCK4Z.png
To anyone who uses Safari and wants to expand their "Omni" bar beyond the Googleplex, check out http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net. After installing, right click the page, choose Keyword Search Settings, select a different search engine (d for Duck Duck Go), and set it as default.
This is how Google being "evil" influences an influencer to influence others.
// The SER are not always broken. Sometimes links are left alone. The behavior changed on me during this post, and at the moment, all links after the first are normal. Unpredictability is itself disconcerting, making users lose trust.