back to article Facebook, MySpace, Twitter expose Google's 'evil'

A gang of engineers from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter has released a new bookmarklet designed to expose how Google’s People & Pages service favours the ad giant’s own Google+ results at the expense of the rest of the web. The Focus On the User group posted a video explaining how the Don’t Be Evil tool works - a reference to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    90 Million Users?

    Certainly 90 Million accounts, but Google hasn't revealed how many are active.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    heh

    90million users and from those 70% are .And now every time you sign up to gmail you have to sign up to google+ so expect the number of dormant google+ accounts to go higher.

  3. Owen Carter
    Big Brother

    Oh Noes! Googles Broken teh Internets

    Calm down dear! click on: http://www.bing.com/

    - There.. I've fixed it for you.

    More to the point.. are Facebook; Myspace and Twitter complaining about how Google monetizes users data? Oh HAHAHA! Presumably this is pure jealousy on their part.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Try these searches...

      "Best search engine" - According to bing it's http://www.dogpile.com/, Google gives a comparison page which rates ask.com first.

      "Best Operating system" - bing gives a comparison page, starting with windows, google gives a "10 best alternative operating systems"

      "Bill Gates" - Bing (After the wikipedia result) gives the Bill Gates foundation, google, (After wiki) gives microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/

      My conclusion: They are both evil!

    2. BillG
      Big Brother

      >> users aren’t getting the kind of relevance

      >> in results they’d expect – or as Google

      >> always claims it provides

      > Calm down dear! click on: http://www.bing.com/

      Bing! Bing! Bing!

      Yes, me too. I started using Bing last month. Give me more relevant results.

  4. Crisp
    Meh

    Back to using AltaVista for my searches then. Either that or Ask Jeeves.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or, you know, you could just switch the function off like a normal person

      http://lifehacker.com/5875156/how-to-turn-off-googles-annoying-new-personal-search-results

      1. Graham Marsden
        Thumb Down

        @johnny19

        Except that, as that article points out, you have to go into the settings to make the change permanent instead of just having to select it once and that's it.

    2. Piro Silver badge
      Pint

      DuckDuckGo!

      Is what I use..

  5. JDX Gold badge

    @Owen Carter

    No it's about a little thing called anti-monopoly laws.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    LOL

    Facebook calling Google Evil?

    Don't make me fucking laugh....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As I've said before

    Tesco doesn't advertise Lidl.

    1. Tzael
      Facepalm

      Re: As I've said before

      Tesco doesn't provide a service that allows customers to search for supermarkets.

  8. Kyoraki

    So, let me get this straight..

    Other networks are blaming Google for launching a service that lets people search Google+? If this new search included Twitter and Facebook and pushed them down in favour of G+ then sure, but from what I understand, this is a service for just Google+ users. People do like to jump on Google for breaking their motto for the silliest of reasons...

  9. Soupgoblin
    Pirate

    Only twits and social network junkies actually care about this

    When I do internet searches, I am not looking for twits, facebook or myspace trash. I am looking for information. I don't care to hear about some crazy persons opinions, if I did, I could log into myspace or facebook (I refuse to join twitter, I don't see any use for it) and read hours worth of gibberish from people I barely know.

    I actually would enjoy never seeing any search result from those three social networking sites ever again, they have no real information.

    it is not a monopoly, there are other search engines you can use (although they are pretty crappy).

    1. ItsNotMe
      Thumb Up

      @Soupgoblin

      Agree 2,000 % on that. This "social networking" crap is for brain-dead people with no lives.

  10. LPF
    Thumb Up

    If they don't like it...

    They can always build their own world class search engine. jesus nothing is stopping them! its not like google is paying people not to search using other engines ;)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Other than the fact that tis preselected as the search engine in most browsers/phones nowerdays, of course no money has changed hands to make that happen nnnnoooooooooooo

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @AC 13:20 GMT - Windows

        in case you heard of it, comes with Bing by default. You only use Google search if you really want it.

        Please be serious!

      2. Keep Refrigerated
        Boffin

        @AC

        You're confusing the premise.

        * Google pays browser and phone vendors to use Google as the default search engine.

        * Google does not pay browser and phone vendors NOT to use other search engines.

        Therefore you get Google by default, but you are still given the option to choose a different SE for default instead.

        Similar for social networks. Google releases spiders that index any content you throw at it (or that others link to). Farcebook and Twatter are free to open the gates to their gardens and allow the spiders in - and would probably get higher rankings than G+.

        However, they don't want to let the spiders into their walled gardens (instead they want the spiders to pay a fee at the gate), therefore Google doesn't index them - at their request. Simples.

        There may be a narrow anti-trust case for Google preventing vendors from choosing alternate pre-loaded crap (such as Skyhook - if this accusation is true). However as a consumer, I'm glad they do that; if I want a specific app I'll get it myself from the market thank-you very much.

        In any case, it's only the Android name they control, if someone wants to take Android OS and bundle a bunch of crap with it for their devices they are welcome - just don't call it Android - I think that's fair and helps the consumer as much as anything to know just what they are buying.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    had not heard back at the time of writing

    is google the new apple?

  12. Andrew Baines Silver badge
    Stop

    DuckDuckGo.com

    No tracking, Good result - nuff said

  13. Confused Vorlon

    Twitter hypocracy

    Twitter used to provide a tweet feed to Google who were happy to search the results.

    Now they don't provide the data, and add noFollow links - which Google honours.

    I imagine they'd be screaming a lot louder if Google was 'illegally scraping their site despite their explicit instructions'.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Happy

      hypocracy ?

      What is that, government by hype ?

      That would be Fox news, then.

      I believe the word you're looking for is hypocrisy.

      As a Vorlon, moreover a confused one, you are forgiven.

  14. Darryl

    Still don't see the problem

    If I'm searching the web, I'm looking for information, news, product/service support, etc. NOT that some 13 year old girl thinks OMG Justin Bieber is sooooooo cute!!!111!

  15. cosmo the enlightened
    Megaphone

    No surprise

    Google is a walled garden - has been for some time. The search is no longer neutral, and has not been so for some time. They are just becoming indifferent to hiding the bigger game plan. Google is not the neutral search provider people still think it is.

    so many stupid so much advertising opportunities.

  16. Steven Roper
    FAIL

    For once

    (I don't believe I'm about to say this, but) Eric Schmidt is right about one thing.

    If I deliberately block Google from spidering my website, I have no grounds for complaint when my site doesn't show up in Google's search results. This is self-evident; if I want my site to appear on Google, I have to let the Googlebot spider my site.

    Facebook and Twitter both actively prevent Google from spidering their pages. So they have no grounds to complain when Google's search results don't display them. They have only themselves to blame if their sites aren't showing up.

  17. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Two words

    Who cares ?

    No, frankly, is there any reason at all to pay attention to what Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have to say about anything ? One is a company creating ADD patients, the second is well on its way to irrelevance and the third has the brainpower of a canary.

    Now I agree that Google has become the Microsoft of the Internet, but frankly the Three Stooges are the last people I would go to for a discussion on anything.

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