back to article Google's social search mash gets EPIC FAIL

Building an internet within the internet isn't as easy for Google as it once was - and critics of Mountain View's latest efforts to make its search estate more "social" are becoming increasingly vocal. Respected online privacy campaigner Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is expected to complain to the US Federal …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    However

    The G+ Integration into Google is actually VERY good, useful and most of al OPTIONAL.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I have a great idea

      Let's get Barry Shitpeas in one corner, DZ-Jay in another and we can have a Google vs Apple Stooge fight!

      Disclaimer: I like Amazon. And Samsung.

      1. Craigness

        Phony controversy

        Post on a public blog, google will index it. No complaints.

        Post on google+, make it public, google will index it. Complaints.

        Post on twitter, google will not index it. Complaints from twitter that this will break the internet even though they did not renew the contract they had with google to display twitter data (which they did in realtime Search) and now use nofollow to prevent google indexing their site.

        If you don't want google knowing what you do or like then don't use google. It's free, so you're the product. If you use google but don't want your likes and activities to influence the search results then use the regular search instead of the new one.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    OR

    This seems like classic antitrust behaviour, using a legal monopoly in one market (web search) to gain a competitive advantage in a different market (social networking) through bundling.

    And is it not opt out rather than opt in?

  3. Mike Flugennock
    FAIL

    why am I not the least bit surprised?

    As Claude Rains might have said, "I'm shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find out that Google wants to include Google+ users' personal data in search results."

    Seriously, though... you'd have to have been a total drooling retard to not have smelled this coming a mile away (or a km away, for EU and UK readers) from the very beginning.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's still miles for us UK readers, we also happen to be in the EU...

  4. Phoenix50
    Go

    Abso-fr*gg*n-lutely

    2012: "Google is an entrenched player trying to fight off its challenger Facebook by using its market dominance in a separate sector,"

    1995: "Microsoft is an entrenched player trying to fight off its challenger Netscape by using its market dominance in a separate sector,"

  5. lellimecnar
    Alert

    Completely Baseless

    With Google+ you have complete control over who can see how much of your information. The stuff that shows up in search results is no different than if you had searched directly on Google+. These arguments of privacy are misinformed. No one can see your information unless you let them.

    Now, about the anti-trust accusations: Facebook has specifically chosen to exclusively share its content with Bing, and not Google. In fact, they go out of the way to block Google from accessing any information from Facebook. Twitter has also opted out of Google search integration. They used to have Twitter integrated into search, but they decided not to renew their contract with Google. How is that anti-competitive?

  6. Turtle

    Let me see if I understand this...

    Now, if I understand this correctly, then Google, after having built up a huge empire thanks to its search engine, and while taking great pains to weed out spam from its search results, now wants to include spam in those same search results in the guise of the droolings of people whose "data" it has appropriated?

    Who is this supposed to benefit? (Aside from possibly Google's competitors?)

  7. Martin 47

    is it just me?

    but when I use a search engine I am looking for stuff I don't know the location of, I don't want my own info, or stuff from my friends, I already know that and know where it is.

    I am also generally not looking for material thats similar to things I have already found, perhaps that explains why I stopped using google for searching a long while ago.

  8. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Another thing they broke...

    If you were signed in, you could set up a list of sites you didn't want to appear in search results, like experts-exchange.com and bizrate.com (and optionally why)

    I notice this has disappeared with the change.

    1. ratfox
      Go

      You can still do that, it is just hidden

      Click on the link you do not want, then click "back" right away. The results page now contains a link proposing you to block all results from that site.

      I guess they thought having a link on every result made the page too cluttered.

  9. OnTheSpecialBus
    Windows

    Now it all gets a bit clearer

    I used to have a YouTube account, not a very active one ,just a couple of dozen videos of cars and the like.

    Then one day YouTube told me I HAD to have a google account as well to use YouTube.

    I have no need whatsoever to have a google account so after several seconds deliberation, rather than create yet another flaming account to lose the password for I simply deleted the lot.

    Now the reasoning behind this second account becomes clear, Google are buying up online content providers and getting the content owners to organise all the content for them by pinning it to a google account allowing them to build a GooFaceGleBook 1.0 out of all the bits.

    Wow, deleting my content and ditching YouTube was a lucky escape.

    It may come as a surprise to you Google, but some of us havent signed up for social media sites, trying to lure us in wont increase your userbase.

    1. Craigness

      In other words...

      "Google integrated youtube and I opted out of using google services."

      Anti-trust my ar$e!

      What google are doing is competing with facebook. Lots of sites use facebook accounts for things like comment threads or instead of making users go through a registration process with the site. That encourages people to use facebook. If google doesn't do something similar then it will lose out as facebook grows in its place.

      In response to facebook's activities I decided to stop using facebook.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can anyone explain what Google is doing wrong?

    Because I cannot see it. Let's see, Google has a social service (Google+) and you can choose to search in the portions of the data that Google+ users have allowed to be public in the Google search service. Exactly where are they using their monopoly power? G+ data is kept by Google and allowed to be shared by G+ users, why anyone else has to dictate what they can or cannot do with that data as long as they respect user preferences?

    If Facebook or Twitter allowed Google to index their data, they will have the same result, but they haven't, why they are whining about this? I'd find Google abusing their power if they privileged in some way the G+ results, but they aren't. And if you don't like Google search results, you can use Bing or something else.

    Mostly looks like they are realizing that they did a mistake in the first place when they did not allow Google to index their data and now they are just angry at Google's move.

    1. Gannon (J.) Dick
      Thumb Down

      Yeah, I think I can

      Say you are looking for a needle in a haystack. Google and Facebook are in branding war over who's haystack has the most needles. How does that help you, the user, find a needle ? It doesn't. Since you are the "product", this has the same effect as if Google and FB synchronized data rather than delivered it. This isn't competition, it's Big Data pissing in your soup.

  11. Laie Techie

    Integration

    Google was upfront about this. When they released the +1 button, one of the stated purposes was to *someday* use the ratings people in your circles give a certain resource in order to personalize search results for you. It would also indicate which people in your circles voted the resource up. The ratings of people outside my circles should not affect my search results, so to avoid spam, don't follow spammers.

  12. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    IT Angle

    Good heavens

    Is Google+ still going?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I guess the AntiTrust-ness is in prioritising Google+ matches?

    There's no reason why a Google search shouldn't index public things in Google+ -- but, Google+ being the fart of irrelevance that it is, such results should appear well down the list.

    I suspect, however, they'll be right up there at the top, where you can't miss them.

  14. Eddy Ito

    Swing and a miss

    Sure everyone is talking about Facebook and Twitter because they seem to be the big players but it seems pretty clear to me that Google+ is chasing a different and much more important rival, LinkedIn. This is Google trying to make its search as relevant as a LinkedIn search. I'm sure Google could care less about indexing Facebook or Twitter but if they could deeply probe LinkedIn they would be really happy.

    Compare LinkedIn's >135M users with Facebook's 800M+ and you'll notice that a few of the Facebook accounts are there only to play games so that a user's "real" account isn't overflowing with Farm Wars & Mafiaville junk. Facebook is where folks go to kill time, microblog, and chat. LinkedIn is where folks go to do business, get leads, and job prospects so folks have a financial incentive to "keep it real" that doesn't exist on Facebook. Sure, folks will still use all their social networks for finding jobs and the like but if you're doing a search, you might not want to start on Facebook but if you do you'll probably get a few invites to sign up on LinkedIn.

  15. Steven Roper
    Thumb Down

    I won't be using Google+

    not because of any concern over privacy issues, but simply because Google have a a shitty track record of starting these things and then shutting them down a year or so later. Like Wave, Buzz and a raft of other "services", Google?+ will end up in the bin sooner or later. So why should I go to all the hassle of setting up all my info on Google+ only to lose it all again by this time next year? No thanks.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Simple solution

    Avoid Google+. Avoid Facebook. Avoid LinkedIn. Avoid Twitter. Avoid posting, uploading or sharing your personal photos (flickr, photobucket, windows live, dating sites etc). Avoid anecdotal references (in a forum, in Youtube comment section) to your family, job or location. Avoid jobs where you have to advertise your services and personal details to the rest of the world (e.g. real estate agent).

    Reduce your footprint on the Internet to an insignificant minimum.

    And still have a vibrant, happy social life offline.

    Problem?

  17. parityerror

    What's the problem?

    If a post is public everyone should be able to find it. If a post is restricted to a circle it should only show up in their search results. What's the issue here?

  18. John F***ing Stepp

    Auggg, Google changes something. . . Fire bad!!!

    Pitchforks and torches people, pitchforks and torches.

  19. yoinkster
    Mushroom

    I look forward to the days when all this social bullsh*t dies a death and we can go back to having functional websites that each provide a service.

    The BBC doesn't need a share on facebook button. I read the news, I digest it. F*ck social horseh*t.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agree with this completely. The websites only add that crap it to raise their ranking on search websites anyway, taking us back to Google..

      With this change it's now turned into a self feeding loop, one of which we may never get out of.

  20. oswdt
    WTF?

    Dont login while doing search that will solve the problems with G+, or even better use another browser so it wont have cookies etc.

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