Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Mr. Obama, put an end to the internet wild west era!

Newspapers are going out of business by the day as the perception that content of any kind should be free on the internet. During the past decade we have had an internet wild west were the google cowboys made a killing on the back of the small web site/content operator. To add insult to injury, on April 8, 2009 Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt issued an order to news sites operators to do what they are told or else. For Mr. Schmidt who has been making loads of money, the business model is really easy: take everything you can from a content operator for free, including brand name, content, brand associations and brand definition then turn around and benefit from the free stuff you were able to gather. No web site would dare revolt as s/he would risk losing to their competition – blackmail at its best. So now, in the best impersonation of the bandit in the Godfather movie, Schmidt goes to newspapers and says: you are doing business in ‘my’ neighborhood and you have to pay me. Schmidt the genius or Schmidt the crook..

Google dominates over 65% of the internet so Mr. Schmidt’s neighborhood is quite large..For more than a decade Schmidt’s cowboys have absolutely destroyed the internet content business model reducing to either google it or die..Some of the major web site operators have resisted the onslaught and they are making some money from google. But unless you are AP or News Corp. google would not even bother to talk with you. Google would take your brand and mess it up any way they want, including description, content associations and any brand value you can think of. You’ve got it, you work hard to build it, you spent money to create an image for it.. well google doesn’t give a banana for it..

Web businesses everywhere have become hostages to one business model: google. Content innovation and new business model have all but disappeared. Like in the old wild west, as long as the google bandits are in town, nobody moves.

Mr. Obama, please put an end to the internet wild west!! We need new rules for the road for a new internet era. If you are serious about having a knowledge based economy, then it should not start 65% of the time from google.. that is not an internet economy that fosters innovation, growth and business ventures. The google deception over brands all over the world MUST STOP.
Web site owners, brand owners and content creators all over the world UNITE!
Let the internet revolution begin! Let the Google monarchy forever end! Let the FREE content market place begin!

14 comments:

  1. One word. robots.txt

    All else is MS funded FUD. Silly people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. robots.txt does not mean anything!! Nothing, zero, zilch, nada! It’s just google propaganda!
    Why is ANYONE forced by google to do ANYTHING for google??
    robots.txt IS the google propaganda machine. as long as google owns over 65% of the search market they are using that overwhelming power to blackmail sites to stay in their search engine.

    ewan, if you are really serious about this - do read AND think..before you speak/write.
    it is NOT silly! messing with peoples' property is not silly at all. it is ILLEGAL!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why not Google? Nobody else is doing this so why not them? All I know, is that I am a happy google user and I am thankful for their free services. I don't have my own company and I am not running my own business but I think if I did, I could have Google as a friend, not enemy. I would rather use it as a platform to develop than try to compete.


    To sum it up, I think it's o.k for Google to "dominate" 65% of internet. It's not them who is "disruptive", it's internet at all. However, it doesn't have to be. You can actually use it in your favour if you really want. In a word of excuse, I admit that I may not be objective as I am fan of Google. It was interesting to read your post even though I don't agree. Keep it comming

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  4. But, why not other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, AAfter, Ask etc? We can use them too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for your feedback and encouragements.
    I know there are many many happy google users out there, yours faithfully included. But the question is not about how much good google does. The question is about google's business practices. You probably drive a car that you are happy with. Or use a computer that you are happy with. That doesn't mean that the car maker or the computer maker does not pay its suppliers!! google is using 'parts' (aka content) from all the web sites on the internet without paying them their fair share. That is stealing. They are making huge profits allowing google to pay their employees huge salaries, give them free luncheons and a ton of goodies.. and making billions of dollars in profits for a handful of people. They can afford all that because they are using content without paying for it! aka, stealing from others. Imagine if every business did that! there would be only a handful of people making a ton of money starving everybody else out.
    On top of all that google is butchering every type of branding that companies spent a ton of money to create. Think about this: how much time does a company spend to create a small text ad for people to click on? Google makes money on that click. But the text that google displays for the search results for companies web sites is a complete disaster – they do it in such a way that makes money for google! Without any regard to the brands and brands qualities. An absolute insult! First they steal your content then they make money on it, then they destroy your image! All that while going around and telling people how ‘they’ should run their business so google can keep stealing and stealing..
    The entire practice is absurd and it dates back to the internet wild west days – when the thing started.
    And yes same holds true for most search engines unfortunately, with the only difference that google is a virtual monopoly in the search market – basically, influencing the perception over any brand they want. Therefore insuring they do not get competition!!
    Wonder why not even Microsoft can compete with them? Here is one piece of the puzzle.
    This practice has got to stop.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your analogies are all inaccurate. No amount of colored text will make up for that.

    People search for things, which may include news. If news sites come up in the listings, users click on that and proceed to the news site, where the news site has the opportunity to monetize the viewer.

    The main exception to this rule is Google News, which syndicates a variety of news sources which have opted in. Key word, opted in. Globally, the news industry gets about one hundred thousand clicks a minute from Google.

    Google is not taking content. It is hyperbolic to suggest they are stealing it. They take the title of an article in most cases, and an example line in some cases, and link to it, driving traffic and business to that site.

    If the news industry cannot adapt to monetize the sheer volume of traffic Google sends to it, they deserve to die. Currently they are refusing to adapt to the situation, and new media is carving up their empires piecemeal because of it.

    News empires are the stables, carriage makers, and farriers of this century, and its their own damned fault.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rybosh,
    Thanks for your comment.
    You say: "Google is not taking content. It is hyperbolic to suggest they are stealing it."

    that statement is not supported by the reality out there: that is all that google does, taking content without permission so they can re-sell that for a profit.
    saying it isn't so doesn't make it any different and narrowing the discussion on news only does change the paradigm.

    here it is again, in black and white maybe you like it better:
    google lives on the backs of web sites operators who Never gave google permission to use their properties!
    And if you really read what i am saying, i am also referring to the branding that google is destroying without any rights, any permission and any compensation to the brand owners!

    ReplyDelete
  8. The permission is implicit. You put up a website to have people visit it. If you want to block specific people, much like refusing right of entry, you can. There are many ways to do this.

    First, which I know you hate, is the robots.txt file. You will say google doesn't own the robots.txt file. This is true. The site owner does. Robots.txt is a little file which acts like the sign stating a dress code at a club. This sign can say, no indexing bots allowed. This sign can even be specific, and say no googlebots allowed, but everyone else is ok! If -any- owner of sites or IP wants to disallow -anyone- access to their site, this is the easiest way to do it.

    I notice your own robots.txt, located at http://iddja.com/robots.txt, does not disallow Google. Maybe you should, if you feel passionately about it.

    Anyway, can you please tell me specifically how and where google steals content, so I can understand your argument?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rybosh,
    You’ve got that upside down. On the contrary, the rejection is implicit. If I don’t give you permission to use my stuff doesn’t mean that you are free to do whatever you want to do with my stuff.. not in the USA where property rights are pretty strong and protected by the constitution. Where did you even get the idea, beats me.. maybe you live in another country with different property rights?
    Robots.txt is a hoax pure and simple. Maybe at the beginning of times when you could count web servers on your fingers that would have made some sense. But not in today’s world where hundreds of millions of people generate their content without having a clue about what a web server is and definitely don’t understand what robots.txt means (maybe some sort of text message?). I’ve noticed that computer programmers use that term a lot and very few of any ‘other’ people out there.. so, I’m guessing again: you are not living in the USA and you are probably on the technical side of the computing business.
    Web servers are PROTECTED by security systems. Without specific permission and security allowance nobody is allowed to enter a web server. So why should Google be any different?
    The fact that people make their content available publicly doesn’t mean that they do not maintain their legal rights to their content and the rights to privacy of their web servers.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Go here:

    http://iddja.com/robots.txt

    This is your robots.txt file. You have one.

    The first line of that is 'User-agent: *'

    That is an instruction to give any 'agent', such as a googlebot, permission to index your page.

    Its not a hoax. You have one yourself.

    It seems like you have your own views which aren't really backed up by... any sort of knowledge or research. If you took the time to look into what people are saying to you, you might be enlightened.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rybosh dear..
    I am taking the time to listen but you don't really add any value to the conversation other than repeating google's propaganda.
    and if you would like to do 'your' reasearch just google:
    google trademark lawsuit

    and you will find that there are many people very upset about how google is butchering their marks..

    maybe if you tried to keep an open mind you might find something else other than repeating
    your google pushed mantra on robots.txt

    to just show how wrong you are:
    i don't know where the link you posted comes from as I have NEVER created anything like this file:
    http://iddja.com/robots.txt

    I am the OWNER of the domain name iddja.com and have NEVER created this file:
    http://iddja.com/robots.txt

    somebody else created something in MY name???
    who gave him/her permission to do THAT??

    this is how ABSURD your arguments are!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. here is the content that someone (was it youuu goooogle?) wrote in a file that has Nothing to do with me But it is associated with the domain name that I OWN:

    http://iddja.com/robots.txt

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /images/spacer.gif
    Disallow: /ct.html
    Disallow: /sd/
    Disallow: /st.aspx
    Disallow: /ct/ct.aspx


    ------------------------------------------

    go figure..
    that's what you, Rybosh people call something like robots.txt - i guess, that file is for robots and not for 'normal' people huh..

    if anyone reading this message can tell whoever created that fie in my name to STOP, I'd appreciate it.
    I wouldn't even know where to start..

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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