Why Do Governments Think They Can Make A Better Search Engine?
from the just-wondering dept
While it's clear that the search engines fear certain countries, some countries fear the rise of American search engines. Search Engine Watch notes that the Japanese government has rounded up 30 big technology companies and told them to create their own search engine, to hold off the power of Google. We first mentioned this plan six months ago, but it looks like it's now official. Of course, we've already seen that France is trying to do the same thing -- though, the early results suggest that no one is actually building a search engine. They're just looking for excuses to take government money for free. No matter what is going on here, it's not clear why these governments feel the need to step in. Even worse, they always seem to think that all they need to do is throw money at something and come out with their own version of whatever it is they want. That, of course, is is the wrong idea. If they actually want to compete, they shouldn't be looking to copy Google, but to figure out what unfulfilled need there is out there that Google is unlikely to solve -- and try to do that. Trying to simply catch up is a guaranteed plan for accomplishing very little.
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Dilbert...
http://pag.csail.mit.edu/~adonovan/dilbert/show.php?day=19&month=5&year=2006
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Why do governments think
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Re: Why do governments think
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/asia/14cnd-zhao.html
if i were to venture a guess, i would say that search engine searches, and specifically results, indicate what people think and what they are interested in. i can see a govt preferring that such information is somewhat retained and avaialble internally. heard of google search history anyone?
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Because Google is Terrible?
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Everyone wants to reinforce their point of view
How long before there's a "conservative" (or "liberal") search engine that only returns results that support a conservative mind set?
Same with politics. I'm sure Karl Rove would love a search engine that returned results tuned to his liking (I'm only using Karl because he's the corrupt politician in power now -- insert spin doctor of your choice.)
It's all very dangerous as it leads to a public increasingly unaware the full spectrum of facts -- or one that insists on installing their faith as a hard fact.
As someone said -- "Your entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
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Local search engines
Are you listening Google? This is a good idea to fend off competition.
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Re: Everyone wants to reinforce their point of vie
As one of those "evangelicals", I would welcome the concept of a Christian search engine. Where you are WRONG is that it would definitely search scientific information, other faiths, and I would NOT advocate forcing it on everyone as a replacement for $GOOGLE_CLONE. But I welcome choice and competition in search engines.
Conservative and Liberal flavors would also be fine for those interested in them, although I would argue that insulating yourself from opposing opinions tends to dull your wits, and your insights and arguments become stale. It is much better to stay engaged with all types of people in thoughtful debate.
As for Karl Rove, has he actually been convicted of anything resembling corruption, or is this just your particular slant showing its head agian? Yes, I am aware of the many arguments for "politician==corrupt", but perhaps I just missed the news stories of his arrest. I did catch the one where the Grand Jury found that there was not enough evidence for a conviction, but we all know that was just a GW government cover-up, don't we? (wink, wink)
In closing, I would echo my profound agreement with your final statement:
"You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
(spelling corrections mine)
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fear
I believe the real fear motivateing these countries is the idea of haveing information controlled by an american company. Especially now given the current state of the US. As nice as it would be if these technologists would work together to create a better mouse trap, we all know that nothing meaningfull happens unless it's motivated by money or power. In this case, it's makeing sure the US dosn't develop a monopoly.
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There are other ways of looking at this
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Think again
Yes, why haven't they learned from the massive failures of Honda and Toyota when they attempted to copy General Motors success?
And before you say 'Honda and Toyota do it better...', maybe their search engine will too.
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Re: Because Google is Terrible?
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Why?
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Re: Everyone wants to reinforce their point of vie
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Re: Re: Because Google is Terrible?
Google news has no search capabilities in Japanese characters. If you doubt me, I suggest you try searching Google News with the phrase "迷惑電話". Other search engines have no problems coming up with plenty of Japanese articles. If you are referring to web searches (not news), then I maintain my point that about half of the hits are written in Chinese (even when I specify Japanese-only pages).
The only people who insist Google's Japanese capabilities are "good" are people who speak no Japanese.
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Re: Re: Re: Because Google is Terrible?
Yes. Damn those Americans for not speaking Japanese. And damn that American company for not speaking Japanese either. Damn them straight to hell.
You wouldn't know a good thing if it punched you in the face. Google is the most innovative company on the internet today. They have the best search engine on the internet today. All search engines want to be like Google.
.... The only logical explanation is that you're the Japanese translator in Microsoft's Anti-Google department.
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http://pag.csail.mit.edu/~adonovan/dilbert/show.php?day=20&month=5&year=2006
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Controlling the flow of information
Foreign governments are probably concerned that they will not have the ability to audit the information gathered by the search engines or (since they are essentially out of their jurisdiction) and that this will place their local companies at a competitive disadvantage... information is power, and america controls the flow of information.
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Everyone wants to reinforce their point of view
And to Anonymous Coward, I generally like to read your response, but your constant nagging of people's misspelling are getting as old as the term "business model" ..... have you heard of the term mistyped? (by the way I checked this against ms word for grammatical and spelling errors for you ;)
Which buy the way “outdated business model” is not necessarily outdated just because you disagree with a company or organization’s way of doing things. I can’t stand the RIAA, but the music industry’s way of doing things is not outdated until someone (maybe someone from here) comes out with a better way of doing things, and so far all I have read on here is people whining and complaining about it. I have not read or seen any articles or post to suggest a better way of the music industry to run the business.
So I have one of my own. A friend of mine does have his own band and he has turned down a major label contract to stay independent so he can do thing the way he wants, not the label. So he is creating his own website for his band so his fans can go there and download his music. He encourages people to share his music as hopefully people will like it enough to come and pay to watch him play, which by the way he makes more money at then people buying his cd’s when they were being sold. Which if more musicians did this, it would put fear into the RIAA.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Because Google is Terrible?
You wouldn't know a good thing if it punched you in the face. Google is the most innovative company on the internet today. They have the best search engine on the internet today. All search engines want to be like Google.
.... The only logical explanation is that you're the Japanese translator in Microsoft's Anti-Google department.
So is this the Google's response to having no Japanese search capabilities? About "good things punching you in the nose"? Is it a product of Google's insular culture, in which high-and-mighty PhD's just treat language as a "localization issue", and never do anything about it?
We notice that Yahoo doesn't have problems performing Japanese searches.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because Google is Terrible?
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Looks someone listened
The above link should bring you to an article describing Google's plan for localization of the seaarch engine. This means they are planning to improve the way the product behaves in other coubtries.
Wow, and to think I only suggested this last week.
;)
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Search Engine
Here's the link:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html
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Best Search in the Delhi-NCR
They Try a simply catch up with some guaranteed plan for accomplishing very little for the local peoples of their location...
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