We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
FairSearch… google the word “suspicious” please What does anyone know about the outfit calling itself FairSearch?
Based on growing evidence that Google is abusing its search monopoly to thwart competition, we believe policymakers must act now to protect competition, transparency and innovation in online search.
Policymakers? That is a bit like asking a collective of rapists to protect chastity, virginity and privacy. In my experience nine times out of ten when I hear people calling for a market leader to be kicked by ‘policy makers’, it is because they find it cheaper to pay lobbyists to do in the competition’s legs than actually compete with them.
Anyone have the low down on these guys?
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
I know all I need to know when I see these two statements cheek-by-jowl:
‘Consumers benefit when competition in the marketplace forces companies to continue to innovate and develop the best solutions for online search.’
and
‘ . . . we believe policymakers must act now to protect competition, transparency and innovation in online search.’
Or, in other words
‘Consumers benefit when competition in the marketplace forces companies to continue to innovate and develop the best solutions for online search. – except when they freely choose to use our competitor, Google. Therefore, policymakers must act now to protect us from their competition, transparency and innovation in online search.’
Looks like blatant protectionism and rent-seeking to me. Just like the EU’s fatuous attacks on Microsoft, a whole bunch of European companies that can’t innovate their way out of a paper bag, whining and snivelling to the state to use its power to force their competition out.
But I could be wrong.
llater,
llamas
The take from those few neutral parties who comment on it is, FairSearch.org(Link) is a bunch of rent seeking crybabies who are upset that that upstart Google(Link)(the members of FairSearch that were listed included Microsoft, Yahoo and some other search engines most of which are older than Google) whining that they are getting their butts kicked and wanting Mama Gummint to do something about it.
See here(Link) and here(Link).
I hope this helps.
My first thought was that any organization with the word fair in its name is suspicious from the get-go. My second thought was that they should make their own search engine if they think existing search engines don’t work the way they want. My third thought was that the second thought is blindingly obvious, and therefore these people are either fools or crooks.
I vote “fools,” in keeping with my belief that the villainy/stupidity ratio is much less than unity.
In politics, “fair” is a one-word oxymoron.
Tedd, FairSearch is a group of second string search engines (including Microsoft and Yahoo) whining that this upstart Google has taken the biggest market share.
And if Microsoft complaining about unfair marketing tactics isn’t irony nothing is.
My earlier comment on this has been smitten, or all would have been clear.
On their About page, you see that they are a number of properties including Expedia, TripAdvisor and Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft, who own Bing, and whose adCenter service is I think the number two search advertising service now showing ads on both Yahoo and Bing.
I’m not convinced google is good, but I do think they are trying to be fair, if only because their search traffic and hence ad revenue depends on their reputation.