[15444] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Google: Too Sleazy for the Street?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (J. Wyatt Ehrenfels)
Tue Jun 22 20:01:12 2004
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 05:18:16 -0700
From: "J. Wyatt Ehrenfels" <jwyattehrenfels@YAHOO.COM>
In-reply-to: <FD99C1B27829174FB9932EB2AD50E558011D746A@pbml.pb.uiuc.edu>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
Message-id: <20040622121816.48481.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com>
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Google: Too Sleazy for the Street?
Google provides access to UseNet under their own
branding ("Google Groups") so innocent people wander
into these unmoderated "news groups," where they
become targets of all manner of stalking by
belligerents with criminal and psychiatric histories
(or nothing else to do with their time). Google
refuses to take responsibility for modifying,
moderating, or monitoring even its own presentation of
these posts. They claim it's too large to police (that
is, when you finally get their attention after a
series of form responses that do not address the
content of your question). TRANSLATION: "While we
[Google] benefit materially from our ever-widening
base of operations and content, we have grown beyond
our capacity to provide customer service and beyond
our capacity to manage the consequences of our own
services."
I cannot even find my own web site in a search easily,
because the first two pages produced by a search on my
name calls up all these UseNet posts filled with
flaming juveniles and belligerents attempting to
defame me (I wrote a controversial book). Why these
posts rank more highly in Google's search than my own
web site and higher than other more reputable web
sites is beyond me. Someone needs to go up to Mountain
View, CA, grab a couple of these grungy execs by the
shoulders (shoulder hair) and maybe administer a good
slapping to them, preferably accompanied by a call to
"wake up."
I'd never invest in a company that is this indifferent
to the manner in which it endangers its citizens.
--- "Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@UILLINOIS.EDU> wrote:
> There's an article in today's online NY Times about
> libraries in a "Google
> world". An excerpt:
>
> "For the last few years, librarians have
> increasingly seen people use online
> search sites not to supplement research libraries
> but to replace them. Yet
> only recently have librarians stopped lamenting the
> trend and started
> working to close the gap between traditional
> scholarly research and the
> incomplete, often random results of a Google
> search."
>
> Full text (free registration may be required):
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2olwo
>
> Bernie Sloan
> Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
> University of Illinois Office for Planning and
> Budgeting
> 616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
> Champaign, IL 61820
>
> Phone: (217) 333-4895
> Fax: (217) 265-0454
> E-mail: bernies@uillinois.edu
>
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