We’ve done stories about how the Telcos want to degrade services of the internet except for those rich enough to pay for full access. (Here, here, and here are a few examples.) The action of the Telcos would basically kill off any websites who couldn’t afford the extortion fees. Thus the current freedom and innovation we current enjoy from the net would be dead. Only the current status quo would survive.
Now it appears that Bill Gates wants to do the same thing with search. Gates did an interview a few days ago where he said the following:
Deutsch (interviewer): So how far are you behind Google? Is it too late to catch up?
Gates: We’ll look back on this time and realize that search is pathetic. If I ask for something, I should get it, not a list of things to click on.
It’s great for where it is, but it will get so much better. Right now, there’s no way to qualify results by authority, by trusted sources. Sources I trust, that is.
Microsoft builds platforms for information organization. We’re not going to organize the world’s information for it.
Let’s analyze these comments. First, Gates is under the impression that for every search there should be only one result. I hope I’m not the only person who strongly disagrees with him. Heck, even in meatspace we wouldn’t rely on one source of information, why should it be any different on the net?
Second, he’s suggesting that only links to “trusted sources” be provided. What could he mean by that? To me trust strongly implies a prior relationship. We tend to trust our friends and mistrust what we have not experienced. Thus, it’s clear to me that Gates is saying that search results should only be provided from sites where a prior business relationship has been made.
Once again I hope I’m not the only person who strongly disagrees with him. I feel a search engine should be agnostic towards the results. Sure, the search company has an interest in ensuring that the results are valid. But when it starts providing links based on a prior business transactions it’s no longer a search engine: It’s advertising!
And, as I’ve alluded to before, by ignoring links from non-trusted sources, many voices on the net will be silenced. Heck, the vast majority of the net will be silenced. Only the voice of the status quo will be heard. No more innovation. No more freedom. No chance at all for the little start-up. Is that the internet you want?!
And lastly, when Gates refers to “information organization” it certainly sounds to me like he’s saying that the Internet should fit his software, and not the other way around. In other words, Microsoft will not bother listing your site on his company’s search results unless you have organized it first with Microsoft’s software. Is there any other way to interpret that?
As far as the “trust” statement, I read that a different way. I see it as a user-denoted system of trust. For example, if I get a source I like one day, I can tell MSN (or whatever MS’ search will be) that I trust these guys, thereby ranking them higher in future searches.
You are really stretching to make this post work. Bill’s statements are nothing whatsoever like the telcos charging popular websites higher prices for access to bandwidth. Apples and engine blocks.
“Bill’s statements are nothing whatsoever like the telcos charging popular websites higher prices for access to bandwidth. “
They are identical. Both systems want to keep the little guys from getting access to the end user. The Telcos want to do this by degrading service. Bill apparently wants to do it by limiting search results to those he trusts.
“I see it as a user-denoted system of trust.”
I didn’t read anything in there about it being user driven. In fact he specifically said sources that he trusted. And how would it even work with a user driven system? Let’s say I wanted to search for a chili recipe. How could I possible know what recipe sites to trust prior to searching?
And if it is user driven, that only means that Microsoft would be collecting data on all the sites I prefer. Do you really want that?!
Excellent piece. If only people were willing to read (or hear) warnings like these…
guys/gals/dvorak,
1) the word ‘he’ in the context ‘he trusts” doesn’t mean bill gates or even microsoft, he is talking about ‘he’ as a user. If you want to put spin on a story just for the sake of it, go work for Fox, otherwise please help the cause and don’t comment on net neutrality with none neutral, none impartial comments like these. Intelligent people want to listen to an unbiased argument, and turn off to a biased one.
2) Bill gates may be wanting to make more money, but twisting his or anyone elses every word is not gonna help. Telcos are different, they are stamping on consumer rights to protect cartels and old-unadaptable business models. I think M$ usness model is still in tact, so i doubt he is trying to screw the net.
I believe that, as long as there is serious competiton , these are “non-issues”.
Neither Bill gates nor SN can define what users will value more. If they want results “selected my microsoft” than that will be, if they want lists of results delivered by google, that’s what they will get. If they want something eles, someone will provide it.
No one is a better avocate of users than..themselves.
Lets just make sure that users can choose. They will choose what suits them better.
Regarding the Telco issue, the same thing applies. The truth is that we already have differentiated service depending on how much you pay. It’s called “bandwith”, “traffic columes”, “minimum bandwith guarantee” and whatever more the Telco Marketing guys are able to come up with. What was the result? A, relatively, low cost commodity. That’s it.
What will happen when they stop being agnostic on the service? In the short term…maybe they some services will be affected, in the medium-long term…nothing.
Competition will drive prices again to the commodity level.
Why will that happen ? Because they are still offering a commodity service.
This is the way I see it. Let’s just guarantee that I , as a user, can choose among serach engines and we will be fine. Let’s just guarantee that I, as web-based service provider, can choose among different “pipe” providers and we will be fine.
Miguel
Is this his idea of “keeping Google honest“?
If so, it doesn’t sound very “honest” to me.
Once again Bill Gates and M$ thinks they can do it better then anyone else. I doubt they will suceed this time. Here’s an idea Bill, start concentrating on your own bread and butter product, Windows and how you are how many years behind, before you start worring about Google. M$ needs a new leader and a defined direction instead of trying to do everything and not doing any of them well…
What was Bill thinking when he said that! The question was “So how far are you behind Google? Is it too late to catch up?” And he answers by suggesting that a search should return 1 result?
It doesn’t look like Microsoft will overtake Google any time soon if that is the attitude of their chairman.
DUHHHHHH…… do you think this is the reason M$ screws up everything they touch?It is not lack of capital,execution, or marketing.It is a fundamental problem with their philosophy and that starts at the top.M$ hates the net because they have no control. Giving people economic freedom will win in the long term.M$ is dead and the corpse is still kicking.
sounds more like bill wants a “I’m feeling lucky” button thats advanced enough and based on “trusted sources” (non-fishing sites). Where you ask for something and the system is smart enough to know what it is you’re looking for.
Doing away with the vagueness required for search results.
On the other hand this starts to sound too much like AOL keywords.
sounds to me like Bill is just trying to minimize the significance being so far behind google.
“Why are you so far behind google in search?”
“Search is pathetic!”
sounds a lot like:
“Why are you such a lousy shortstop?”
“Baseball is stupid!”
This could just as easily be read as weeding out crap from search results. Im sick of trying ot search for real information on a subjects and getting a page worth of link farms and netfungus.
I’m against walled or tiered internet too, but this is just fear mongering. “oooh MS bad. They eat babies you know!”
You guys just see conspiracies everywhere. Have you heard that the UN wants to put a tax on every e-mail?
tcc3–In general, Google and Yahoo are pretty good at weeding out net fungus. It’s there in a Google search, but Google’s page rank algorithm puts the cruft at the end of the list. I’m not sure how good MSN search is at weeding out bad sites, as I hardly ever use it.
Yahoo (and dmoz, which is still out there) are all about trusted sites, as the sites in their link trees are (as far as I know) still hand picked by humans. if someone knows otherwise, then say so. If Bill converts (or has converted) MSN to a truted site tree, that’s his perogative, I guess.
Limiting a search to “trusted sites” could eliminate the very site that has the best information about a subject, just because I (or Bill’s MSN, or for that matter Yahoo and dmoz) don’t know about that page. That is Google’s main advantage in searching.
Google tried the directory thing once – do they still have it up?