<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<br>
<br>
Milton L Mueller wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D78FF5F8E1@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">You can pay to be listed in the CLEARLY MARKED and SEPARATED sponsored links, which in fact attract far fewer clicks than the regular ones. Google was the first to clearly separate them and NOT make their regular rankings depend in any way on payments, and that of course is why it won the market - it really was better for finding what you were looking for than the alternatives. That set the standard for Bing, which is actually a very good competitor now if you haven't tried it. All hail market competition! What a friend we have in....Mammon!! Genuflect to Market FUNDAMENTALISM ;-)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Since i just need to respond to any words that Milton says on Market
fundamentalism :), here it is:<br>
<br>
It is really not so 'CLEARLY MARKED and SEPARATED'. It started with a
small box on the left side with a different background color. Not it
has migrated right to the top of 'search results', in the same font,
color and background, and is so prominent that it blocks two third of
my browser view. So watch out for what happens next as market power of
Google increases further, and regulatory powers dont take off because
of a host of structural reasons. <br>
<br>
Worse, Google carries out, what has been called an extortion racket, to
sell advertised space to rivals of any brand that gets looked up by a
user in the search engine. So if you search for 'sony cameras' the top
advertised positions are auctioned out, and of course if sony is
interested in not having users carried to the websites of their rivals
when what they really came looking for is 'sony', it can still pay a
higher price that the rivals to also get the ad space.... Really, some
competition this. <br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D78FF5F8E1@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Peter [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com">mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com</a>]
Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:52 PM
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a>; Avri Doria
Subject: Re: [governance] Halal Search Engine
( a couple of people disputed this)
The most obvious example is that on any common Google search the first few
results that come through may be sponsored links - identified as such if
you
have good eyes and bother to look, but the first results nevertheless. You
can pay to be number one on a Google search results listing, that's the
bottom line.
Beyond that - because Google doesn't release its algorithms this is
unproven. But articles such as this <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.seobook.com/google-branding">http://www.seobook.com/google-branding</a>
do tend to suggest new factors coming into results.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a>
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org">governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org</a>
For all list information and functions, see:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance">http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>