[governance] Halal Search Engine

[Rui Correia]

Dear Parminder and Ian

Just like for Milton, when I search on google, the sponsored links ARE
clearly marked, identified as such and separated from the rest, in a
separate frame on the RIGHT hand side.

What is happening is that google is set differently in different countries.
I just did a quick test here looking for the same product with google .za;
.uk; .au; .in; and .nz. BUT even then, my geographical location gives away
where I am and google OVERRRIDES some of the display.

At any rate, with all the domains that I tried, Australia had sponsored
links above the normal links, whereas the others did not.

Google has become a translator's tool, as translators look up the results
count of different ways of translating something. As a member of three
translators' lists, I often witness disagreements of the most frequent way
of saying something based on google counts, as people in different countries
get different counts for the exact same search!

Even the commemorative google logos for special occasions are
country-dependent. On Saturday 29 August, a member of one of the
translators' lists sent a note through about the "cute" google logo that
day. Within minutes there were 15 replies asking what she was taling about -
they could not see anything different in the country they were writing from.
Others wrote in to confirm that they could see the different logo - Michael
Jackson's black shoes and white gloves, commemorating the singer's
birthday.

Regards,

Rui

2009/9/7 Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>

>
>
> Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> 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 ;-)
>
>
>
> Since i just need to respond to any words that Milton says on Market
> fundamentalism :), here it is:
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Parminder
>
>    -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Peter [mailto:ian.peter at ianpeter.com <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>]
> Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:52 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; 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 http://www.seobook.com/google-branding
> do tend to suggest new factors coming into results.
>
>
>
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-- 
________________________________________________


Rui Correia
Advocacy, Human Rights, Media and Language Consultant
2 Cutten St
Horison
Roodepoort-Johannesburg,
South Africa
Tel/ Fax (+27-11) 766-4336
Mobile (+27) (0) 84-498-6838
_______________
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