No? Do so now, please.

This is important. Why? Because we have been hearing rumors lately that Google intends to change the way it produces searches to bias the search results in the direction of more reliable sites. But the number one search result for a key question that a lot of people ask about evolution is a bogus creationist site.

I’ve never, for one moment, gone along with the idea that Google can pull off a better, more reliable search based on the Google view of what sites are more reliable. My position on this has annoyed many of my colleagues. The promise of the Internet being less bogus and more educational is attractive. But it is a siren call. Regarding this particular issue I’ll claim the role of Galileo until proven otherwise.

Also of interest: In Search of Sungudogo: A novel of adventure and mystery, set in the Congo.

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/17/the-wrong-way-to-approach-the-1/">The Wrong Way to Approach the Evolution-Creationism Debate</a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/08/25/back-to-school-special-what-to/">What to do with Bible thumping students</a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/03/04/teachers-under-fire/">Teachers Under Fire</a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/11/17/the-problem-with-our-system-of/">The problem with our system of science education is …</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/09/06/back-to-school-your-letter-to/">Your Letter to you Child’s Life Science Teacher</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/">A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.</a></li>

Well, you would find your way to a different highway entrance. But say that one was closed as well.Then, you check around and find out that all the highways in your state are closed because the state decided to close them. No more highways for you.

Or, one day you go to check the mail and there is a single post card, and nothing else, in your mail box. The post card reads “The United States Postal Service has permanently suspended operation. Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day.”

Or one day you go to turn on the TV and … well, never mind, you get the point.

This morning I received an email from Socialite, a software application, telling me that the software app would not be developed further, could no longer be updated, and was no longer for sale. The main reason for Socialite’s demise is summarized in this text from their web site:

In 2012 Twitter announced API changes and made it clear that traditional Twitter clients, such as Socialite, should not be developed. Some of these new rules made developing Twitter support in Socialite 2 impossible, so after much deliberations we stopped the development of Socialite 2.
End-of-life of Google Reader in 2013 was the last nail in the coffin of Socialite, as without it Socialite loses much of its appeal.

Now, I don’t use Socialite, so this does not matter to me, but it is part of a larger problem that has been a difficulty for everyone. First, with respect to Twitter, it seems to me that Twitter does change its API now and then, which in and of itself causes havoc in the development community. Furthermore, it seems that these changes in Twitter API are not necessarily improvements, but rather, sometimes involve removal of functionality. One could even argue that Twitter has a policy of changing, and sometimes even “breaking,” it’s API in order that software projects that make use of it no longer work.

I remember a few years back when Twitter was still pretty new and there were all sorts of great ideas for using the Twitter environment to do things like citizen science. But it seems to be the case that any long term use of Twitter, especially if that use requires use of the API (but even if it does not), isn’t worth attempting because any investment one puts into the project could be obviated at any time by Twitters policy. That policy, it seems, is “Innovate with Twitter at your own risk.”

The second part of this is, of course, Google Reader being shut down by Google. This is a little different. I might be wrong, and do correct me if so, but Twitter seems to be somewhat arbitrary in its API changes, and seems to do very little to support and encourage development with its framework. Google, on the other hand, seems to encourage development of projects and activities based on its services. Nonetheless, a lot of people were surprised when the widely used Google Reader, which served as a key component of many development projects, was axed. Getting rid of a project few people use and that seems to not have really taken off is one thing (and Google has done that a number of times, which is an obviously likely outcome of diverse innovation which Google seems to do). But Twitter is not Google. Twitter is the kind of project that could easily have been one of many services offered by a company like Google. Twitter, when it changes itself in a way that destroys functionality, is not dropping support for one of many projects. It is making itself irrelevant and annoying as a tool for incorporation in other projects.

So, what is the difference between roads and mail service on one hand and Twitter and Google on the other? The former are public goods, funded publicly and regulated by the government. Similar projects exist in most countries around the world and they integrate across national boundaries. The latter are projects of private companies that have every right to change their services, restrict use, or even shut down entirely.

Amazon is similar. Over time, Amazon has become one of the major, if not the major, supplier of two things one does not usually associate with a book store: Servers and cash registers. If you use a service that requires computer servers and/or storage of data, such as Netflix, you may well be using Amazon indirectly because they provide servers for a gazillion clients. When a bunch of Amazon servers go down, the Internet can choke majorly, though fortunately this happens rarely. Similarly, when you make an on line purchase at any on line company other than Amazon, there is a reasonable chance that you are using Amazon indirectly, as they provide the on line purchasing system to a lot of other vendors. And, now and then, you might even buy a book from Amazon.

When Amazon decides to change what it does or how it does it, which they can do arbitrarily within the range of existing contracts, a lot of things can, potentially, change. A minor example of this happened recently to those of us based in Minnesota, when Amazon, not by necessity but simply to make a point, shut down associates in the North Star State. That was part of my income stream (though a very small part, I quickly add) and Amazon simply sent me an email one day saying that this would no longer be a thing, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Twitter, Amazon, Google, and similar things are like the railroad, mining, and lumber companies of yore, run by a small number of highly influential individuals who happen to be in charge by a combination of luck and whatever else makes you one of those people. The thing is, these corporations effectively serve as public goods, just like our roads, our power grid, our water and sewage systems, our public mail service, our fire departments, etc. but they are not public entities.

At the moment, we who use the Internet, software, etc. are at risk of the arbitrary decisions of a handful of modern Robber-Barons who got into their present position for reasons other than being thoughtful, sensitive, public servants. All hale the free market.

Is there anything that can be done about this? Possibly. Here are a few ideas.

1) The US Senate can pass a resolution requiring Obama to bomb Twitter. That would not solve anything, and of course it can’t really happen, but the debate in the Senate would be high entertainment.

2) The government can take over Amazon, Google, Twitter and a few other companies, sort of like how it took over the companies that built roads and canals (and to a lesser extent, railroads) in days of yore.

3) A version of the government takeover in which the government doesn’t really take over but “authorities” are created, like the ones that handle ports, airports, etc. today (those entities were originally private, in many or most cases).

(These two options, 2 and 3, seem impossible, many will think they are bad ideas. And they will be bad ideas right up until the moment Google is about to go bankrupt or is embroiled in some sort of scandalous legal difficulties of some kind, and a “bailout” is needed. A thing like Google will never need a bail out of course. Like banks. And car manufacturing companies. They would never need a bail out either.)

4) Alternative services, like Amazon, Google, Twitter, etc. can be developed by non-profits using an OpenSource GPL-like model. Those services would probably not be big, or widely used. But they would be there. Then, one day, when the big players falter or become too annoying in one area or another, the OpenSource alternatives can grow a little here and there, and eventually, become the norm.

5) See below (this is where you put your ideas in the comments):

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

This stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service now. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.

The privacy policy is here.

The terms of service statement is here.

Here’s a few tidbits from the documents, but you should go look for yourself and report back what you think!

We collect information to provide better services to all of our users – from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful or the people who matter most to you online.

We collect information in two ways:

Information you give us. For example, many of our services require you to sign up for a Google Account. When you do, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name, email address, telephone number or credit card. If you want to take full advantage of the sharing features we offer, we might also ask you to create a publicly visible Google Profile, which may include your name and photo.

Information we get from your use of our services. We may collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you visit a website that uses our advertising services or you view and interact with our ads and content. This information includes:

Device information

We may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number). Google may associate your device identifiers or phone number with your Google Account.

Log information

When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we may automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include:

• details of how you used our service, such as your search queries.
• telephony log information like your phone number, calling-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing information and types of calls.
• Internet protocol address.
• device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL.
• cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account.
• Location information

When you use a location-enabled Google service, we may collect and process information about your actual location, like GPS signals sent by a mobile device. We may also use various technologies to determine location, such as sensor data from your device that may, for example, provide information on nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers.

Unique application numbers

Certain services include a unique application number. This number and information about your installation (for example, the operating system type and application version number) may be sent to Google when you install or uninstall that service or when that service periodically contacts our servers, such as for automatic updates.

Local storage

We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches.

Cookies and anonymous identifiers

We use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Google service, and this may include sending one or more cookies or anonymous identifiers to your device. We also use cookies and anonymous identifiers when you interact with services we offer to our partners, such as advertising services or Google features that may appear on other sites.

How we use information we collect

We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.

We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Google Account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.

When you contact Google, we may keep a record of your communication to help solve any issues you might be facing. We may use your email address to inform you about our services, such as letting you know about upcoming changes or improvements.

We use information collected from cookies and other technologies, like pixel tags, to improve your user experience and the overall quality of our services. For example, by saving your language preferences, we’ll be able to have our services appear in the language you prefer. When showing you tailored ads, we will not associate a cookie or anonymous identifier with sensitive categories, such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health.

We may combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other Google services – for example to make it easier to share things with people you know. We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent.

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.

Google processes personal information on our servers in many countries around the world. We may process your personal information on a server located outside the country where you live.

But that does not seem to be true any more. You can be Fox News and have a chair in the White House press room. This is preposterous.

Google has made an announcement that bears on this in an interesting way. According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, web sites will be penalized in the Google Search Algorithm if they have too many ads.

If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally.

The entire memo to the webmasters is here.

Now, if only we could get Google to not count Fox outlets in the “News” category in searches. Perhaps they can add a new category for entities like fox. “Clown” would work.

What do you think?