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Does success have to lead to corruption?
Both Google and Apple, which I hold in high esteem, have recently moved in the wrong direction. Google is forcing bloggers to stop using non-Google advertisers, and Apple seems to collect information about iPhone and iPod Touch users.
Tags: Apple, corruption, google, iPhone, tla
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11-Jan-08 at 09:06
Hallvord R. M. Steen
Good move Google! The PayPerPost company, business model and the bloggers signing up deserve nothing but contempt.
I’m not sure how Google can detect with certainty that they are PayPerPost affiliates, but other than that I think Google helps keeping the information on the web more factual and neutral with this move.
(It would be something else if they blocked Yahoo’s or MSN’s contextual adverts or decreased people’s PR for running those.)
11-Jan-08 at 09:07
Hallvord R. M. Steen
PS nice to see your old self back at the top
11-Jan-08 at 09:11
Hallvord R. M. Steen
The Apple issue was interesting. Of course they send your IMEI in a parameter named “imei”, what else would it make sense to send??
The most thought-provoking was a comment on that blog which said something like “they make devices that track me and *they still make me want those*”. In general, people seriously undervalue their privacy.
11-Jan-08 at 09:33
Martin Weiss
Hallvord,
You just catapulted yourself on top this month’s most active commentators
I have to disagree on the Google issue. It should be down to the bloggers to decide what content they have on their blog. Google makes its money from selling ads on pages whose content they have not created. They simply have a very clever search algorithm. Douglas Karr has a good entry on this point.
As to privacy and the net, hop over to Joy of Tech for a realistic view on how privacy is valued in the age of Facebook. Or this one on the effects of GoogleAds™ on the internet.
11-Jan-08 at 11:08
Hallvord R. M. Steen
Of course it is up to bloggers to decide if they want to say something nice about e.g. Nike. But if they hype Nike while being paid for each post where they mention the company by PayPerPost, they simply pollute the blogosphere and damage the immense value of its free discourse.
Of course Google’s main point here is that they always try to stamp out link farms and “bought page rank” - all the cheap and un-ethical SEO tricks out there. I guess they see PayPerPost as just another and slightly more sophisticated SEO link farming tactique.
I don’t really get why people are upset about having to add nofollow on paid links. But then I never tried selling people whose sites I’m not even necessarily interested in page rank by linking to them :-p