For transparency, I minimized using Google Search for at least 3 years now by choice. I predominantly use Duck Duck Go as my search engine for both Chrome and Firefox. I made the switch mainly to minimize any sort of Google tracking on my PC after listening to a podcast related to tracking and the amount of data we give up. I have other privacy focus extensions like Privacy Badger, HTTPS and Adblock Plus. I have thought about other ways to minimize tracking further on PC there’s this one little issue. I use Google Pixel phones. I am also incorporated into the Android/Google ecosystem. So if there’s any tracking to be involved, there’s absolutely know effective way to minimize the tracking from my mobile usage. I have also thought about other ways to minimize tracking on my phone but to adopt them becomes very onerous. So… settling for minimizing PC based tracking was the “middle ground” for me.

Back to my thoughts…. In 2020, the Justice Department accused Google for it’s monopolistic behavior in maintaining dominance in “search.” This anti-trust lawsuit is groundbreaking and I think bigger than the Microsoft lawsuit from 2001 The implications will have a long lasting effects (positive, negative, intended and unintended). Last month (can’t believe it’s October already), the trial started. Today, while going through my daily check of news, The Verge (in big bold letters) offered an interesting snippet from Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella that I clicked on to read (click bait does work!!). There was one line in the snippet that caught my attention was that…Nadella would “do anything to make Bing better.”

So why is this statement interesting to me? Would Apple switching to Bing really have made a difference? I’ve been using Duck Duck Go for at least 3 years. Before that, Google was the default search engine. During these past three years, there have been a few situations where Duck Duck Go’s search algorithm DID NOT produce the results I hoped for. These were specific search results that I knew something existed but didn’t know the actual search term to generate the result. When this happens for Duck Duck Go, it takes additional two to three subsequent page scrolls to find what I’m looking for. But when I use Google, I tend to find what I want within the first page. I think this demonstrates that Google’s search has a much better algorithm. But…. over the three years of using Duck Duck Go, there have been only a few situations where I needed Google’s search bar. That fact also demonstrates that search doesn’t have to be Google all the time. I know… REVOLUTIONARY.

I think the only reason why Google maintains its position at the top of search is not only because of its search engine being better than any thing else in market but also in some part being able to pay/maintain its position at the top of search. Admittedly, Google has put out great products that people use on a daily basis. The only gripe I have is the intrusion of more sponsored/paid advertisment that comes through any search terms across their products. Google should take a step back and reconsider how the display the targetted ads. Perhaps a two column search where one side is the targetted ads and the other is just purely algorithm based search.

My thoughts on Goole would be
1) Allow Google to maintain ads ecosystem.
2) Bar Google or any other company from paying money to be the search preference. Bar any retaliatory effects for choosing one search over another. If US consideres itself to be capitalistic, then it should allow companies to “fight it out fairly” without influence of money.
3) Paid advertisements should not be listed/embedded alongside algorithmic generated search results. At the moment, none of the search companies do a good job separating algorithm results vs paid results. I propose that a separate list be generated along side that shows the sponsored ads. This could be easily done by creating a two column search result. Search results already embed content in two columns already so it shouldn’t be that much more difficult to expand on.

If you follow college football, there’s been a huge shift in conference membership. All but two schools (OSU, WSU) in the current PAC-12 conference have jumped to other conferences. Stanford and CAL Berkeley have joined the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington have joined the BIG10. Colorado, Utah, Arizona and ASU have joined BIG12.

My take?
I think the schools that leave will become bottom feeders for their respective conferences. It can’t be good for a west coast team that has to travel to the east coast to play games. The west coast team will not only need to fight travel fatigue but also any timezone jetlag. But in reality the schools don’t care as long as they get money. All these schools are leaving in order to chase the lucrative TV money in these markets.

Here are some articles that talk about how BIG MONEY has taken over college football. To say that money hasn’t taken over football would be a gross understatement.

It’s disappointing to read about the failed PAC12 x ESPN deal (~$30M per school). The PAC12 schools clearly didn’t realize how much they were actually worth when compared to the other conferences. In my opinion, the PAC12 teams are too equal in terms of football parity where any school can upset other schools on any given Saturday. Because of the overall parity in the conference, I view all the PAC12 schools to be a half or full step behind the other powerhouse elite schools like Alabama, LSU, and Ohio State. If the PAC12 teams were to have consistently reach and win the Football National Championship then perhaps there would be a case for $50M instead of $30M. Winners get to make all the money. And clearly ESPN didn’t think they were winners worth $50M.

Egads…