Removing outside sources of information? There are a few countries that already do this, and they’re not great places to live.
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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The EU already doesn't like what google and the like are doing, maybe this gives them proper ammo
What a good timing, honestly. In recent news of Nov 11th, Ecosia and Qwant, two European search engines, join forces on an index to shrink reliance on Big Tech (TechCrunch news article):
Qwant, France’s privacy-focused search engine, and Ecosia, a Berlin-based not-for-profit search engine that uses ad revenue to fund tree planting and other climate-focused initiatives, are joining forces on a joint venture to develop their own European search index.
The pair hopes this move will help drive innovation in their respective search engines — including and especially around generative AI — as well as reducing dependence on search indexes provided by tech giants Microsoft (Bing) and Google. Both currently rely on Bing’s search APIs while Ecosia also uses Google’s search results.
Maybe it's time for Europeans to support more European tech companies and leave USA-based tech companies behind, here is a good start: https://european-alternatives.eu/
thats neat, wish them luck, ill be sure to switch to one of em
That's awesome!
What is the English term? Obeying in advance?
Users are testing the impact of not using Google.
Spoiler: non-LLM enshittified search engines return reliable results and usually are not censored.
I've been testing this for years now and the transition has been seamless
Which do you recommend?
DuckDuckGo is still the main one but the Bing results annoy me (MSN news proxied articles from other news sites)
Up and comers that are promising:
Ecosia: https://www.ecosia.org/
Startpage: https://www.startpage.com/
Stumbled on this today, worth a look: https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/
I've been using DuckDuckGo a lot more recently and it's been pretty good. I've tried a few others but not really found one I love yet
Big tech needs to be stopped yesterday. This literally has china great firewall energy and I hate it.
This is the opposite of what you think it is.
Google says it’s running the “time-limited” test because EU regulators and publishers “have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.” The company says it will continue to show results from websites and news publishers located outside the EU, and it will resume showing results from EU news publishers once the test ends.
This is the EU testing what it would be like if they ditched Google, not Google testing what it would be like without the EU. The test also doesn't impact the US.
Big tech needs to be stopped yesterday. This literally has china great firewall energy and I hate it.
This is one of the rare occasions I'm siding with Google. The news outlets are claiming that they should be paid money for those result snippets. It's not because I'm caring for Google so much but because that stance hurts small search engines.
EU: You have to pay to show our news.
Google: Ok. We won't show your news.
EU: Pikachu face
But, is this bad? Google makes a crap-ton of revenue compared to publishers who are now struggling with AI content competition. They need revenue to pay journalists.
Hard to define the good guys on this one.
Note: It's also a misrepresentation. The EU asked Google to do this.
The EU gave Google an option: pay or take down the content. The latter option was a bluff, and Google called them on it.
I don't think this will hurt Google at all.
But it will certainly drive less traffic to these news sites if they are banned from Google. And that will hurt the news sites.
The problem is that it won't stop people from using Google. Most people probably wouldn't even notice aside from having to spend more time searching for local things, which incidentally will give Google more ad money.
The average person probably doesn't know that search engines other than Google or Bing (or maybe Yahoo if they're old enough) even exist. As much as it worries me that most of Firefox's revenue comes from having Google as the default search engine, regulating that practice might actually give other search engines a chance to be seen.
That's what basically happened in Germany like 10, 15 years ago when the first publisher had that idea. Its news stories would still show up in search results but only the headline, not that text snippet and no thumbnail image. These results were less attractive to users, so traffic from Google to those web sites crashed down by like 80, 90 percent.
In the end the publishers gave Google a free license to reproduce text snippets and thumbnails. The tightened copyright law provision wasn't repealed. Small search engines without leverage still (AFAIK to this day) have to pay.
So Google pays nothing, publishers earn nothing, upstart search engines can't afford the fees, and so Google leaves even more in power because of a law not even they wanted.
Laws need to be different for monopolies and large player. Stop the rich from using the small as human shield for their grotesqie practice.
Not wanting to appear on Google is how we're going to get EVEN more dailymail type shit. 
Unless I've misunderstood the law, it doesn't hurt small engines, because small search engines don't have to pay.
https://lemmy.world/comment/13446861
It's also worth noting that if Google has to pay, they may very well just not bother to show that information in search results which also hurts small search engines who rely on Google for part of their search Indexing.
That does sound pretty bad. I guess it really highlights the power of a monopoly. Businesses may rely on each other, but if one relies more, then they pay all costs due to necessity while the other pays nothing because they can easily outlast the pain.
It could be different. But different doesn't necessarily mean better unless we design it to be better. It's so hard as a little guy to get a foothold in search without one of the big 2.
My brother in Lemmy, this is what stopping Big Tech looks like.
Europe made laws that say that Google and others need to pay if they want to link to EU publishers. Well, maybe the price they are asking is not worth it.
You're right about the firewall energy, but that's simply how these laws work. The point of copyright, as well as age verification and other such laws, is to control who may access certain information.
I mean, they've done this when places charge them money to index the news articles there.
It hardly seems reasonable to both mandate that they index a given piece of news media and that they pay a fee to do so.
Europe asked Google to do this so they can monitor what kind of influence Google has.
A US news echo chamber at the whims of whatever they think will appease trump is going to be horrifying...
How does the EU not have its own link engine? EU being pathethic not just IP nulling all of silicon valley and their garbage products from the continent.
Eh, there are some search engines in the EU, the notable one I know about is MetaGer, but apparently they had to stop supporting their free, ad-supported service due to Yahoo ending its contract with them. But it's based in Germany and still exists today.
That said, it's a meta search engine and I don't think it has its own index, but who knows, maybe if enough people sign up, they'll work on their own engine some day.
If they could at the same time make one without usa news that would be great
Somebody help get my ideas straight on this one, please.
To my knowledge, Bing and Google search engine are the default options available out there, to the point other search services relay service from those, give or take a few tweaks (DuckDuckGo, Startpage, etc).
Now lets remove those from the picture and what is left?
I read a post yesterday announcing Ecosia amd Qwant were joining efforts to build a fully european search engine (hopefully, yes, but I'm not holding my breath on it). Maybe that is an option. But what else?
I just clicked on that link and the first headline is about Barbados, a country very clearly not in Europe. Lol
On 30 November 2021, Barbados transitioned to a republic within the Commonwealth, replacing its monarchy with a ceremonial president.
if you take a quick look at other news from Barbados, you would understand why ☞ https://www.theguardian.com/world/barbados
it was "spectacular" with Rihanna attending the ceremony ☞ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbC1H7RJHI
not that i'm a fan. I just remember reading about it, and it's only been 3 years
This has "Brazil, neighbouring country to France" energy.
yes, decolonization isn't complete.
The hegemonic narrative is a very narrow narrative that needs constant overbearing reinforcement.