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Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find
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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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I don't remember the specific case, most of the things I Google are local businesses. I find for local businesses Google is a top tier resource. Google can tell me how busy a business is right now, or if they're closed because of the weather. I often have to do some digging to find the business' page on DDG, if they have one. If I'm looking for a local contractor, like a water heater or drywall repair guy, the ads aren't even that intrusive, they're literally what I'm looking for. On DDG, I've got to do some clicking to find a contractor and then all the reviews are on Yelp. General contractors will have a list sometimes on DDG, but it's not all that helpful, I've never seen a phone number without clicking once or twice.
Makes sense. After all, Google has Maps to request specific data from people, and it stalks your location at all times to help figure out when places are busy.
But on the flipside, if that data were publically owned and anonymized I'd genuinely want that kept. Since the feature is super useful. Same with busses and so on.
That's an interesting flipside. Considering we're basically facing the same dilemma with OpenAI scraping the entire Internet now, except this time around they didn't even do it with our presumed consent.