Not good times for Google

“Google rigs its results,” say critics at Senate antitrust hearing
[Via Ars Technica]

“Google abandoned these core principles [of fair play] when they started interfering with profits and profit growth,” said Nextag CEO Jeff Katz today before a Senate antitrust hearing on the search giant. “Today, Google doesn’t play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us.”

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman joined the firing squad and told senators that “Google is no longer in the business of sending people to the best sources of information on the Web. It now hopes to be a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews.”

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Google got to be where it is because it came up with the most efficient search engine around, one that seemed to get the best results and did not push some rresults higher in order to make more money.

Several of the others at the time actually took money from companies to place them higher in the results.

People saw Google as a fair and impartial arbiter of the web, who had no skin in which results came up, just that the best ones for the users did.

Now, as it has leveraged its huge  search engine empire into other areas, it has started to lose some focus. If it becomes associated with the words ‘rigged’ or ‘fixed’ too much, its core business could be hurt. More people might check out Bing.

Google has started to demonstrate much of the same evil Microsoft did in the 90s – if they can’t buy the technology they simply copy it and say “Sue me!” Heck, the main reason that Microsoft gave Apple $150 million dollars was because they had so obviously copied some of the code for Quicktime.

Google’s development of Android may very well have done the same thing. Google, like Microsoft, may be able to make these things go away by spending a lot of money.

But all the money will not help at all if Google’s core business of search is seen to be compromised.

UPDATED: Borrowing ebooks

Kindle e-books now available to borrow from 11,000 US libraries
[Via Ars Technica]

Amazon has finally announced its long-anticipated Kindle lending library, allowing Kindle and Kindle app users to borrow Amazon’s e-books from thousands of libraries across the US. Users will be able to find the Kindle books on their participating public library’s website and check them out through Amazon, which will send the book directly to users’ devices over Whispersync.

“Libraries are a critical part of our communities and we’re excited to be making Kindle books available at more than 11,000 local libraries around the country,” Amazon’s Kindle director Jay Marine said in a statement. “We’re even doing a little extra here—normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re fixing this by extending our Whispersync technology to library books, so your notes, highlights and bookmarks are always backed up and available the next time you check out the book or if you decide to buy the book.”

The ability to make notes and highlights—and subsequently sync them back to the system for review later—is certainly a major plus. The downside, of course, is that the e-books have to be “returned” after a certain period of time, just like any other library book. Amazon doesn’t specify on its site how long the books are borrow-able for, but when asked, Amazon spokesperson Kinley Campbell said that the expiration time varies by library and by the book.

“Generally [it will be] 7-14 days,” Campbell told Ars. “We recommend checking with local libraries on questions related to availability and specific books.”

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The King County Library System has this and it is really nice, although there are never enough copies around ;-)

But both my wiife and I will love this as it means less space is taken up on our floors by previously read books.

UPDATE: A very nice article of what is going on  here in the NW.

Cuban explains several things things about tax policy, some of them quite well.

by Horia Varlan

Thoughts on Our Federal Government, Taxes and Small Business and More
[Via Blog Maverick]

These are not meant to be researched items. These are “streams of consciousness” from the conversation yesterday’s post created.

First some housekeeping. I DO NOT like paying more in taxes. HOWEVER, I think that this country has created unique opportunities for entrepreneurs and paying taxes is a small price to pay.  Taxes are not a bad thing.  What bothers me are not the taxes I pay to help others and to support the services our country needs. What bothers me is the  mis-allocation and inefficient distribution of our tax money. Particularly when it leads to taking more money from those who can not afford it, and in this economy, even those making 250k per year can not afford it.

Our Congress, BOTH parties, has progressively lost the moral hazard of doing what is right for the country rather than doing what is right for the party and politician. Why wouldn’t a politician  go for the gold in their political career ? Why wouldn’t a party profess that their way is the only way  ? What is the financial or career downside of doing so ? None.  It may not serve the country very well, but careers and fortunes will be made . Our politicians are no better than the financial whores who helped get us into this mess. They put personal gain over the people they are elected to serve.

So what can be done ? Here you go:

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I may disagree with some of Mark’s ideas – but only some because on the whole, he is right – but it would be a a discussion worth having because it would result in a better place. as opposed to the current climate where all we get are rants, pouting and screaming.

One point I do agree with is that politicians no longer have any moral hazard regarding doing what is right for the country or even what is right for their constituents. They actually get further ahead simply taking the money and running.

I agree with him about transparency. Good law is easy to understand. Bad law is purposefully made obscure to prevent people from seeing it as bad law. Never trust any law with a cute name. Like PATRIOT Act.

And I also think 10 year budgets are used inappropriately, allowing greater confusion in the budget process, more than it actually helps.

And I agree with him that people who do the most, who are the most successful and a real boon to society are generally driven to do so. Taxes just do not enter into their decision to go for it – whether it is creating a company, writing a book, teaching, doing research, etc. For those that actually benefit society the greatest, taxes have little effect on their choice.

Because humans are not perfect, it will always be true that the way taxes are spent will be inefficient. The goal is to do better, not to just get rid of taxes. The reason taxes are sometimes used inefficiently is because government spending has different pressures and incentives on it than the free market. The reason government spending is necessary is because it has different pressures and incentives than the free market.

Government can take on the risk of a transcontinental railroad. It can take on the risk of a national highway system. It can provide the direction to send men to the moon. It can provide safety nets society. It can provide fire and police protection. It can take the risk of educating all of our children. It can take the risk of providing mail service.

There may be poor policeman, or crooked developers, or the mail may be late. But the need is to correct those deficiencies, not do without the police, or builders or the Post Office.

I do not think you can completely remove the failure of inefficiencies while retaining all of the necessary successes. Reducing inefficiency can be a goal but there must be a recognition that some amount of slop will be required to provide for the greatest social gains of government spending.

Tearing down foreclosed houses might be interesting. I wonder what will happen though to the remaining houses in a decimated neighborhood? Being surrounded by empty lots would not be great for home values. And I assume someone is still paying taxes on the property. But it seems to me that a useful program might also turn the land into public parks. That would really increase the value of the other houses and provide plenty of new jobs.

Being a small businessman myself,  while regulations can be choking in many instances there is a need for them. But there is often little real coherency in the why, what and how of them. So I can’t get my septic tank cleaned out by someone a neighbor recommends. Because we both live close to the county line but in different counties. It costs the company too much time and effort to get licensed in both counties.

Greater transparency would help. And using technology to streamline the process or make it easier to find proper solutions. But throwing everything out – I would never want that. I read The Jungle.

As Basic Instructions shows us, we all like to make others uncomfortable

How to Make People Uncomfortable
[Via Basic Instructions]

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I love this comic.

Sphero for all

Controlled by a smartphone. Genius.

How to make a good argument

It must have been awesome to take a course from Elizabeth Warren. She is very good at deconstructing complex subjects and providing easily understandable rhetoric.

Perhaps the GOP should have let her have the top job in the consumer finances division of the Executive branch. She might only have lasted a few years.

Because if she gets elected Senator from MA, she will be a very large thorn in their side for years.

And she might teach the other Democrats how to actually make an argument – I grin at the idea of her teaching a class on Rhetoric 101 for the Democratic caucus ;-)

She could be like Harold – that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep –  with the Democrats being the other sheep (“Sheep are very dim”) from the Monty Python sketch:

As opposed to the normal way  politicians seem to have an argument  – like Mr. Barnhard, Room 12 or in 12A: