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Google’s nightmare: How a search spinoff could remake the web (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 days ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Google wasn't around for the advent of the World Wide Web, but it successfully remade the web on its own terms. Today, any website that wants to be findable has to play by Google's rules, and after years of search dominance, the company has lost a major antitrust case that could reshape both it and the web.

The closing arguments in the case just wrapped up last week, and Google could be facing serious consequences when the ruling comes down in August. Losing Chrome would certainly change things for Google, but the Department of Justice is pursuing other remedies that could have even more lasting impacts. During his testimony, Google CEO Sundar Pichai seemed genuinely alarmed at the prospect of being forced to license Google's search index and algorithm, the so-called data remedies in the case. He claimed this would be no better than a spinoff of Google Search. The company's statements have sometimes derisively referred to this process as "white labeling" Google Search.

But does a white label Google Search sound so bad? Google has built an unrivaled index of the web, but the way it shows results has become increasingly frustrating. A handful of smaller players in search have tried to offer alternatives to Google's search tools. They all have different approaches to retrieving information for you, but they agree that spinning off Google Search could change the web again. Whether or not those changes are positive depends on who you ask.

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[–] Steve@communick.news 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai seemed genuinely alarmed at the prospect of being forced to license Google’s search index and algorithm

This is almost exactly what Kagi suggested.
The hardest part of internet search is building the search Index. It's massive. Practically a whole copy of the internet. Selling other provider access to Google's search index means new businesses and new business models can be created. My only concern is the "and algorithm" part. That almost sounds like the current state of things. Where companies can run queries to google and receive standard results filtered by Google's algorithm. Direct access to the index is needed without Google's algorithm, so others can use their own algorithm. But maybe they meant and/or, so companies can choose to be a real "Google white label" or something more.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Licensing the algorithm would also have another consequence: SEO optimizers.

Google uses their algorithm to both push ads, and to punish content farms. Imagine for a second what Google results would look like, if content farms could run the algorithm preemptively to optimize massive amounts of AI slop.

[–] Steve@communick.news 4 points 5 days ago

Yes! You're right!
Selling access to the algo directly would be terrible for users. The SEO companies would all know exactly how to game the system, and ruin Google search completely. That would be soooo bad.