What is the most evil corporation in the world?

[Barrister]

That's a Marti-esque bad analogy.

The problem isn't that google "dlivers" content to you - it's that they don't pay the content creators anything, yet profit by selling ads.

So the content creators would prefer if Google didn't link to them?

Content creators would prefer if people would go directly to them.

If you want the days news that you would start by going to, say, cnn.com and look for your news, generating multiple page views (not just one) and thus a lot more ad revenue.

Look - although I called it "stealing", google isn't actually commiting a theft and nothing they are doing is illegal.  But they are A: generating enormous profits off the work of others, and B: collecting vast amounts of data about its users.  It has placed itself as an intermediary between consumers and content creators.

[Admiral Yi]

If you want the days news that you would start by going to, say, cnn.com and look for your news, generating multiple page views (not just one) and thus a lot more ad revenue.

If you want the day's news, you're not going to go to Google and type "the day's news."

[Scipio]

What about Fox? Rupert Murdoch makes for a good James Bond villain.

He was, in Tomorrow Never Dies.

[Barrister]

What frunk said Beeb.  It's not a zero sum game.  If I go straight to CNN to read about baptizing Jews or link through Google it makes no difference to CNN's bottom line.

It actually might.  Going to CNN through google helps CNN's own search rankings on Google and other search sites which increases their exposure on search engines and might translate into more ad revenue for CNN itself.  Going directly to CNN by typing the url into your address bar doesn't help with exposure on search.

Going to CNN through Google helps CNN because it increases CNN's exposure on google.  That's completely circular.

If you go to a CNN story though google you generate precisely one page view for CNN.  CNN has no idea what other things you were looking for and therefore can not generate any kind of targeted ad (which therefore means its ads get very poor clickthroughs).

Google, on the other hand, knows all of your other searches (plus various other details about you if you're using gmail, google+ and the like).  It generates lots of pageviews, and its ads get better clickthroughs.  And all without paying one cent for any content.

[Barrister]

If you want the days news that you would start by going to, say, cnn.com and look for your news, generating multiple page views (not just one) and thus a lot more ad revenue.

If you want the day's news, you're not going to go to Google and type "the day's news."

Sure you are.

news.google.com

Gives me all of today's news stories.

[Valmy]

There's usually a reason why we don't want to be found.

If there is a reason then do not set up a public facebook profile

[Eddie Teach]

I use Ad Blocker so neither CNN nor Google is making a whole lot off me. 

[frunk]

Content creators would prefer if people would go directly to them.

If you want the days news that you would start by going to, say, cnn.com and look for your news, generating multiple page views (not just one) and thus a lot more ad revenue.

Look - although I called it "stealing", google isn't actually commiting a theft and nothing they are doing is illegal.  But they are A: generating enormous profits off the work of others, and B: collecting vast amounts of data about its users.  It has placed itself as an intermediary between consumers and content creators.

Content creators also have access to a great deal of search data that Google makes public, including all of the search terms that Google users used to get to their site.  None of that is kept from the content creators, who are free to use it as well.

[Grey Fox]

Well their entire business model is based on stealing the content of everyone else on the web and then putting their own advertising on top of it.

#firstworldproblem

What about apple? Their new business model is about suing everybody for copyright fraud. It's like they are the new microsoft.

[Viking]

What about Fox? Rupert Murdoch makes for a good James Bond villain.

That trope is already exhausted.

[Barrister]

Well their entire business model is based on stealing the content of everyone else on the web and then putting their own advertising on top of it.

#firstworldproblem

What about apple? Their new business model is about suing everybody for copyright fraud. It's like they are the new microsoft.

Patents, not copyright.

[Admiral Yi]

Sure you are.

news.google.com

Gives me all of today's news stories.

Google gets one hit.  Each link gets a hit.  Versus someone going straight to cnn and cnn getting a hit for each story. 

It's not Google that's skimming cnn's ad revenue, it's other content providers.  And through Google, cnn is doing the same to it's competitors.

[PRC]

Going to CNN through Google helps CNN because it increases CNN's exposure on google.  That's completely circular.

If you go to a CNN story though google you generate precisely one page view for CNN.  CNN has no idea what other things you were looking for and therefore can not generate any kind of targeted ad (which therefore means its ads get very poor clickthroughs).

Google, on the other hand, knows all of your other searches (plus various other details about you if you're using gmail, google+ and the like).  It generates lots of pageviews, and its ads get better clickthroughs.  And all without paying one cent for any content.

Going to CNN through google means CNN will index better on google.  Google's index algorithm will reward the page and the domain that gets clicks on its search results.  That's better for CNN because it increases the visibility of its other content through search.  It may be circular but that's a part of google's indexing algorithm.

[garbon]

If you want the days news that you would start by going to, say, cnn.com and look for your news, generating multiple page views (not just one) and thus a lot more ad revenue.

If you want the day's news, you're not going to go to Google and type "the day's news."

Sure you are.

news.google.com

Gives me all of today's news stories.

And when you click on it - it takes you to the site of the content provider.

Besides, many to most of the content linked to on google does not have the presence to draw consumers solely on its own. They would definitely suffer if there was not an index where consumers could then stumble upon their sites.

That's why I liked my telephone book analogy.  Sure, businesses probably would have liked if consumers just visited them or called them directly, without needing to pay money to be listed in the phonebook, but without many had difficult actually getting that consumer traffic.  I don't see why google is evil then for not charging business for a similar service.

[Razgovory]

Well that's certainly one way to spin it.

Am I wrong?

Google generates virtually no content (some small exceptions - Google Maps / Street View is google-generated), yet sells billions of dollars of advertising for linking to other people's content.

Yeah, it's like a delivery company.  I never considered UPS evil because the stuff they give me isn't actually from them.

That's a Marti-esque bad analogy.

The problem isn't that google "dlivers" content to you - it's that they don't pay the content creators anything, yet profit by selling ads.

It's fairly close to them delivering someone elses content to you.  They are bring you there rather then bring it to you.  But since you aren't actually going anywhere the difference is minimal.