The snippets feature has always seemed somewhat shady to me -- in essence, it steals pageviews from the websites that did the hard work of sourcing the information.
The fact that Google doesn’t immediately change bad data for queries is extremely scary to me. Misinformation from a query should be a civil offense, similar to libel or slander. They are effectively causing disruption in lives these days and I’m perfectly okay with Google being sued directly for spreading misinformation. If their algorithm doesn’t work, it shouldn’t be a public, they can’t just say “nope sorry that’s just how it works”.
> “In situations where people are searching for something like a phone number that is not readily available online, our systems are understanding these pages (that include those exact keywords plus a phone number) to be the best matches available, even if the phone number is not the correct number for that entity,” Lara Levin, a spokesperson for Google, said in an email.<p>This is completely depressing. I would really like to know what thought process led to something like this being implemented. Why would anyone even think that attaching a wrong phone number and email to anyone and broadcasting that on the top of Google Search is a wise idea?
An equally disturbing part about the article to me is the number of people who are willing to email a perfect stranger to beg for money or try to start a romantic relationship.
Last year I had the opportunity to work with some Xooglers. According to their CVs an Linkedin they were with Google for a year or two. All with job titles that trim down to project managers. All very junior.<p>Still, considering that Google only hires the best of the best I expected to work with ambitious, clever people.<p>They were the worst. The showed me graphs, fancy presentations and project plans in some saas tools (lots of them).<p>I soon realized that they did not have a clue what they were doing. Neither could they answer ”who does what when" nor even show defined measurable goals for the projects they were managing. And they were not able to make any decisions at all.<p>If they are an example of Googles middle (project) management it's quite clear why Google does not progress anymore in 2020 and lots of their products rot away on an at best mediocre level.<p>In my point of view Google needs a major crisis (like Microsoft under the late Balmer) before it becomes the innovationleader again - which it once has been.