Daring Fireball linked to David Flanagan’s blog post about Google and book piracy:
When my jQuery pocket reference came out earlier this year, I was shocked to discover that Google was giving the ebook download sites higher placement than reviews of the book. And now JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is out. I don’t have a copy of it yet, but illegal copies are free for anyone who wants one. And Google will suggest those illegal downloads to anyone who tries to research the book…I’ve worked really hard on this book, and I’ve got to say that this just feels like a kick in the gut.
I don’t know if railing against an algorithm is the way to go. Sure, Google could push the piracy sites down on the results page, but I doubt that anyone is going to be coerced into or out of piracy by the placement of a site on a Google search.
You’re missing the point. The point isn’t that people will be dissuaded from posting pirated copies by Google de-ranking them. The point is that Google is making piracy easier and more accessible than purchasing the book legitimately.
You can say “oh don’t blame the algorithm” but that isn’t really an argument — algorithms are, of course, designed by people, and Google has shown willingness to adjust and even override its algorithm in response to criticisms, politics, and unfortunate results.
@1: Do you have examples of Google overriding their algorithm manually? I’m genuinely interested.
The entire history of google.cn was one of manually over-riding their search results.