Scroogle has been blocked and may be retired

[hlfmanhlfamzng]

This was useful. I wonder what google's problem is?

http://slashdot.org/submission/12345...may-be-retired

https://ssl.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbwssl.cgi

We regret to announce that our Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google. It depends on whether Google is willing to restore the simple interface that we've been scraping since Scroogle started five years ago. Actually, we've been using that interface for scraping since Google-Watch.org began in 2002.

This interface (here's a sample from years ago) was remarkably stable all that time. During those eight years there were only about five changes that required some programming adjustments. Also, this interface was available at every Google data center in exactly the same form, which allowed us to use 700 IP addresses for Google.

[YeOK]

Was that not just an IE 6 thing, which Google has stop supporting ?

[dd_wizard]

For someone who values his privacy, this page was disappointing...

dd_wizard

[sonoran]

I didn't use scroogle, but the new regular google search results page is hardly an improvement over what I used to see.
If you use firefox, you can try BeeFree as a privacy add-on:
http://honeybeenet.altervista.org/beefree/

[bob]

(threads merged)

[Min]

I miss Google's old interface. Maybe i'm just not accustomed to the new one.

[YeOK]

Originally Posted by sonoran

I didn't use scroogle, but the new regular google search results page is hardly an improvement over what I used to see.
If you use firefox, you can try BeeFree as a privacy add-on:
http://honeybeenet.altervista.org/beefree/

Why block only the results you click ? isn't that part of the formula Google use to help them sort search results ? If we all did this, would Google search still be the great Google search ?


/me is confused!

[dd_wizard]

I don't see any new information about the outage at the scroogle website, but it's working again.

dd_wizard

[sonoran]

Originally Posted by YeOK

If we all did this, would Google search still be the great Google search ?

Who do you think you are, Immanuel Kant? (Google "categorical imperative")
Sure, if everyone used BeeFree then popularity would no longer work as a sorting criterion.

Bee posted a link on his website to a report from Privacy International that concluded Google is "hostile to privacy."
http://www.privacyinternational.org/...imrankings.pdf

As regards BeeFree, the idea is that whatever one can do to slow down and interfere with Google's information gathering is a good thing. It may skew search results somewhat, but it also prevents Google from tracking you.

[YeOK]

Originally Posted by sonoran

Who do you think you are, Immanuel Kant? (Google "categorical imperative")
Sure, if everyone used BeeFree then popularity would no longer work as a sorting criterion.

Awesome, including Google search words for us less intelligent users. How thoughtful of you.

Originally Posted by sonoran

Bee posted a link on his website to a report from Privacy International that concluded Google is "hostile to privacy."
http://www.privacyinternational.org/...imrankings.pdf

As regards BeeFree, the idea is that whatever one can do to slow down and interfere with Google's information gathering is a good thing. It may skew search results somewhat, but it also prevents Google from tracking you.

I never claimed Google isn't collecting too much data, I mealy suggested BeeFree is not a very good privacy tool to start with. I mean, you screw with Googles page ranking system on fear of an invasion of privacy, yet you still use Google. Why, Because of the the way it ranks pages and sorts results maybe ?

Also, its only available for Firefox, do you think Bee would be so kind as to make a version for Google's Chrome ?

[sonoran]

A college professor of mine was once arrested for asking a New York policeman "Who do you think you are, Kant?" during a similar discussion. Apparently the officer misunderstood the name. You can read about it at the wikipedia page for Sidney Morgenbesser.

Google could increase its chances of cooperation if it simply kept track of which search results were most clicked on; instead it tracks individuals.

Yeah, Bee & Chrome would not exactly be a marriage made in heaven. But there are other reasons not to use Chrome:
http://spot.livejournal.com/312320.html?thread=1459712

I do think that with great power comes great responsibility, and Google could truly be a much better community participant than it currently is.