Google is dead to me
 

Got this in my inbox

URL to full article: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/29/go...opping-center/

I know that if I operated, let's say, a mall, i would hesitate to let a gun shop open in my mall.
I also know that I would not feel too hot if i were an accidental facilitator of illegal or otherwise regulation-dodging arms sales, and had no way to regulate the sellers within my marketplace to make sure they were providing their sales legally.
I think google was put in a sketchy legal and ethical place, and decided to err on the side of, making sure everything being sold on their own marketplace was something they were comfortable with being sold under the Google brand's umbrella.
would google be "dead to you" if they stopped turning up results for fetish images of animal abuse? of child pornography (they already don't)?
What if wal-mart stopped selling guns, citing regulatory concerns, or a tendency for terrorist or organized-crime elements to only buy their guns at wal-marts? would you boycott wal-mart?
why are guns a special category of goods that companies HAVE to be okay with selling?

I bet you'll use google to search for your next gun purchase.;)

That's perfectly fine, since they aren't infringing on my rights to purchase, keep, use and supply any of my guns. I'll just buy them at the gun shows like I have done before. Or inherit them via my grandparents... which I can't do any more cuz I don't have grandparents anymore. Gun shows, it is!

As long as Google doesn't restrict my research of firearms before I decide on buying one, it's cool (and their right and choice) if they don't wanna sell them. And THAT is only a matter of convenience.

Imagine the uproar.

Dude shoots up a shopping mall. Turns out he was mentally ill, wasn't supposed to be able to get a gun. How did he get one? Oh, he just bought it online. He bought it online?!

Guns are one of those things that simply must have in-person oversight, IMHO. A real person to look you up and down, make sure you at least superficially appear to be who you say you are, make sure that you are not the same dude who came in a week ago pretending to be someone else.

Guns.


Oops, sorry, I thought this was the 'Stuff you wish wasnt invented....' thread!

"Google is dead to me."

You shot Google? How ironic!

I don't like it.

When I use a search engine to find a vendor to sell me something, I expect all legal such vendors to be listed. I do not appreciate the search engine censoring what I can shop for. Google isn't selling the guns (or whatever), they are only listing the sellers.

So, if Google decided that we shouldn't be reading about vampires, because it's unChristianlike, and they blocked all books relating to vampires from their "shopping list", would that be ok?

It is NOT the same as Amazon, who actually sells the products and warranties them, and to whom you return the product, even though they don't manufacture the item. So Amazon DOES have the right to decide what to include in their wares.

Google should be like the operator, 411, or the phone book used to be. Just list the vendors and let me decide what to buy and from whom.

thats not how google marketplace works, stormie. at all.
if i search for "online gun retail" in a normal google search it WILL show me the results for all online gun retailers it can find.
but in the google shopping site, its not an index, and its not a site like amazon - its more like eBay retailers or 3rd-party retailers who sell THROUGH amazon.

I've shopped through Google many, many times. It's just a list of vendors who sell the item you are looking for. You can even filter it down to local stores only ("in stock nearby"), then walk out your door and pay for it/pick it up. I've bought from Best Buy that way several times...via Google shopping.

You do not buy through Google. You click thru to the vendor's site and buy directly from them.

Everybody should be buying their guns from individuals in back allies behind gun shows, anyway. That way you can avoid registering your weapon(s). Why make it easy for homeland security or some other government entity to confiscate the weapons of the citizenry? (And no, I don't live in northern Idaho - I just have a healthy mistrust of the government) :cool:

turns out google search is just like you expect. you search for vampires or ammunition or vehicles, all relevant results will be returned, including ones for vendors of such items. what won't be returned are shopping results for such items.


Ibby's mall analogy is a good one. google's changing the way results are displayed and the change is to make it more like a shopping mall and less like a search engine. they're only going to list some vendors' items/lines for appearance in the shopping results--the ones that show up with a for sale price. this is no different than any other store that doesn't carry everything on the planet.

Here's a list of the unacceptable product categories, from here:

Quote:

Unacceptable product categories Affiliates, cataloged drop-shipping programs, and multi-level marketing The promotion of affiliate or pay-per-click links, products sold through a commission-based relationship, or sites that bulk list products fulfilled through drop-ship consolidators is not allowed. This includes item pages that are made up almost entirely of advertisements, or pages where advertisements obstruct the view of the submitted product. The promotion of multi-level marketing (MLM) business products is also not permitted, such as businesses that recruit members and offer them rewards for recruiting others and/or selling services Services Services are not allowed on Google Shopping. Examples of listings disallowed: Event tickets Subscriptions, such as magazine subscriptions or any kind of service subscription. Online courses Other prohibited categories The following products are not allowed on Google Shopping: Vehicles Guns, ammunition and knives Tobacco and cigarettes Traffic devices (Learn more) Products related to casino and gambling Products or digital goods that require additional software installation in order to be purchased. Products bundled with service plans. (Note: The only products that are allowed to be submitted with a service plan are mobile devices.)

so. they won't be displaying hits for cars for sale. or cigarettes. or concert tickets. among a few other things. Naturally, you can still search for vendors of these items, but you can't get a priced listing for an item from google shopping. While I'm at it, Google Shopping is undergoing a considerable change. It used to be that when you did a search for an item, ammo or blenders or cameras or whatever, you got some paid hits for vendors and some hits for the actual items. Now, the only vendors or items you'll see hits for are for those vendors who have paid to be included in shopping results. That's right, you won't see any shopping results for your desired item unless a vendor has already paid google to be included in the shopping results.

this is not the same as google search where there are hits for vendors who haven't paid to be included. Vendors have to pay google to have their products listed in shopping results, not in search results.

I'd bet both of my balls that any business located near a "gun store" would be a pretty safe business. Gun stores, and the stores near them are hardly ever the target of criminals.

Which has more crime taking place, Wal-mart, Dollar General Store (where I have to ask to be handed my soap from behind a locked cabinet, by a manager, when I'm ready to check out, because it's one of the most stolen items in the store) or your local gun store?

I buy all my guns from a guy in a raincoat.

I like him. He calls me 'Bub' & 'Mac'.

define "more crime"

Barclay's Bank just paid a $450 million dollar settlement for gaming the system that sets interest rates for the whole world.

the speed limit on the street (an arterial) fifty feet from my house is 30 mph. I can guarantee 20 crimes in 15 minutes, depending on the time of day.

now I don't shop at wal-mart mostly on general principles but also because they're not around here. I am pretty cool with dollar general (I am a cheap bastard) but I don't know where the closest one of those is either. And I can count the number of times I've been in a gun shop on one hand. I just don't have enough experience to give a confident answer to your question.

But I bet you're imagining that a store full of guns is less likely to suffer an armed robbery (or shoplifting for that matter) than a general merchandise discount store. I'd buy that.

what's your point?

then hit shopping and you get ...

With guns in your house, you don't have to fear genocides. Without them, you do.

Inquire of the Swiss, if you don't credit the Americans.

UG, you're wrong.

I don't have a gun in the house and I don't fear genocide.

...

I would bet lunch that you have one or more guns in the house and that genocide occupies a goodly portion of your waking moments, and not all of them reveling in your purported ability to turn back a genocidal attack.

(that's actually kinda hard to type with a straight face. you don't really believe everything that you post, do you?)

It certainly doesn't seem like anyone else I've run into on the Cellar fears genocide quite as much as UG.

Remington and Browning stay in my house. I think very little about genocide.

those little thoughts... are they fearful ones?

Nope, not at all. I'm rather confident actually.
I can get my gun & have it loaded before "you" can make it upstairs.
I am simply prepared should all other options fail.

You can't actually buy a gun online. The shopping results direct you to a store that sells the gun. If you want to buy it from them, they ship it to a licensed dealer near you and you go through all the rigmarole there.

Sure you can.:rolleyes:

Are you implying that the Swiss citizenry are so well armed because they fear genocide? Wrong again, UG.

Switzerland is a small country and wishes to preserve its neutrality above all else. To this end, every healthy male in Switzerland between the ages of 18 and 60 is an on-call member of the Swiss army. They go in for a month or two of rigorous training every 2 years or so. The Swiss keep their military issued weapons in their homes in case of a sudden emergency like an attempted invasion or something.

This saved the Swiss from Hitler during WWII. That and the fact that Hitler needed the rail lines between Germany and fascist Italy to remain open without threat of sabotauge. Those rails just so happened to run through the Swiss Alps.

And anyhow, if someone invaded Switzerland with genocide in mind, that person would have to hate just about everyone since Switzerland is divided into 4 regions - French speaking, German, Italian, and the quaint Romanch Swiss who speak a dialect more like Latin then anyone else.

As usual your paranoid hysteria overcomes all reason in your posts. :rolleyes:

Notice that many of the genocidal governments/groups also use things like tanks, airstrikes, missiles and/or massive number of armed men on the order of the thousands. Your standard gun, no matter how big, will be more or less useless against them. Not one of them uses small groups of guys who simply have nothing better to do and might find pause in an armed angry man (or family) for any of the genocides that get heard about. One man in his house with his hands full of guns is not going to stop any of those if they really want to kill you. If they can't get in, they'll just burn you out... then you can go down in a blaze of Honor and Glory and Napalm.

Rwanda comes to mind. But the USA is no Rwanda.

I served with Rwanda, I knew Rwanda, Rwanda was a friend of mine. USA, are no Rwanda.

Not biting. Fish elsewhere.

Ah, well. Google is just playing PR games then, I retract my comments. Amazon already sells dildos, maybe they'll take up the slack in this newly opened market as well.

Next time I buy a dildo from amazon, I'll be sure to purchase it through your blog.
;)

peace.

Online gun purchases do have in-person oversight. You can't buy a gun by mail anymore, thanks to Lee Harvey Oswald.

When you buy a gun online, you are paying money to the owner, who then takes the weapon to his friendly local gun dealer, who does the front half of the transfer paperwork and ships, via an approved carrier, to a gun store near you, where that gun store does the necessary background checks and paperwork, which involves much showing of ID.

They charge a LOT for the shipping and inter-state paperwork.

You wouldn't be the first. Seriously. I can't see who buys what, but I can see what was purchased.



The scary thing is I'm pretty sure it was my mom.

:eek:

Hey, you know, she's been single for almost ten years now, I ain't judging...

Moms have needs, too.:p:

I'll add that to the list.

Yabbut, they weren't for me. :blush:

If I ever heard a better invitation for a cash mob, I can't remember it. Dildos for every body!

Ultimately, as long as the shareholders are happy, google can do as it pleases. It's not a government entity. No one but the owners get a say.

Sure don't use google in protest...

...but I'll bet you do anyway.

Yeah, but who says I have to use google to search? I've already switched search engines and home pages.

You don't have to, but you still could...and might, and eventually, whether you like it or not, you'll probably end up on google one way or another. Maybe even via another search engine!

Why do discussions of firearms quickly devolve into fantasies about weapons and protecting my turf?

What about competitive and recreational target shooting? What about hunting?

When I took the hunter's safety course, the instructor was very clear that we were not talking about "weapons" but about "firearms."

There is a huge difference between the two, it's a matter of intent and of how you think of them.

A Japanese friend told me that in Japan, if someone had been drinking the thought of getting behind the wheel of a car wouldn't even cross their mind. I suppose the same could be true for firearms, if you considered them for hunting or target shooting only.

A heavy brass table lamp could be used as a weapon, so can a sock full of pennies.

I think a big part of the bad PR that firearms get is due to verbalized fantasies about people protecting their turf from imaginary intruders. I've never met a combat vet who liked to blab about the action they saw. I've met a lot of vets who never saw action who love to talk about blowing up the enemy.

I'm too sleep deprived and distracted now to pull all this together into a coherent argument, but I guess I'm saying some of us like firearms for wholesome enjoyment and resent being marginalized and made to sit on the Group W bench with all the mother rapers and father stabbers and father rapers.

Agreed, 100%

Make no mistake, I still use google, but they are dead to me. So that makes me kind of a cybernecrophile. Google would probably ban me if they knew I was using a dead search engine...