So what's the fuss?

Since this mess with Google algo change, I have been aggressively reaching out to anyone that might be interested in understanding how this change has impacted the Internet.  It isn't just about Google improving their algorithm for the benefit of users.  I believe there is something much more at play here.  Something that I believe Jessica Guynn (LA Times) gets based on my conversation with her. Counter that with a response from David Card (GigaOm Research) with the response that Google continually changes their search algorithms and therefore there is nothing new here - his advice: just move on...

What am I upset about?  That Google is venturing into the business of deciding content based on whether it has authoritative value.  Here is a direct quote from the interview by Wired.com of Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts:

Wired.com: How do you recognize a shallow-content site? Do you have to wind up defining low quality content?

Singhal: That’s a very, very hard problem that we haven’t solved, and it’s an ongoing evolution how to solve that problem. We wanted to keep it strictly scientific, so we used our standard evaluation system that we’ve developed, where we basically sent out documents to outside testers. Then we asked the raters questions like: “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?”

Cutts: There was an engineer who came up with a rigorous set of questions, everything from. “Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads?” Questions along those lines.

Since when does Google become a magazine publisher or the design reviewer?  I understand that market pressures will dictate whether users really want this or not.  And I think Google themselves will realize that they have gone a little too far on this one.  But in the meantime, the collateral damage is disconcerting.

And more importantly, I sincerely want Google to succeed!   I believe they do a darn good job of search and I will continue to use them despite my belief that this particular change was wrong.  

It simply boils down to the belief that no company the size of Google should have such unassailable control of content on the Internet.  Google provides an essential service to people and needs to behave in such a manner.  It is akin to saying that the government will stop welfare programs overnight because there is a problem with the welfare program.

So, how do I think Google could have done better?   Do this incrementally - slowly providing a managed and safe system to transition to this new and improved way.  I expect such a dramatic change to be done over the course of weeks - not overnight.  Furthermore, I would ask Google to question Singhal and Cutts's assumption that Google should be in the content editing business.  I understand that there is an implicit editorializing that is necessary when determining which results to present and in which order.  However, that form of editorializing was based on relevancy - not content quality - a very different metric.  Relevancy can be determined by algorithms, but quality needs to be determined by the users.  If we as users continue to offload our ability to judge quality, that's a problem we as individual Internet consumers must live with. 

But, please, let's not let Google or some other entity have full authority on telling us what to think and believe.  Yes, I think this borders on free speech issues, but I better get off the soapbox before I do myself in.