Google removes ‘tips’ service
After criticism from Blake Ross and probably many others, Google has decided to remove its ‘tips’ service.
Personally I thought the tips were fine on their own as long as they weren’t the start of a slippery slope where Google started quietly increasing the importance of their services within their search results. But it’s good to see that Google has reacted quickly to peoples concerns and removed the feature.
Google employee Matt Cutts was very quick to respond to Blake’s initial comments.
A lot of people hold Google to higher standards than they would any other company. This is mainly due to the reputation that they have built up over the years. Blake put it very well:
“Many people seem to think I’m jumping on the “Google is evil” bandwagon or blowing this out of proportion. On the contrary, it’s precisely *because* Google has so impressed me throughout the years that even the slightest hint of deviation matters to me.”
… or as a submitter to Slashdot had spun it “Firefox creator no longer trusts Google” (Blake Ross was one of the original Firefox developers, but he spends most time now working on Parakey).
January 5th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
I don’t see what the fuss is, Google should be allowed to promote their own services as prominently as they want. It’s not like these services were affecting the search results and it did help keep people aware of other Google offerings.
January 5th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Google reacting to customer concerns like that is great. But what about their contact list security issues?