shy love pit
March 7th, 2006There was a report on the radio this morning about a European (read EU blighted) search engine ‘Quaero’ to be set up as an alternative to Google. After googling around I found, typically for BBQ, that this was old news dressed up in mouton clothing.
Anyway, the idea of an EU-centric search engine to rival google almost made me choke on my breakfast – until recently the EU website had the single worst search tool I’ve ever seen online (It is now marginally better, and almost useful).
The reason why there is not a ‘Google equivalent’ is that whereas US taxes, financial regulations and competitive research programmes have not discriminated against startup companies almost every equivalent piece of work/employment legislation coming from the EU runs counter to small and new companies. All the blustering of Chirac (whose announcement it was that BBQ relayed) will not change this if he adheres to the typical EU top down imposing of ‘solutions’.
March 7th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
‘Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions’. This may or may not be true, but certainly it produces Googles wheras the French model produces Minitels.
What is most astonishing is that in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is the case, and evidence that this anti-human philosopy allows foreign dominance, they STILL persist with their centralist ideas.
Everything says that its wrong, startring from the very structure of Google itself; lots of commodity computer parts networked together. Its clear that government has infinite inertiia and self interest, preventing it from doing the dynamic projects that need to get done if we are to get out of being subsumed by US dominance.
At the end of the day if they don’t, Google, and everything else that comes from there is so good we simply will not be able to wait around for Chirac and his peers to wake up. We will Google, Google will become a verb, in English AND French (which is anathema to the French) and thats the end of the story.
No one talks about Viviane Redding and her absurd ‘the internet will self destruct’ nonsense, and no one will use anything being cooked up by the EU as a response to Google.
A rattle of a comment.