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from the two-googles-is-enough-for-anybody dept.
Two stories about Google graced The Register in recent days.
The First was about Google (allegedly) stripping SSL from British Telephone (BT) mobile users search requests, even when the users had started from https pages, and were using BT WiFi subscribers piggy-backing off wireless connections, (I have no idea what exactly is meant by piggy-backing in this context). Personally, I would suspect BT of having a hand in that.
The open secret here is that for some VIP customers, search requests coming from their networks have SSL stripped as a service. This was mostly developed for schools where Google supplies their mail , web, and search services. Some of these places are statutorily obligated to filter their networks. BT may have been setting this bit themselves, but is difficult to tell.
A google engineer Adam Langly posted in a public forum that you can bypass any institutional ssl stripping by always accessing Google Searches via a different URL:
"However, if you want an encrypted search option, 'https://encrypted.google.com' is always encrypted and isn't affected by these methods."
You might want to set that as your Google landing page on mobile devices if you use wifi on some business or school campuses.
The second story concerns a trial balloon that Google is floating in a few markets called "Contributor" where, for a small(ish) fee, Google will strip ads out of pages, and share that fee with the web site in lieu of advertising revenue. The monthly fee, ranging between $1 and $3 per site, will be paid to the site operator after Google takes its cut.
El Reg speculates:
Perhaps Google and websites heavily reliant on ads are tired of netizens using ad-blocking browser plugins. Perhaps Google just wants to prove that the vast majority of people are OK with ads, and few want to spend even $1 a month on a web subscription.
So the question is, Soylentils: Are there any sites you would be willing to pay a dollar a month to visit without ads?
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Sunday November 23 2014, @08:47PM
I definitely don't see why should I pay google and not the site itself if I wanted to support it. Imagine funding Soylent, but through Google, it just doesn't make sense.
I definitely could see a +1 become "send 1c" (or whatever), if you find something helpful around.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday November 24 2014, @02:04AM
I definitely don't see why should I pay google and not the site itself if I wanted to support it. Imagine funding Soylent, but through Google, it just doesn't make sense.
Lets take Google out of the picture.
Now just discuss micro-payments in general. (That is after all, what google is trialing with this program).
Would you buy into a site that didn't show ads, but did require micropayments per page views? Maybe a quarter or a tenth of a cent per session/page/bundle-of-pages?
There are sites, are there not, who have nothing to SELL but still provide a service. Are we not both staring at such a site here on SN? I see you have a star by your name. Wear it proudly, my friend, because YOU have already bought into payment for content.
But Look up at that fund rising progress bar! Pathetic.
Now if such a service came around such that you could put a few bucks into a pot, and they would dole it out to the sites you visit, while making the freeloaders suffer ads, would that not be a good idea? And would that service not be deserving of some revenue for themselves?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Tuesday November 25 2014, @11:24AM
I'd much prefer to do choose which content to pay for. Like a tip, if you want to call it that way.
It'd be so easy to write a simple opensource, decentralized service with it (no third parties involved) with a cryptocurrency, that it'd be ridiculous to ask a % on it. Or if eventually should such a third party system arise, it's be trivial to replace it with an open source version (btw, lots of such things already exist).
The problem is not technological, but cultural.
Google is big anough to gain a critical mass to adoption before a grassroots movement could.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!