Let's Face Facts: Google Isn't So Open At Times Either

The difference is that google search is a service, and the ipod and iphones are products. Once a person buys an ipod/iphone, it is their property. It would be nice if the owner of an item could do whatever he wants with it -- for example, install any particular piece of software on it, without needing for Apple, who no longer owns the device, to approve that action.

Google search, on the other hand, is a service provided by Google, not a product to be purchased. Google runs it at enormous expense. For you to be able to use google results to make money by running your own ads, without paying google for the use of their service, is not at all the same as the situation with the ipod/iphone.

You _can_ use google results and run your own ads, of course, you just have to partner with Google to do it and pay them for the use of their service.

I think the author is confusing "open" with "no cost".

In other news, ebay doesn't let me put their auctions on my website, nor does NYT let me put their stories on my website. This article is basically saying Google should open up its search results so other people can profit off Google's work. Google would rather profit themselves, as I'm sure all of their shareholders would agree.

And this is doubly a poor example because by keeping their results "closed," Google didn't destroy the idea of open search results. Yahoo was happy to step in with their BOSS service, and if you are looking for an open search API you are free to use that, something which makes Yahoo + Google happy.

Google is playing the open card for sure. Anyone who believe that a corporation as big as Google can do no evil must be xxxx. People and politics are what the evil made. It only make sense that they are open only where it doesn't hurt.

No, Google isn't so open at times.

That said I don't think this is a good example. Is he really suggesting that Google create and maintain a separate API in addition to the ones that they already offer? SaaS is a fundamentally different ballgame. No one is asking Apple to let people run whatever code they want to interface with MobileMe. Just on the hardware they've purchased.

Also interfacing with the hardware they've purchased.