Summary: This is a reprint of my Search Insider column from last Friday.

Chris Morrison at VentureBeat has been one of the privileged few to get a sneak preview of Powerset; he recently reported that the semantic start-up’s unofficial tagline is, “We’re not a search engine.”

According to Morrison, this is standard for any company looking to dodge the hype of the ‘Google-killer’ moniker — fair enough; although, based on Powerset’s behavior to date, they don’t seem inclined to dodge hype of any variety.

There’s another reason for Powerset and its ilk to shun the search engine label, though: search isn’t broken.
Remember Gord’s Breaking the Google Habit series? Over five of his Search Insider columns, he discussed how people form habits and what it takes to change. We got a more scientific understanding of what we knew instinctively already: habits are darn hard to break, even if you want to break them.

Take overeating. Despite pills and patches and pop psychology, millions are locked in a seemingly unbreakable cycle — and that’s something that people want to give up. That’s something that goes to the heart of people’s senses of self-esteem and wellbeing, something that can extend or diminish life expectancy.

There’s no equivalent downside for using Google, which means that merely offering a slightly better version doesn’t represent a convincing argument. Nobody is going to change search engines because the top 10 results are slightly more relevant.

So those companies looking to compete have to take a different approach: the we’re-not-a-search-engine approach. This is the approach demanded of disruptive technologies since the beginning of time. Don’t offer a faster horse, build a car.

The road to success requires would-be Google-killers to solve a problem that Google doesn’t solve, to create a new habit under a new circumstance, where it can flourish free from the inexorable pull of ingrained attitudes.

This is why David Berkowitz reported last September that MySpace was the fourth largest search engine: because they’re competing in a different arena.

Twine is another great example; it represents a totally new way of interacting with data. You can create a habit of using Twine without threatening your Google use, transitioning slowly and imperceptibly until you wake up one day and say, “Remember when we all thought Google couldn’t be beaten?”

This is also why it’s so important for Google to snap up a token presence in every emerging Web 2.0-3.0-4.0 space. They know that they’re unlikely to be threatened on their own turf, and they want to make sure they’re at least in the ring wherever the fight’s going to be.

The great philosopher Osho said, “If you want to do something with darkness, you have to do something with light, not with darkness at all. You have to light a candle, and suddenly there is no darkness.” I’m not suggesting that Google represents the Forces of Evil here, but the concept is transferable: light the candle of a new habit, and the old habit disappears.

Will Powerset be the candle of a new habit? That remains to be seen. Ultimately, though, someone will be the candle; as Osho also said, “Habits die hard. But they die certainly — if one persists, they die.”

One of my favorite quotes is from one of my least favorite people: Mike Tyson. “Everybody has a plan,” he said, “until they get hit.”

His words—and Google’s motto—sprang to mind as I read the news in TechCrunch that Google recommended a ‘No’ vote on two proposals, one on human rights and one on censorship.

The censorship bit calls for minimum standards:

1) Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.

2) The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.

3) The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.

4) Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.

5) Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.

6) The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

The proposed Human Rights Committee would review and make non-binding policy recommendations regarding human rights issues.

Most of the commenters on TechCrunch slammed Google for encouraging people to vote against these proposals. Fabian Schonholz, however, felt otherwise:

This is a little ridiculous.

If you want to operate in any country, any company, american or otherwise, should respect the laws, customs, traditions and ways to operate that the country dictate. The only thing a shareholder can do is force the company not to operate on the countries that insult their sensitivities. It is presumptuous of any of us to think that we have the RIGHT to change how countries operate and behave.

I agree with Fabian; at the same time, I don’t think the proposals suggested anything in contrary to what he says. The censorship proposal, for example, explicitly states that the company will conform to legally binding requests. So it seems more like a case of not wanting to rock the boat than anything else.

In addition, Google is likely to get its way; last year, shareholders rejected a different proposal to stop the search giant from self-censoring.

Nonetheless, I’d like to know the rationale for the ‘No’ recommendation on the Human Rights Commission. Google’s mum on the topic—the proxy statement offers no explanation and there’s nothing on their blog—but it just doesn’t seem consistent. How can you not be evil if you don’t even have thorough information about the human rights implications of your actions? What is the business activity that might be shut down if these two proposals go through?

If you’ve got more information about this, please let me know in the comments. If you want more information, say that too.

Yesterday, I began the Six Sigma Privacy series with a discussion on the user attitude to online privacy, primarily focusing on the observation that most Internet users don’t really care. Today, I’m going to take a look at how some of the big players approach the topic. The bottom line is that there’s lots of talk and not a lot of action.

Privacy advocates want people to believe that this is the single biggest issue since the Colonies seceded from England. Consumers are apathetic. How do the titans of the Internet tackle privacy?

Back in July, Microsoft and Ask came together to call for global privacy standards:

Building on their respective efforts to protect consumer privacy, industry leaders Microsoft Corp. and Ask.com, a wholly owned business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI), today joined together in the commitment to call on the industry to develop global privacy principles for data collection, use and protection related to searching and online advertising. The companies will work with other technology leaders, consumer advocacy organizations and academics to come together and join them in working on the development of these principles, which could include developing and sharing best practices to provide more control for consumers.

“As search and other online services progress, it’s important for our customers to be able to trust that their information is being used appropriately and in a way that provides value to them,” said Peter Cullen, chief privacy strategist at Microsoft. “We hope others in the industry will join us in developing and supporting principles that address these important issues. People should be able to search and surf online without having to navigate a complicated patchwork of privacy policies.” [emphasis mine]

Google followed suit in September, with Peter Fleischer calling for global privacy standards at a UNESCO conference:

…Google is calling for a discussion about international privacy standards which work to protect everyone’s privacy on the Internet. These standards must be clear and strong, mindful of commercial realities, and in line with oftentimes divergent political needs. Moreover, global privacy standards need to reflect technological realities, taking into account how quickly these realities can change.

Their announcement, though, was met with resounding cynicism, according to MediaPost coverage:

“…It’s clear that this is motivated in part to dampen the growing opposition to the DoubleClick takeover,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). “Google is attempting to head off a global regulatory digital train wreck.”

…”Google is under enormous pressure from many countries around the world who are fed up with their arrogance and their unwillingness to make meaningful changes to their business practices,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “They are also trying desperately to push the acquisition of DoubleClick through the Federal Trade Commission. And they’ve met enormous resistance.”

…Critics argued that the search giant gave no specifics for how to move forward with a global implementation–calling it another sign that the endorsement was just Google posturing for the FTC.

“Mr. Fleisher is lobbying to get a privacy Band-aid placed over an ever-growing flow of personal data being squeezed from consumers (by Google and others),” said Chester.

Poor Google. Evil-avoidance notwithstanding, they’ve gotten so big that pretty much anything they do these days is greeted with cynicism. Take Maile Ohye and the Google Privacy Videos (one and two). Just a few days ago, Ryan Singel at Wired gave his non-held-back opinion on them:

The video skips right over the part where Google opts in new users to the tracking program without explaining to people what the program is or does.

Instead, it jumps from the “create a Google account screen” to a heartwarming story about how having searched for the “Rolling Stones” in the past will help Google disambiguate a later search on the word “bass” - so it knows you are interested in the instrument, not the fish.

This might be interesting if it were true, which I doubt it is since I’d wager MORE people who searched on the “Rolling Stones” in the past are anglers than musicians.

But why let that get in the way of a good cover story for why Google really wants to collect data about you which is, as we all know, the ad dollars.

Anyway, back to Fleischer and Google’s request for global privacy standards. In September, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, added his voice to the conversation:

More encouragingly recent initiatives in this area by the United Nations, the Asian-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum and the International Privacy Commissioners’ Conference have all focussed on the need for common data protection principles. For individuals such principles would increase transparency and consumer choice, helping people to make informed decisions about the services they use as well as reducing the need for additional regulation. For business, agreed standards would mean being able to work within one clear framework, rather than the dozens that exist today. This would help stimulate innovation. And for governments, a common approach would help dramatically improve the flow of data between countries, promoting trade and commerce.

I recommend you click on the link to Schmidt’s piece and read the response from Ann Cavoukian, who chaired a working group of Commissioners convened for the purpose of creating a single harmonized privacy standard; she points out that the issue isn’t standards creation but standards implementation:

I would also like to draw your attention to documents already produced by highly regarded international authorities on privacy and suggest that the issue is not one of developing new standards, but of raising the bar by observing existing global standards and privacy principles.

What does this all add up to? Major players understand the importance of being seen as caring guardians of the people’s privacy. They talk about it, create videos about it, call for global standards for it. I’m just not yet convinced that effective actions are being taken about it, or even that these companies want people to truly understand the issues at stake. The Maile Ohye videos aren’t designed to raise awareness; they’re designed to keep people calm.

But what should they be doing instead? Tomorrow I’ll discuss some of the issues involved and why this topic is important. Until then, I’d love to hear your opinion about how the big players handle online privacy. Do you think they do a good job? Or should we demand something better?

Remember a few days ago when I wrote about the ecosystem that surrounds Google? I said that Google isn’t just Google; it’s every other company, website, blog and mashup that has built a business model on the back of the search giant. And lo and behold, into my inbox appears a gift from ZDNet, tailor-made to reiterate my point:

Mozilla’s revenue, which includes Mozilla’s foundation and corporation, came in at $66.8 million in 2006…

Mitchell Baker, Chief Lizard Wrangler at Mozilla, wrote in a blog:

“As in 2005 the vast majority of this revenue is associated with the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google…”

It doesn’t take a big leap to conclude Google is bankrolling Mozilla… Mozilla gets 85 percent of its revenue from Google. The latest Mozilla-Google contract expires in November 2008.

Mozilla’s financial statement really puts the browser battle into perspective. It’s not Firefox vs. IE as much as it is Google vs. Microsoft. [emphasis mine]

Google vs. Microsoft is quite different to Firefox vs. IE. So how does this affect your perception of the open-source browser, if at all?

The other day, I got accused of being a Trotskyist. If you’re not sure what that means, don’t feel bad; I had absolutely no idea myself.

The woman who used the T-word on me furnished this explanation: evidently, Trotsky claimed that the general populace doesn’t understand the levers that interconnect society and the economy.

I had just pointed out that a large portion of the people who want to stop global warming don’t realize how much their day-to-day lives would have to change. Don’t get me wrong—I want to stop global warming too. But I still drive a car, and go on overseas trips, and buy imported products, and I fully appreciate that all of those things are intricately linked to our fuel consumption.

Right now I’m about 80% through reading Wikinomics, a study of mass collaboration. The book is driving home for me how absolutely massive the uphill battle is for companies looking to unseat Google, or Amazon, or any other organization that has understood and leveraged the collaborative model.

In my most recent piece for Search Insider, I wrote about the powerful force of habit that keeps me using Google for search, and touched on the fact that a tweak in features is nowhere near enough to make me change search engines.

Essentially, I don’t have a lot of pain when it comes to search, and minor features improvements just aren’t enough to motivate me to switch.

The Trotskyism issue, though, is much bigger. Google is not just Google. Google is every other company, website, blog and mashup that has built a business model on the back of the search giant. All of these entities have a vested interest in Big G’s continued success.

Companies that have Google as competition can’t win just by being better at search; they would also have to convince an entire population of individually crafted satellite businesses to switch to a new model.

The Internet is an ecosystem. Companies looking to succeed in this space have to understand more than just the competition; they have to understand how all of the organizations surrounding them interrelate and interdepend.

Do you see other examples of web-based ecosystems around you? What are they? What do they mean for companies and competition? And what do you think of businesses built around this sort of model?

This piece appeared on Friday in Search Insider. It’s gotten some interesting comments, so feel free to respond either here or there.

On Tuesday, the BBC reported that Yahoo and Microsoft are adding new features as part of their ongoing attempts to convince the world that they are serious contenders to the Google throne. Yahoo will provide on-the-fly query suggestions, while Microsoft is quadrupling the size of its index. Both companies are touting the fact that they will soon include links to photos and video on the results pages.

Hmmm… where have I heard this before? In addition to Google’s own Universal Search, I mean. Oh, yeah! Ask.com did this back in June! And, despite rave reviews of Ask3D, comScore shows them slipping ever since, from a 5.0% market share in June to 4.7% in July to 4.5% in August.

Yet Yahoo and Microsoft insist on trying to woo searchers away from Google by launching new features. Unfortunately, they’re in a bit of a lose-lose situation right now. If they upgrade, they’re only playing catch-up. If they don’t upgrade, they fall even further behind.

They should have called me first. Me or Jeremy Kaplan, the editor of PC Magazine. Kaplan was interviewed on MarketWatch for his thoughts on the matter, and he had this to say:

It seems like it’s really a mindshare thing more than anything. I think most of the search engines seem to be able to cull the same information. It’s just a question of getting the brand out and transforming the way people search, and that’s definitely an uphill battle.

It’s likely that Jeremy Kaplan has access to a broader dataset than I do; even so, I surveyed myself and found his observation to be true.

For example, I have absolutely no inclination or disinclination towards Microsoft search. In fact, I’m quite confident that it delivers similarly useful results to Google. In addition, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I have MSN as my home page because it came with the browser, and I’m doubly ashamed to admit that I’m too lazy to spend the three seconds it would take to make Google my home page. Nonetheless, every time I have to run a search, I launch Explorer and type Google into the address bar.

Thank you in advance for your many words of advice on how to change my inefficient habits. I realize I need help. My point here, however, is not about my own loss of street cred; it is that Google’s hold on the market, or at least on that share of the market sitting at my desk, is so strong that I invest effort to bypass the Microsoft search bar on my home page.

I invite you to think about your own habits when you search, and whether the promise of a couple of new features would be sufficient to entice you to change your behavior. What would it take?

Whatever the answer to that question may be, I don’t think it’s accessible to Microsoft and Yahoo. They’ve never achieved escape velocity, the minimum speed necessary to bust out of the Earth’s atmosphere, and now it’s too late: they’ve begun to decelerate.

No, there are only two possibilities for another search engine to unseat Google, and they would pretty much have to happen simultaneously:

1. A new search engine, or coalition of search engines, will have to offer both the novelty to capture the imagination of early adopters and the substance to cross the chasm, and
2. Google will have to make a major misstep.

Charles Knight at AltSearchEngines understands this, which is why he’s fighting for alternative search engines to collaborate. He realizes that, combined, they have a lot more momentum than they do individually, and a much greater chance of reaching escape velocity.

Within a few years, the Universal Interface that he champions could be in outer space—while Microsoft and Yahoo watch from the ground and fiddle with features.