Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by creato on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:38PM
(#37745968)
I agree it’s a moat, but why would azure restrain competition from google? I think it’s just yet another example of an anti-abuse collateral damage, like email anti-spam blocking small unknown servers or Cloudflare blocking unknown IPs.
Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by whatshisface on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:03PM
(#37746177)
Moats are anticompetitive, that's the entire idea behind why founders want them. Who else would a moat keep away, customers? ;)
Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by kazinator on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:07PM
(#37746206)
Customers are kept in by moats.
Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by whatshisface on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @12:18AM
(#37747926)
That's lock-in, moats are things that keep your competitors out. Source: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/economicmoat.asp
Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by sokoloff on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:43PM
(#37746480)
Because Azure customers want Google to be able to index their sites.
Would you host your e-commerce or social media site on a cloud provider that blocked Googlebot?
It's not Microsoft giving Google a handout out of the goodness of their hearts; it's Azure customers demanding that functionality. (Those Azure customers also don't care about a random little search startup and probably don't want to pay any egress fees to serve traffic to it.)
AWS offers it: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-bo...
Oracle as well: https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/WAF/Bot/good_bot_...
Akamai as well: https://www.akamai.com/products/bot-manager
Re:Microsoft CEO Testifies That Google’s Power in Search Is ...
by nova22033 on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:13PM
(#37746250)
For example, Azure App Gateway WAF has a policy category for “known bots”
So why should we take Satya's testimony seriously? Azure is a Microsoft product and if what you're saying is true, Microsoft is part of the problem.
Third parties bake this into things like Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules. For example, Azure App Gateway WAF has a policy category for “known bots” which includes Google but excludes your tiny AI startup.
It’s a moat built by giant corporations to keep tiny players in their place.
Google "helpfully" publishes their bot source IP addresses: https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/go...
AWS also provides named rules such as "bot:name:googlebot": https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/aws-ma...