The appeal here is that the course is free, ergo, _anyone_ with a basic internet connection can take it.
If you require payments, you then have credit card companies and Paypal restricting who (i.e. which countries) gets access to it.
Income from donations isn't guaranteed, and thus provides a weak incentive for universities to provide these kinds of courses. I'd also wager that donations would fizzle out as this sort of thing became more commonplace.
US Government grants would provide guaranteed incentives for American universities to offer these kinds of courses, which would educate your populace and bolster the appeal of your higher education institutions to potential overseas students. The latter point would lead to many knock-on economic benefits (e.g. immigrant students deciding to stay in the US).
(oh, but rabble rabble gubment rabble bad rabble rabble because this is HN where libertarian capitalists roam free)
>Yes. They get money from advertisement, they should check reports.
I don't see how one implies the other. Drug companies get money from selling ingredients for makeshift heroin, they should stop its use?
> CA, USA, of course.
And which laws? Should they block advertisers of euthanasia? Political groups? "Terrorist" groups? This is a very slippery slope.
> How do they solve spam on gmail?
No, if I were to submit many reports with different advertisers from different accounts, there's no way to detect that as spam. There's no comparison with email spam, which is a one-to-many medium.
>I disagree on Adsense, but agree on Search. Making money from illegal activities is illegal in most (if not all ) countries.
Why the distinction between Adsense and Search? Do they not profit from Search?
Google isn't making money via copyright infringement - it's only a byproduct of the actions of separate perpetrators. It's like Microsoft being held responsible for botnets.
Not all people. Google has simply failed at building a quality community around Google+.
Edit: actually, it's not that they "failed," it's that they've completely ignored the importance of community building.
For example, the difference in quality between certain reddits is like night and day. This is all down to the way these reddits have nurtured their community and their values of quality.
HN is good in this regard too, although it's been slowly-yet-steadily declining due to pg's negligence of maintaining the community and managing its growth.
Google+ will probably succeed on its format alone (that is, the required application of circles), which will allow users to filter and select voices in their stream. But unless someone like Vic Gundotra steps in and puts some effort into community-building (like telling his follows to just +1 if you like the post instead of making a comment), it's going to really suck in public discussions.
Should Google somehow run background checks on every advertiser to see if they're breaking some US law? (or other countries' laws?) What broken laws should justify removal?
Should this be before or after they allow them to advertise? If before, this would inconvenience the majority of advertisers who are legitimate. If after, should Google investigate every incoming report of illegitimate advertising? Or, how many reports should warrant an investigation by Google?
Regardless, can Google remove these Adword listings without legal issues (i.e. without risking being sued)?
Getting these scammers off the front page of search would be relatively easy - it can be solved algorithmically. They're probably working on it now, with their anti-linkspam initiative.
But I don't see how Google could get them off Adwords without employing hundreds or thousands of people to review advertisers, but this would create more problems of greater magnitude than it would solve.
They could crowdsource it to narrow the (retrospective) review process, but this would create a secondary market of advertising, which I doubt Google wants, nor users would want to deal with.
I can't think of a way for Google to solve this problem without creating larger ones.
It's the responsibility of governments -- not internet advertising platforms -- to police copyright law.
If you're that worried, you can delete your web history and permanently opt-out of Google Analytics using Google's supplied opt-out extensions for Chrome and Firefox.
They allow you to do things like that (not to mention data liberation efforts), which is the point the parent was making.
So, Europe needs less regulation on the low-end of town (small businesses) to increase international competitiveness, and the US needs more regulation on the high-end of town (big business) to decrease corruption and prevent anti-competitive practices.
If you require payments, you then have credit card companies and Paypal restricting who (i.e. which countries) gets access to it.
Income from donations isn't guaranteed, and thus provides a weak incentive for universities to provide these kinds of courses. I'd also wager that donations would fizzle out as this sort of thing became more commonplace.
US Government grants would provide guaranteed incentives for American universities to offer these kinds of courses, which would educate your populace and bolster the appeal of your higher education institutions to potential overseas students. The latter point would lead to many knock-on economic benefits (e.g. immigrant students deciding to stay in the US).
(oh, but rabble rabble gubment rabble bad rabble rabble because this is HN where libertarian capitalists roam free)