The problem is Google is now too big and too much of a lawsuit target to get away with aggregating other people's data any more. Web Search is the ultimate aggregation of other people's content, and it's a good thing it's already invented because it would never get off the ground today. Crawling other people's content? Lawsuit. Linking? Lawsuit. Cache? Lawsuit. Allowing searches on trademarked terms? Lawsuit. Snippets in the result page? So many lawsuits! Using user click/query data for Suggest and/or ranking? Outcry in the EU. FTC launches investigations; DOJ sues. Congress steps in; Google forced to back down.
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The problem is Google is now too big and too much of a lawsuit target to get away with aggregating other people's data any more. Web Search is the ultimate aggregation of other people's content, and it's a good thing it's already invented because it would never get off the ground today. Crawling other people's content? Lawsuit. Linking? Lawsuit. Cache? Lawsuit. Allowing searches on trademarked terms? Lawsuit. Snippets in the result page? So many lawsuits! Using user click/query data for Suggest and/or ranking? Outcry in the EU. FTC launches investigations; DOJ sues. Congress steps in; Google forced to back down.