
Spoofing Google Search Results - m1guelpf
https://wietzebeukema.nl/blog/spoofing-google-search-results
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saagarjha
> unfortunately Knowledge Graph doesn’t tell you where it got the information
> from

This is really the biggest problem I have with the cards. They don't tell you
anything at all about their source, and lead people to believe that Google
itself has verified and checked the source of the information, making it very
easy to treat them as "facts". A somewhat (possibly overly?) cynical viewpoint
is that Google likes to keep it this way, since it makes it seem as if they're
the arbiter of that information.

~~~
jacquesm
Not only that, the legal status of this info is murky at best and a clear case
of copyright violation at worst.

~~~
krn
I thought the Knowledge Graph was based on Freebase[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase)

~~~
blattimwind
The text usually is from Wikipedia and the tabulated data seems to come from
Wikidata.

~~~
kibwen
Wikipedia's text content is licensed under CC-BY-SA, which means that if
Google isn't giving attribution somewhere then they would be in violation of
the license.

~~~
dannyw
Google gives attribution when text content is used.

For simple bibliographical information like who someone’s spouses is, it is
not copyrightable, and no attribution is needed.

~~~
btown
Facts may not be copyrightable, but by _academic standards_ they should still
be sourced. Google doesn't derive shareholder value from training people to
seek primary sources, though.

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chillydawg
Not gonna lie: I wish google had been a bit slower fixing this. I was looking
forward to having some (mostly) harmless fun!

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abhij89
it's still happening for me in case of
[https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Beatles&kgmid=/m/03j24kf](https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Beatles&kgmid=/m/03j24kf),
so it seems it may have not been fixed yet?
[https://imgur.com/a/8UypW5k](https://imgur.com/a/8UypW5k)

~~~
yorwba
And attaching &kponly to the url also hides the search results for me:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Beatles&kgmid=/m/03j24kf...](https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Beatles&kgmid=/m/03j24kf&kponly=)

Maybe the change hasn't been rolled out completely yet? I'm in Germany.

~~~
abhij89
I am in India. Yeah &kponly seems to be working as well hiding the search
results completely.

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simjue
Known issue since 2016
[https://plus.google.com/+AaronBradley/posts/92wjiusi2YC](https://plus.google.com/+AaronBradley/posts/92wjiusi2YC)

~~~
jacquesm
Looks like he managed to put enough indirect pressure on the big G to get this
fixed.

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okket
The example links do not work for me, meaning they show sane results. Is this
issue fixed? Or is uBlock interfering? Or is my "Google location"
(Europe/Germany) changing the results?

~~~
cyborgx7
>Update - Two days after the publication of this blog post, Google seems to
have fixed the issue, after TechCrunch asked the firm whether it was planning
on taking any action. Although no official announcement was made, it looks
like the kgmid parameter has been disabled. As a result, the flaw described
below is no longer working.

Very top of the article.

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hartator
Interestingly only one of these parameters has been fixed. You can still use
‘kponly’ to force empty results.

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to-maruf
Seems like google figured it out

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pexaizix
[https://www.wietzebeukema.nl/assets/2019-01-07-knowledge-
gra...](https://www.wietzebeukema.nl/assets/2019-01-07-knowledge-graph-2.jpg)

Define "fake results".

