>For all the money Google has (and will have), the least they could do is get their own directory instead of profiteering from the hard work of volunteers.
I'm just as happy with Google spending its money on stuff we can't do better than the professionals. Why should Google do a me-too (well, me-four) broad-spectrum web directory, when THE Directory is Open for use?
I don't feel cheated -- I USE Google search and directory, on the job and on my own. Google adds value, no doubt about it. And I get the benefit.
>Do they even know what kind of problems they are causing by building their own directory off of this one?
Yes, I believe they understand the nature of spammers. Here's how self-promotion works. Whatever has influence, you bite onto it like a leech, and suck its blood till it dies. If the ODP didn't have influence (or was not perceived to have influence), then the spammers would be all over whatever did. Google doesn't cause the problem. Spammers are the cause and the effect of the problem. And if Google weren't there, they'd be spamming the life out of Altavista, Excite, Et al. But there are so many spammers, and they are so stupid, that they'll try ANYTHING, even if it doesn't have influence, just in case.
Think of the Hitchcock movie, "The Birds". That's spammers. We perceive them as banging on the "weak spots", but in reality they're just banging everywhere. To many of them, the ODP is their ticket to riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice -- that's just delusional. But it doesn't matter. They act as if it were true. (For others, link exchanges are the TTRBTWDOA. For yet others, it's drive-by forum postings. There are enough spammers to cover all the bases, even the ones that aren't on the ballfield.
In this environment, if you're visible at all, there will be a spammers'-cargo-cult obsessing about you. It's not Google's fault. They have their own cargo-cults to deal with--the biggest one, since they are perceived to be most important. (I'm sure, given a choice, they'd happily send all their SERP perp cult-following over to the ODP in a nanosecond.)
>I don't know if DMOZ has any arrangements with them at the top level - I am assuming that there is no connection from what everyone has written.
There doesn't need to be a connection for this -- the ODP license is generic. But there are obviously technology-interchange negotiations at some level -- AOL uses Google search, and has used Google as an advertising intermediary. That's the big money: the ODP is proportionally just a little side dish.
>I am also not sure how Netscape ties-in to all this.
Netscape bought DMOZ back before AOL bought Netscape.
>One thing is for certain - Google's really beginning to **** me off.
So? Use Yahoo. Or even "all commercials, all the time" MSN. The web is large, and there's no reason to care about a site.
>Slap a restrictive Creative Commons license on DMOZ and watch Google pull it's finger out.
Why? Google is adding value to my volunteer work. (Not that it can be done anyway: ODP social contract, and all that.) But break your word with volunteers, and you tend to lose volunteers. And, in any case, Google already provides "attribution" and publishes the ODP data on "noncommercial" pages. Their "derivative" work is a clear benefit to us. and although the modifications are "copyright," it's not clear to me how a surfer would benefit by being able to republish the Google pages.
The web is big. There are lots of people using it for all kinds of purposes. The best strategy is to cooperate with the sites that help you achieve your purpose, and leave the others alone.
