Bug Reports (Google)

[Gavin Chipper]

As Charlie now works for Google, he has kindly agreed to sort out any problems it may have, while still doing the same for Apterous. So I'll start:

It's fair enough when Google says "Did you mean..." as it can be quite helpful, if a little patronising. But when it shows you the top two results of that automatically I find it annoying, and when it shows you the results for what it thinks and you have to click on a link to get what you actually asked for in the first place, it just takes the piss.

And it also doesn't seem to recognise symbols in searches. If I want to look for "50%" it will just find articles with "50". This is rubbish.

[Charlie Reams]

Like.

Get your complaints in quick, I'm leaving in a week.

[Brian Moore]

Get your complaints in quick, I'm leaving in a week.

Could you find out if this is true, and ask them to sort it out, if it is?

[JimBentley]

Get your complaints in quick, I'm leaving in a week.

Could you find out if this is true, and ask them to sort it out, if it is?

I know Charlie's pretty amazing and probably has superpowers and shit, but closing the thousands of tax loopholes that exist across international borders may be beyond even him. However, I would be happy to be proved wrong.

[Michael Wallace]

I know Charlie's pretty amazing and probably has superpowers and shit, but closing the thousands of tax loopholes that exist across international borders may be beyond even him. However, I would be happy to be proved wrong.

Surely if anything he'll be abusing those loopholes to turn the £££ he makes from apterous into his next castle?

[Charlie Reams]

Get your complaints in quick, I'm leaving in a week.

Could you find out if this is true, and ask them to sort it out, if it is?

Oddly enough I actually already saw this and requested it as one of the weekly questions that the founders answer on at the Friday afternoon meeting. I think the basic answer is probably that they have a legal obligation to function efficiently, since in the US at least you can be sued by your shareholders if you deliberately under-profitize. I won't be able to tell you what they say even if they answer my question, but people here do actually care about this sort of thing which is more than can be said for any other company I can think of.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Can I make complaints about Google Chrome here?

[Charlie Reams]

Can I make complaints about Google Chrome here?

no

[Brian Moore]

Get your complaints in quick, I'm leaving in a week.

Could you find out if this is true, and ask them to sort it out, if it is?

Oddly enough I actually already saw this and requested it as one of the weekly questions that the founders answer on at the Friday afternoon meeting. I think the basic answer is probably that they have a legal obligation to function efficiently, since in the US at least you can be sued by your shareholders if you deliberately under-profitize.

Thanks Charlie. There's an odd moral dilemma, then - having to ask your finance people to exploit every possible tax avoidance ruse in order to meet a legal requirement to maximise profit. Is that type of profit-maximisation law found outside the US? If not, it would seem rather strange in the land of the free market that they don't let shareholders decide whether to stick with companies that do everything they can to avoid paying taxes, or to go with those that might have more of a social conscience and would be happy not to use "complex financial structures known in the industry as 'the Double Irish' and 'the Dutch Sandwich'" to avoid paying tax.

[Charlie Reams]

Thanks Charlie. There's an odd moral dilemma, then - having to ask your finance people to exploit every possible tax avoidance ruse in order to meet a legal requirement to maximise profit. Is that type of profit-maximisation law found outside the US? If not, it would seem rather strange in the land of the free market that they don't let shareholders decide whether to stick with companies that do everything they can to avoid paying taxes, or to go with those that might have more of a social conscience and would be happy not to use "complex financial structures known in the industry as 'the Double Irish' and 'the Dutch Sandwich'" to avoid paying tax.

I don't know, I'm no expert on any of the relevant subjects, although I found this amusing story on the subject. I guess you surrender your right to be arbitrarily inefficient in the name of social conscience at the point where you become a public company.

[Brian Moore]

I guess you surrender your right to be arbitrarily inefficient in the name of social conscience at the point where you become a public company.

Well, that certainly seems to be the case in the US (though I might rephrase your "be arbitrarily inefficient" to "decide to pay your fair share of the tax burden"). I suspect that the law was not initially framed to minimise the income to government from tax, but has been an unintended consequence of it, aided by clever accountants with strong incentives.

[Charlie Reams]

I guess you surrender your right to be arbitrarily inefficient in the name of social conscience at the point where you become a public company.

Well, that certainly seems to be the case in the US (though I might rephrase your "be arbitrarily inefficient" to "decide to pay your fair share of the tax burden"). I suspect that the law was not initially framed to minimise the income to government from tax, but has been an unintended consequence of it, aided by clever accountants with strong incentives.

Sure, although there are plenty of other ways to be inefficient. What I'd like Google to go do is to "play the game" as currently set out by the law, since it's just not sensible to pay vastly more tax than your competitors, while also pressing for change in the law. That's the stance they've taken on patents, at least. Their public statement didn't seem particularly encouraging though.

[Gavin Chipper]

I won't be able to tell you what they say even if they answer my question

Is everything said secret then?

[Charlie Reams]

I won't be able to tell you what they say even if they answer my question

Is everything said secret then?

Yep, fraid so.

[Kai Laddiman]

I won't be able to tell you what they say even if they answer my question

Is everything said secret then?

Yep, fraud so.

Freudian slip? Or should i say FRAUDIAN slip?

[Jon Corby]

Type Define:Kaster into Google.

[Charlie Reams]

Type Define:Kaster into Google.

Ha. Scored some popularity points by sharing this around the office, thanks very much.