There was something wrong with Google Images which I thought needed fixing. I was searching for some images and realized the results were not directly linking to the file like earlier and it opened the corresponding website in a new tab. My reaction was “…huh!?” The results were all broken, at times I couldn’t find that image on the page which left me frustrated. I realized today that Google has complied with the European Commission’s accusation of anti-competitive practices and removed some of its features.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] In 2017, Getty Images complained to the European Commission, accusing Google of anti-competitive practices. Google said it had removed some features from image search, including the “view image” button. Getty Images said it was a “significant milestone” but critics said the move was “a step backwards”. [/perfectpullquote]
They killed the core of the product and unless they revamp or rejig the platform I think Images is headed to the graveyard to join its mates. As part of that deal, Google has begun warning users about copyright infringement which, I thought, was understood that users bear responsibility for liabilities arising from copyright infringement & commercial use of photos. Meanwhile, they also stripped it of its fabulous ‘Search by Image’ function and here we were talking about machine learning for image processing (TensorFlow). Google was a valuable repository of images for reference and so much more to me, and now they have taken that away too. A prime example of how user-centric technology continues to be pushed back to medieval ages.
Don’t know if it’s just me, but Google Images has stopped linking to the image files directly. I feels like it has lost its purpose now. @Google 😣
— Bhooshan Pandya (@Bhooshan) February 17, 2018
