Why does my address appear as part of my name 2503

It's worth remembering that Usenet existed before Google, and all that's happened is that Google have decided to (a) archive publically available stuff on Usenet, and (b) make that archive easily usable.

The really useful aspect of this is that you can search for stuff that is-was already out there, without knowing where it was. Archives of newsgroups that one already reads aren't so very useful - you can always archive the bits you've read yourself. But you'd never be able to archive all th stuff that you've never read, and never known you were interested in...

OTOH, Google's service must cost a hell of a lot of money to run. They are a business. They have to cover their costs. Apart from the possibility that one day they'll decide to charge everyone for using their service (and why not?) you should take a step backwards and realise that what's good for them might not be what's good for everyone else. Usually monopolies are not in the consumer's best interests.

Anywhere where you point a web browser at some website, is a web interface. If on a webpage you provide some values to search by, and click on eg "submit", what's happening is that the text you typed is being sent to the conputer (ie web server) that runs that website. It decides what part of its system to search using the text you provided. Once the search has yielded some results, those get wrapped up in HTML and it's sent back to you. The limitations on what you can ask for, how you can rerun parts of th search etc are all set firstly by what facilities the web server is offering, and secondly by the ease with which you can ask it what to do - and that usually depends on the way the web page you are sent actually works.

Much of the feeling you have about the interaction you have with a site depends on how well the webpage stuff is written. It has nothing to do with the actual information you provide and what you get back, which is after all, why you are using that site.

In many cases apart from the actual result that interests you, you get sent lots of adverts. It's the ads that are paying for the service, generally, but who wants to have to see all the ads?

Usenet is just a global co-operation of news servers, where many places provide a globally useful service. It's not run as a money-making venture.

Google are a business. There are very few businesses who don't - eventually - want to make money. It might not originally have been their aim, but 10-20-30-... years down the line, when they have lots of staff and they all want more money... it might not be so altruistic.

-- Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.