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Google Groups is a service from
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
that provides
discussion groups A focus group is a group interview involving a small number of demographically similar people or participants who have other common traits/experiences. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are ...
for people sharing common interests. The Groups service also provides a gateway to
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
newsgroups via a shared
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
. Google Groups became operational in February 2001, following Google's acquisition of Deja's Usenet
archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
. Deja News had been operational since March 1995. Google Groups allows any user to freely conduct and access
threaded discussion Conversation threading is a feature used by many email clients, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and Internet forums in which the software aids the user by visually grouping messages with their replies. These groups are called a conversation, topic ...
s, via either a web interface or e-mail. There are at least two kinds of discussion group. The first kind are forums specific to Google Groups, which act more like mailing lists. The second kind are Usenet groups, accessible by
NNTP The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (''netnews'') between news servers, and for reading/posting articles by the end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the Univers ...
, for which Google Groups acts as gateway and unofficial archive. The Google Groups archive of Usenet newsgroup postings dates back to 1981. Through the Google Groups user interface, users can read and post to Usenet groups. In addition to accessing Google and Usenet groups, registered users can also set up mailing list archives for e-mail lists that are hosted elsewhere.


History


Deja News

The Deja News Research Service was an
archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
of messages posted to
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
discussion groups, started in March 1995 by Steve Madere in
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
. Its powerful search engine capabilities won the service acclaim, generated controversy, and significantly changed the perceived nature of
online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...
discussion. This archive was acquired by Google in 2001. While archives of Usenet discussions had been kept for as long as the medium existed, Deja News offered a novel combination of features. It was available to the general public, provided a simple
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
user interface, allowed searches across all archived
newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinc ...
s, returned immediate results, and retained messages indefinitely. The search facilities transformed Usenet from a loosely organized and ephemeral communication tool into a valued information repository. The archive's relative permanence, combined with the ability to search messages by author, raised concerns about privacy and confirmed often-repeated past admonishments that posters should be cautious in discussing themselves and others. While Madere was initially reluctant to remove archived material, protests from users and legal pressure led to the introduction of "nuking", a method for posters to permanently remove their own messages from search results. It already supported the use of an "
X-No-Archive ''X-No-Archive'', also known colloquially as xna, is a newsgroup message header field used to prevent a Usenet message from being archived in various servers. Origin The need for X-No-Archive began when DejaNews debuted in 1995. DejaNews was the ...
" message header, which if present would cause an article to be omitted from the archive. This did not prevent others from quoting the material in a later message and causing it to be stored.
Copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
holders were also allowed to have material removed from the archive. According to Humphrey Marr of Deja News, copyright actions most frequently came from the Church of Scientology. The capability to "nuke" postings was kept open for many years but later removed without explanation under Google's tenure. Google also mistakenly restored previously "nuked" messages at one point, angering many users. "Nukes" that were in effect at the time when Google removed the possibility are still honored, however. Since May 2014, European users can request to have search results for their name from Google Groups, including their Usenet archive, delinked under the
right to be forgotten The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is the right to have private information about a person be removed from Internet searches and other directories under some circumstances. The concept has been discussed and put into practice in several jurisdiction ...
law. Google Groups is one of the ten most delinked sites. If Google does not grant a delinking, Europeans can appeal to their local data protection agencies.


Change of direction

The service was eventually expanded beyond search. "My Deja News" offered the ability to read Usenet in the traditional chronological, per-group manner, and to post new messages to the network. Deja Communities were private
Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s offered primarily to businesses. In 1999 the site (now known as Deja.com) sharply changed direction and made its primary feature a shopping comparison service. During this transition, which involved relocation of the servers, many older messages in the Usenet archive became unavailable. By late 2000 the company, in financial distress, sold the shopping service to
eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
, who incorporated the technology into their half.com services.


Google Groups

By 2001, the Deja search service was shut down. In February 2001, Google acquired Deja News and its archive, and transitioned its assets to groups.google.com. Users were then able to access these Usenet newsgroups through the new Google Groups interface. By the end of 2001, the archive had been supplemented with other archived messages dating back to May 11, 1981. These early posts from 1981–1991 were donated to Google by the
University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thames R ...
, based on archives by
Henry Spencer Henry Spencer (born 1955) is a Canadian computer programmer and space enthusiast. He wrote "regex", a widely used software library for regular expressions, and co-wrote C News, a Usenet server program. He also wrote ''The Ten Commandments for C ...
from the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
. A short while later, Google released a new version that allowed users to create their own non-Usenet groups. When AOL discontinued access to Usenet around 2005, it recommended Google Groups instead. In 2008, Google broke the Groups search functionality and left it nonfunctional for about a year, until a ''
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
'' article spurred the company to fix the problems. For several years from May 2010 onward, Google incrementally changed the layout of the web search results pages, often degrading the
discoverability Discoverability is the degree to which something, especially a piece of content or information, can be found in a search of a file, database, or other information system. Discoverability is a concern in library and information science, many aspects ...
of the site itself as well as its usability and functionality. On February 13, 2015, a
Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); ...
story reported that the ability to do advanced searches across all groups had again become nonfunctional, and to date, Google has neither fixed nor acknowledged the problem. The researcher interviewed stated, "Advanced searches within specific groups appear to be working, but that's hardly useful for any form of research—be it casual or academic."


Criticism

Lee Rizor, also known as Blinky the Shark, started the Usenet Improvement Project in 2009. The project is highly critical of Google Groups and its users. It aims to "make Usenet participation a better experience". They have accused Google Groups of ignoring an "increasing wave of spam" from its servers and of encouraging an Eternal September of " lusers" and "
lamer Lamer is a jargon or slang name originally applied in cracker and phreaker culture to someone who did not really understand what they were doing. Today it is also loosely applied by IRC, BBS, demosceners, and online gaming users to anyone perce ...
s" arriving in established groups en masse. The Usenet Improvement Project provides several
killfile A kill file (also killfile, bozo bin or twit list) is a file used by some Usenet reading programs to discard articles matching some unwanted patterns of subject, author, or other header lines. Adding a person or subject to one's kill file means t ...
examples to block messages posted by Google Groups users in several newsreaders. ''
Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and eval ...
'', ''
Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
'' and ''Wired'' contributors have criticized Google for its unannounced discontinuation of the Google Groups Advanced Search page and the ability to perform advanced searches across all groups, leaving it nearly impossible to find postings without either knowing keywords from them that are unique across Google Groups' entire multi-decade archive of posts, or else knowing beforehand which newsgroup(s) they were posted in. Other commentators have since noted that even many simple searches across all groups repeatably fail to return correct results.


Blocking

Google Groups was blocked in
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
on April 10, 2008, by a court order. According to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', the court banned Google Groups following a libel complaint by
Adnan Oktar Adnan Oktar (; born 2 February 1956), also known as Adnan Hoca or Harun Yahya, is a Turkish religious sex cult leader, creationist/ anti-evolutionist, conspiracy theorist, preacher and pamphleteer.Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam'', 2011: p.171 I ...
against the service. Google Groups was the first of several websites to be blocked by the Turkish government in rapid succession solely for including material that allegedly offended Islam. The ban was removed a month later on May 15, 2008.


See also

* Comparison of Usenet newsreaders *
GroupSpaces GroupSpaces (stylized in lowercase as groupspaces) was a London-based online company that provides technology to help real-world clubs, societies, associations and other groups manage their membership and activities, and promote themselves online. ...
(closed) * List of Usenet newsreaders *
MSN Groups MSN Groups was a website part of the MSN network which hosted online communities, and which contained Web pages, hosted images, and contained a message board. MSN Groups was shut down on February 21, 2009, as part of a migration of online applic ...
(closed) *
Web archiving Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web to ensure the information is preserved in an archive for future researchers, historians, and the public. Web archivists typically employ web crawlers for automated captur ...
*
Windows Live Groups OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Features The service allowed ...
(closed) *
Yahoo! Groups Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various group ...
(closed)


References


Citations


General and cited sources

* * * * * *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Groups Computer-related introductions in 2001 Electronic mailing lists
Groups A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...
Groups A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...
Internet forums Usenet clients Usenet free posting