Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide
That's a staggering statement meaning that every computer accessing Google is now being personalized, signed in or not, so any desktop, laptop or kiosk will start tracking everything everyone does and you won't be able to access the same search results from any two machines.
The possible impact to all is staggering.
if that would fly then they would concider the sites that allow an Excessive use of "LOL" as "Verbal Terrorist Vertual Training Camps"? Then "News Corporation" and Gorg are definately on the hook....
LOQ(... out quiet)
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies...Cluetrain manifesto [cluetrain.com]
GoogleGuy (remember him?) once told us that a copy of Cluetrain was pinned on the wall in the plex. The janitor must have got it.
Remember is different than using that memory to serve up serps where they decide to emphasize what they think is best for me.
I've been doing a lot of searches the past two weeks looking for pictures a friend of mine finds particularly repelant. I send her a "pic of the day" to torture her. If I didn't have the thing turned off, how long would Google's villiage idiot personalized search allow these joke searches to impact the results they display me for everything?
How long will my click results for [john doe silly face] contribute to how they rank my searches for [health care], [poverty] and [tahiti real estate]?
The answer is 180 days apparently, but I don't want it to be 180 seconds, and the phenomenon is all the worse now that Google constanly "guesses" what searchers really meant to type and thus serve up gobs of irrelevant stuff.
"The reason we keep [search engine data] for any length of time is one, we actually need it to make our algorithms better, but more importantly, there is a legitimate case of the government, or particularly the police function or so forth, wanting, with a Federal subpoena and so forth being able to get access to that information."
-- Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, All Things Considered, NPR interview between 5:40 and 6:40, October 2, 2009.
Sometimes I click on a result, or visit a site, or whatever and visit longer than would probably be algorithmically determined as 'did not like it', because I'm sitting there shocked thinking 'how did this garbage make it into the results', and what is this, and how do I get these stinking CSS pop-ups to turn off all the time in my browser without disabling CSS? What if I try this? (Click refresh) What about this? (Click refresh again)
I'm not necessarily sitting there looking at it because I like it or want to see it again, sometimes it's for a completely different reason, such as I'm shocked and want to see how in the world a page got in the results, or how to undo something they do, or wondering who designed and created it so I can make sure I don't visit anything they create again... There's all different reason I don't just click back, which does not necessarily mean I want to see the result again or 'vote for it' or 'show it to someone else', except to say, look at how bad this garbage is!
There's one site I knowingly try to avoid when searching for coding answers, because all they give you if you're not a member is two CSS pop-ups which take time to close, and the question someone asked with the ability to 'sign up for free for 30 days to see the answer' and even though I frequently look for a way to remove the site from the results I see by clicking the little 'remove' (or whatever) link while I'm logged in sometimes I still run into it. IMO they let Googlebot through, but make people sign up, which is cloaking and IMO should be penalized, because I cannot see the answer even if Googlebot can, and I refuse to sign up, because they try to make me when the answer is posted somewhere else for free, so I don't need their 30 days worth of a free visits to find what I was looking for, EVER.
I don't visit the site because I like it. I visit, because sometimes I read the title and forget to check the URL so I know to not visit it.
It's like all the people here talking about how a high bounce rate is bad and should be factored into the results...
I have one site with a page on it that has an over 85% bounce rate, which those here who keep stating they think bounce rate should be taken into account probably think is 'bad', because there's is low and they think that's good, but which is better: The page (site) with a lower bounce rate, which indicates the visitor had to view more pages to find what they were ultimately looking for, or the page I have with a bounce rate of over 85% for months on end which also happens to have an average visit time of over 3 minutes for the same period of time?
I think the one I'm referring to says both the search engines and I did our jobs. I optimized the page correctly and SEs return it for the correct searches. People find exactly what they were looking for on the exact page returned in the results... It may be made evident by a long average visit time coupled with a high bounce rate. Just because not everyone can do this does not mean my site (page) should be penalized. Of course, they could be visiting for so long because they keep looking for the answer they think is on the page and cannot find it. There is really no way to make an exact determination based on their behavior.
The reason for the preceding is to highlight: One of the huge problems with this type of system is making a determination based on very limited knowledge other than 'time' and 'averages', which does not really tell anything.
IMO You really cannot take the numbers Google has access to and make an accurate determination of 'like' v. 'did not like' based on behavior without direct input from the visitor, because there are all different reasons why 'visit time' might be different, such as clicking a link, leaving the computer because you still have not found what you were looking for and need to take a break, then returning to the computer and conducting the search again on a different engine... The actual result of the search is the exact opposite of what the numbers seem to indicate, even if Analytics is involved.
I guess another way to say what I mean is: Individuals are individuals, as made evident by the usual discrepancies in the recollection of the observation of an event by different individuals, which is based on many different factors, including point of observation, knowledge of the situation, etc., and the behavior of any given individual in this situation is based solely on their reaction to a site or page and a number of external factors which are individually unique reactions and observations to a presentation and based on a number of factors an algorithm is really unable to determine, because individuals all react as individuals and the reason for their actions or reactions really cannot be determined without direct input from them.
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 2:10 am (utc) on Dec. 7, 2009]
“Changes to this Privacy Policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time.”
What is the value of a privacy policy that can be unilaterally changed?
At first I thought it was worthless. Meaningless.
Now, I realise it is actually very valuable. It sooths and entices the unaware, it baits the trap. It means to catch and exploit.
The type and scale of private info G collects requires a far higher protection than a Privacy Policy which they can amend as, when and how they see fit…
It's in their interest to exploit our information and it's definitely not in ours!
It is a freedom of choice that has been taken away from the user.
Google isn't the only search engine. If a user really doesn't like Google's personalized search, he can see what Bing and Yahoo (soon to be Binghoo) have to offer.
Still, I don't think many users will be dissatisfied. Google personalized search has been around for nearly three years: the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts. As someone who usually is signed into a Google account, I can't say that I've noticed any lack of variety or choice in Google search results since personalized search was introduced. For example, when I was looking for [networking widget] reviews about a week ago, I found reviews at useful sites that I'd never heard of on pages 1 and 2 of my presumably personalized SERPs.
the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts.
what's new ..as you keep deliberately ignoring ..is that it's opt in by default ..without saying anything about it personalising search from the moment you visit any page that is fed anything by Gorg ..
and it's already illegal to track via opt in by default in Europe ..somewhere whose laws and customs one would suppose would be dear to your heart ..
Surely you are not encouraging and condoning publically on WebmasterWorld ..companies and their employees that visit and operate in Europe ( Gorg have offices in Ireland ) to break European laws with their products and services in Europe .
the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts.
The "only" thing? How easy it is to minimize to absurdity.
Even if we use your previously supplied analogy of Netflix, those "personalized suggestions" are for existing customers. Netflix is not making suggestions to a driveby visitor that has never seen their site or patronaized their business - suggestions based on what they viewed on youtube, what they purchased through a doubleclick affiliate, what they read on g-books, or what they wrote about on g-mail, etc.
