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.
Bottom line: The market will decide. (For what it's worth, I find it difficult to believe that Google chose to add such a major product feature without conducting usability research and/or market research beforehand.)
Bottom line: The market will decide.
3-4 years ago, many of us complained that personalization and cookie data usage would NEVER BE OPT-OUT and ONLY OPT-IN.
Google SWORE over and over again they would "NEVER DO THIS"
Remember this?!
For those with notoriously bad memories, it was around the same time that privacy groups were complaining about Goog's 100 year cookies.
REMEMBER?
(of course one doesn't, do they?)
Cut to 3 years later, and the "mind boggling" revelation that "oops we've changed our minds"
And of course, the "mindless masses won't remember what we said only 3 years ago".
Google LIED once again, and we're talking about if "Goog would consider..."?!
We are DONE "negotiating" with Google.
They don't give a flying hoot what's right or true or NOT EVIL.
My goodness!
Every webmaster should be removing any Google search boxes, monetization, etc from their sites immediately
and
posting their complete disgust on their various blogs/forums that Google PROMISED they wouldn't be doing this, not 3 years ago.
And OF COURSE Google DNS "won't be used for data collection" either... Riiiight...
We're the effin market, man!
WE DECIDE.
HERE.
NOW!
[edited by: tedster at 2:08 am (utc) on Dec. 6, 2009]
Google really has a herd mentality. I think a lot of this stems from it's founders who can be described as nerds I guess, who have an idea that popularity or acceptance means good.
Doing it with maps and restaurants is probably safe, but what about ideas? We know Google will not be satisfied with restaurant listings in the long run.
The opposite can also be true. Learning and change often requires we find information that is discrepant and new and views which may not be popular at all. Filtering out the already slim chance of finding these things during a search is not as good an idea as it may seem.
The natural course for a company like Google is to become more conservative and give people what they are already comfortable with. This soothes, makes money and appears to make people happy, or just lets them be lazy. Then comes along a newbie who has the eye of the tiger who eventually gets a following big enough to contend and takes over.
The process then starts all over again. Don't know exactly where Google stands in this timeline, but things are progressing.
[edited by: MrHard at 5:29 am (utc) on Dec. 5, 2009]
Hmmm... isn't "search" supposed to be discovering new stuff... not stuff you already knew about? Just because you like something doesn't mean you always want it.
Advertising dictates your having to view the same rubbish over and over again.
Google has seemingly become more of an ads agency over the years than anything else, IMO.
As an added note ..
I see this as an attempt on Google's part to eventually being able to nearly guarantee ROI to their advertisers.
[edited by: mcneely at 5:59 am (utc) on Dec. 5, 2009]
But it will not be long before Google gets it's wings cut because of the excessive data collecting on identifiable individual users.
Interesting move. Over the past couple of weeks we have seen a number of announcements that are heavily related to privacy or uncommon business practices, and only now the webmaster community wakes up: Sidewiki, Chrome OS, banning of Adwords accounts, the Google news discussion, Google DNS, and now this.
It's almost as if the Gorg WANTS US to wake up. It's as if it is screaming: "See the signs! See the signs!"
But what are the implications of this?
Before we can answer this, I think we should first define what a cookie-less user is and how he can be identified accurately?
I, for one, delete all Cookies after a browser session. I do not use the Google toolbar, and I rarely use Google search these days. And I access the web through a dynamic IP assigned from my ISP. What does Google "see" from me?
- a dynamic IP address that can not be tracked back to ME, but probably to my marketing profile (location, ISP)
- a Cookie that only remembers the last session (but they could build a temporary history for the time I use the same IP address)
- a certain profile that can be built from pages that I visit that have Google property on it (visits sites A, B, C, and D during a session)
Not too much to build "a history", I think. I'd say that I will see rather "clean" search results every morning. Unless, of course, they show regionalized results based on people's history with a similar marketing profile (location, ISP, sites that I visit). So, if my neighbors with the same ISP search for pr*n all day, the Gorg might conclude that I am living in a redlight district and shows ads for pr*n to me as well.
Question here is - how many people WILL disable/delete cookies on their computers? Consumers - not too many, because they don't know what the implications are. So they need to be told of the Gorg.
We're a webmasters. We serve the masses and the Gorg with relevant content every day. Now let's spread the word about Google and their practices. On our sites. On our blogs. In real life. And remove the Gorg from our lives.
(Still uploading un-googled pages via FTP. Big site.)
If they really were doing this for the better good, they'd have announced it on a Tuesday or Wednesday and not buried it with the trash.
Google will only learn when their search traffic drops--a lot.
Once upon a time there was a big search engine named Alta Vista. It was #1...today, not so much. Not smart, Google. Trust is hard to earn once violated. This seems intrusive to me.
Or... maybe the Google geeks are being herded by someone who does have some really dark motives. In the final result it doesn't even matter whether Google is moving us toward a dark future intentionally or just accidentally. The end result is the same.
...everyone else can do the same (presumably, including MS). Huge can of worms...
Right -- Google is not the only data collector to watch out for by a long shot. Do you know what your ISP is doing? Many are selling your keystrokes to anyone with a fat enough wallet. And once you give your data to any third party, our current legal system is not well prepared to handle it. It's a major struggle of this time, and people are mostly sound asleep on the most important issues.
Information technology itself is a Pandora's box, and when any organization gets beyond a certain size these issues are bound to come up. Remember Carnivore [webmasterworld.com]? Remember AT&T's immense data mining projects [usatoday.com] and government collaborations?
Google may even see themselves as the most benign of all the data giants; they certainly don't roll over to government pressures as easily as some do. But Google's self-image is not the issue here, it's their actions - and their shadow.
