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.
Google may be even more tightly integrated into your copy of Firefox -- to see what it's connected to:
- open a new tab or window
- enter about:config in the address bar
- click the [I'll be careful, I promise!] button
- enter goog in the filter box
- close the tab or window, (I will not be responsible if you go further).
To de-worm FF, find a search engine and look up something like "firefox config search address bar".
While one may admit, many folks use GoOgle for commercial searches (e.g., "blue widgets"), sometimes folks search for knowledge (e.g., "who *invented* the "blue widget"?) Imagine that.
So with a record of predominantly commercial searches, will they inevitably have to dredge through screens and screens of commercial guff before they get to "knowledge"?
Perhaps the average Jane or Joe (a valid computer user) doesn't know how, properly, to phrase a search. Should his or her lack of skill result in punishment? Not necessarily, I think.
These might be folks who would object, were they to know the tracking is happening: folks who watch 60 minutes, see that crooks run rampant behind the scenes in various places, and ask, "Why doesn't somebody catch them and do something?"
I know some of these folks, who indeed are scared (as they should be) to upload email contact information to gmail. And I will now tell them they should also have added care/fear of GoOgle search.
Only the guilty have anything to worry by this.
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Or are we talking about personalised searches across a keyword - which is what the two google people were talking about in the introductory video posted on page 1 of this post - this is not quite as bad I think.
Has GOOG become the Exxon/Esso of search?
-albo
It is not my position that Google is leading the charge into a New World Order, where the freedom of the individual will be severely subserviant to the power of the (World) state.
-Reno
You could be closer than you think -- most greedy corporate stories are close to the Standard Oil business model... and Eric Schmidt was at Bilderberg.
Are we talking about showing personalised searches for terms within a Niche - this is bad.
-driller41
No, we are talking about Google knowing what brand of toilet paper you use, and when you are due to shop for some more.
I'm UK based, the first thing I had to do was sign in again although already signed in to search and mail and then it refused to let me go any further until I downloaded and installed Google Toolbar and enabled Pagerank.
The difference here is that the vote is on a local machine, and that's much harder to manipulate from outside (assuming it's not been hacked or has a trojan/adware).
Google manipulating the data served is one thing, but, not giving average joe user the option to opt in is not good imho. It's poorly thought through as to the long term consequences.
It's great to have more relevent SERPs, I applaud that, however, why would I want SERPs reflecting my previous search. I'm done with that, I've moved on. Give me the option to go back to get all the SERPs, then to be able to hone it.
It's all too smart for it's own good, imho.
It's great to have more relevent SERPs, I applaud that, however, why would I want SERPs reflecting my previous search. I'm done with that, I've moved on.
Because we tend to repeat ourselves and act in fairly predictable ways and as they say in the ad biz, frequency sells so the more you're exposed to an ad the more likely you'll buy.
Is personalized search just serving up results based on your past or using your history to predict what you may want next? Or both?
