Google, what does it filter for us?

[jcarter]

A friend came over today and we got discussing how wonderful Google is for looking up anything under the sun, and she told us of this book,
"The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from you" by Eli Pariser

I had never heard of the author, but thought I would look at the book on Amazon, wow, just reading thru the first interview part with the author is eye opening.
I personally am not very worried about people knowing what I search for on the net, as I have benign interests, and I know that our shopping habits are recorded and thus suggestions are given to us,,,,,,,, but is it true that Google is not giving us the results that we want, is a bit disconcerting.
Like for example, if I want to find something about Yellow Labs or weather pictures, I think I will get it, but if I search for something political, will the results be biased towards my beliefs, what Ive search for beforehand, or will Google give me a cross section of what Im looking for. Or will it be 'filtered'.
Does this explain when I Google for something on one of my Macs or my husband's or my brother's Mac, that I get different results on each?

I know that Amazon always throws suggestions to me for books about dogs, or whatever Ive bought recently.
Im listening to his TED talk right now.  Its excellent.
Is this an insidious form of censoring? Lots of questions, eh?

Its worth taking a look at the page,
http://www.amazon.com/The-Filter-Bubble-In...8579&sr=1-1
And especially his TED talk.
Jane

[jcarter]

Just thinking, I am not knocking Google, I absolutely LOVE Google, there isn't a single day that I dont look up something.

[Jack W]

I use DuckDuckGo for most of my searches since Google, especially recently is tracking almost everything.

[jcarter]

Will have to try that one, thanks,
Jane

[tacit]

QUOTE(jcarter @ Mar 18 2012, 07:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Like for example, if I want to find something about Yellow Labs or weather pictures, I think I will get it, but if I search for something political, will the results be biased towards my beliefs, what Ive search for beforehand, or will Google give me a cross section of what Im looking for. Or will it be 'filtered'.
Does this explain when I Google for something on one of my Macs or my husband's or my brother's Mac, that I get different results on each?

The short answer is "it depends."

The long answer is...well, complicated.

If you have a Google account (meaning a G+ account, a Gmail account, an iGoogle account, or anything like that), and you are signed in to it, Google may customize your search results based on things that you have clicked on in the past.

If you have a Google account but you're NOT logged in, it's not entirely clear what happens. If your browser has cookies that ties it to your account, I've heard some people claim that Google may still personalize your results, and some people claim that it doesn't. (I don't think Google documents what happens in that case.)

If you're browsing and you don't have a Google account, or you've wiped the Google cookies off your browser, Google doesn't personalize your results.

That's different from filtering them, however. Google does many kinds of filtering.

The most obvious kind of filtering is Safe Search. If you turn Safe Search on, Google filters out sexual search results. If you have Safe Search turned off, it doesn't.

There are other kinds of filtering, too. Google filters out Web sites that use certain types of unethical search engine optimization; for example, they may remove Web sites that participate in pay-for-play link exchanges or that feed different results to search engine spiders and to human Web visitors.

Google also filters out Web sites which they have received DMCA copyright complaints against, or which they have been informed contain certain kinds of illegal content such as child porn. Whenever this happens, they place the complaint on a Web site at www.chillingeffects.org and when you do a Google search, you'll see a notice on the bottom of the screen that some Web results were removed for legal reasons.

In non-US countries, Google filters out content as required by local law. In China, Google filters out searches related to Taiwan. In Thailand, Google filters out Web sites that insult the King of Thailand.

Google has lots of rules, which are rather convoluted, about what sites are considered "news," and sites may be removed from Google News results if they do not conform to those rules.

Google filters out sites that do not meet its "quality guidelines," which means sites that are comprised mostly or entirely of ads, or sites which simply reproduce content from other sites.

[jcarter]

Hi Tacit,
Thank you, as always, you have explained the topic so that I can understand it.

I do have a Gmail account, and I usually sign out, as my grandson and our kids check their Gmail accts on both of these Macs.

Now that I think of that, perhaps if Google does personalize my searches, it might be good in one sense.
But if I look for something entirely different than what I usually do, like when we were working on his 5th grade science project(static electricity and VanDeGraff generators), then I assume that the search results would be unfiltered?
We did get some extremely fun and helpful hits.

I think my son-in-law already turned on the Safe Search, as I sure dont want the grandkids to hit anything like that by mistake.

(Actually I think they should censor child porn, just get rid of it off the internet for good, though it is a way for law enforcement to catch and prosecute sometimes. Couldn't this be done the way China filters out Thailand?)

All in all, Google is just wonderful, its opened up its 'encyclopedia' to so many people and certainly done a lot for education. I love to be able to look up anything related to my classes or anything under the sun!
Filtered or not, its wonderful.

Thank you for the great explanation.
Jane

[Xairbusdriver]

I've found that the more a book/source is concerned about a 'single-issue' subject the less reliable it's content. I'm just say'in...

[jcarter]

Oh, DuckDuckGo!
Thank you!
Here is what I got on the very first search with it, the very page I was looking for!
http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/mismarks.html

I got this site 4 years ago when we got our puppy, she is a 'white' Lab and has chocolate markings, and we were wondering if she was a 'mosaic lab'
Google did not retrieve this site for me even way down the list.
Jane

Yes, I have noticed that also, many books provide just one side of the topic. This author of that book and TED talk does that too, and thats one reason that anything I read about the internet, and get confused, I ask here first.
This Eli Pariser is very much a 'one sided' guy from the little I have read about him, I had never heard of him till my friend told us of that book.