The Dangers of Personalised Search Friends of Search
20 February 2014
Barry Adams
Vulgar self-promotional slide
Barry Adams is…
Digital Director at multi-award winning digital agency
The Tomorrow Lab in Belfast (formerly known as Pierce Communications)
Dutch (yes, really)
SEO polemicist
Twitter ranter @badams
Editor & blogger for award-winning blog StateofDigital.com
Also blogs at award-nominated BarryAdams.co.uk
Google’s Business Model
AdWords launched in Oct 2000
90% of Google’s revenue is from advertising;
Not advertising
Advertising
Personalised Search
What is Personalised Search?
“Search results that vary based on the searcher’s profile and
past behaviour.”
Elements of Personalised Search
• Location
• Search history
• Browsing history
• Social circles
• Known interests
Smart Personalisation
Not-so-smart Personalisation
Dumb Personalisation
Creepy Personalisation
But all that is the stuff we notice….
What about the personalisation we don’t see?
Political bias >> SERP bias
Query: ‘climate change’;
• The Right-wing voter will see climate change denialist SERPs
• The Left-wing voter will see climate science SERPs
Which are the ‘best’ results?
Google Maps Personalisation
Personalised Maps
“In Google's world, public space is just something that stands
between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are
dying to get to.”
- Evgeny Morozov
Source:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/05/google_maps_personal
ization_will_hurt_public_space_and_engagement.html
What’s next, a Personalised World?
Why is this a bad thing?
The Filter Bubble
• Google will show you things it knows you like;
Your SERPs will be full of sites you visit regularly.
Your news will be from the sites whose perspectives &
viewpoints you agree with.
Your maps will be full of places you & your friends have visited
before.
Why wouldn’t you want that?
• Because you’ll rarely be exposed to something new and
unexpected.
• It erodes the commonalities between all people.
• Our worldviews will become increasingly polarised, isolated, and
self-perpetuating.
Why is it dangerous?
• People get things wrong all the time.
• But if you’re never exposed to alternative viewpoints, you’ll
never know when you’re wrong.
• Result: unshakable convictions that are (probably) based on
flawed information.
Technology can imprison us
• Technology does not automatically liberate us;
If left unchecked, technology can serve to contain us
• New technology is not released in a vacuum;
Existing corporate & government structures will capitalise on
and subvert the Next Big Thing
Silicon Valley ≠ the Real World
Corporate campuses like the Googleplex are isolated communes
of geek productivity.
What can you do?
Embrace doubt
“The trouble with the world is that the
stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are
full of doubt.”
- Bertrand Russell
Enjoy serendipity
“I find that a great part of the information I
have was acquired by looking up something
and finding something else on the way.”
- Franklin Pierce Adams
Reject Google’s Filter Bubble
Personalised search in Google is unavoidable. Thanks to Google+
you are logged in all the time, so Google tracks you everywhere.
Stop using Google.
Seriously. Stop it.
Alternatives:
DuckDuckGo
Blekko
Yandex
Reject an advertising-mediated
worldview
• Use Amazon when logged out.
• Install AdBlock Plus.
• Read different newspapers. (Just for the sake of all that is good in
this world, NOT the Daily Mail!)
• Explore stuff online!
• Read Eli Pariser’s book ‘The Filter Bubble’.
What’s next?
What’s next for Google?
• Microphones in every ceiling
• Microchips in our brains
• Self-driving cars
• Balloons over Africa
• Robotics...
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