SIVACRACY.NET: Google will ensure you always learn what you already know

So Google has initiated a new "service" by which it logs and lets you customize your search histories. The site explains that Google's computers will "learn" what you like, and tailor searches to match you history and preferences. This is alarming on so many levels.

First, Google is already pretty damn conservative. By that I mean Google's Page Rank reinforces conventional wisdom (or, at least Web conventional wisdom) by yielding high results for already "popular" pages. It's extremely hard to move a page up in rank. What wins on Google continues winning.

But that's a minor problem when you consider that my search for "intelligent design" would not generate the same list of results as your search for "intelligent design" because Google's new methods "customize" our searches to match our alleged interests and histories. If Google senses that I have visited a lot of Christian fundamentalist or anti-science sites, it might send me to sites that favor intelligent design advocates. However, if you have visited actual science sites, then your results might show critics of intelligent design first.

This is worse than the (so far unrealized) nightmare of the "Daily Me" that Nicholas Negroponte celebrated and Cass Sunstein warned us about.

What can we do about it? Opt out, of course. But check out the advice below. Opting out of Google's system is not so clear and easy.

Nelson's Weblog explains:

Google search history and privacy
Did you know that for years Google has been keeping a record of every search you do? And did you know they're now associating your search history with your Google login for other services like Gmail, Calendar, and the like? Surprise! It's Search History. And now it's being used to personalize your search results.

I don't like Google aggregating this data about me. It is possible to opt out. You can turn off search history recording in the settings page. You can also edit your history, including removing it entirely.

It's still unclear to me exactly when Google started recording these histories under account names. Six tech savvy friends I asked all found they had some sort of history on Google going back as far as eighteen months. Only half of them remember having turned on some personalization feature that would have resulted in that history being collected. A seventh friend who is scrupulous about cookies and logins had no history. He regrets that his privacy concerns keep him from using Google Reader.

I believe search history defaults on for new accounts, so 99% of Google users will have this feature. Probably 98% of them won't even know that their every search is being recorded, associated with their name.

More info: the search history service, search history help, and an inadequate privacy FAQ.

Update Tuesday, Feb 6: the instructions above let you remove the search history that you can access via the search history product. However, Google is logging your search history in other places for other purposes. See Google's privacy FAQ and privacy policy for more info on those other forms of search history.

Comments

I have the same problem with the librarian at my local library branch. Every time I tell her that I am looking for something "new" in gardening she keeps sending me back to the same old sh*t. My mom keeps giving me the same subscriptions every year for Christmas and if I get one more tie or oxford shirt from my kids I am gonna scream. Now you tell me that if I Google search: "triple plump mature handjobs" I am just gonna keep getting more of the same old hits. I might as well get out my trenchcoat and start hitting the bookstores again.

Posted by: Jardinero1 | February 7, 2007 12:00 PM

So the library I work in is considering different search packages, including the Google systems. Yesterday I sat there listening to the different options, its different to hear the academic applications of Google from the other side of the table.

Posted by: Nani | February 8, 2007 07:46 AM

You know, all kidding aside, Google is above all a business; a business that makes money selling advertising. It's in the same Family as Magazines, Newspapers and Television. It's in the genus, Search Engines and the species, Google. The customization feature is there not to help you but to help the advertisers. You see the more they can peg you and marginalize you the more valuable you become to Google clients, the advertisers.

If you are a Jesus freak and Google: "intelligent design" they don't want you to go to science sites. They want you to go to christian sites, all the better to shovel bible ads at you. If you are a scientist and you google "intelligent design" they want you to go to science sites so they can shovel science advertising your way. Google doesn't want you to improve yourself, they want you to buy more stuff from their advertisers. It's seems pretty obvious to me.

What's not obvious to me is the fetish with Google that the media ecologists have. When Yahoo or the Yellow Pages or Viacom behave like the animals they are it hardly elicits a yawn. But when Google does something, which, obviously, is only going to enhance its bottom line, everyone is like, "oh, can you believe what Google is doing?". I liken it to watching a shark and believing it's a lamb and then acting all surprised when the lamb, I mean shark, eats another animal. What gives? Why not get all hot and bothered over Yahoo or Ask.com or e Bay.

Posted by: Jardinero1 | February 8, 2007 01:36 PM

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