A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
Monday, September 26, 2011
BAD NEWS
Now I learn that Google, long a supporter of the Democratic Party, has started pouring money into Republican coffers and right wing think tanks. I think I am going to kill myself.
I see the story after having used Google to find it, but where did you see it? Also, Google is not the only search engine or email service. So, it could be time to start shifting our internet habits; these things have a way of proliferating.
I stopped using Google after learning that they attempt to tailor search results to what they believe to be the interests of each individual searcher. As an experiment, try searching for the same thing on two different computers. You will probably wind up with different results in different hierarchies. This practice is fully explored by Eli Pariser in his book, "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You". Other search engines engage in similar practices. The search engine I use which tends to avoid this type of practice is Dogpile.
Bad news, indeed. I thought Google's corporate policy was "Don't Be Evil."
ReplyDeleteI thought having a corporate policy was inherently evil...
ReplyDeleteI see the story after having used Google to find it, but where did you see it? Also, Google is not the only search engine or email service. So, it could be time to start shifting our internet habits; these things have a way of proliferating.
ReplyDeleteThere are many search engines it seems. Check this out, pick one and contribute to a decline in Google's influence.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines
I stopped using Google after learning that they attempt to tailor search results to what they believe to be the interests of each individual searcher. As an experiment, try searching for the same thing on two different computers. You will probably wind up with different results in different hierarchies. This practice is fully explored by Eli Pariser in his book, "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You". Other search engines engage in similar practices. The search engine I use which tends to avoid this type of practice is Dogpile.
ReplyDelete