Google: Fear the filter bubble

Collating information in a singular accessible place is Google’s essential philosophy but the search engine’s unbridled rise to the top of the greasy internet pole is also governed by its other lesser known principle — “Don’t be evil”.

Outlined in its code of conduct, this ethos is about “following the law, acting honourably and treating each other with respect” as well as providing “unbiased access to information”. But is the firm living up to this tenet? Or has it stepped on hundreds of layman toes in its quest to sideline any other competitor looking to make an impact on the world of search?

Although a gmail account is streamlined, effective and boasts a host of attractive features, it also has its problems. Fail to log out of your account and any Google searches you make thereon will be tailored and personalised to your previous searches. The variety, order and type of results that appear will be different from person to person and place to place. The results are circumscribed and bound by your opinions alone, creating a bubble of information that relates to your history.

Eli Pariser, President of the American political organisation MoveOn.org, brought this issue to light in his book The Filter Bubble: What the internet is hiding from you. He argued that “there is no standard Google anymore” and warned that “the race to know as much as possible about [internet users] has become the central battle of the era for internet giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.”

The key issue for Pariser was that these filtered searches, or ‘filter bubbles’, are not leading to ‘unbiased information’ — they are resulting in an information universe that is tainted by each individual user’s personality. People who like shoe shopping will find that their searches for ‘red heels’ only include brands that they already like instead of highlighting a mix of new suppliers and tradesmen. Web surfers who spend time reading about history may be faced with a chronology of Pakistani politics when they search for Imran Khan just because they have examined it days before. In a nutshell, the past will determine the future.

Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/297554/google-fear-the-filter-bubble/