Upcoming SlideShare
The Dangers of Personalised Search
- 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?
- October 2012 research from DuckDuckGo: http://vimeo.com/51181384
- 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...
- Thank you. @badams barry@thetomorrowlab.com http://www.barryadams.co.uk
Be the first to comment