Does it matter if Google's search results are fixed?
The fools, usually, are us.
We, the people, switch off our critical faculties and happily barter our trust for the joy of convenience.
So will we ever make the effort to even raise an eyebrow when we read "Google this week admitted that its staff pick and choose what appears in its search results"?
These words, from The Register's Andrew Orlovski, ought surely to give one or two people pause for a small grunt of concern.
As Orlovski points out, Google News expressly declares that the "selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program." Except that, it appears, maybe they weren't.
He quotes Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who suggested that Google will "make obvious changes - An example is if "thousands of people" were to knock a search result off a search page, they'd be likely to make a change..."
"Now what, you may be thinking, is an 'obvious change'?" writes Orlovski. "Is it one that is frivolous? (Thereby introducing a Google Frivolitimeter? [Beta]). Or is it one that goes against the grain of the consensus? If so, then who decides what the consensus must be?"
Orlovski concludes by questioning Google's "unique democracy" in the way search results are presented. He cites Google's current explanation of Page Rank:
"PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the Web to determine a page's importance."
The important words here, surely, aren't "value" or "useful" or "collective" or "intelligence." They are "pragmatic" and "approach."
Many who reside in Inner Accolyteville cling fondly to the belief that the Web, with Google as its artificial heart, symbolizes a new democracy, a new honesty, a new pulsating, life-affirming form of justice.
But Google's is surely a "pragmatic approach." It's an advertising agency. It makes its money out of advertising. Mundane classified advertising at that. There is nothing idealistic about it.
Indeed, the idealism of Web 2.0 as a whole is, these days, rushing down the Turbulent River to be replaced by an endearing rush toward pragmatic approaches.
Google wants its search results to become more pragmatic, not for any political, social or even intellectual reason. The company simply thinks it's better for business. Advertising business.
Most of us won't notice or care and will continue to depend on Google because it's so dominant, so fast, so very much our rolling dictionary of the world.
This leave Google to approach its business in as pragmatic a way as it chooses. It will makes changes, and we will continue to believe in them.
The folks at Google are no fools. As for us, well, the slapping of our foreheads always comes a little too late.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Just when we thought that we had pure place to find unbiased, unfiltered information, it is taken away in the name of big money interests. I ask everyone to wake up to the importance of this. Currently, big business is lobbying government to censor the Internet and give the power to the major media outlets. FOX, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC are filtering enough of our information. They don't have our best interest at heart.
Any time you have the opportunity to vote against any type of Internet control, do it. A censored Internet controlled by giant media conglomerates will be a major loss for the advancement of mankind.
/sarcasm
The only reason Google is top of the heap is that people trust it to give them a complete and unfiltered response to their query. If we wanted a censored search, we would all still be with AOL.
And Google, were you paying attention when that AOL boat sunk? It went down pretty fast...
1) since when did Google News == All of Google?
2) if Google admitted as much, where is this admission? Andrew @ El Reg doesn't link to it. At all.
3) Andrew hates Google worse than AppleSuxLeo hates Steve Jobs. Not that this makes him wrong (even if he is short on evidence to support his recent claim), but it should be read in that light. That said, if he has evidence, I'd love to see it.
- by 3rdalbum December 15, 2008 11:08 PM PST
- In recent years, people have tried to manipulate Google's search results for fun, profit or malicious intent. One of the "for fun" examples has been the classic one of searching for "French military victories". A less fun example would be a superannuation company creating lots of insignificant websites linking to the main site with the words "High return superannuation", to boost the company's search result performance.
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(10 Comments)What if you really do want to search for French military victories? I expect Google to give me the most relevant search results, and as such I expect Google staff to reverse the effects of search-engine manipulation.