I Love The Web

Technological Ignorance? Maybe not.

Sep 26, 2010 Uncategorized

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This morning I learned of a judgment against Google for an apparent infringement as a result of a search function Google has recently enabled. The search function is called suggested search. The word ‘rapist’ and ‘satanist’ appeared next to his name; the plaintiff complained.

Ridiculous I thought. After-all, these words appearing next to his name are merely words frequently associated with phrases that include his name. These search phrases as typed frequently by other people are surely just aggregated by Google as the search engine makes the calculated guess that you are probably searching for the same thing, right?

Surely Google is not responsible for what lies out there, Google’s job is merely to index what is out there and throw back the result on request and walk away, I thought.

Except that it is not that simple. Here’s why.

It is dangerous. Computer users today are not computer boffins. Users don’t care how Google associate information and how it uses this function or the other to guess the next word in the phrase the user is looking for.

It is Google’s responsibility. I think we have a lot to thank Google for including the indexing and curation of the informatio on the internet. It has never been easier to find information on the web. But this is part of the problem, the ease with which Google has made
the web. They are probably responsible for the way we use the web, the culture as it were.

Almost without thinking Google finds information for us. How many times do make spelling erros in your search phrase and Google manages to pull out your information anyway? The Internet is Google for many and with so much power and trust comes responsibility.

I worry though, where is the balance between this responsibility and self censorship. Where do you  draw the line ? I don’t really know. All I know is our governmnet is taking a stab at it by legislation. Will it work ? I doubt it. What say you ?

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