Is A Personalized Web The Internet We Thought It Was?
The internet has introduced us all to a whole world of information. Before the internet existed we were limited to the information around us. It could be the books we owned or the TV we watched but the result was that we had limited access to the information that existed around the world.
We had to go out of our way to see other points of view and to find out about things that were beyond our local information sources. If we bought a newspaper we saw the editors view of the world. If we wanted to see a different view then we had to buy another newspaper with a very different point of view.
The internet changed all of that. We could do a search on the net and find various opinions, various interpretations and a variety of different approaches as to how that information might be interpreted. This may no longer be the case.
No Longer Do You See A Broad Variety Of Opinion
All the search engines and many of the larger sites on the web now try to tailor the information we recieve to match what they perceive as our requirements. No longer do you see a broad variety of opinion and interpretation. When you do a search on Google or Bing they try to second guess what you want to see. You don’t see a broad spectrum of opinion, you see what they think you are most likely to click on.
This may make searching for specific things easier but it restricts your options in other ways. You see fewer opposing views that might challenge your opinions and make you question the world as you see it. You may be denied access to things that you would like to see.
This Page Could Disappear From The Search Engine Results
It is happening now in some ways. If Google doesn’t like a certain site because it doesn’t meet their Webmaster Guidelines they will remove it from their search results. It is their search engine and they are entitled to do what they like with it but they do have the power to restrict a users ability to find the information that is out there on the internet.
With power comes responsibility and Google is now such a huge deciding factor in what sites become popular or not we need to be able to have full trust in them to ensure we see the widest spectrum of thoughts and opinion about any subject we choose to search for. Apparently around 85% of all searches are carried out through their search engine and that means that anything they decide has an impact on almost all of us.
The result is that for many of us, Google decides what you can or cannot see. If Google were to decide they don’t like this page you are reading right now, for whatever reason, the chances pretty good that nobody will ever find it unless they came here directly through a link somewhere on the web. That is the power of search engines. They are the gatekeepers to the modern information age.
Giving A Searcher What They Want To See
It may all be done with the best of intentions. Google always has made a big thing of trying to give a searcher what they want to see but sometimes we need to see the things we would not choose to see. We need to see alternatives to our current opinions and our view of the world. The problem with personalized searches is that it is taking us back to the days when you only saw a limited and restricted view of the world. Those days when your understanding of what was going on in the world was limited to the edited opinions and choices of those who controlled the information sources you had available to you. The big difference is that now the people who control the flow of information are bigger and more powerful than anyone could have imagined only 20 years ago.
We now face the scary prospect that the wonderful freedom the internet brought us is slowly but surely being restricted and controlled. Personalization of the internet may seem to make life simpler but in doing so it erodes the openness and the freedom of discovering new ideas, different opinions and potentially could be used in a draconian way that would be bad for democracy.
It would not be a huge leap to imagine a large corporation paying the search engines to restrict the display of a competitors website or products. A company owned by shareholders has a legal duty to do what is best for its shareholders, not the public at large.
So far the search engines see their own best interests as being totally independent but nobody knows if that will always be the case. Things can change fast on the internet. If you can’t pay the search engines to do your bidding then maybe you could buy them out and then you could do whatever you liked. Governments could lean on search engines, perhaps offering tax breaks and incentives, to encourage them to deny us those web pages that disagree with the official government line and thus restrict dissenting opinion. The possibilities are endless and worrying.
The Internet Could Become Shackled By Commercial Or Political Interests
I don’t see this as something happening right now and I like to think it would never go that far but it is a scenario that is slowly developing. There is a very real risk that at some point in the future, our freedom of the internet becomes shackled by commercial or political interests. This amount of control could never have been imagined by those who wanted to impose their opinions and preferences on us in the past. Can you imagine the power this would give to a modern day Hitler or Stalin?
Sometimes I Need To Be Proved Wrong
It is human nature to want to see the world in a way that makes us feel good. A world where we feel significant and one where our opinion is proved to be right. The truth of the matter is that none of us is always right and it is vital for democracy and freedom that our views and opinions are challenged.
We all want searches that produce useful and relevant results but we also need to see those irrelevant results that do not entirely match our personal view of the world. We need search results that help us see beyond our own narrow horizons. Personal search results that match our previous behavior online may deny us that wider view. Is personalization of the web good for us? To be honest, I think probably not.
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