ISEdb.COM

You go to Google and enter your search term. Big Brother, the totalitarian character from George Orwell’s novel 1984,
watches with detached interest. You see, to Big Brother, you are only a
number – but he’d like to know as much about you as he can. Knowing you
allows Big Brother to do many things – both good and evil.

Alright, enough of the “Big Brother” comparison – it’s been done many
times before (and done many times better). However, there is an
important central point to be made about personalized search. Google is
now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users,
and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to “Do
No Evil,” as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the
trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines
with this type of data at all.

The basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go
to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you
return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over
time. With this information, Google can understand more about your
interests and serve up more relevant search results.

For instance, let’s say that you have shown an interest in the topic of
sport fishing in your search queries, while your neighbor has shown an
interest in musical instruments in his search queries. Over time, as
these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized
search results for the term “bass” will largely be comprised of results
that cover the fish while your neighbor’s results for “bass” will be
comprised of results that primarily cover the musical instrument.

At present, you need to have signed up for a Google service for your
results to be personalized. Such services include Gmail, AdWords,
Google Toolbar, and many others. By default, as long as you are signed
in to one of these programs, your personal search data will be
collected. The term “at present” is used because Google certainly could
implement personalized search on any user of the engine, regardless of
whether he or she has a Google account. Google already places a cookie,
or unique identifier, on the machine of anyone who types in a search
query on Google – it would not be hard for them to use that
information, rather than the Google account, to collect individual user
data and personalize results. It is quite possible that Google is
testing the waters of personalized search with people who have opted in
to one of its services and will expand the system to all users if there
is limited uproar or government intervention.

For search engine optimization firms, the major shift brought about by
personalized search will be in how they report on Google ranking data
to clients. When collecting this data, they will have to run from a
“clean” machine – that is, one that has no Google programs or cookies
on it. The baseline results that are reported to the client will
essentially be a snapshot of what a search engine user would see if
they had no Google software installed. The good news is that Google
account holders who have shown an interest in certain products and
services will likely have results more favorable to the client than the
baseline results indicate since personalized search assures that their
search histories will be reviewed and the results likely skewed toward
the client’s industry. The bad news is that the search engine
optimization firm will be hard-pressed to demonstrate this – not to
mention that the results that the client using a Google program has on
its own personal machines will almost certainly not match up with the
results that the firm is reporting (although the client machines should
have better results, for the same reasons cited above).

Some people find the practice of storing information for personalized
search purposes disturbing; others find the end result to be useful
(still others find themselves experiencing an odd combination of both
reactions). In defense of the engines, it is not as if they are
building a dossier on individuals – again, you are only a number to
them. However, the potential for misuse of the data is fairly high.

There are many advertising firms out there already that go through the
cookies on your machine to figure out which ads will have the best
effect on you. If you’ve ever been on a website and seen a banner ad
that is directly related to something you have been doing research on
lately, it is most likely not a coincidence. The ad platform simply
browsed through the cookies on your machine to find out what topic held
your interest, and dropped in a related ad once it determined what that
topic was. Search engines have been buying firms with this technology
lately; notable recent purchases include that of DoubleClick by Google
and aQuantive by Microsoft. There seems to be little doubt that your
search history will be combined with existing ad-serving technology to
deliver even more relevant ads. Whether this constitutes misuse seems
to be debatable – some people seem to have no problem with it, while it
makes many others fairly uneasy.

Privacy issues that arise from personalized search are also a big
question. The EU recently announced that it is probing into how long
Google stores user information (this probe was subsequently extended to
include all search engines). AOL recently committed a serious blunder
when it released search data from 500,000 of its users, and it was
discovered that it was fairly easy to identify many people by the
search terms that they use (anybody ever “ego surf” – that is, type
your own name into a search engine to see what comes up? If so, you
wouldn’t be hard to spot). In addition, since the IP address of the
computer creating the query is also reportedly tracked, a court order
forcing the engine and the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to provide
specific search data on individuals is a distinct possibility – the
technology required to deliver upon such a demand is already in use.

Unless the government intervenes, the question will probably be decided
by personal preference. As it becomes more common knowledge that Google
(and other engines) store this type of data to enable personalized
search, many users will take measures to block its use.

Are the search engines that collect this data “Doing No Evil?” The
answer, I believe, will depend on each individual’s definition of evil.
In the meantime, don’t be surprised when you type in a search query,
and the engine seems to be reading your mind. It isn’t, really – it’s
merely parsing through your memories.