

How long until a search engine gets sued for discrimination? - RuggeroAltair

I'm sure some crazy case has happened already before, but what I mean is something a little more serious.<p>When there is a position so dominant such as Google's or Bing/Yahoo's, I think it's natural to think that a case of discrimination, if well motivated, could be taken seriously.<p>If there was something that was sort of unifying before was the search result. That depended on what I searched and some algorithm, but it didn't depend on who I was.<p>Now things are slightly shifting towards a personal search. Google already said that eventually the local search won't be possible to deactivate. In addition to that the search is becoming more and more related to social network results (what your friends searched or commented on) and if Facebook will play a role in it I'm sure this will only become more relevant to search results.<p>Now, if I live in a specific area and I have specific friends, wouldn't this slow down my search for something different or prevent me from finding something different from what you would expect me to being looking for being a resident of an area and having certain friends?<p>This might seem too abstract but there is actually a million possibilities. It all goes back to the fact that now the search engine won't treat me anymore as anyone else, but it'll guess what I like or want based on my neighborhood and my circle of friends (read: if I lived in a wealthy/safe town my search would be different than if I lived in a poor/higher-crime area).<p>I think the solution could just be to have a couple of "dimmers" on how 'local' or how 'social' I want my search results to be.<p>After all, I don't need any locality or sociality if I'm searching for topics involving food in general, while I might like to have more local/social results if I want to know about what good food I could eat near where I am.<p>This could start from local/social but could be extended to more parameters of the search algorithms. For example, it would be so helpful to get rid of all the forums sometimes or limit my research to the forum in other occasions...<p>Isn't it better under all points of view (and it wouldn't even be hard for the users) to allow them to easily choose which parameters are more important to them in a search as opposed to guessing a series of parameters that work for everybody?
======
got2surf
Interesting thought, we can think about this as an extension of group
polarization theory in psychology
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization>). In group polarization,
belonging to a group with specific views will actually expand any individual
member's views in that direction; being in a group of pro-YC people will make
me think even more fondly of YC.

So we end up more influenced by the people (and really, searches) that we're
surrounded by. When Facebook introduced their new chat window, with the "top
friends" (who you talk to and interact with most) at the top, I actually
thought that was group polarization in the way - you'll talk more to the
people you talk to, and less to the people we don't. I think Google is a more
interesting example because we're dealing with knowledge, and not just
interactions.

Don't think it'll wind up to be discriminatory, because we can't pinpoint and
compare one search to another. From a business side, group polarization is the
basis behind all ads - let's show you things we think you'll like, and if you
do like them, then you'll click, and start liking them even more. So Google
benefits from group polarization, and it's essentially another form of
targeted knowledge/advertising for the end user.

~~~
RuggeroAltair
Yes, this is exactly what I mean. But this is going even further, when the
search depends on the physical location, not only on my friends, it could
really impact how a young person can find things online, and how their
interests could be slightly pushed towards their local/social area.

The point being, I don't even think it's better targeting, because it doesn't
really focus on the user but on where the user is, while one of the good
things about the Internet was that whatever I liked, I could have had the same
chances of finding what I wanted no matter where I was. Now the where changes
things. For some topics it's for the good, for others I believe it's not.

