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Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

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Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#31

Post by ucaetano »

ravenstine wrote: post #15
endymi0n wrote: post #6

I'm the last one to say you shouldn't scrutinize what Google does, but this is complete non-news. In the beginning, I was suspecting actively used logged-out cookies like Facebook infamously uses for example (try it, they're showing your face and keep tracking you all over the web). Reading on about differing search results in private mode, I was then expecting something like Google actually using IP + Fingerprint ma…

Maybe it's complete non-news to you . Facts aren't simply pointed out once and ubiquitously committed to the public consciousness. There's nothing wrong with a healthy reminder.

Well, this has been public for the past 9 years...

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-...

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#32

Post by hinkley »

nottorp wrote: post #30

The problem is, these "personalized results" have become mostly useless. For more technical (or simply specific) queries, Google seems to vomit useless only vaguely related links instead of, you know, pages that cover what i searched for. This does more to encourage me switching to some other search engine than any privacy concern.

For a lot of topics I just find myself with a lot of fake answer sites these days. About once a week I’ll get almost an entire page of results that way.

Seems like dark SEO is winning.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#33

Post by ucaetano »

netcan wrote: post #29

To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. In the long term, companies will gather and use what data they have access to. Companies will tailor their UI, product, etc. in order to keep that data flowing. A ruleset based on permission and consent is not practical, unless the goal is "better paperwork." The solution (imho)…

This isn't necessarily de-anonymizing, it is just taking your recent history into account. From 2009:

For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I'm looking for news about Cornell University's sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others.

Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser. It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users).

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#34

Post by ssalka »

Strange as it is, I was just researching whether it was possible to search Google truly anonymously - stumbled upon a Firefox add-on called Searchonymous [0]. Planning on trying it out today.

If all else fails, can always use another search engine ;)

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchonymous...

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#35

Post by xiphias2 »

jacamat wrote: post #28

Localization != personalization.

I agree, they are completely orthogonal features. The only personalization that's happening is inside the new session that the person creates when using incognito mode, which is understandable.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#36

Post by craftyguy »

netcan wrote: post #29

To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless. In the long term, companies will gather and use what data they have access to. Companies will tailor their UI, product, etc. in order to keep that data flowing. A ruleset based on permission and consent is not practical, unless the goal is "better paperwork." The solution (imho)…

> To me, constantly complaining about sites/companies doing this stuff or wanting laws to make them stop... It just feels silly and pointless.

A significant percentage of HN content is posts about "facefriend does this with your data" or "google does that with your data." I suspect this might be why it feels especially silly and pointless, because currently the noise to signal ratio is quite high if you spend any time on HN. For the vast majority of the rest of the population, it's all noise and no signal. So here we are with one group that works "in the industry" that is largely desensitized to it, and another group that doesn't care, or know they should care.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#37

Post by basil-rash »

hinkley wrote: post #32
nottorp wrote: post #30

The problem is, these "personalized results" have become mostly useless. For more technical (or simply specific) queries, Google seems to vomit useless only vaguely related links instead of, you know, pages that cover what i searched for. This does more to encourage me switching to some other search engine than any privacy concern.

For a lot of topics I just find myself with a lot of fake answer sites these days. About once a week I’ll get almost an entire page of results that way. Seems like dark SEO is winning.

I had actually forgotten about those until just now. I use Bing for most of my searching (I fall back to Google in the semi-rare cases where Bing doesn't work), and fake answer sites don't seem to be as prevalent on Bing. Maybe those sites tailor their SEO to Google's algorithms?

Or maybe I've just grown numb to their presence.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#38

Post by shaki-dora »

wgerard wrote: post #18
gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i know there's a bunch of ways to track people without cookies (supercookies, browser fingerprinting, etc.), but is there any evidence that they're being deployed by google or any of the big western advertising companies?

I can say for certain that I worked for a company that wasn't Google and employed plenty of ways to track people that didn't involve cookies. We used it mostly to try and track malicious users (banned users, etc.) but it's still tracking nonetheless. It was reasonably effective. I'm sure a company of Google's size and sophistication has many more advanced methods than we did.

Nobody is questioning their ability. It’s their willingness that’s relevant, and considering they are liable for a far more damaging PR nightmare than almost any other company, it’s not out of the question that they might not actually use every trick in their arsenal.

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#39

Post by nottorp »

basil-rash wrote: post #37
hinkley wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of topics I just find myself with a lot of fake answer sites these days. About once a week I’ll get almost an entire page of results that way. Seems like dark SEO is winning.

I had actually forgotten about those until just now. I use Bing for most of my searching (I fall back to Google in the semi-rare cases where Bing doesn't work), and fake answer sites don't seem to be as prevalent on Bing. Maybe those sites tailor their SEO to Google's algorithms? Or maybe I've just grown numb to their presence.

Fake answers are another problem, I'm talking about stuff like Google dropping a word from my query because it feels there aren't enough results that include it.

Edit because I can't reply any more: As dsfyu404ed says below, it tends to drop the central term of the query, making the results 100% useless. Not that they're particularly useful even if it doesn't do that...

Re: Google personalizes search results even when you’re logged out, new study finds

#40

Post by harshvladha »

icebraining wrote: post #12

Welcome to 2009, I guess "Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide (...)" https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-...

There's a difference between Signed out, and Incognito (no cookies)!

+ People generally tend to miss the point that Incognito doesn't prevent sharing the IP of the user.

+ I think DuckDuckGo's study missed out using VPN in their analysis. i.e., SignedIn vs Incognito vs (Incognito+VPN)

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