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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

#71

Post by ggggtez »

I think I agree with the complaints about this study. Unique doesn't mean personalized. IP geo-location, ISP... Don't forget browser and OS versions... there are lots of things you can sample over without actually representing any info leak from your logged in session.

Someone searching "at the same time" could technically be different times (remember time zones!) for the purposes of the algorithm (is the search during "work hours" or not, etc).

Users checking results on mobile phones compared to desktops... Without more details of how they controlled for these factors, the conclusion doesn't really follow.

Edit: I think to really measure the conclusion, they'd need 87 people in the SAME geo location, perhaps on fresh out of the box devices. That would be the best way to create the "placebo" group for their test, which they don't seem to have done.

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

#72

Post by wmeredith »

maxehmookau wrote: post #3

Why is a study required to know this? Google, surely, should make this known in their privacy policy?

They literally announced it on their blog in 2009.

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

I'm a DDG fan, but they doth protest too much sometimes.

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

#73

Post by ur-whale »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #66
ur-whale wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have switched to DuckDuckGo a long time ago, there basically is no proof they're actually not doing exactly what Google does.

Do you mean personalizing search results? IF so, that's incredibly easy to check: run the same searches on computers in separate physical locations and compare results.

I meant tracking you and selling the outcome to the the highest bidder.

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

#75

Post by reaperducer »

jonas21 wrote: post #64
adrianmonk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a separate issue, but a real one. Practically speaking, many non-technical users _do_ want to formulate their query in an imprecise, sloppy manner and have the search engine figure it out. Programmers are capable of and accustomed to putting a lot of care and precision into exactly how they communicate (especially when communicating with a computer), but regular people don't usually do that. They may not even…

If you put the word "margins" in quotes in your query, all of your results will contain that word. Similarly, you can force words not to appear by prefixing them with a "-". > The only solution I can see is for a search engine to support both styles of communication. Isn't this exactly what you're asking for? Non-technical users can be imprecise and let Google figure it out, while technical or power users can get mor…

If you put the word "margins" in quotes in your query, all of your results will contain that word.

This seemed to be true at one time, but I noticed last night that it doesn't always work.

These days it seems to put include results without the word, then provide a tiny link below each deficient result with a link to "must include" the missing word in a new search.

That used to be the previous behavior, but now it's inconsistent.

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

#76

Post by reaperducer »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #44
nottorp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> I'm talking about stuff like Google dropping a word from my query because it feels there aren't enough results that include it. It's particularly infuriating when it drops the location word from a search query for info on law and regulation. I don't care if broad form automotive insurance is available in some non-specific state, I care about if it's available in the state that I put in the query. Edit: Why is this…

Edit: Why is this downvoted?

It's lunch hour at Google, and people there are hitting their phones and HN.

You can see a lot of interesting trends on HN by day and time of day. Watch what happens to any story critical of insert nation here after 6am in that nation.

Or notice how on Fridays (NA time), HN is pretty much a ghost town.

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

#77

Post by diffeomorphism »

ur-whale wrote: post #73
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean personalizing search results? IF so, that's incredibly easy to check: run the same searches on computers in separate physical locations and compare results.

I meant tracking you and selling the outcome to the the highest bidder.

Tracking is not invisible, see ghostery of disconnect or... .

So your "there basically is no proof" is both wrong and a red herring.

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

#78

Post by tmaly »

rdtsc wrote: post #51

I remember Paul Graham gave a keynote at one of the Pycons some years ago. It was about interesting ideas that you might want to work on in the future. One idea was to build a search engine that returns unpersonalized results. He talked about how Google will be moving into a "it's true, if it's true for you" kind of world. His idea was that it will open new opportunities. I think DuckDuckGo is one example, and they'v…

It use to be that DuckDuckGo would let you contribute to the search engine years back providing interfaces to various 3rd party data. I am not sure if that is still the case?

Has anyone written anything for DuckDuckGo?

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

#79

Post by JBReefer »

tmaly wrote: post #78
rdtsc wrote: post #51

I remember Paul Graham gave a keynote at one of the Pycons some years ago. It was about interesting ideas that you might want to work on in the future. One idea was to build a search engine that returns unpersonalized results. He talked about how Google will be moving into a "it's true, if it's true for you" kind of world. His idea was that it will open new opportunities. I think DuckDuckGo is one example, and they'v…

It use to be that DuckDuckGo would let you contribute to the search engine years back providing interfaces to various 3rd party data. I am not sure if that is still the case? Has anyone written anything for DuckDuckGo?

That's the Bang system

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

#80

Post by Wowfunhappy »

godelski wrote: post #59
nottorp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I've observed that too. Then force the words to be there with quotes, finding that I still get plenty of resume. Which seems weird to me, because most people don't travel to the second page. I'd rather have an exact result than more pages. But then again, it doesn't seem like a simple problem and one that has companies in either way.

I suspect this is one of those features that helps the less technically inclined majority, while hearting those who know what they're doing. I can see the average Googler including words that aren't actually relevant to their query.

As long as I can force it with quotes, I'm happy. Google has even started suggesting next to the results "include only results with the word XXX", to remind me the quotes might be needed.

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