91–100 of 171 posts
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-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Incognito is supposed to give you a completely clean session that doesn't carry over the cache, cookies, etc. from your normal browsing context. In this study, my understanding is that result personalization carried over from a normal browsing session into the clean, Incognito session, likely due to IP correlation or possibly through User-Agent strings. So while Incognito has its own context that is wiped once the se…
Hmmm I wonder if using a second browser, maybe based on a different renderer, in incognito with a different user-agent set up would be enough or if it would still get enough info. At that point it would still have your outgoing ip address at least is there anything else they could still match to a signed in session? I guess you could also route all traffic in the unsigned in session through a VPN too.
Try this: https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Specifically, check out the "fingerprinting" details.
Here’s Google’s search liaison clarifying things 2 hours ago on Twitter. Localization shouldn’t be confused with personalization. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in search https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520...
I suppose that Google wants to optimize for people typing "football" in their search engine, at the expense of those trying to type "football results $countryname", or something more precise. But this seems ultra-annoying for anything more substantial than random trivia searches.
As for language, well, years ago I set my default search engine in Chrome to explicit "https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s", because language optimization made 80+% of my searches return wrong answers. I admit I might be in a minority here, insofar as English-speaking people with work to do are a minority.
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-...
I don't think this DuckDuckGo being sloppy, just The Verge. The real headline here is that the effect extends to Incognito mode. In the 2009 post, Google said: > ...customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser... You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear... Clicking the link will let you... turn off t…
There should be zero expectation of privacy when using a Google service. I've switched to searx.me, which wraps Google and (optionally) a bunch of other search engines.
Here’s Google’s search liaison clarifying things 2 hours ago on Twitter. Localization shouldn’t be confused with personalization. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in search https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520...
In particular, DuckDuckGo attempted to check for the effects of fresh browser windows, changes from localization, and A/B testing or incomplete rollouts.
- The study results found that the 'distance' between two people's incognito results was 2.8 times larger than the distance between one person's normal and incognito results. If this is correct, the tweet's claim that you can use Incognito to see the impact of personalization for yourself is seriously misleading.
- The study attempted to control for localization by tokenizing all local results, so that two result sets which each had a local story in the same spot would be treated as identical.
- The study attempted to control for rollout and testing effects by running all searches at the same time and assuming that those forces would lead to most users seeing similar results, with a few differing. Instead, they found substantial variance across all users.
I can certainly come up with explanations for how each of these changes could be non-personalized. Incognito variance could be a consequence of region and device effects which are user-independent. Tests might be scaled up near 50/50, and rollouts may not hit all datacenters at once, invalidating the "changes for a few users" assumption. And most significantly, DuckDuckGo's localization control looks completely inadequate to me. It would completely fail the given "football" example, and might fail for the given search terms: 'vaccine' produced highly-localized results they adjusted for, but 'gun control' could produce pseudo-local results like a preference for national stories with the user's state as a keyword, and that wouldn't have been identified.
A better version of this study would presumably try to alter its variables separately, for instance by using multiple devices in one location and one device in multiple locations via VPN. As is, the controls seem seriously lacking.
But I'm just making up reasons, and frankly they don't seem likely to explain the sheer size of the differences. When I run those searches, I don't get "football" and "Paris" level customization, I get a bunch of national-scope results that have no obvious reason to vary between incognito users. I wish the tweets here had touched on any of that. As is, they explain general search mechanics while frustratingly bypassing the most significant claims.
Here’s Google’s search liaison clarifying things 2 hours ago on Twitter. Localization shouldn’t be confused with personalization. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in search https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520...
That clarification is appreciated, but it seems to contradict or ignore several of the results listed? In particular, DuckDuckGo attempted to check for the effects of fresh browser windows, changes from localization, and A/B testing or incomplete rollouts. - The study results found that the 'distance' between two people's incognito results was 2.8 times larger than the distance between one person's normal and incogni…
Or it is 20 bits of entropy when you go to a website only a thousand other people in the world visit.
Here’s Google’s search liaison clarifying things 2 hours ago on Twitter. Localization shouldn’t be confused with personalization. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in search https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520...
That clarification is appreciated, but it seems to contradict or ignore several of the results listed? In particular, DuckDuckGo attempted to check for the effects of fresh browser windows, changes from localization, and A/B testing or incomplete rollouts. - The study results found that the 'distance' between two people's incognito results was 2.8 times larger than the distance between one person's normal and incogni…
That's literally what is being demonstrated here.
Here’s Google’s search liaison clarifying things 2 hours ago on Twitter. Localization shouldn’t be confused with personalization. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in search https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520...
I can buy the "eventual consistency" argument, and maaaybe even the desktop/mobile argument, but location and language are part of what people mean by "personalization" (even if not technically correct), and frankly, they're the most annoying part. I suppose that Google wants to optimize for people typing "football" in their search engine, at the expense of those trying to type "football results $countryname", or som…
This is a constant frustration - I fight with this feature every time I search for info about some place I'm not, for instance to plan travel. Searching with a country/state/zip alongside the query helps, but it's a kludge that's much worse than actual location-specificity, especially if one is going to an ambiguous place like Portland or Washington. I'd very much prefer it if Google offered the same sort of mechanics as weather sites: defaulting to my location, then offering a little box saying "search as if I'm located in:". Instead, the only option is "use precise location", which is no more helpful than basing location on my IP and history.
In this sense, it's the same standard-uses-only paternalism that plagues Android. Maps on desktop has a great feature of "leave at" or "arrive by", which was removed from mobile in favor of a 'helpful' integration that can notify you about when to leave. It's terrible for anyone who wants to check a route for odd travel hours, or even do something as simple as decide when to set an alarm based on likely morning traffic. And so, of course, people have been requesting the more flexible option for years while consistently being told that the existing version is "more helpful".
Increasingly, this stuff doesn't just bother me on a privacy or information-neutrality level. It's actively damaging, to the point where DuckDuckGo is actually more usable for certain types of search.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this DuckDuckGo being sloppy, just The Verge. The real headline here is that the effect extends to Incognito mode. In the 2009 post, Google said: > ...customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser... You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear... Clicking the link will let you... turn off t…
Honestly, Google is almost certainly using canvas fingerprinting to track you across accounts, webpages, and more regardless of incognito. There should be zero expectation of privacy when using a Google service. I've switched to searx.me, which wraps Google and (optionally) a bunch of other search engines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can buy the "eventual consistency" argument, and maaaybe even the desktop/mobile argument, but location and language are part of what people mean by "personalization" (even if not technically correct), and frankly, they're the most annoying part. I suppose that Google wants to optimize for people typing "football" in their search engine, at the expense of those trying to type "football results $countryname", or som…
> location and language are... the most annoying part This is a constant frustration - I fight with this feature every time I search for info about some place I'm not, for instance to plan travel. Searching with a country/state/zip alongside the query helps, but it's a kludge that's much worse than actual location-specificity, especially if one is going to an ambiguous place like Portland or Washington. I'd very much…
Yup. It's a great example of what I complain about when I say that software is being dumbed down and loses its usefulness. As another recent thread[0] pointed out, the handling of street labels is ridiculously broken. It makes Google Maps useless as a map - i.e. as a tool I could use to look around the place and find my bearings, or plan a route in advance, or scout the traffic across many roads without putting in a destination.
I too am bothered by this more than by privacy issues, to be honest. The latter are maybe more important, but the former are causing me frustration daily.
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