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People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

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Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#11

Post by kijin »

Fallacy alert: Just because people love Google search doesn't mean they love it because it is highly personalized. In the absence of better data, one could just as easily substitute "despite" for "because" in that sentence. The author's argument is analogous to saying that China's stance on civil rights is perfectly OK because everyone buys electronics made in China.

I'm rarely logged into Google, and I send the DNT header. This results in very little personalization of my search results, if at all. And I still prefer Google's search results to anything served up by Bing or DDG.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#12

Post by JoshTriplett »

zbuc wrote: post #8

> First of all, that last sentence is in error. Google has been personalizing search since the summer of 2005. But isn't this article only referencing "personalizing search" in relation to Google Search+ Your World? What sorts of personalization existed in Google Search results before GSPYW?

Google has done several forms of personalization before "search plus your world":

- Google detects your location (using GeoIP and similar) and personalizes results that way, both by redirecting you to google.$countrycode and by providing location-specific search (such as map results). You can't turn off the location-specific results, you can only make them more vague (by setting your location as a country rather than a city).

- Google detects if your IP address comes from a .edu; among other things, visiting google.com from a .edu will produce a message at the bottom of the homepage saying "Graduating? Come work with us!"

- Unless you turn it off, Google personalizes search results based on what you've previously searched for and clicked on.

Personally, I think this article has done nothing more than mistake correlation for causation, by saying that because Google keeps adding more personalization and Google's usage keeps growing, that therefore people must like personalization despite people saying they don't want it. I'd suggest instead that people dislike personalization just as they say they do, but that people either don't hate it enough to switch, or don't feel they have a credible alternative to switch to.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#13

Post by JoshTriplett »

r00fus wrote: post #7
breckinloggins wrote: post #3

People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information. Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.

That's one concern. Another is that "how do I know that you hid stuff I would really have preferred to see?" The idea behind seamless personalized search requires some information hiding or re-arrangement, and I think people aren't so happy with that idea.

Exactly. I already know that Google utterly fails at "autocorrecting" my search terms, because invariably the autocorrect note at the top just means I need to add more "quotes" to force the search I wanted in the first place. Given that, I don't have much confidence in personalized search results either.

Beyond that, I also find value in knowing how the results and rankings look in general, and that value goes away if the results and rankings become specific to me.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#14

Post by dinkumthinkum »

He says "what do you think?" and I think he is incredibly bad and interpreting data. Google has been a juggernaught for years. The fact that they both have a lot of users that like them and that people don't want these kinds of results that they have started to do recently are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#15

Post by jpadvo »

I recently found a package of sunflower seeds in my cupboard that had MSG in it. MSG is absolutely delicious, a magical powder that can turn the blandest food into a flavorparty.

But as a rule, I avoid it whenever I can because it is essentially a slow acting poison. When I purchased those sunflower seeds, I did not understand what they were made from. Had I known, I would not have become a user of that company's sunflower seeds.

I loved those sunflower seeds, but I most certainly did not love what they were made from. And I would have rejected them had I known at the start, despite their delicious flavor.

Applying the moral of this story to the topic at hand is left as an exercise for the reader...

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#16

Post by maggit »

breckinloggins wrote: post #3

People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information. Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.

I'm a person, and I hate personalized search exactly because of what personalized search is. I don't want to live in a filter bubble. If I search for my name, I obviously want to know what other people would see about me. The same goes for any kind of ego-searching (my software projects, for example) If I search for "where to buy x", I want to see where Google thinks it is best to buy x, regardless of the fact that I am in Norway. Regardless of who I have in my G+ circles. If I want to narrow the search, I can do it myself. Even when I search for "mono", I want to be reminded that the world largely thinks mono means mononucleosis, not the mono compiler and runtime. I am part of the world, dammit, and I don't want Google to go out of their way to avoid showing me that world.

I also hate Google's hoarding of information about me, but this hate is completely orthogonal.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#17

Post by nsns »

jpadvo wrote: post #15

I recently found a package of sunflower seeds in my cupboard that had MSG in it. MSG is absolutely delicious, a magical powder that can turn the blandest food into a flavorparty. But as a rule, I avoid it whenever I can because it is essentially a slow acting poison. When I purchased those sunflower seeds, I did not understand what they were made from. Had I known, I would not have become a user of that company's sun…

On a side note... MSG has never been proved to be harmful, even after more than 40 years of tests. It is consumed daily by about a third of the world's population, and occurs naturally by combining certain foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami). The Western aversion to MSG is irrational, and misses on a potential alternative to table salt (which is actually more harmful). Apologies for being OT!

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#18

Post by spurgu »

maggit wrote: post #16
breckinloggins wrote: post #3

People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information. Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.

I'm a person, and I hate personalized search exactly because of what personalized search is. I don't want to live in a filter bubble. If I search for my name, I obviously want to know what other people would see about me. The same goes for any kind of ego-searching (my software projects, for example) If I search for "where to buy x", I want to see where Google thinks it is best to buy x, regardless of the fact that I…

Open an incognito window?

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#19

Post by andylei »

maggit wrote: post #16
breckinloggins wrote: post #3

People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information. Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.

I'm a person, and I hate personalized search exactly because of what personalized search is. I don't want to live in a filter bubble. If I search for my name, I obviously want to know what other people would see about me. The same goes for any kind of ego-searching (my software projects, for example) If I search for "where to buy x", I want to see where Google thinks it is best to buy x, regardless of the fact that I…

> I hate personalized search exactly because of what personalized search is

i don't understand what your rant is about. just don't use personalized search; its a completely optional feature.

Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.

#20

Post by icebraining »

gyardley wrote: post #10

One of these days I hope and pray Google's personalized search will be smart enough to stop 'correcting' my spelling to something I wasn't actually looking for. If I actually do spell something wrong, I'll realize it and happily fix it.

That's what the Verbatim tool is for. It's a shame one can't set it as default.
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