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They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

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Re: They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

#2

Post by andreadallera »

Might this be a trojan horse? This feels like what Facebook does... they announce a feature which raises public concerns about privacy, then they play it down a bit on the first release and then proceed to push it as originally planned on a subsequent iteration.

Re: They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

#3

Post by jonmwords »

andreadallera wrote: post #2

Might this be a trojan horse? This feels like what Facebook does... they announce a feature which raises public concerns about privacy, then they play it down a bit on the first release and then proceed to push it as originally planned on a subsequent iteration.

Well, if you read my post last week, you know I'd be the last person to let them off easily, but now that they've put this opt-out control in, they can't well take it way. That would be suicide.

Re: They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

#4

Post by andreadallera »

jonmwords wrote: post #3
andreadallera wrote: post #2

Might this be a trojan horse? This feels like what Facebook does... they announce a feature which raises public concerns about privacy, then they play it down a bit on the first release and then proceed to push it as originally planned on a subsequent iteration.

Well, if you read my post last week, you know I'd be the last person to let them off easily, but now that they've put this opt-out control in, they can't well take it way. That would be suicide.

It would be suicide to do it now. What about in some months, when everybody has forgot about the debate and most of the users are constantly logged on google+ and use the feature as their standard search? Again, Facebook does it all the time and manages to pull it off on a regular basis.

Re: They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

#5

Post by jonmwords »

andreadallera wrote: post #4
jonmwords wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you read my post last week, you know I'd be the last person to let them off easily, but now that they've put this opt-out control in, they can't well take it way. That would be suicide.

It would be suicide to do it now . What about in some months, when everybody has forgot about the debate and most of the users are constantly logged on google+ and use the feature as their standard search? Again, Facebook does it all the time and manages to pull it off on a regular basis.

I can't think of an example of Facebook taking away a preference setting that users have adopted. Even Facebook doesn't take away controls it has freely given. It would be one thing to take away the toggle button. That might happen, and it would suck if it did. But to go in and pull out a user setting that people are using, that would be astonishing.

Re: They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil

#9

Post by jonmwords »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #6

I reject your premise. Further segregating the echo chamber of the internet is not a good thing.

But here's the thing: this actually lifts the lid on the echo chamber to be more open than it was yesterday. Google recognizes that global search is a necessary option. Before this update, it looked like G+ was just going to be rammed down every Google user's throat. Now we can opt out without having to log out!
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