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Measuring the "Filter Bubble": How Google is influencing what you click
Over the years, there has been considerable discussion of Google's "filter bubble" problem. Put simply, it's the manipulation of your search results based on your personal data. In practice this means links are moved up or down or added to your Google search results, necessitating the filtering of other search results altogether. These editorialized results are informed by the personal information Google has on you (like your search, browsing, and purchase history), and puts you in a bubble based on what Google's algorithms think you're most likely to click on.
The filter bubble is particularly pernicious when searching for political topics. That's because undecided and inquisitive voters turn to search engines to conduct basic research on candidates and issues in the critical time when they are forming their opinions on them. If they’re getting information that is swayed to one side because of their personal filter bubbles, then this can have a significant effect on political outcomes in aggregate.
This is a moderately long read, as web pages go. IMO, it's well worth the time.
The code that we wrote to analyze the data is open source and available on our GitHub repository.
https://github.com/duckduckgo/filter-bubble-study
duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_participants.xls contains the instructions we sent to each participant, as well as basic anonymized data for each participant.
https://duckduckgo.com/download/duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_participants.xls
duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_raw-search-results.xls contains a separate sheet for search results per query and per mode (private and non-private). The results are listed as they appeared on the screen for each participant, showing both organic domains and infoboxes such as Top Stories (news), Videos, etc.
https://duckduckgo.com/download/duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_raw-search-results.xls
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:38PM
This is my sentiment exactly.
I use about:blank as a home page, and most searches I do are for something new, different, or something I heard or read about that was unexpected and I wanted to learn more.
Or I am troubleshooting something at home or work, or trying to learn how to do something that I might not know how to do and don't want to watch a video because I intend to print out a sheet of paper with the "beat hardware with hammer when trapped behind heavy machinery and not in a good position to watch advertisements" set of instructions that I can then tape in place or tuck inside the hardware on a removalable panel or something.
Having instructions that were proven to have worked included somewhere on the hardware is almost lifesaving; I recently replaced a pump on my laundry/washing machine, and in the process replaced the rubber straps/bungee cords inside. The thing came with the house and I bought the place rather than built the place--so it was all old.
I didn't need a youtube video to find what I needed--I only had to open a metal panel to find the schematics and maintenance instructions, and then... add my own notes and dates and such. Internet can go down, I can get covered in water, whatever the case is--and the instructions and my notes were not prone to failures, connection issues, battery power, wifi strength, or bookmarks and videos going down or being changed. My notes were high and dry inside the machine behind a removalable panel.
I did find the parts I needed online--I'm not a luddite--and I saved a few hundred bucks by buying the parts and doing the work myself. But when I was done, nothing online knew I had done the work and completed the task without help. I had to start with fuzzy terms and drill into it, but it was not realistic to expect that my exact combination of appliance issues would be well documented by someone else.
Knowing that... my curiosity got the best of me, and I used an old laptop I have and did a similar search but only in google and bing. When I did a search for the actual key terms of "it's broken help" and other pretty generic terms that would be sensible for anyone that did not read the fine documentation that came with the appliance, many results were "find a local plumber" "buy a new appliance", "renew your expired extended warranty with our expensive cost saving subscription as a service plan with a non-accredited credit provider based out of the Cayman Islands, " and last but not least, "Drive with uber even if you don't have a car we can set you up with a loan for permanent indentured servitude in the gig economy!" and stuff like that.
Then they followed me for about a week on that machine. I watched a few youtube videos on how to generically do the same stuff I did, and found that for the most part, the videos would be helpful to anyone afraid to do it themselves--even if the exact model wasn't shown, there was stuff close enough. But that greatly influenced the search results later; many local plumber ads and appliance sales were presented for a few days. That's all from not even having an account, but instead using only the google search engine and not using any cookie or ad blockers on that laptop.
If I was logged into an account, I am not sure how long it'd last.
It can last a while... here is a good example of how powerless regular users are.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46543324 [bbc.com]
Articles like this anger me--it pretty much demonstrates how your actual preferences are not catered to, but rather, you are just part of some marketing criteria based on your observed behaviors. What you really want doesn't matter, even if your situations change, it is incredibly difficult to train the system otherwise, and there is no setting to just tell it to stop showing the same things that aren't relevant anymore.
It's happened before, but this is the first time in recent memory I can think of that the bereaved parents actually received an apology. The various companies involved couldn't fix it 100%--which is understandable, considering the users are the product, not the ones setting the preferences. She couldn't get the ads to stop with the account settings, and so she took it public.