Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the echo-chambers-R-us dept.

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.


Original Submission

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

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:41AM (13 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:41AM (#774726) Journal

    Youtube, which is part of Google, does this bubble filtering. You can more or less verify that with an easy test. Like some other members here, I have a number of different browsers installed on my machine. Clear all cookies, clear browser history, clear your cache, and refuse any cookies. Everything should be clean, right? Go to youtube, and select a half dozen or more favorites to listen to. Notice how quickly the list of suggested videos narrows down to the same old familiar suggestions.

    Use another browser, go through a VPN, and perform the same exercise. It won't take long until your suggestions list resembles your first suggestions list, which very probably strongly resembles the same list from before you started this experiment.

    Another browser - same results.

    If your VPN uses servers in Russia, China, Bangkok - wherever - connect through that, and run the test again.

    I don't know for sure how Google/Youtube figures out who you are, but they seem to be doing so. Browser fingerprinting, maybe. You would expect them to know you after clearing all browser history, cache, cookies when you connect directly. Proxying out around the globe, you would expect them to lose track of you after clearing your browser - but it doesn't work that way.

    Being trapped in an echo chamber sucks. Well, it sucks unless you really are looking for confirmation of your ideas, opinions, and preferences. If you are actually looking for new and refreshing content, Google isn't going to help you.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:49PM (#774760)

      The woman rushed to the door at lightning speed. They were finally here. The one she was waiting for was here at last! The woman opened the door, revealing a professional-looking man in a suit and tie who wore a kind smile on his face. "Step right in," she said.

      The woman led the man into her living room, where she invited him to take a seat on her couch. Then, they exchanged pleasantries and began talking about her son and his behavior. She told the man about how her son would destroy everything in the house in a fit of rage and would only grow further agitated if she tried to stop him. She told the man about how her son would hit and throw objects at her, and even try to stab her, if she tried to correct his behavior. She told the man about how the several therapists she had taken her son to had been unable to help. The woman, clearly at her wits' end, began crying when recounting these stories.

      The man, ever the professional, simply nodded. This was nothing he hadn't seen before. Indeed, this man was a Child Behavioral Specialist, renowned all over the world for his work. Therefore, when he, Zachson, was called in, it was because all other efforts had failed. The man then calmly directed the woman to bring her son into the room, where he could watch their interactions more closely.

      The woman walked back into the room with her son, and his rebellious demeanor became immediately apparent. He was already hitting her and throwing objects around the room, without even a hint of desire to avoid showing strangers his true self. Upon seeing this, Zachson knew he would have to use his trademark procedure - called 'The Zachson Method' - to correct this child's behavior. The man stood up while the woman was distracted by her son and began walking over to her.

      Suddenly, the woman fell to the ground. Was she having a heart attack, or some sort of seizure? Or, could it possibly have to do with the fact that Zachson had smashed the back of her skull with a heavy mallet? The answer would forever remain a mystery among mysteries. However, what was certain was that she was unlikely to ever get back up, since Zachson brought the mallet down on her skull at full force several more times.

      Zachson grinned and turned to face the child. Yes, now that that disgusting adult woman had been taken care of, he could correct the boy's awful behavior. In fact, the child's rebellious attitude had already vanished as if it had never existed, having been replaced with terror and despair. But, even so, Zachson knew he needed to make sure this change was permanent, and so he began.

      Zachson quickly tore off the boy's clothing, mounted him, and began the violation. Zachson's penis moved in and out of the child's anus rapidly. The boy, who was in such tremendous pain that he couldn't even utter a coherent sentence, simply screamed and cried. Zachson, being the professional that he was, simply smashed his fists into the boy's face without a shred of mercy. In this way, several of the child's teeth broke off in under a minute. That was Zachson's true ferocity.

      Not satisfied with just that, Zachson began again after he had shot his sticky goodies into the child's anus. Indeed, now was not the time to let up; now was the time to strike! Zachson began violating the child even more ferociously, to the point where the boy was constantly screaming in agony. But, The Zachson Method had only just begun!

      The boy's ribs, broken. His fingers, smashed to pieces. His teeth, shattered. His penis and testicles, ripped apart by pliers. His anus, filled with cum. His neck, slashed. Thus came the end of the rebellious boy's motion.

      Zachson looked over to the mother and smiled. Yes, she would be so proud of her son's newfound behavior, at least if she were anything more than a motionless pile of garbage. Then, realizing he had another appointment soon, Zachson issued one last command to the boy and her mother to test their obedience: "Rot." So confident that they would follow his order even without him present, Zachson left the house and never returned.

      The man's confidence had not been misplaced. Over the coming months, the boy and his mother would rot away and leave behind the foulest of odors, demonstrating their absolute obedience to men's rights.

      Thus, The Zachson Method spread all over the world like wildfire. What was left behind was a mountain of rotting - yet obedient - corpses...

    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:55PM (6 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:55PM (#774816)

      Doesn't work for me. And I've tried it with Igorrr's Hallelujah and a generic Flamenco por Bulerías search so I could have just as well written my name in there sample wise.

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:09PM (5 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:09PM (#774823) Journal

        Interesting. If it doesn't work for you, then you're probably doing something right, that I'm doing wrong. Thanks for the reply!

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:41PM

          by RamiK (1813) on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:41PM (#774906)

          Well, I do have a few more privacy and obscurity stuff going around that you might not have: There's using cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 instead of google's 8.8.8.8. Also I often spoof my user agent. There's using both uMatrix and uBlock which means most tracking services just don't reach me. I don't have a smartphone with a google account syncing to their cloud over at the wifi since I use LineageOS+MicroG and syncthing for backups. Most of all I guess my dynamic ip range is blacklisted by google not to attempt prediction since my ISP rotates once or twice a week hundreds of thousands of users so the most they can do is offer general regional suggestion.

          --
          compiling...
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:49PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:49PM (#774943)

          I assume it is because google is pretty good of building a profile of someone based on their browser id string and ip address even if they are actively blocking cookies, logging in to google services, incognito mode, and blocking scripts.

          Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they can tie your "anonymous" browsing habits to your logged in ones. And if you never log in, they just build a profile of you anyhow.

          It is interesting to experiment with it, though.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 17 2018, @03:24PM (2 children)

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday December 17 2018, @03:24PM (#775413)

          As a followup, here is EFF's browser tracking test program.

          https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org]

          Be sure to click the "Show full results for fingerprinting" link after the test, and it will show you how much identifiable info your browser leaks.

          I thought I was relatively safe by overriding the User Agent string to simply "Mozilla/5.0" instead of sending my OS and specific browser version. I was wrong, it still comes up as unique.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @04:02PM (1 child)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 17 2018, @04:02PM (#775427) Journal

            Yeah, all my browsers come up as unique. Starting with the fact that I've blocked web fonts, right on up to "Linux", GL settings, absence of Flash, and so much more.

            • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 17 2018, @08:36PM

              by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday December 17 2018, @08:36PM (#775541)

              When I get some time later, I am going to look in to seeing how to override some of the other parameters. Browser sniffing is shitty anyways, so any website that breaks due to this is not one I would likely want to visit.

              I noticed that the google search page shows a very 2008 version of google when you set the User Agent to "Mozilla/5.0", I kind of like it.

              --
              "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:53PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:53PM (#774849)

      ime, they are only using cookies and/or google account and ip address. what you may be noticing is how fast they build your new bubble with your new viewing habits. that would be my guess.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Booga1 on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)

        by Booga1 (6333) on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:42PM (#774920)

        I've done this using multiple computers, different browsers, never signing into a Google account in the browser, using TOR, and resetting TOR identities(new IP/no cookies/no Google account). The speed with which the list of videos narrows down to my previously viewed and "recommended" videos is startlingly fast. Sometimes as quickly as viewing just three seemingly unconnected videos.

        Google has spent gobs of time and money figuring these things out. Cookies/IP/logins are barely the start of what they monitor. Here's what else I think they're watching, which is by no means exhaustive:

        • Categories of videos you watch(VERY specific such as funny animal videos vs. funny people videos)
        • Order videos are watched
        • Time of day you are typically active
        • How frequently you click recommended videos
        • How frequently you watch previously viewed videos
        • The fact that you use a VPN/proxy/TOR
        • The search terms you use, and whether you allow the autocomplete to assist
        • How you browse the results(Do you click directly on the video's title, the thumbnail, the channel/username?)
        • How you scroll the page(mouse wheel, up/down, page up/page down)
        • How often you view the full description of the video
        • How often you view comments
        • How often you press the button to skip ads when it's available
        • How quickly you press the skip ad button when you do
        • How often/quickly you disable the autoplay option

        I am sure others here can think of more ways to measure how web page interactions flow. Google certainly has.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:15PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:15PM (#775122)

          yes, but you're not addressing my point which was *how* they are watching all these things. i didn't mean they weren't watching all those things you listed. i meant they are only using a few different things to do all of that. identifying those things is what is important b/c that's what helps you stay more anon.

    • (Score: 1) by Goghit on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:52PM

      by Goghit (6530) on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:52PM (#775126)

      I got a taste of this a few weeks ago after searching out videos of nobel laureates on the contra side of the anthropogenic accelerated global warming discussion. My feed suggestions were immediately populated with anti-vaccers, toxic smart meters, and "free energy" (perpetual motion) magnetic machines.

      Told me a lot, that did.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:11PM (#775199)

      This explains a lot.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:00AM (13 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:00AM (#774730) Homepage Journal

    The road to hell is paved with...

    The thing is, most of the time these customized search results are a benefit. It's really convenient to have local results prioritized, and for Google to know which sites I prefer to see results from. Although I use DuckDuckGo most of the time, there are times I just can't find what I want there, and I turn to Google.

    OTOH, I can see someone who is into weird conspiracy theories - chem trails, 9/11, UFOs, whatever - being wound ever more tightly into their insanity. Where they ought to see how outré their views are, instead they will begin to think they are mainstream.

    More generally for politics: I am of the opinion that you can only legitimately oppose a position if you understand it. I could argue, well and thoroughly, for open borders and unrestricted immigration - even though that is the opposite of what I believe. And it happens: See the arguments on both sides, understand them, and - whoops - maybe you'll change your original opinion. But if most people never even see the opposing arguments, how are they supposed to really understand the issues?

    tl;dr: I totally understand the customization, it has benefits. But it would be a great service if Google added a prominent switch "filter bubble on/off", so that people could decided what they want, for any given search.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:27AM (1 child)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:27AM (#774735) Homepage Journal

      I am of the opinion that you can only legitimately oppose a position if you understand it.

      Good man. This is the primary reason I argue about anything on the Internet. Yes, it's a bit lazy to crowdsource your research but it's also generally more effective than performing it yourself if you pick folks who use their brains most of the time to argue with.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:54PM (#774875)

        lol

    • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:33AM (5 children)

      by BsAtHome (889) on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:33AM (#774736)

      But it would be a great service if Google added a prominent switch "filter bubble on/off", so that people could decided what they want, for any given search.

      That would reduce the possibility to squeeze out more pennies from the "customer". In other words, it would reduce the bottom line. Remember, the search-engine is a cover for the sale of ads.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:19PM (4 children)

        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:19PM (#774767)

        How so? Presumably I'd be seeing the same ads whether I have the filter bubble turned on or off for my search results.

        Being able to turn off the filter bubble for results would just mean I'd be more likely to be seeing their personally tuned ads, instead of going to elsewhere to get less biased results.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:01PM (3 children)

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:01PM (#774947)

          If people started seeing search results or media suggestions outside of their bubble, they might go to a different search engine. If youtube suggestions were videos that the viewer disagrees with or, actually are bullshit, they won't view them, and likely will go find entertainment elsewhere.

          And this isn't just for hugbox items. If I start seeing astrology videos in my feed when I was searching for astronomy videos, I am going to get annoyed and leave the site. This example goes double because people are either idiots and confuse the two, or intentionally do so in order to lure in suckers. Either way, it isn't just a matter of things I disagree with, it is things that are actually wrong. I don't have time for that kind of bullshit.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:58PM (2 children)

            by Immerman (3985) on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:58PM (#775157)

            So, if you're looking for stuff tuned to your interests, why would you turn off the filter bubble? That's the beautiful thing about a switch, it lets *you* choose.

            • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 17 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)

              by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday December 17 2018, @03:28PM (#775416)

              Yeah, that is a good point. I guess what I figure will happen is that they will include a button as a placebo, but do the filtering anyhow.

              --
              "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
              • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:40AM

                by Immerman (3985) on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:40AM (#776644)

                I don't see why they would - the primary point of having such a switch (or currently, using another search engine or browser to avoid the filter bubble) is because your filter bubble is excluding whatever it is you're looking for. If flipping the switch does nothing, then you go right back to using another search engine.

                I would however assume that they'd still be feeding your unfiltered search behavior into your filter-bubble algorithm. The goal after all would be to allow you to search outside your bubble *without* going to another engine. Seems to me the primary reason to do that (other than corporate benevolence) would be that they could continue to monitor you and sell your attention to advertisers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @05:59PM (#774853)

      "weird conspiracy theories - ... 9/11"

      are you fucking serious? i thought you were smarter than that.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:15PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:15PM (#774859) Journal

        If you aren't in a filter bubble, then you'll realize that the official story of what happened on 9/11 is widely accepted. Very widely accepted. That there are numerous problems with it does not mean that it isn't accepted. There are lots of problems with the official story of what happened at the Kennedy assassination, too. But knowing that the official story doesn't make sense doesn't mean that any particular alternative story makes sense either.

        What seems to be going on is that government is reflexively lying to us to hide what is going on, and lots of people are so determined to understand that they create stories and believe them, without sufficient evidence. I'm not even convinced that the government always has a real reason to hide things, it's more like an automatic reaction. Perhaps it's a systems design problem created by the intersection of "National Security", "Clearance Required", and CYA.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:52PM (#774944)

      For weird conspiracy theories, I go to .gov, along with the major TV networks, they got some doozies!

      As for borders, fuck the racists who want the wall, until they pull back the military to our side. Open borders is a two way street!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:41PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:41PM (#775104)

      "OTOH, I can see someone who is into weird conspiracy theories - chem trails, 9/11, UFOs, whatever - being wound ever more tightly into their insanity. "

      This is not hypothetical, you have perfectly described my brother

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:19PM (#775124)

        he may be wrong about some/much of his info, but you are probably more wrong overall if you are the typical brainwashed slave who isn't cynical about these things.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:35AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:35AM (#774737)

    Seeing a lot of this code around lately, and it is High Military! Do you know what it is that you are carrying?

    Now, you see, after we come down from the "Serenity" and "Mr Universe" fantasy, we realize that this is yet another case of the lower brain fearing that it is being fed fake news. Happened with my office mate, not too bright, PhD (thought I seriously question his mentors) who suggested that one of his searches for obscure right-wing tripe had been intentionly thwarted. When I pointed out that only a rather small percentage of any reasonable population would ever be searching for such a thing, he replied, "See! It is a conspriacy!" And indeed it was, an as my part of the conspiracy, I had to immediately shoot him in the face, even thought he was my friend, so that the News of the Lizard People did not spread further. You know, like, further?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:33PM (#774757)

      I call baalshit, your mate was right. But if he is so smart why is he using google?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:40AM (2 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:40AM (#774739) Homepage Journal

    I'm glad someone's put a name to this phenomenon. It's very annoying. I can see it might work OK for consumerist sheeple that just want to find what their favorite celeb is up to or when the next season of their favorite show is or the new iPhone--sorry--Android phone! Most of the time though, when I open a search engine, I want to get information on something new--something that I haven't come across before. This is almost entirely the opposite of what any profile of my past online activity would be. Although, if I'm doing it right, they really shouldn't have much of a profile on me at all, which probably means that I get defaulted to the generic trend-lapping consumerist.

    Another part of the filter bubble problem that I'm always ranting about is due to the fuzziness of the search words. If I enter four search words, more often than not the top results won't have all those words and often none of the results will. It didn't used to be this way. They just don't care.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:38PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:38PM (#774786)

      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.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:30PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:30PM (#774900) Journal

      I don't really agree...but close.

      When I go searching for stars, I don't want to end up with Hollywood celebrities. So I really do have the desire for a filter bubble, because of the number of homonyms, especially when talking about new ideas, like color, charm, or spin.

      That said, it's quite important to be able to turn that filter off...and nobody seems to enable it. (Some try to have it off all the time, but that doesn't work either.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:59PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:59PM (#774763) Homepage Journal

    I'm not talking about link bombs or keyword, query, search term, supersonic telephone pole stuffing.

    Rather in my long experience, the very finest SEO is _compelling_ writing about whatever one knows the most about and is the most interest in. For me, that being cruel to the downtrodden by posting links to fake jobs.

    At first my problem was viewing local search listings in other countries: if I did a search for "human rights criminal" at google.co.uk, I'd be redirected to google.com then fed the US results. Someone at WebmasterWorld pointed out google.co.uk/ncr - "No Country Redirect".

    But that doesn't work anymore, and hasn't in _years_. It used to work with Tor Browser, but no longer for me as Google managed to SuperCookie my Tor by correlating my favorite YouTube videos in Tor with this from my logged-in Google accounts.

    Please to clue me in as to how to spoof User Agents in Tor, as I'm _far_ too lazy and irresponsible to look it up myself.

    I expect it would also help for my User Agent to include a variety of Tor Browser versions as well as MacOS System 7.* versions.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:36PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @02:36PM (#774769)

    Any search engine with more than 10% market share should provide an easy option for a user disable this 'feature' without loss of other ability to use the service.
    With the option is disabled, the same search for two folks should result in the nearly the same results.
    The default setting for the feature should be disabled and bundling this setting with other features is not permitted.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:05PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @03:05PM (#774773)

      No, they will just make it worse somehow. If you dont want a filter bubble just use duckduckgo or startpage.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:59PM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:59PM (#774818) Journal

        If you dont want a filter bubble just use duckduckgo or startpage.

        Well, but there are actually two levels of this, and that will remain so until/unless a search engine arises that can actually determine quality of content.

        The first, the one the TFS is referring to (I did not read TFA, of course), is the one you make over time with your choices. The search engine learns what is likely content for you, and eventually provides it. If DuckDuckGo doesn't do this, then we can put it aside for them.

        But the second is pretty much a given at this point in time: All of these engines use popularity as a key metric in deciding where in the search results a listing goes. (Well, and money... paid links, etc.)

        The problem is, popularity is strongly moderated by marketing, trendiness, current events, and the appeal to the broad population rather than to a critical population. Or in other words, not by actual quality and depth, but by mediocrity, text bites, and easy-to-digest summaries.

        The net result is that the typical listing doesn't give you "best" results. For that, you have to triage the results, often for pages - and even then, you're still dealing with popularity rather than quality.

        I don't think this is likely to be solved in the short term, but I think if you really want the best results you can get, the search engine user needs to keep it firmly in mind with every search made.

        A human-moderated search engine doesn't seem to be in the cards. It's been tried, and in its various forms, has failed to gain long term traction every time. Yahoo's original classed listings of web sites; DMOZ [wikipedia.org]; etc. The problem there is again a human one. If the moderator(s) don't have your views, then their selections can fall pretty far away from your interests. They can also miss things, and be the source of some fairly extreme bias.

        No good solution. Just work the results and don't accept the top results as necessarily being actually... top.

        Personally, I keep a bunch of links around on a web page on my server that I have found to be actually high quality, and I tend to look there first. I've been doing that since the 1990s, so I have a pretty good collection. Wayback machine helps here as well from time to time, as some of the good stuff has simply gone away.

        --
        Ignorance is weakness.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:12PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @04:12PM (#774790)

    Google has highly distributed server architecture, and they probably do some hinky stuff with DNS and IP to get faster response times. When a lot of people talk about search order, what are really talking about is probably caching. Their distributed servers probably don't operate off the same database.

    My point here, is that each machine probably has a combination of general knowledge, but also learned knowledge. Which is to say the different machines will learn to respond differently based on what the indevidual machine has be asked prior. This means that results will tend to trend not just personally, but regionally.

    Note that this is probably true with DuckDuckGo as well. So while they may be pissing over the neighbors fence, they aren't exactly saints. Which should be obvious from the fact that the article is comparitive between Google and everybody else, just Google and Google.

    What causes this? Cost mostly. If you home equipment closer to end-user in network distance, you get faster response times and happier users. Note that I say "network distance" because part of the game here is getting around the shennanigans the ISP's play with peering policy.

    So business decisions drive engineering decisions. Engineering decisions drive confirmation bias. This is to be expected if you have some understanding of how the system works, in either a technical or economic way.

    Now the question you should be asking, is: "Why isn't there a feedback control?". And there probably is to some degree. But what there isn't is anything that might end up being turned into an integrated third party RBL (real time blacklist), While they assuredly do some heavy duty filtering for the bad stuff, they don't make that accessible via an API. Why?

    The answer to that should be pretty obvious. While I, as a user would love to just drop a global block on all of CNN/MSNBC/Fox, the inevitable response to that is corporations whispering across the pillow to the back of their congressmans heads. Which is of course unjust considering the contemptable garbage these multinational conglomerates pump into peoples heads. But the point is if you create a filtration toolkit; while most people would use it; the state would quickly appropriate it on behalf of their cronies. Which could reasonably describe what their doing now if you're paying attention.

    This is why ABP (adblock plus), and other such tools have to be client side hooks instead of server side hooks. While server side hooks would be way better, and result in vastly superior and more dynamic personal control over data, the state can't be relied on to keep its fucking mits off it. And so Google, is to some degree suffering on our behalf due to all this criticism.

    Is there a better way? Yes. It starts with full end to end adoption of IPv6, redesigning all of OSI layer 4 to provide for ubiquitous cryptographic anonymous transport of all upper layer traffic, and stripping the shit out of web browsers eliminating all unsolicited client side processing. There have been some efforts in this direction to date, though none yet are integrated enough to be consumer friendly.

    That is a HUGE amount of work. There has been a lot of movement in that direction, but there is very little coordination. The truth is, the next step to fixing the Internet is a moonshot thing. The current politicla beef, (like most political beefs) is just bitches squabling over whats on the table, instead of going out and creating new resources.

    Yes it is broke. I know what I'm doing to help fix it. Do you?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:40PM (#774939)

      This isn't about how fast stuff comes to you but how they hoodwinked you to order the wrong thing to begin with.

      Also using Adblock against the internet in 2019 is like using a fly swatter to fend off a B-52 Stratofortress bomber.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:34PM (#775096)
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:44PM (#775153)

    "In fact, it's simply not possible to use Google search and avoid its filter bubble." 'Nuff said.

    google search has become totally useless for me.
    search for linux configuration stuff results in results that are 3 years old (or more) and are mostly irrelevant.
    maybe my google-Fu sucks?
    or maybe it's because all cookies are deleted after closing the tab with gogole search, adsense is blocked on dns level and i never surf around whilst logged in.

    my guess is that the web-page creating times are over and the growth of newly created pages has declined massively, leading to the situation where google can index the web faster then new pages are added.
    but because somebody is a hardcore database junky at google, the mission is not accomplished and the new goal is to index each and every unsuspecting user (and their behavior) in a google database.

    the mission probably remains to sell as much ads as possible and to be able to show that
    A) they haven't just indexed the web
    but
    B) all the users also.

    "google, where every user gets their own personal database"(tm)

(1)