Google washes search results

The Register ^ | 012/14/2008 | andrew orlowski

[slnk_rules]

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.

Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that: The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.

A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "

That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being rigged.

For these soothsayers of the Hive Mind, the years ahead looked prosperous. As blog-aware marketing and media consultants, they saw a lucrative future in explaining the New Emergent World Order to the uninitiated. (That part has come true - Web 2.0 "gurus" now advise large media companies).

It wasn't surprising, then, that when five years ago I described how a small, self-selected number of people could rig Google's search results, the reaction from the people doing the rigging was violently antagonistic. Who lifted that rock? they cried.

But what was once Googlewashing by a select few now has Google's active participation.

[slnk_rules]

Google is a wonderfully technically efficient company. Ideological partisanship has sunk better companies than them, though. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make insane proud. Google seems to have the attitude "We can do it because we are Google." Move over, GM.

[VaBthang4]

Great post.

[xcamel]

except...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2148534/posts
and
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2148523/posts

[HighlyOpinionated]

http://www.devvy.net/audio/

http://www.devvy.net/audio/dec08/communitarian_hoax.html

Listen to Devvy Kidd read The Great Communitarian Hoax. Hopefully this will come back into print. It explains exactly what is occurring today in the USofA and how Socialism is spread through Mandatory Community Service and the easy ‘jump’ from there to mindless sheeple accepting Marxism.

Scary stuff. Listen and learn.

[Dick Bachert]

I stopped using Google as first choice search engine months ago — just for this reason.

[slnk_rules]

I really like dogpile, myself. I use it alot. I have to admit that google works better with linux, and I do love gmail.

[Always Right]

Between being overly commercial and outrageously too political, Google has ruined a once great product. I use to be able to find anything no matter how obscure, now I have to wade through a bunch of sites that want to sell me something and certain items are purposely hidden. There could be a big niche for someone who wants to make a clean search engine.

[AmericanMade1776]

So what search engine do you use.

[null and void]

Me too. I watched half a million hits on 0bama birth certificate disappear over a few days.

I use LiveSearch now. Never going back.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

THANKS!

I just switched to livesearch for my websearch!

I feel so much better now!

[xcamel]

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

worth a try

[AmericanMade1776]

I really want a search engine that pulls up the news articles to scan thru, and then search. Right now, I go to Drudge, Lucianne.com, and Free Republic to get the news.

[ChetNavVet]

Google bought You Tube, Sketch Up, and probaly lots of other stuff. In the corporate world, the philosiphy is not to “devide and conquor”, but aquire what cannot be stomped out.

There is nothing inherently evil about what corporations do.

Google seeks to buy out, consolidate, and rule the information world. The fact they have a leftist agenda is really the only thing that makes them evil.

[clee1]

Agreed.

I use Yahoo as my homepage; but I hate it’s search function. I like Google, but I refuse to support a company with their leftist bias.

I use Dogpile.

[Paladin2]

HMMM....livesearch....

Wouldn't that be run by the chair throwing Balmer? The new leftist Gates?

[Dick Bachert]

Several:
Dogpile
Metacrawler
Altavista
Webcrawler

And as many problems I have with Microsoft, I hope they can give Google Earth a severe beating. Nothing like competition.

[Always Right]

Agreed. I use Yahoo as my homepage; but I hate it’s search function. I like Google, but I refuse to support a company with their leftist bias. I use Dogpile.

I just checked out one called Clusty.com....I need to run more tests, but right now it looks like a winner.

[angkor]

>>>>>I use LiveSearch now. <<<<<<<

Google or Microsoft = Scylla or Charybdis

[RhoTheta]

I don’t know what you gain by using Scroogle to avoid the mind control experiments on Google. It looks like Scroogle’s purpose is to be a firewall to protect your identity from Google, but still uses Google searches to obtain links. This means you are just as susceptible to Google’s “editorial policy” as before.

http://www.scroogle.org/ has a diagram of what they do.