Just add creepiness: Google Search gets even more personal Google will soon be interrogating its users' Gmail, Google Calendar and Google+ accounts to try and predict the questions they enter into Google Search, bringing the Chocolate Factory's Now functionality into the mainstream. The personalised search is being rolled out slowly, with the US getting it first, but it will respond …
So, it's not much good if your photos are on Facebook and your flight details in Evernote.
But that is, of course, beside the point.
On the contrary, that is exactly the point, both from Google's perspective and the savvy user's perspective.
Google wants you to use their apps to get this kind of search, and the savvy user doesn't need a search engine to find information if he knows where he stored it to begin with.
Google wants you to use their apps to get this kind of search, and the savvy user doesn't need a search engine to find information if he knows where he stored it to begin with.
The thing is the savvy user is not the average user (AU). Your standard, bog level AU will dump everything in one folder, with no sort of naming conventions or any way to tell one file from the other, and then use this handy offering to work it all out. The AU is quite lazy about this sort of stuff, and that is exactly what Google uses to their advantage. As with spam and other unwelcome internet services, it's a numbers game.
Mrs. Bloggs:
"When and where is my husband's next meeting with his mistress?"
Tax inspector:
"How much did Joe Bloggs really make last year?"
"Where is all the illicit money stashed?"
Priest (with an eye on a nice donation after confession):
"What sins did Mr. Bloggs commit over his entire lifetime?"
Council jobsworth:
"Did Mr. Jobs recycle correctly over the past month?"
NSA:
"Yawn"
Between you, Microsoft, and any one of their numerous "advertising partners", amongst other gotchas. Don't dare swallow the Microsoft bullshit. They're the equivalent of the snotty little brat looking all innocent while they tell on the next kid who got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Never mind that they filched the entire contents last week.
You should really read the Bing privacy policy. It's as bad as any of them.
Duck Duck Go already went for me. I truly appreciate what they're doing, but the results simply aren't as useful as Google's.
Even with the overall drop off in quality of Google searches they've still got the best search offering out there. As long as that remains the case people will keep lining up to give Google all their information.
Ah here we go with the usual "selling your data" bollocks - I really don't understand how generally technically IT literate people can suddenly turn into morons at the drop of the hat.
To "sell your data" implies that they exchange your data for money - but that just doesn't happen, what actually happens is they provide advertisers with a way to target potential customers with a fine grained set of options, the advertisers however never ever actually see your data - Google processes your information and shows you an advert if the data they have on you matches the specified options for the advert.
If you really believe actual real people are sifting through your personal information, giggling at some photos that were taken of you while you were drunk, I'd strongly advise that you unplug from the internet and choose a profession outside the IT industry.
"... IT literate people can suddenly turn into morons at the drop of the hat."
Sure, but I'd rather be a private moron than a public one. I doubt any posters here believe an actual person is sifting data, but in some ways that would be preferable to ones habits and peculiarities being categorized by flawed (nothing is perfect) algorithms. Habits and peculiarities that could come back to bite you in the ass, if for example the state, an employer, or even (hypothetically) another citizen takes a dislike to you.
When you stick stuff into Facebook it (largely but within some constraints) becomes public. Your friends and future employers may well have access to it.
What I don't get is all this talk about Google's data being used the same way (unless you're talking about stuff posted to G+, which is like Facebook except there's less chance anyone will bother looking).
If Google knows a lot about me, then I can expect the US and probably UK authorities to know a lot about me too. That is wrong, not least because of the lack of transparency, although unless I put an air gap between my stuff and the Internet and don't use a phone or drive a car then they know plenty already. But where is this leap to future employers knowing this stuff?
Nobody is suggesting that anyone can go to www.google.co.uk and search for "embarrassing things that Katie Saucey got up to in the past 20 years" and expect to get back any of the stuff you haven't shared on Facebook or similar.
It's like saying you shouldn't tell your doctor about an embarrassing problem because you don't want your employer or other citizens finding out.
Google's business model may well include putting adverts from erectile dysfunction companies in front of me if I mention in an email my performance was under par last night. It means I'm shown information (adverts) from those who might be able to "help" (sell me something). It does not mean that the advertiser knows who I am, unless I click on the advert and give them my details. It's about Google putting adverts in front of me that I'm more likely to click on so they get paid, and the data they've mined for that purpose is incredibly valuable to them and they're not going to share it with anyone (without a warrant, anyway).
Oh, and I don't care that their robot misunderstood my comment in the email and jumped to an incorrect conclusion. I simply don't click on the ad.
One of my pet complaints about smartphones (in general, and Android in particular) is that the calendar is next to useless. One of many issues that bug me is that yes, occasionally I'd like to check when my next meeting with Mr. Snowden is, or when Jane's party (the one she told me about last week and I noted in the calendar on the spot) is in September.
The problem is, (a) I do not sync my calendar with Google and I won't start just to search for appointments; (b) I just want to search the calendar, not the whole Internet, and I definitely do not want my calendar information be taken into account when I search for something unrelated - at work, with a coworker who has not been invited to Jane's party looking over my shoulder, or at a customer site where Mr. Clapper may notice that I have an upcoming appointment with his competitor Mr. Snowden.
Unfortunately, it looks like Android calendars will never be searchable without syncing to "not evil" servers. The functionality I need will not arrive. Ever.
Countless times has my work colleague from the other desk turn to me complaining about something he couldn't find with Google only to have me tell him it's on the top of the first bloody page of results. The difference is, he doesn't have the various different settings of personalized / localized / ultra-mega-relevantized search turned off, while I most certainly do.
I can remember, a long time ago, having a customer call me and ask if I knew how to do ______. I opened http://www.google.com and entered a couple of search terms (several times) and came up with an answer. I then had the customer do the same (skipping all of the not-quite-right searches in the middle.) I was then able to tell them to click on the 3rd search result (because I knew that their results would be identical to mine.) This did two things: 1) got them the results they were looking for and 2) showed them how to use google search.
Today, I don't even get the same results if I search the same strings from two separate locations. Thanks a whole lot, Google!
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