Sunday, November 18, 2007

Google knows best

We can see that Google has begun a pardigm shift from simply being a search engine that seeks to return relevant content to their searcher-user, to a sort of gatekeeper-ranker. Dare we say “censor?” Of course. How could you NOT say that Google is censoring the content that the searcher sees? Of course, they would probably prefer to call it something like Advanced Algorithm Filtering Service. Be that as it may, when you search for something and Google returns not only relevant content, but only the relevant content they want you to see, that is the dictionary definition of censorship.

The purpose of this post is not really to badger Google about being a big bad censor, but rather trying to clarify the question, “What is Google?” They are no longer a search engine, but are now a rating service as well. That’s really good news for those of you who can’t decide for yourselves, or don’t want to be bothered. Type in some search words, get some content returned to you that Google wants you to see. Choose from among the choices that Google presents to you. No problem.

To be continued.

No comments: