Google gets personal in searches, Searches default to your world, Facebook effect, results most relevant to you, Citizen Wells turns off feature

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed
–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into
history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the
Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past.”…George Orwell, “1984″

“We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.”…George Orwell, “1984″

“Not every item of news should be published: rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.”… Joseph Goebbels

Google is making their searches personal, “relevant to you.”

So Google, a great many people, such as students, use a search in research. Does this mean they will have to “re search” on another search engine to find the same topics as their contemporaries?

Please do not tell or suggest to me what I want. I get enough of that from the government.

From the LA Times January 10, 2012.

“Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web”

“For Google, it’s personal. The Internet search giant is no longer going to roll out the same search results to everyone.

Starting Tuesday, Google will pluck only the results most relevant to you — and not just from billions of Web pages but from the personal stuff that you and your connections privately share.

The idea, says Google Fellow Amit Singhal, is that Google now searches your world, not just the Web, and serves up results that combine both for your eyes only.

“Your world was missing from search until now,” he said. “We are bringing your world into search.”

It’s not just a radical departure for Google. It’s a major salvo in the Internet search giant’s rivalry with Facebook for eyeballs and ad dollars.

Google, with founder Larry Page at the helm, has been looking to blunt the growing influence of Facebook, which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public stock offering.

Google has been adding more personal touches to its search engine as people flock to Facebook, the Web’s most popular hangout with more than 800 million users who share personal photos, updates and recommendations. Now it’s looking to combine its dominant search engine with its nascent social networking service, Google+.

“It’s one of the most significant things Google has ever done in search,” said longtime Google observer Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.”

“Some users may not want or understand why their personal information is appearing in its search results. Google said it would explain the change to users at the top of Web pages.

Even though Google is just making information more visible and easier to find, it may encounter the same kind of resistance that Facebook did when it rolled out its new feature Timeline, Sullivan said.

Like Facebook, Google isn’t asking users whether they want the new feature, it’s just turning it on for all English-speaking users over the next few days. If you don’t want the feature, you have to turn it off.

Google may also be seen as favoring its own products in search results, an allegation that already has made Google a target of an antitrust investigation, Sullivan said. For example, instead of sending someone searching for Britney Spears to her website, Facebook page or Twitter account, Google will suggest her Google+ page, giving the service a “huge advantage,” he said.

“It makes you question if Google is doing the best thing for the searcher or the best thing for Google,” Sullivan said.

Google says it’s hamstrung because Facebook fences off its website from Google’s search engine.

“We want users to have control over what personal content they can search for at Google. We don’t want third parties dictating to users what they can or can’t search for in Google,” Singhal said. “Based on the current policies at many social networks, users don’t have that control.””

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/google-gets-personal-searches-your-world-not-just-the-web.html

I am going to turn this feature off. Do as you want. I will neither suggest or tell you what to do.

The continued evolution of our entertainment culture.