John Battelle describes the control Google has gained on the Internet in his book The Search. The search engine has the power to help businesses prosper or send them into utter ruin. Neil Moncrief, for example, a man who owns a plus-sized shoe business on the Internet, relied on Google’s accurate search algorithms to attract customers to his site. When searchers typed “big feet” in the Google search box, Moncrief’s business of large-sized shoes would come up on the front page, sending many customers his way. One day, however, Google—in hopes of rectifying a spam problem it was having—changed their algorithm. Businesses, like 2BigFeet suffered tremendously.
Google not only has control of present-day businesses, but it holds part of the future in its grasp as well. Battelle provides some interesting predictions as to how technology and the Internet will be used in years to come. He discusses how advertising will follow us from one device we use to another, tracking our searches to determine what we are interested in purchasing.
Is privacy an issue here? Some argue yes, while others say no—we are being targeted with ads and that should be more welcome than annoying advertisements that don’t matter to us in the least. In addition, such targeted advertising is likely to bring down the rate of random ads on webpages on the Internet that serve as distractions, and not in a good way.
Click fraud became a problem with Google as the search engine gained popularity. Google and others recognize this as a problem and are constantly working to prevent it. Currently, Google charges its advertisers (through AdWords) only if a visitor clicks on their ad. What if Google took this a step further by charging their advertisers only when a purchase is made as a direct result of the posted ad on Google. Surely Google can track such things.
Battelle discusses the way in which Google has taken an enormous amount of public information and put it online. Examples include the yellow pages and the white pages, which are convenient for the web searcher, but present privacy issues as well. What was always public information has now been put into a format that requires little energy/resources to pull up. Home phone numbers, for example, can now be searched effortlessly. Not only does Google provide a name, number, and address of a listed resident like the white pages does, but they also provide a map to the exact location of a house. The privacy argument states that Google has facilitated one’s search of public information to an extreme: why provide the map? People may think twice about wanting to be listed in the white pages and that is their right. Google has not violated any laws by doing this.
But Google has lingered on the verge of the law in other ways. They have used their ability to change their search algorithm to save the company while on trial for allegedly inaccurate search results. They changed a search result in one region for one day, which happened to be the place and day of their trial. Google has undoubtedly had hundreds of lawsuits files against them due to one reason or another, but through it all, the company’s motto remains “Don’t Be Evil” and their loyalty remains to their users.
Battelle provides an insightful chapter on the future of search and what he calls “the perfect search.” It entails users being followed by tracking systems that memorize their searches and get to know the users on an individual level. So that when we type a keyword or series of words into a search box, we get results that are perfect to us. I agree that search is headed in this direction. It seems that soon privacy will be just an added bonus on the Internet and we will slowly learn to give it up a little at a time. People are already willing to use applications like Gmail that provide personal information to their advertisers. Why? Because it is an innovative web-based email application and it is free.
The Search is really a great book. It’s well-written, well-researched, and it provides insight into issues with Google that I previously didn’t know about. I am not a regular Google user; I have always been true to Yahoo! To be honest, this book leaves me surprised with the seemingly endless products that Google has to offer, but it does not make me want to convert. I have often found that Yahoo gives me the search results that I seek and I have grown better at understanding Yahoo’s search feature.
John Battelle’s blog this week presents a new feature Google has implemented in its search capabilities in the post about second clicks. When a user searches for a website that is itself searchable (such as Amazon.com), the user is provided with a second text box under the particular website that came up as the search result. This provides the user with a quick way of searching a website without having to open it. Is this a good thing for these websites? In addition, the secondary search results have listed on the right side of the screen the ads that Google users have paid for through an AdWords account. Wait a minute – who is actually profiting here? Seems like it’s Google by all counts. 1) By not visiting Amazon’s homepage, users do not see Amazon’s ads and promotional items. 2) On top of that, Google AdWords purchasers have their ads listed on a secondary search page that people are less likely to use for the reason stated in number 1. I don’t like it. I haven’t used it and I probably would not begin to do so.
