[governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

[McTim]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Thomas Lowenhaupt
<toml at communisphere.com> wrote:
>
> McTim,

 <snip>

>
> Here’s my concern and the problem: How are the neighbors to know what's not there?
>
>
>
> If Google hand-wires the results to suite its needs, overriding its secret proprietary sauce, how are the atomized neighbors to know there are others opposed to the development? How are they to know to go to Bing? I suspect many would conclude, “Gee, no one else cares. Maybe I’m wrong?” And Google wins.

Why would Google "hand-wire" their results in a case like that?  They
make money showing ads next to search results.  If such an
intervention became public, the resulting negative publicity would be
not worth whatever gain they would get from NOT listing Google haters
in search results.

Try googling "google haters", there are millions of results.

If you were in a struggle vs Google re: a local real estate deal,
would you really use Google Search to find allies??

Whats missing in all this is this (easily found using Google "how does
pagerank work" I might add):

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

While this may not be the current algorithm, it was the early version
of it.  In other words, with a few seconds effort, one can easily find
out the information asked for in this thread.

>
>
>
> Of course education is the answer. And we've plans to develop curriculum that begins in the 3rd grade and to educates the public at all levels as to civic ills that might arise by putting too much trust in one search engine. But this is likely to take a decade or so to permeate society.


key phrase there is "might arise".  Its brand loyalty, that's all.   I
would hope that we as a group have far bigger fish to fry than this.


>
>
>
> (Before I move to my second point of disagreement let me slip in another example. Imagine we’re a few years down the road and Google “winner$” begin running for public office. How are we to trust its opaque search algorithm during the rough and tumble of an election campaign?

same as during a non election year.  If it is useful to you, use it.
if not, then find something that is useful.

>Then we’ll clearly see the relationship between link and ballot voting!

I cant parse this.

> And even if Google didn’t hand-wire, opponents would surely charge that it did, poisoning the system.)


What you are doing is putting any search engine into a no win system.

I, for one, appreciate what google has done around US election information.

>
>
>
> Second, when you say,
>
>
>
> "We, as IGC (or even CS as a whole) can't expect to seriously ask Google to show us their patented IP, can we?"
>
>
>
> I disagree. Given the importance of search in the development of civic attitudes - like the newspapers and TV of old - I think it’s vital that we address the issue.
>
>
>
> Here’s a path. Initially we make the importance of “search transparency” known to Google and encourage them to provide their secret sauce’s recipe. (I prefer “search transparency” to “search neutrality” as it is a somewhat easier to devise a metric.)
>
>

I think they already know that people want to know how they know what they know.


>
> Google has capitalized their search lead and integrated it into a plethora of other services and should be able to keep their lead for the foreseeable future, and might be prescient to see the poisoning possibility and be agreeable to the need to move toward transparency.  Perhaps they might initially agree to a trusted outsider initially, a Moody’s-like entity to judge all search engines. And if Google doesn’t see the light, perhaps Bing might take a lead in offering transparent search.


perhaps, but i wouldn't bet on it.
>
>
>
> And if the search industry doesn’t see the necessity – no one steps in - it’s incumbent on civil society to educate the public and decision makers about the impact of search opacity and encourage the development of a transparent search engine.
>

That has been tried, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia_Search

You are welcome to do it again if you feel the need.

--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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