The Political Hackonomist

Very interesting read on how Google Personalized Search makes us perceive individualized search results as facts, when instead they are a distorted view on "reality", heavily based on our previous reading (clicking) habits.

The article argues, that when 2 people google for the exact same search term, e.g. "climate change", people who, in similar searches before, read more articles talking denying man-made effects on climate change, are likely to see more articles of that sceptical kind. Instead, people who previously clicked more sites which say that climate change is in fact influenced by us, will see more of that kind of sites. The problem is, most people don't know about this, and usually both sides falsely assume, that they are presented the same results, when instead they see "results they'd probably like more than other results".

That's all fine with me as long as you Google for shoes, music or receipes and see stuff you'd probably like, because you liked similar things before. That's what Google, Facebook and all these companies have been doing for a living since the beginning: showing you stuff advertisements that match your interests.

But this really is a big problem when researching complex issues, and especially topics that can stir up emotions and make people take extreme points of view. 

Of course, if you don't have a Google account or aren't logged in, then personalized search is not affecting you. As in many other cases, i guess, anonymity really is a good thing...