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What Is The Internet Hiding?

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Chandos the Red, May 16, 2011.

Page 3 of 4
  1. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Remove all ads!
    You are or were a salesman right? So when someone came into your store and gave you a general idea what they were looking for, did you not size them up to decide what more specifically they might have wanted? Especially if they were someone regular whom you got to know; did you not use information you gathered about them to help you decide what to recommend to them?
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 24, 2011
    #41
  2. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Only information that the customer chose to reveal about him/herself. I never spied on them and always asked them if they were willing to share information - like where else they have been shopping. I usually framed a question with, "May I ask...?" I believe that any personal information to be given out should be selected by the individual, not by the government, or a coporation, or even a sales person. :)
     
    Chandos the Red, May 24, 2011
    #42
  3. Baronius

    Baronius Mental harmony dispels the darkness ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    The analogy is wrong, for the reasons detailed by Chandos the Red.

    On the long run, this type of "filtered results" can actually influence (change) the taste of people (taste in general meaning), i.e. it can change our notions about things, etc. For example, Gregorian chants sounded differently before J.S. Bach. (This is an example when one person changed the taste. Nowadays, big companies/governments are able to do so -- and they do so.) That is, the results we are given will change our notion of what we consider a result. It's a slow process, but it exists.

    Having said that, I'm not against customized search results. In fact, it's a very useful thing, but it should be implemented properly, taking into account all necessary factors.
     
    Baronius, May 25, 2011
    #43
  4. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    No, it is the same. A salesman can influence your taste as well by showing you and telling you about items he thinks are what you want (or what he wants to sell you). A waiter offers things to you that he thinks you might want (or that the restaurant wants to sell) and that can influence what you like etc.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 25, 2011
    #44
  5. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    ...And that's a good thing, in your opinion? :confused: I was a good salesman, and generally tried to sell to a customer's needs, rather than just "what I wanted to sell them," although I knew salesmen who operated that way. Yes, there were times I had to sell like that, because I was under pressure by management, but that's NOT a good thing from a customer's perspective [not that most stores really care]. Still, I agree with Baronius.
     
    Chandos the Red, May 25, 2011
    #45
  6. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Whether it's a good thing or not like many other things depends on motive and of course on your perspective.

    It seems that those opposed think there is something nefarious going on in the filtering and sorting rather than an attempt to be as helpful as possible.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 25, 2011
    #46
  7. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I wouldn't think they were being nefarious, just not to my liking. I would prefer precise hits on what I am searching for rather than them trying to predict what I would like. How could they possibly know what I like from my searches. I could use the internet mostly for work and then later use the internet for fun or personal reasons. How can they tell?

    Or....

    Let's say I like porn for example and download alot of it. But then, later when sitting with my kids at the PC and a key word I use in a mundane search request for a kids program has some type of connection, is a bunch of porn hits going to populate on the screen... I would certianly hope not. I would prefer they use a system that just populates what I search for, period.

    Btw, that has never happened to me, I swear.... :D
     
    Blades of Vanatar, May 25, 2011
    #47
  8. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    You don't see the contradiction in that? How can they deliver a "precise hit" without predicting what you like? What is considered a precise hit is different for different people, so in order to determine precise hits for you they use information about you to determine what the precise hits are for you.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 25, 2011
    #48
  9. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I meant precise to the defintion of what I am searching for. Not hits for things that closely match previous searches of mine.
     
    Blades of Vanatar, May 25, 2011
    #49
  10. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    My take on this was pretty well explained by the narrator of the video. I pretty much agreed with him.
     
    Chandos the Red, May 26, 2011
    #50
  11. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Most of the time people's searches by themselves don't contain enough information for anywhere near a precise hit based solely on the keywords entered. Without Google having some background information based on your previous searches it wouldn't be possible to serve you with a precise hit in say the first 3 results.

    For instance, you play RPGs, but not very often. You heard about that new dragon-something game from a friend and want to know more. Your search would be something like "new game dragons". You expect Google to serve you with exactly what you had in mind in the first hit. And it does (a link to BioWare's Dragon Age 2 site).

    But how was that possible? There are hundreds of games with dragons in them and even in the title. Dragon Age 2 may be the latest non-board game with them in, but you could well have been searching for a board game. How did Google know that you want the PC game?

    Guesswork and probability might work in this case, but there are millions of similar ones where they'd be far less successful or not at all. But if Google knows based on your previous searches that you're a PC gamer (you searched for "best graphics card" a year ago) who happens to like to play an occasional RPG and that you like to play BioWare's games (because you searched for "Mass Effect walkthrough" a few years ago), the likelihood of it delivering exact results to you in the first hit even with somewhat vague keywords are very high.
     
    Taluntain, May 26, 2011
    #51
  12. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Tal - Just curious. While you say that, yesterday I was searching Google for some new guitar strings - Dean Markley, Jimi Hendrix NPS guitar strings to be exact. I noticed several times today that an ad on your site has popped up a few times with the same strings I was searching for on Google. In fact I'm staring at one ad as I type this. It reads, "Thousands of accessories to protect or hot rod your gear! Strings and More. Shop now." And right there in the corner of the ad is a picture of Jimi Hendrix guitar strings. Amazing. Don't get me wrong, I actually do think it is helpful, but still kind of eerie.
     
    Chandos the Red, May 26, 2011
    #52
  13. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I finally remembered to check out the video while at home (can't see them at work), and I don't agree with the presenter.

    He claims that we don't have control over what is getting filtered; it's actually the opposite. What gets filtered is based on what you have demonstrated your interests are. What difference does it make if a search engine presents you with links you're not going to click on anyway? And if you would click on them (i.e. have clicked on the type before) then you will be presented with them. If you want something else, want exposure to something uncomfortable or challenging or all the other words he used, all you have to do is look a little farther down the list. If you don't, you wouldn't click on them anyway even if they were presented to you.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 26, 2011
    #53
  14. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    That's all Google. AdSense (by Google) is one of our advertising providers. And the whole Google network is very inter-connected, so what you search for in Google (and similar stuff) is very likely to show up in AdSense ads on sites that use it.
     
    Taluntain, May 26, 2011
    #54
  15. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    "Precise" depends on the category of your search. If I search for "Cars", of course you will need more info for a precise hit, as Cars could be the Movie, the band or automobiles in general. But If I search for Gates as I want to see what types of gates I can buy for my fence, I don't want to see Baldur's Gate hits pop up because I am a RPG fan. I don't think that is asking alot, do you? I use this example, as this is just what happened when testing Google from my work pc. My lunch hours are boring here at work, so I usually serf the web for BG mods and related content. I asked the person sitting to my right, a newbie witha new machine to google "Gate" and she got a totally different set of hits. What I would of expected in my search actually. Wiki definitions of the word Gate, and related emails to actual gates for driveways, fences, etc... To me, if I wanted BG hits, I would of searched for BG. Instead I searched for a Gate, I would expect actual Gate hits first. Am I wrong in wanting that? OR am I in the minority in wanting that?
     
    Blades of Vanatar, May 26, 2011
    #55
  16. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I think the more important question is: Does Google give you more often than not what you are looking for? If it does, then what they use to tailor their results to you works pretty well. If it doesn't, then there are several competitors whose results you may find more to your liking.

    Google is a service like any other; if you don't like their service, go elsewhere.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 26, 2011
    #56
  17. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Jeez BTA, what are they paying you? ;)

    Unfortunately, most of my web-surfing, which isn't a ton, is done from my work PC. I am stuck with Google. At home, I do not use Google much, but the wife does. Still needs ot be on our PC then. I am not saying that I won't use Google, but I agree with Marceror's orignal point made in the beginning of this thread.
     
    Blades of Vanatar, May 26, 2011
    #57
  18. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I'm just trying to say that I don't do market research for Google, so I don't know if you are in the minority, but I have to assume you are since I'm sure Google spends millions of dollars on market research to make sure their search engine is the top one used. If it didn't operate as peolpe wanted it to, it wouldn't be at the top.

    BTW, I rarely use Google because Yahoo has always been good enough for me and it was the first one I started using way back. :) I use Google (or some other search engine) occasionally if I can't find what I want easily with Yahoo to see if I can with another.
     
    Blackthorne TA, May 26, 2011
    #58
  19. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    If Google had that attitude its stock wouldn't be trading where it is. "Yeah, we suck, but try and find someone better." :lol:

    I've used Google for years. They used to be really good; now, not so much.
     
    Chandos the Red, May 27, 2011
    #59
  20. Baronius

    Baronius Mental harmony dispels the darkness ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Use bing then
     
    Baronius, May 27, 2011
    #60
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