Google chooses what we see…

Mathew Ingram wrote a piece on GigaOM about a change in the google search algorithm to discourage mugshot sites and the often associated blackmail.

He makes the case, not least with his title “first they came for the mugshot websites, but I said nothing” that this decision to actively discourage a set of sites is a slippery slope. The danger is that we will not know what will be hidden from us by google next.

Google chooses what we see and don’t see

He contrasts the fiction of “the right to be forgotten” that the EU is currently pushing, which would give the end user a choice in what will be remembered, versus Google deciding what will be forgotten by virtue of not being found.

While I find the EU position to be an unrealistic fiction, I find this Google action to be a worrisome precedent. It is of course legitimate for Google, and that’s likely the argument they will put forth, to optimise for deducing the intent of the searcher and giving the best possible results. That is a specious argument though, because whether mugshot sites fit that intent depends on an assumption about intent that is decided on by google. Ultimately, it’s a decision that is made.

The real issue is that the market cannot possibly have a chance to compensate. Usually, one would make the claim that since the filtering is beong done by a corporation and not a state entity, the market has a chance to correct any problems. This however assumes that consumers have an opportunity to notice. In the case of filtering the web consumers will never know precisely because they will not know what they are missing.

Mathew’s worry about what Google will filter next is very valid. When it starts filtering things like Wiki-Leaks, or Snowden’s revelations, that would be a real problem. Especially since we will not know what we did not find and we won’t even know whether Google is filtering due to ideology or due to pressure from one or more states.