NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Search Integrity: Google, Bing, and the Michelle Obama Photo Flap
Search Integrity: Google, Bing, and the Michelle Obama Photo Flap
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000640.html
Greetings. Over the last week or so we've seen two seemingly
independent Internet-related stories churning up both the blogosphere
and mainstream media. Both relate to a topic that most Net users
probably only think about occasionally, if at all -- search integrity.
The first involves a reported plan for one search engine to use big
money to try influence the utility of another search engine. The
other involves a racist, manipulated image of the United States' First
Lady.
When you use a search engine, whether Google, Bing, or any other, you
typically make the implicit assumption that the displayed search
results are not secretly biased in ways that would distort your search
query.
Of course we all know that major search engines display ads linked to
keywords, but the important point is that the user should be able to
clearly tell -- through appropriate labeling -- which results are
"paid" for inclusion, vs. which ones are natural or organic results
(unbiased by payments made to the search engine or its affiliates).
The integrity of a search engine's ranking algorithms can be
reasonably viewed as one of the "holy of holies" for firms involved in
search. If users can't trust the veracity of organic search results,
they can easily -- just a click away! -- switch to competing services.
A vexing aspect of search integrity relates to the handling of
particularly disturbing search results that may rise to the top of
rankings through the natural workings of search algorithms.
The simplest approach would simply be to remove such "offending"
results, but that immediately opens the door to all manner of
manipulations being demanded by outside parties, each with their own
agenda. The desire to claw one's way to the top of organic search
results rankings has spawned the entire Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) industry -- and a seemingly endless cat-and-mouse battle between
search engines and particularly unscrupulous Web sites.
When a search result clearly leads to a potentially dangerous site --
such as one serving viruses or other forms of malware, tagging the
site as a highly risky, or removing it from search listings entirely
in some cases, is completely justifiable. And of course if valid
legal process demands the removal of a listing, compliance is the only
responsible course.
But what of search results that are "merely" obnoxious, disgusting,
racist, or otherwise in very bad taste?
As I noted more than two years ago, Google has long had a special
sponsored link that appears along with searches for the word "Jew" --
leading to an explanation of offensive search results
( http://www.google.com/explanation.html ).
The purpose is clear and appropriate -- don't tamper with the organic
results themselves, but provide some context for users to better
understand why those results are occurring.
Now comes a racist rendering of Michelle Obama, originally tied to a
malware site, and so removed from image search results by Google, but
reappearing on other sites without malware connections, and so
appearing again in top image results listings on Google.
Google's response to this latter development has been to leave the
image in the organic results, but to explain the situation in a
manner similar to their procedure for the other offensive results
described above ( http://bit.ly/7aZXwt [ABC News] ).
I've had a number of people write to me lately asking how Google could
possibly leave such a racist image of Michelle Obama in their
listings. As always, I don't speak for Google, but this strikes me as
not even being a particularly tough call.
To do their jobs with integrity, search engines must avoid "special
casing" their ranking algorithms with exceptions designed to excise
particularly sensitive or controversial topics. Once you start down
the path of "micromanaging" individual results that don't represent a
clear and present danger to users, you open the door to endless
outside pressure to try mold search results to the particular
economic, political, religious, or other values of specific
individuals or groups. That would seem to me as one of the fastest
ways to undermine the trust of the user community at large.
But there's more than one way for a search engine's results to be
undermined. Reports -- unconfirmed at this time -- that Microsoft may
effectively pay Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to largely remove his Web
sites from Google search listings, suggest a desire in some quarters
for a "scorched earth" strategy in the Search Engine Wars -- using big
bucks not to expand one's own search engine operations, but rather to
try dilute the value of a competitor's organic search results through
what effectively amounts to an attempted boycott
( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000639.html ).
My own suspicion is that such efforts -- if actually deployed -- would
not only fail to achieve their apparent aims, but in fact would also
likely backfire on their proponents. But the mere fact that such
tactics reportedly are under consideration seems indicative of panic
in some quarters, of desperate thrashing about in attempts to
preserve, rather than adapt -- business models that are increasingly
suffering in an Internet-age economy.
The common link in these sagas is the importance of inclusion, rather
than exclusion. Whether we're talking about an offensive image in a
search ranking or competition between search engines, the excluding of
materials, either through internal decisions or the efforts of
competitors, should usually be considered as the worst possible
outcome for the users of search engines -- and of many other types of
Internet services as well, for that matter.
Over the decades of the Internet's evolution it is precisely the
inclusion of ever more organized information that has handed to the
world's populations potential powers that would have been unimaginable
half a century ago -- or perhaps even twenty years ago for that
matter.
This public access to information -- mostly without explicit monetary
charges other than what's paid for Internet access itself --
absolutely panics and stupefies many of the traditional power bases
around the world, especially in high circles of government in some
countries.
Dealing with this reality is no simple matter -- anyone who tells you
differently is uninformed, confused ... or lying. No "cookie cutter"
policy briefs are available to dictate how best to handle each
individual class of these dilemmas, particularly in international
contexts.
Against such a backdrop, it could be argued that an offensive
Photoshopped image and the manipulations of a grizzled "old-media"
tycoon aren't of relatively great import.
But as harbingers of the future, as warnings of tough decisions ahead
and the battles to come, these are still issues certainly worthy of
attention and discussion, so long as we remember that in the final
analysis, a great deal more will ultimately be at stake for us all in
the Internet's future.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein