Google and the progressive editorialization of the web
In defense of the good ol’ “ten blue links”
An interesting article on Mashable called “Google in 2014: the world is (almost) its oyster” once again highlights the progressive shift from a search engine with lists of blue-linked pages in blocks of 10 with the corresponding advertising toward increasingly complex and editorialized architectures with the aim of strengthening the relevance of each user’s search, while at the same time giving the company greater and greater control over variables that many people believe is setting an extremely dangerous precedent.
On the one hand Google now fills the upper areas of its pages with its own products: are you looking for a holiday, to buy something, go somewhere, eat out, a hotel? The likelihood is that it will be Google itself that responds to your search with a box conveniently located in the upper part of the page. Which is all well and good, unless yours is a company offering similar products and services, and you now find Google using its near-impregnable hold over searches to promote its products, giving them priority over yours, a matter that the European Union has been addressing for some time now.
Then there is the question of privacy. The company is battling regulators in Spain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom over whether it should obey local legislation or answer solely to the laws of the state of California. Issuing appeals against rulings outside of California along the lines of “leave us alone and talk to Mountain View” does not help.
The process of editorializing its search results increasingly relies on access to information from users, with the supposed goal of making results more relevant. This raises several questions: how much power do we want to grant a company by allowing it to editorialize our results; how can we know that the results have been obtained for our benefit? In all honesty, I would prefer to have 10 links chosen on the basis of consistency, and then make my own mind up.
The problem is that aside from possible breaches of several countries’ privacy legislation, which tend to be more stringent than America’s, an issue that Google is going to have to address, we also need to bear in mind the so-called bubble effect: the process whereby as results pages interpret the characteristics typed in by the user, a one-sided universe emerges reflecting Google’s vision of things.
This is particularly well illustrated by the case of DuckDuckGo, which Google, in its continual quest for relevance, has largely ignored.
In general, the company tends to avoid responding to anything that challenges its views. Along with its unsatisfactory response to the monopoly commissions in several countries we might add the way that it deals with intellectual property rights: consistently ignoring individual artists and authors over large corporations. This is a subject I know well and have commented on at length over the years, and about which I have never received a satisfactory reply from Google. What’s more, it affects me personally. My own YouTube account is subject to restrictions that are the result of several unsubstantiated complaints regarding copyright brought by a number of companies based on skewed logic, and that Google has never bothered to deal with.
Leaving aside the company’s attitude, and returning to the subject of editorializing, what we are talking about here is a serious problem relating to its business model: as the company sees that more and more of its traffic is shifting to smartphones and tablets—while at the same time its hold over this sector is stronger and stronger thanks to Android—it is moving toward mobile first designs, conceived precisely for this scenario: as far as Google is concerned, the 10 blue links on its pages do not look very attractive on a small screen, and take a long time to scroll down, while its editorialized models using information mediated by Google pretty much come up with replies in a single click. Needless to say, this approach is more profitable.
The lines are drawn: it’s either a model based on 10 blue links created by a single algorithm that allows the user to choose freely, or a new model based on cards such as Google Now, which supposedly comes up with more relevant results, but that have been manipulated by the company, and that relieve the user of any choice. Google’s argument is that its results are protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of expression. This might carry some weight in a courtroom, but is of little consolation to users.
Some people might see my arguments as old school, but in all honesty, I much prefer Google’s initial model, and which was the main reason why I chose the search engine over others. What’s more, the company will do whatever it pleases, and has repeatedly shown that it is not interested in listening to criticism. That said, as users, we should be aware of what we risk losing with the shift to Google’s new paradigm.
(En español, aquí)
