Is Google Getting Too Personal? - Concerns Beyond SEO

In his article titled “Google Ramps up Personalized Search,” Danny Sullivan gives a very detailed description of how it works and how you can manipulate your search history, removing items individually, in groups, or all at once. You can also pause and resume your search history, or get rid of it completely. Well, almost completely; Google still keeps some form of records. When Sullivan asked why, he received the following answer:

“As is standard in the industry, we use aggregate user data to analyze usage patterns and diagnose problems with our system, as well as to improve our services to users. This aggregate information is not associated with a user's Google Account. As reflected in our privacy policy, we maintain this data for as long as it is useful for those purposes.”

A lot of people find this less than comforting. Many of us remember the deliberate AOL leaks (they weren't that long ago after all); that information was not supposed to be the kind that could be used to identify individuals, but it clearly was. Worse, with some of the searches that were performed, the information could even have been used to commit identity theft. So far, Google has not experienced any “information spills;” we can only hope that this good record continues. Many of us would feel better if we knew exactly what Google was doing to safeguard the privacy of this information.

Steven Bradley of Searchnewz raised a point that brought me up short. I think it deserves a wider hearing. While he acknowledged that the way Google now has Search History and Personalized Search set up will improve the relevance of search for most people, and that they will like the change, he has certain reservations. In particular, he has reservations with the idea that it is on by default when you’re signed in. How many of us will remember to sign out? For how many of us will it become a sort of unseen crutch, not unlike spelling checkers have become today (“Sure you spelled their right, but didn’t you mean to use they’re?” he notes by way of example).

This leads to Bradley’s biggest point: “My main concern is that tying search results to search history will limit personal growth and risks locking people into a set of thoughts.” He uses as an example a conservative thinker who was a big supporter of the war in Iraq and always showed an interest in information favorable to US policy when he searched. Now the same person is having second thoughts; his support is wavering, and he wants to find out why the war might not be such a good idea. “Are you going to be able to find that information easily? Or are your searches going to continue to return the same results they always have?”

That may not be so bad if we remember that we’ll need to log out to do a generic Google search. But will we remember? It’s quite possible that users won’t – especially if they’re like me, not really knowing or caring when they’re logged in. I think Google may need to make some serious fixes to this particular new service. We know it’s not afraid to make the SEOs unhappy, but it would be a bad thing if a company with the motto “don’t be evil” rolled out a service that made it more difficult for its users to think outside the box. As Bradley put it, “Isn’t the idea of searching to find something you didn’t know about?”