Your Own Facts

[Gerald]

“Just Google it!” has become a common cyber-snobbish response to questions that seem too trivial to merit a human conversation. But is it really an answer? Now that more and more Internet sites are tailoring their services to the idiosyncrasies of individual users, queries for “climate change,” “stem cells” and even “pizza” may yield different outcomes for different people. This may be an era when we are increasingly entitled to our own facts — but should we also be entitled to our own search results?

Google looks to your previous queries (and the clicks that follow) and refines its search results accordingly. If you click on gossip blogs like Gawker rather than Netflix after searching for the names of movie stars, links to Gawker may feature more prominently. Likewise, if you have hundreds of Facebook friends, you see relevant updates only from the closest of them; Facebook relies on your earlier interactions to predict what, and who, is most likely to interest you. Thus, if you’re a conservative who clicks on links only from other conservatives, you may never see updates from your liberal acquaintances, even if you do “friend” them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/bo...ref=technology

Note: Published: June 10, 2011