Behind the Search Lens : Effects of search on the individual
Data and Privacy
Most websites, search engines and mail clients collect information about users. Most of this data is tied to the identity of the user through ip addresses. This data is then used to serve targeted advertisements and personalised content,improve the services provided and do market research. However, Search engines do not always disclose all the information they collect and everything they do with that information once it has been collected.1 Or even where they collect this information. For example, studies show that Google can track users across nearly 80% of websites.2Information that search engines can display when someone searches for a user include:
- Information that they added in some web site,
- Information added by others with their full consent.
- Information that was collected in some other context and then published on the web - by forums, event organisers, friends and others.
- Every search : the topic searched for, date and time of search request. 1,3,4
- Activity data across apps like email, calendar and maps, collected by search engines like Google and Microsoft.3,4
- Data bought by some search engines from third parties.3,4
- Data bought from search engines and websites that are put together and tied to the user by third parties.2
- Inferences made from the data collected.
- Inferences drawn from personal settings. For example, "to infer that a user who has strong privacy settings may have certain psychological traits, or that they may have “something to hide”".5
- User profiles or models that the search engines create based on this information. These models are based on online data and give only a limited view of the person. The decisions based on these, when used in other contexts, will not be fair.
All this data, both raw and processed, gives rise to privacy and security concerns. Some measures can be taken by search providers, governments and users to prevent privacy breeches :
- Data storage can be done in ways that discourage leaks and theft. For example, by storing user data in separate and decentralised databases.5
- Data is encrypted or anonymised.
- Machine learning can be used to automatically detect and classify trackers. This can then be used to improve browser privacy tools.2
- Policies and laws like the GDPR legislation can introduce explicit guidelines and sanctions to regulate data collection, use, and storage.1
- User-centered recommendations are made and publicised so that users, including parents and teachers, can guard their and their wards’ privacy better.
Also, how a law is enforced changes from country to country. According to GDPR, a person can ask a search engine company to remove a search result that concerns them. Even if the company removes it from the index in Europe, the page can still show up in the results outside Europe.1
Not to forget, while policies of companies can shed some light on their practices, research shows that there is often a gap between the policy and its use.2
Reliability of Content
Critics have pointed out that search engine companies are not fully open with why they show some sites and not others, and rank some pages higher than others.1Ranking of search results is heavily influenced by advertisers who sponsor content. Morever, Big search engine companies provide many services other than search. Content provided by them are often boosted in the search results.In Europe, Google has been formally charged with prominently displaying its own product or service in its search returns, regardless of its merits.1
Large companies and Web developers who study ranking algorithms can also influence ranking by playing on how a search engine defines popularity and authenticity of web sites. Of course, the criteria the search engine programmers judged important are themselves open to question.
All this affect how reliable the search results are. It is always a good idea to use multiple sources and multiple search engines and have a discussion about the content used in schoolwork.
Autonomy
A search engine, with its ranking system, recommends content. By not revealing the criteria used to select this content, it reduces user autonomy. For example, if we had known one of the suggested web pages is sponsored, or selected based on popularity criteria we don’t identify with, we might not have chosen to use that content. By taking away informed consent, search engines and other recommender systems have controlling influences over our behaviour.Autonomy is having control over processes, decisions and outcomes.7 It implies liberty (independence from controlling influences) and agency (capacity for intentional action)7 . Systems that recommend content without explanation can encroach on the users’ autonomy. They provide recommendations that nudge the users in a particular direction, by engaging them only with what they would like and by limiting the range of options to which they are exposed.5
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1 Tavani, H., Zimmer, M., Search Engines and Ethics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
2 Englehardt, S., Narayanan, A., Online Tracking: A 1-million-site Measurement and Analysis, Extended version of paper at ACM CCS 2016.
3 Google Privacy and Terms
4 Microsoft Privacy Statement
5 Milano, S., Taddeo, M., Floridi, L. Recommender systems and their ethical challenges, AI & Soc 35, 957–967, 2020
6 Tavani, H.T., Ethics and Technology: Controversies, Questions, and Strategies for Ethical Computing, 5th edition, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2016
7 Hillis, K., Petit, M., Jarrett, K., Google and the Culture of Search, Routledge Taylor and Francis, 2013
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