[Sigia-l] morality, google and consequences of classification

[David Heller]

Comparing the Google search site to the Yahoo directory site is an
interesting one, b/c it clearly deliniates where "censorship" is OK and
when it isn't. In its rawest form "censorship" is a filter based on
criteria that is unfortunately subjective and ultra-qualitative. But
putting aside the politics of censorship for moment, in the end censors
are filters.

Now, the distinction I would make here is that if you are going to
censor than you have to change the qualities of your service. For
example if I remove KKK, al Qaeda, and porn from my site, then I might
have to call it the "All-American Family Values Directory" or something
like that. By saying that, instead of "The Internet Directory" I'm
letting people know that this directory has a beant and I will be judged
against other sites with the same beant. 

Google however is a search engine, not a directory (yes they have a
directory too). This is supposed to contain "The Web". It is advertised
as a crawler and as far as I'm concerned there should be no human
intervention in my results if they are going to have any level of
integrity. If people don't want to get raw results then they shouldn't
use Google or that system. If Google feels they will loose too many
searchers b/c of the rawness of their content then they need to change
their marketing statement to one that clearly states the positions they
are taking and then see if that improves their market share or decreases
it.

Another way out of this for Google is to actually create different
brands using their same technology, or make a censor an option on their
site. "[ ] check here if you are afraid of the realities of the
Internet". I like the branding idea better b/c then parents can block
google.com (generic) and only allow googlie.com for kids or something
like that.

In the end though the morality here is in how a search engine presents
itself. If you don't let people know through your message that you are
not giving them the whole story it is like a biased journalist who makes
you think that his word is objective. That is just uncool.

-- dave

David Heller
Sr. User Interface Designer
Documentum: The Leader in Enterprise Content Management
925.600.5636
 
david.heller at documentum.com
http://www.documentum.com/
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--"If it isn't useful, it will never be usable."