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

[Philip Hall]

>
> On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, at 11:39 AM, David Heller wrote:
>
>>
>> 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.

FWIW, Google has a "preferences" page that allows one to choose the 
level of filtering. They default to mild filtering, it seems, but what 
bothers me is that they don't seem to tell you anywhere on the front 
page that filtering is taking place or that you can change this on the 
'preferences' page.

I'm not willing to go so far as to say that this practice is 'evil' but 
I would certainly like a bit more disclosure from them about the 
decisions they're making on my behalf. The funny thing is, I would 
happily leave the mild filtering turned on for almost all of my 
searching and I suspect that the majority of users would do the same 
('though I have absolutely no evidence to back up this assumption). I 
think they will attract more critical attention by filtering without 
telling us than by filtering and letting everyone know that that's how 
they see it.

Phil.
www.philiphall.ca
www.digitalcobbler.com

>