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Simple mistake. Could happen to anybody.
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:50:42 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com> Date: March 21, 2006 2:36:20 PM ESTTo: Dave <dave () farber net>, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, JMG <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Subject: Simple mistake. Could happen to anybody. http://htdaw.blogsource.com/post.mhtml?post_id=285925 Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 2:34 PM EST SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon-dot-com says it is changing the way its search engine handles requests for the term “abortion.” The Web retailer says it got an e-mail complaint that the results of the searches seem biased. Until the criteria were changed, if you were to type in the word “abortion” you'd get a prompt that asks: “Did you mean adoption?” Under the question, there are search results on abortion. A spokeswoman for Amazon says the prompt isn't meant as some kind of political or social statement but rather a technology issue. Patty Smith notes that adoption and abortion are nearly the same, save for two keystrokes, so the program takes into account the possibility of a misspelling. But the company says it ditched the question because the e-mailer raised a valid question. People who type in the term “adoption” don't get a prompt asking: “Do you mean abortion.” The change in the site was reported yesterday by The New York Times. http://www.wtsp.com/weird/weird_article.aspx?storyid=27589 -- "The people who still support George Bush are the same people who believe Adam and Eve rode to church on the backs of dinosaurs". - SNL ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Simple mistake. Could happen to anybody. David Farber (Mar 21)