A Most Remarkable Google Page: Toward Search Dispute Resolutions

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: June 25, 2007 10:06:17 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: A Most Remarkable Google Page: Toward Search Dispute  
Resolutions



     A Most Remarkable Google Page: Toward Search Dispute Resolutions

              http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000255.html


Greetings.  There's a fascinating and apparently singular page on
Google that you've probably never seen.  In the normal course of
searching on Google you'd only find it if you followed an unusual
"sponsored link" -- sponsored by Google itself -- above the regular
search results for a single, very ancient word.  The page URL itself
is nondescript and seemingly generic, but the contents are
remarkable, for they are explicitly a blanket apology for many of
the query results returned for that one very specific short word:

   http://www.google.com/explanation.html

Search on the same word at Yahoo or AltaVista, and you won't find a
similarly placed explanation or apology, even though the search
results are similar.

The laudable presence of this Google explanatory page makes explicit
an acknowledgment by Google that search results can have real impact
on real people, and that the referenced Web sites in these results
may at times be misleading, defamatory, or otherwise seriously
damaging to actual lives.

In two previous recent items:

   Search Engine Dispute Notifications: Request For Comments
   http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000253.html

   Extending Google Blacklists for Dispute Resolutions
   http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000254.html

I discussed some issues related to the possible ways in which search
engines could help mitigate the impact of serious "attacking"
misinformation on Web pages referenced by search results.  In my
view, the key aspect of this problem is finding a way to empower
people who are being seriously demeaned, defamed, threatened, or
otherwise attacked by specific Web sites -- sites and pages that are
frequently beyond the targets' financial or jurisdictional ability
to impact, even with court orders in hand.  Real people, real lives.

It's known that search research is increasingly looking at how human
input beyond inter-page linking activities can be usefully harnessed
toward improving the relevance of search results, and it can be
reasonably argued that such mechanisms may also be useful to help
deal with serious Web site abuse, with distributed, virtual
community input as a particularly intriguing possible approach.

I do not view such postulated Web dispute resolution mechanisms --
which I have broadly termed "dispute links" -- as a means for
furthering arguments between creationists and evolutionists,
political battles, or other "general" disagreements.  Rather, the
threshold for activating such systems would likely be fairly high,
and focused on very specific attacks -- especially on individuals.

Ultimately, we must consider whether the status quo, where the
targets of serious, life-ruining Web-based attacks are often
essentially impotent to effectively respond, is an ethically
acceptable situation.  Will our ethical systems rule the machines,
or will we allow the machines to reduce our lives to the lowest
common denominator of automaton-like, void existence?

To be sure, these are complex matters, and if anyone tells you that
they have simple answers for such questions, you're either talking
to a lier or a fool.  Even setting forth the fundamental precepts
toward solving such problems is very difficult.  Workable, possible
solutions will be philosophically and technically challenging.  I
won't even try to offer my take on the more technical details here
-- I have a white paper in progress that I'll offer to the community
for dissection and possible evisceration as soon as possible.

In the meantime, it might be wise to muse more on that Google page
noted above.  For it tells us very plainly that among major search
engines, Google understands that Search Results Matter.  They matter
now to everyone who uses the Web, and even to people who don't have
Internet access at all -- but whose lives are impacted by the Web
nonetheless.  And that's the entire population of the planet.

The Web, after all, isn't really computers and routers, fiber and
spinning disk arrays, databases and blogs.  The Web is people.  Our
job now is to find the path toward helping make sure that the power
of Web search enhances people's lives while not incidentally creating
asymmetric opportunities for seriously damaging innocent lives in
the process.

Even though a single search query word is explicitly referenced by
that Google explanation page, Google has with that very clear
published text already gone a step beyond other search engines in its
acknowledgment of search impacts.

It therefore seems reasonable for the community to look toward
Google, as the industry leader in search technology, to also be a
leading force at forging that path toward the next steps -- the route
that will help keep search engines as tools to benefit us all, while
preventing that technology from being perverted by outside players
for evil purposes.

It's really that important.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Founder, CIFIP
   - California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com




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