Google admits its staff will choose what appears in search results

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
Date: December 14, 2008 4:41:40 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: larrypage () google com, sergeybrin () google com
Subject: Google admits its staff will choose what appears in search  
results

Well, if true <sigh>, so much for computer-aided objectivity or  
reliability!
(You might express your opinion to Google's founders; eaddrs in the cc- 
line.)
--jim

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/12/googlewashing_revisited/

Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

Manufacturing isn't dead - it just went to Mountain View

By Andrew Orlowski
Posted in Music and Media, 12th December 2008 19:38 GMT

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what  
appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody  
has yet grasped its significance.

Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search  
results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm.  
The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:

   The selection and placement of stories on this page were  
determined automatically by a computer program.

A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got  
some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald  
Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too  
pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm  
"relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast  
link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "

That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if  
Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment  
directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being  
rigged.

...<SNIP>...




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