TagGoogle Search
Life Beyond Google Search: Try the Other Search Engines
Recently, DuckDuckGo was found to be tracking users sometimes, due to a deal with Microsoft. No matter, there are many search engines now…Search engine DuckDuckGo — famous for not tracking users — lost some favor recently, after its CEO had to admit that it does sometimes track users: Security researcher Zack Edwards this week revealed that DuckDuckGo’s mobile browsers allow some Microsoft sites to bypass its block on trackers. While the browser blocks Facebook and Google trackers, DuckDuckGo makes an exception for some of Microsoft’s. Edwards found that the browsers allow allows data to be sent to Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Bing domains DuckDuckGo said the exemption was due to a search agreement with Microsoft. Thomas Macaulay, “DuckDuckGo faces widespread backlash over tracking deal with Microsoft” at The NextWebMay 26, 2022 DuckDuckGo’s CEO Gabriel Weinberg pointed out to disappointed users that the company Read More ›
The Brave Search Engine Survives. So Does Privacy Still Matter?
Despite Google’s overwhelming dominance, Brave clocked 2.5 billion searches since this time last yearLast year, we wrote about the Brave search engine, headed up by Mozilla pioneer Brendan Eich. Brave Search offered the first true alternative to Google since Bing by introducing a third English language index and protecting user privacy. A nice idea, many have thought, but who really cares? So what if Big Tech makes largely unaccountable billions from marketing our information, as long as the social media services it provides remain free? So perhaps surprisingly, Brave is hanging on. Tech maven Jacob Carpenter noted recently at Fortune that, while Google owns 92.5% of the search market business according to StatCounter, that number hasn’t changed much over a decade. And Brave is reporting 2.5 billion searches from its current search engine’s Read More ›
Can Computer Algorithms Be Free of Bias?
Bias is inevitable but it should be recognized and admittedGregory Coppola’s revelations about Google’s politically biased search engine shone a spotlight on how algorithms are written.
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Google Engineer Reveals Search Engine Bias
He found Google pretty neutral in 2014; the bias started with the US 2016 electionThe algorithms—the series of commands to computers—“don’t write themselves,” Coppola says. People who have their own opinions may write them into an algorithm, knowingly or otherwise.
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Google Search: Its Secret of Success Revealed
The secret is not the Big Data pile. No, Google found a way to harness YOUR wants and needsGoogle is one of the most widely misunderstood success stories of our time. Many of us equate Google with “Big Data,” that is, amassing huge quantities of data and then finding useful statistical patterns. But is that how it succeeded? In Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy, George Gilder criticizes Google primarily on two fronts: First, it is a “walled garden,” a great platform, but inherently isolated and closed. That is a point worth exploring, but not the focus here. The second point, the one I want to touch on, is that Big Data’s day has come and gone. Because Google is a Big Data company, its brightest days are behind it. Read More ›