June 28, 2022

Phys .org: Research finds that Google searches may be a predictor of domestic violence

Phys .org: Research finds that Google searches may be a predictor of domestic violence. “…a study just published in the European Journal of Population finds that Google searches are an effective tool to track and predict domestic violence, especially in times of crisis, such as the period that followed the COVID-19 outbreak. And policymakers could use these results to better devise surveillance/monitoring systems to contain, minimize, and even anticipate surges in domestic violence.”

Research & Opinion 0
June 24, 2022

ZDNet: You. com is taking on Google with AI, apps, privacy, and personalization

ZDNet: You. com is taking on Google with AI, apps, privacy, and personalization. “It’s not that Google is the only game in town. Besides Baidu and Yandex, the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo have tried their luck too, with Bing and the eponymous search engine, respectively. The privacy-focused DuckDuckGo is another option. Yet, none of those has a market share of over 3% worldwide. Can a new entry do better than so many others before it? Richard Socher thinks so.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
June 20, 2022

The Atlantic: Is Google Dying? Or Did the Web Grow Up?

The Atlantic: Is Google Dying? Or Did the Web Grow Up?. “The internet has grown exponentially and Google has expanded with it, helping usher in some of the web’s greediest, most extractive tendencies. But scale is not always a blessing for technology products. Are we wringing our hands over nothing, or is Google a victim of its own success, rendering its flagship product—Search—less useful?” This essay made me swear out loud, shake my head repeatedly, and throw a pillow across the room. It posits arguments with which I do not agree. It is still worth reading.

Research & Opinion 0
June 14, 2022

PsyPost: People attribute information they found online to their own memory instead of the internet

PsyPost: People attribute information they found online to their own memory instead of the internet. “Human cognition is now so intertwined with the internet, a knowledge-sharing system that can be accessed any time anywhere, that the boundaries between individual knowledge (i.e., personal memory) and collective knowledge (i.e., external online information) are becoming increasingly blurred. In other words, people may mistakenly believe that information they found online is from their personal memory.”

Research & Opinion 0
April 9, 2022

WIRED: How to Spot Content Marketing in Search Results

WIRED: How to Spot Content Marketing in Search Results. “Until recently I was employed, full-time, by a software company where I wrote articles designed to rank highly in Google results, where they’d get millions of clicks. More and more of your search results are like this. It’s called content marketing, and it’s somewhere between the editorial content you read on sites like this one and straight-up advertising. At its best, content marketing blends a certain amount of useful information with something that serves specific marketing aims. At its worst, content marketing is a way for marketers to get blatant sales pitches to rank highly in search results while also ruining your day.”

Useful Stuff 0
March 21, 2022

VentureBeat: Language models that can search the web hold promise — but also raise concerns

VentureBeat: Language models that can search the web hold promise — but also raise concerns. “In a paper published early this month, researchers at DeepMind, the AI lab backed by Google parent company Alphabet, describe a language model that answers questions by using Google Search to find a top list of relevant, recent webpages. After condensing down the first 20 webpages into six-sentence paragraphs, the model selects the 50 paragraphs most likely to contain high-quality information; generates four ‘candidate’ answers for each of the 50 paragraphs (for a total of 200 answers); and determines the ‘best’ answer using an algorithm.”

Research & Opinion 0
July 30, 2021

The Differences Between Deep Web and Dark Web: What You Need to Know (Make Tech Easier)

Make Tech Easier: The Differences Between Deep Web and Dark Web: What You Need to Know. “If Aquaman has taught us anything, it’s that there is more going on under the surface than we realize. To continue this nautical theme, there are many similarities between the Internet and the oceans. They both have surface, deep, and dark web layers. These layers are unexplored for the most part. We will take a look at the deep web and dark web in this guide and show you the differences between the deep web and dark web.”

Useful Stuff 0
May 25, 2021

TechRadar: Keep prying eyes off your Google search history with this new account tweak

TechRadar: Keep prying eyes off your Google search history with this new account tweak. “It’s no secret that Google tracks your activity when you use its hardware and software – whether it be an Android device, smart speaker or even just Google Chrome – but how secure is this activity log? At present, anyone with access to a logged-in device can view this log, but as discovered by Android Police, Google has recently introduced a way to password protect the ‘My Activity’ page.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
May 24, 2021

Harvard Gazette: Tracking progression of disease through internet searches for symptoms

Harvard Gazette: Tracking progression of disease through internet searches for symptoms. “You’re not feeling well so you open a search engine and type: fever, dry cough, hoping to find hints of what you may have. A handful of days later, you’re feeling worse, and you type in: trouble breathing. It turns out you’re not the only one who’s doing this, and a Harvard senior’s research project suggests that tracking the results of all those searches can tell us something about the progression of a new disease in individuals and through a population.”

Research & Opinion 0
March 1, 2021

Make Tech Easier: 4 of the Best Search Engines For Privacy

Make Tech Easier: 4 of the Best Search Engines For Privacy. “For the past several years, online privacy has been a prominent theme. Google, in particular, dominates almost all aspects of the Internet, which considering its business model, isn’t compatible with user privacy. As such, many are looking for Google alternatives, especially when it comes to search engines. In this post, we look at some of the best search engines that focus on privacy first and foremost. Before this, we also discuss why you’d want to choose a more private search engine in the first place.”

Useful Stuff 0
October 30, 2020

Washington Post: Can Google searches predict where coronavirus cases will soon emerge?

Washington Post: Can Google searches predict where coronavirus cases will soon emerge?. “Google has explored the idea that its search data could be used to trace illness before. At one point, the company explored using searches for influenza-related terms as a way to track the spread of the illness. It abandoned the experiment after finding that its predicted number of cases were substantially higher than reality. [Dan] Sinker’s tweet nonetheless made me curious about whether there was a consistent relationship between searches for those terms and case totals nationally or in states. Using Google’s online Trends tool and The Washington Post’s coronavirus data set, I compared the two. Sometimes data analysis yields a truly stunning result. This was such a time.”

COVID-19 0
September 23, 2020

ThreatPost: Unsecured Microsoft Bing Server Leaks Search Queries, Location Data

ThreatPost: Unsecured Microsoft Bing Server Leaks Search Queries, Location Data. “An unsecured database has exposed sensitive data for users of Microsoft’s Bing search engine mobile application – including their location coordinates, search terms in clear text and more. While no personal information, like names, were exposed, researchers with Wizcase argued that enough data was available that it would be possible to link these search queries and locations to user identities — giving bad actors information ripe for blackmail attacks, phishing scams and more.”

Security & Legal Issues 0

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