[LINK] Google 'Search Plus Your World'

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Wed Jan 11 18:02:39 AEDT 2012


Despite multiple representations to Google, APF still sits on the 
outside, and has no advance warning about features that Google is 
considering releasing, or is about to release.  The relevant groups 
internationally, most importantly PI and EPIC, are on the outer as 
well.

So, without the benefit of any advance warning, what's my 
off-the-top-of-the-head reaction to the announcement today of:

Search plus Your World
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html


1.  Aren't marketers grungeous?!  Look at the smarm-words in this para:

At 13:25 +1100 11/1/12, Ishtar Vij wrote:
>Search Plus Your World is Google's **new [search] experience** that 
>blends universal search with personal results: content that was 
>either created by you or shared with you by **people you care 
>about**. It makes search **a more inclusive experience** by 
>including content that is relevant to **you personally**.

Years ago, I thought teachers were supposed to be upgrading the 
syllabus to inculcate students in how to recognise and deal with 
marketing-speak.

What happened?


2.  Extending the Appropriation of Personal Content

>  ... interactions ... should be mirrored [? reflected maybe?] in 
>Search as well.  ... sometimes what matters the most is stuff you've 
>created or things that people you care about have shared with you.
>Search Plus Your World will include things that only you can see -- 
>such as private posts in Google+ and your holiday photos. You can 
>search across all this personal content securely over SSL.

This is a (pretty transparent) stepping-stone towards appropriation 
of 'your personal content' and your interactions with 'the people you 
care about' to purposes extraneous to your own interests, but 
beneficial to Google Inc.

The first step, taken as part of the release, appears to appropriate 
'your personal content' and your interactions with 'the people you 
care about' by applying it to searches conducted by 'the people you 
care about'.

And there are risks even in that step.  For one thing, the mentions 
of Circles are ambiguous.  Hopefully your Mum's searches don't look 
into the content and interactions that you share with your sex-crazed 
mates.

For another, there are *benefits* in forgetting (e.g. some of the 
dumb things that you said, and the dumb photographs that seemed funny 
at the time that you dumbly published).  How purgeable are items 
you've previously shared?


3.  What About Your Local Content?

Google has made a grab for all of your personal content (Google Docs) 
and all of your personal interactions (Gmail) - including of course 
your interactions with other people who try to avoid Gmail but don't 
realise that they're corresponding with someone else who does.

But there are (millions of) people not yet well-represented in 
Google's data warehouse, because they don't use Docs and Gmail.

Google Desktop, introduced in 2004, was a trojan that enabled (but 
fortunately didn't enforce) storage of the index (and hence of all of 
your device's/s' content) in Google's servers: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Desktop

Google Desktop was withdrawn in 2011.

So what's Google's plan for capturing the content of people's 
personal machines?  Maybe this manoeuvre?


4.  US only?

The feature appears to have only been released in the .com domain, 
and not in, for example, .com.au.  With any luck, like a lot of other 
Google features, it may be withdrawn or greatly changed - before it's 
inflicted on people outside the USA.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



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