Google search (and not just Google's) have more and more become less about quest (finding something one does not know) or inquiry but trend watching. The Web is more and more invisible and replaced by metrics of popularism and politics of a volksempfanger.

Searching for the phrase (pulled from a current news article)
        kebab and pie kiosk
        (no quotes or + etc. so the query runs as it was typed)

PPC schemes (such as Google Adwords) do build link popularity and are counted in the so-called "organic" Google index. Its counted in two ways:

• Google is crawling JavaScript links on Web sites. These outbound links are, it seems, handled by Google just like any other outbound link. Google's Ad-Words uses JavaScript for links.
• In the cached pages: The Google robot does store pages with their own PPC ad-campaigns on them. The outbound ad links at the moment of being gathered are used by Google in their link analysis. The in-bound text in the advertisement which produced the ad with the link on a page will, in turn, effect the ranking of the link. The selection of costly words (and inclusion on highly ranked sites) will drive (and this can be shown) up ranking and visibility.

Intentional?
See: "Are PPC Ads Now Counting in Google Organic Backlinks?" (SearchEngineWatch.com)

A critique of social tagging and Web 2.0 semiology

These days there is hardly a "Web 2.0" application that does not feature "tags" and does not display (somewhere) a variation of "tag cloud" visualizations.

"It is a saying among Divines, that Hell is full of good Intentions, and Meanings.
— R. Whitlock (1654)

Social tagging sets out to recast the whole "problem" of information discovery, search and retrieval into visibility driven not by relevance (whatever that may mean) but social network. Social tagging is not just a special form of meta-information but a strategic game. On the one hand it claims to allow a complete and fully conscious unstructured "cooperative" means to attach well intentioned extra-corporal meaning and their implicit social interconnections to information (including also non-textual multimedia objects) but its also in many ways a voting system. Those that tag by using common words set out to influence its visibility and potential influence. This is not a product of some systematic disruptive behavior— and I'll exclude for now a consideration of spamming or other exploits (which are not necessarily part of the system)— or aboration but precisely the function of tags: associating the commonality of the use of tags with a relevance of those objects so tagged. The rest are disassociated and effectively excluded. This focuses the attention of an anonymous and dispersed public to see less of the whole and be driven to a few more concentrated contributions chosen by "public opinion". What remains and discovered via the sphere of tags is de-contextualized and re-purposed.

ExoDus Challenge

I long (very long) hesitated about developing concepts for general search. Lets face it the static Web page paradigm that underlies the models of most engines has been more or less obsolete for years and the kind of search, it seems, demanded ("Give me something about") was more than questionable but I'm also no longer certain that these are the constraints but rather the "ist" state. People are increasingly, as they get more savvy of Internet sociology, less satisfied with the Volksempfänger offered by Google and Co. Exodus sets to re-cast the the whole "problem" as one of information discovery, search and retrieval of information dialogs rather than specific documents. Exodus does not set out to "re-draw" the borders of Internet page visibility but recast them as obsolete.

The imperative

The internet makes censorship really work since it can become transparent as air. No need to burn books when there are none. All you have to do is see to it that the books are invisible. While technically, unless it blocked explicitly (and in many parts of the world technology is coming into place to block content while in other countries just being caught with the intent to post content that has not "approved" one can and will land in prison or worse), technically something might be accessible BUT if one does not know where it is--- if its not visible--- it does not exist. This is Internet Metaphysics 2008 (and has been the case for some years now) and part of the Raison d'être of ExoDus: Changing the visibility.

The "public rights" group Privacy International has rated Google as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data. The response from Google? Smear campaign, disinformation and more abuse of their market power..

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-553961

EXCERPT:

Why Google?

We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy. This is in part due to the diversity and specificity of Google's product range and the ability of the company to share extracted data between these tools, and in part it is due to Google's market dominance and the sheer size of its user base. Google's status in the ranking is also due to its aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies and techniques.

The view that Google "opens up" information through a range of attractive and advanced tools does not exempt the company from demonstrating responsible leadership in privacy. Google's increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook. Neither of these elements has been demonstrated. Rather, we have witnessed an attitude to privacy within Google that at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ambivalent. These dynamics do not pervade other major players such as Microsoft or eBay, both of which have made notable improvements to the corporate ethos on privacy issues.

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-553960

Google accused of conducting smear campaign against Privacy International

From The Sun newspaper http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007190295,00.html

"THOUSANDS of rich women were conned by a firm into believing LAMBS were valuable miniature POODLES.

Entire flocks were imported to Japan from the UK and Australia then sold by the internet company as the latest “must have” pet.

The bizarre scam was rumbled when Japanese movie star Maiko Kawakami complained on a talk show that her new poodle refused to bark or eat dog food.

She showed photos of the animal and was devastated when told that it was a lamb."

This story of the actress and the dog, er lamb is like a whole genre of poodle stories--- many tend to include misuse of microwave ovens. Its clearly just reporting a (bad) joke as news. Its been widely reported in the media like the telephone game. In our analysis of the stories and the use of language the source seems to be exclusively "The Sun". All the news that's ill-fit to print.. 'Cause good journalism is "extremely rare" with "many people having little idea" what a properly researched and written story is like..

This is not just a malaise of the "news" but typical in most areas including even science and technology. Most managers, including those presiding over information technology investments at many of the largest companies in the world (including even those making and selling information technology products), it seems can't--- lacking great experience with the interna of IT projects--- distinguish between a "code kiddie" and an elite systems developer. Most often its just the most shallow level of what ones sees in a interface that matters, ignoring the difference details make.

To paraphrase the story: Quality is "extremely rare" with "many people having little idea what they look like".

Its the recognition of this fundamental human trait with the twist of the well known excessiveness of Japanese trends, love of exotic and imported and wacky fashion consciousness as high culture that makes the story work.

Due to the paradigm failings of popularity metrics a whole collection of parasitic "Web 2.0" vote spikers have entered the field. For example (from the now defunct FriendlyVote.com):

Others are http://www.usersubmitter.com/, Spike-The-Vote, PayPerPost and a host of other public cheating clubs and a perhaps even larger number of hidden puppet masters tied into criminal syndicates.

Findory's own Greg Lindin wrote--- commenting on an article entitled "Personalized News: A Market Overview" by Emre Sokullu and Richard MacManus published at the Read/WriteWeb.--- in his BLOG Geeking with Greg: Reddit, Digg, and personalized news:

"Oversimplifying a little, Findory works a bit like Digg except that rather than seeing a front page of the generally most popular articles, you see a front page of the articles that are most popular for readers like you. As Emre said, different lists for different people reduces the incentive to game the system by eliminating the winner-takes-all effect."

Popularity is not and should never be a guide to the news. Being popular has no relevance to data quality, trust or even importance. It just says that according to some model its "popular". So what? Segmenting into smaller groups is a favorite technique of market research but what does it mean to be "popular" to a reader like me? What's a "reader like" me?

The (Athens) Internet Governance Forum is at half-time...

Transcripts are now available here.

On the question of censorship and openness... the corporate chorus sings in a nutshell "We bring business to totalitarian governments and business is good and pure. The more wealthy one is the more democratic and free one will become"..

VINT CERF (Speaking for Google):
"I think that it is probably not consistent with our view that we would use or even feel that we have marketing power to force change. I rather like the comment of engagement. I like the idea that you bring information to people, you bring opportunities to produce revenues that wouldn't be available. In the case of Google, we've split revenues from advertising with parties that have information on Web pages that draw people to it. So I would rather think that the company can bring persuasion in the form of economic development

Stumbling around the network looking for "global TV" I cross my own words once again. 10 years later.
http://old.thing.net/wwwboard1/messages/423.html

Nothing has changed. Not even since the emergence القاعدة and "The War on Terrorism" on evening TV.

(information still stranded on a deserted island)

---

Posted by Zimmerman on September 03, 1997 at 11:21:20:

Either I've been so long abroad that I've lost my grasp
and/or command of the English language or I'm increasingly
being confronted by the general trend in the decline of
language.

Perhaps this too is symptomatic of the collapse of the
Internet into mass culture presenting its own history and
concept that wedges itself from the impulse of knowledge
discovery (the initial impulse) to entertainment. From
information technology its "infotainment", really just another
word for idle leisure activity, for academics, a break with
thought as a meditation with the deeper significance of
Gilligan's exploits or "will the professor ever get to sleep
with the movie star"..