Geospatial Semantic Web Blog

Google is experimenting a new search interface that is very similar to which of Digg. Users can vote and comment on search results — watch this video. I like the idea that users can customize and influence how results are displayed, but also I’m very worried about privacy issues that arise from this new feature.

Allowing individual users to influence search results can improve the quality of search. Vote and comment on links will harness the power of crowdsourcing, making results produced by the machine algorithms more relevant to the humans.

However, benefits of a new technology don’t usually come free of problems. Privacy is a key issue that I’m worried about. There is the problem of who gets to see what I have done in Google — links I have voted and comments I have written. Then, there is the problem of someone bad-mouth about my work. What if someone really dislikes me and wants me to fail in every stage of my life. That person can go through all links related to me in Google and spread false information about me. Unless there is a way for me control what gets displayed on different links. I will have no way to prevent my reputation being destroyed. Some people may argue that this type of attack can be done on the current web. But, I think this new tool will make those attacks a lot easier to create but difficult to prevent.

In summary, I’m happy to see a Digg-like interface in Google, but I think there are serious privacy issues must be addressed by Google. Although we can’t fully control all information on the web that says about us, but this new interface makes too easy for people make effective personal attacks.