C2 Assignment – Individual research on existing or emerging IT-related technology and related ethical issues
Synopsis
Advances in technology make everyday tasks more convenient, saving people time and effort by optimizing processes; moreover, technological advancements have allowed humanity to progress in every possible field. The Internet deserves special mention: at the time of its creation, a new, fast and opportune way of sharing information was born.
Over the years, the World Wide Web has massively expanded, and as of today millions of webpages exist; its manual exploration is thus, highly inconvenient and, most likely, impossible. In this regard, search engines have proven to be extremely helpful, by connecting users of the Internet with all the sites relevant to their interests, essentially becoming a channel that connects a person with knowledge. However, as occurs with all other significant human developments, the use of search engines and policies established by search engine providers raise several ethical concerns which is the main focus of this paper.
This paper discussed the three most relevant ethical issues related to search engines: (a) result objectivity, which is influenced by result manipulation techniques such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well as the use of advertisement, (b) privacy, which is highly questioned as many search engine companies collect information obtained from their users’ queries and sell it to companies interested in utilizing search trends to guide their market strategies and (c) democratic principles of search engines, as claims exist regarding the exclusion of certain websites from result pages, importantly decreasing their digital visibility, engaging in censorship practices.
I find this topic worthy of analysis, as many users are not aware of the possible ways in which search engines may undermine their trust and expectation of unbiased results. In this sense, it seems possible that search engines can manipulate market trends and public opinion, instead of solely study them by only guiding people towards a narrowed group of websites or information.
Search engine: global utilization and benefits
As briefly explained in assignment C1, approximately 1.52 billion people use search engines (Richter, 2012); this is unsurprising, considering that they provide immense benefits, particularly time-saving as they quickly filter among over 876 million existing websites to show the users those most relevant to their search prompts. Searches can be as broad or narrow as the user desires, given the functionalities that have been developed throughout the years that allow to search for a specific group of words, omit specific words from the results displayed, and perform other customizations to the search process. Additionally, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing provide these services free of charge, and maintain themselves profitable through advertisements.
Search Engine Optimization, Advertising and Result Objectivity
Red Revolution defines Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as the activity that attempts to improve search engine rankings. In other words, web developers use SEO and marketing tactics when creating their sites’ content to influence search engines’ algorithms, with the intention of placing higher in the displayed results (which are organized by relevance). The main ethical concern regarding SEO is the manipulation of search results. Visibility is primordial for a website’s success, but considering the massive competition in the digital world, ranking high in search engine results may prove to be a difficult task. In consideration, by using dubious tactics, sites often “play the system” and receive a higher placement in search results than they deserve through the use of keywords, modification of their URLs, spam link building and other techniques.
The New York Times published an article by Segal (2011) exposing an example of unethical SEO practice, performed by retail-giant JC Penney. The company’s website ranked highest in search results for months for generic terms such as “dresses” or “comforter sets”, which raised suspicion among web techs. Investigations were conducted which uncovered that JC Penney had engaged in link spamming practices, through which thousands of sites posted links that directed towards their website. This resulted in JC Penney appearing higher in search results than other sites that could be considered much more relevant: for instance, when searching for the terms “Samsonite luggage”, the retailer appeared in first place, beating Samsonite itself. The retailer was found to violate Google’s company guidelines and was adequately penalized by significantly lowering its placement in search results.
Similarly, the objectivity of search results may be influenced by the existence of advertisements or sponsored results. Companies pay to be automatically placed for specific search criteria, reducing the actual amount of “organic” results users see. Some search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, clearly separate sponsored results from the organic ones, placing them on a separate window or highlighting them with different colors. Other engines, however, make it difficult for users to differentiate the nature of the results. A report by Cornell University (2011) describes how a Chinese search engine called Baidu mixes advertisements with organic results and places a discrete “sponsored” mark on them, which users do not usually distinguish.
Users naturally trust their preferred search engines and assume that the results they obtain are unbiased, which is not necessarily the case, because the use of these practices results in users being shown results that may not be relevant to their queries. Similarly, sites may be purposely placed in the results rather than naturally appearing due to matching criteria, effectively manipulating popular opinion, market tendencies and other factors. Diaz (2008), also states bias-related concerns regarding arbitrary criteria used to accept advertisements and imprecise criteria used to separate organic from ad results. In consideration, SEO and advertising are regulated by certain guidelines that aim to improve result objectivity while still encouraging web-site competitiveness and remaining profitable through ad sales.
User Privacy and Disclosure of Personal Information
Search engines typically collect data from their users’ searches and analyze it to establish search pattern, trends, statistics, and other valuable information. This data is later sold to companies who utilize it to guide their marketing campaigns, product development plans and SEO strategies. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2012), “the users are, in effect, data subjects for the search engine companies and their advertisers”.
Even though search engine companies are not necessarily interested in analyzing a particular individual, this logging of user activity raises ethical concerns due to the possibility of monitoring a person’s search history which can, undoubtedly, say a lot about that person. Search engines store each computer’s IP address, time, query and sets tracking cookies that do not expire for several years, which allows them to build a profile on each user to obtain further potentially valuable data. Thompson (2003) states that “Google probably knows when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is”.
A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center (2015) found that 93% of adults consider important being in control of who gets information about them and 40% believe that search engine providers should not store data about their activity. However, users cannot control if search engines collect and disclose to other companies data about them, as there is no setting or option to protect their privacy; this inexistence of the possibility for a user to decide how his information is being used is the main ethical issue. Moreover, many sites are not transparent regarding their data collection and disclosure policies, further undermining their users’ trust.
Another concern regarding data collection is that some engines are developing algorithms to show personalized results to each user based on their existing profile. Problem arises when these profiles are misconstrued, and search results do not accurately represent the users’ needs or requirements. In this case, non-voluntary analysis of personal information is effectively used to negatively manipulate a user’s web experience.
Search Engines and Democracy
Concerns regarding search engines’ voluntary exclusion of certain sites from search results and its impact on democracy and freedom of speech have arisen throughout the years. Search engines represent the gateway between a user and millions of accessible sites, as most users do not directly go to a website but rather find it through searches. In consideration, a website’s exclusion from search engine results basically results in its digital invisibility. Introna and Nissenbaum (2000) claim that some search engines systematically exclude certain sites and types of sites. This raises ethical concerns on censorship and system fairness.
Over a billion people across the globe access information through search engines, and the information they obtain shape their opinions, standards and personalities. Consequently, if search engines do, in fact, censor or filter certain sites, they have the power of shaping public opinion and trends, by restricting access to unbiased information and freedom of expression and promoting censorship. In this regard, Sunstein (2001) argues that filtering can trap people inside “information cocoons”.
It was not until recent years that search engine censorship became a concern in countries generally regarded as democratic, such as the United States, when search engine companies began to report government requests to censor results for matters of national security, social orders, or other reasons. Ethical implications of censoring results are profound, as it is considered politically incorrect and suppresses public communication and information sharing.
References
Cornell University. (2011). Ethics of the Search Engine Advertising. Ithaca, NY, United States.
Diaz, A. (2008). Through the Google Goggles: Sociopolitical Bias in Search Engine Design. Web Search: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 11-34.
Introna, L., & Nissembaum, H. (2000). Shaping the Web: Why The Politics of Search Engines Matters. The Information Society, 169-185.
Madden, M. (2015). Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security and Surveillance. Pew Research Center.
Red Revolution. (n.d.). What is SEO? Retrieved from Red Revolution: https://www.redevolution.com/what-is-seo
Richter, F. (2013, February 12). 1.17 Billion People Use Google Search. Retrieved from Statista: The Statistics Portal: https://www.statista.com/chart/899/unique-users-of-search-engines-in-december-2012/
Segal, D. (2011, February 12). The Dirty Little Secrets of Search. The New York Times.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2012, August 27). Search Engines and Ethics. Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-search/#DemCenThrLibFre
Sunstein, C. (2001). Princeton, NJ. Retrieved from Republic.com.
Thompson, B. (2003, February 21). Is Google too powerful? Retrieved from BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2786761.stm
